Sometimes it’s hard to want to eat soup when it’s hot out, but we had a few nice, cool days and a few ears of corn to use up, so….

Potato and corn chowder it is!

1. In your soup pot, fry up a sliced onion, a clove or two of garlic, and a two handfuls of chopped tomatillos (for me, this was two massive tomatillos from the market — other days it would be 10 or so littler ones) in a bit of olive oil.

2. When that’s cooked up, add a pile of cubed red potatoes (leave those lovely skins on!) and two ears’ worth of corn, sliced off of the cob.

3. Stir those around with a shake of red pepper flakes, a bit of thyme and rosemary, black pepper and a shake or so of salt. Then add enough vegetable broth to just barely cover the potatoes. Stick a bay leaf in there.

4. Let that boil a while, till the potatoes are perfect. Then with your potato masher, smash down maybe four or five or six times, to make the broth thick and potato-y. Simmer just a bit longer. Do a taste test.

5. Enjoy the heck out of this soup. It’s so flavorful — the tomatillos add a lot but if you don’t have any, maybe try adding some lemon or lime juice to up the tang.

Today I met my friend Jamaica Jones for lunch at the Café at Frick. I had the prix fixe and chose:

• ginger/carrot/leek soup with crème fraîche
• crabcake bruschetta
• frozen caramel souffle with a pecan sandie and warm caramel-pecan sauce.

The ladies who greeted us at the door clapped with glee to finally meet Miss Jamaica Jones. They were dying to find out what someone with such an awesome name looks like, I guess. She doesn’t look like you’d expect, I’m willing to bet, but she is incredibly beautiful and full of energy and also a little crazy-in-a-good-way, which I respect and admire. The name suits her.

We sat next to a table full of retired Gateway School District teachers and recognized all of them but couldn’t remember any of their names. I finally broke and approached them and apologized for interrupting their meal, and then apologized again for not remembering any of their names. I added that I can’t remember some of my students’ names from one semester to the next, so they shouldn’t take it personally. They were so cute, the four of them, lunching in the cafe. I guess my old 5th grade teacher is a volunteer at the Frick because she was wearing a lanyard that said so. Girl genius, I am. See how I put clues together?

Today so far has been one of those perfect days where life seems awesome and full of possibilities. I’m going to Boston, a city I’ve never set foot in, to visit with an old high school friend who is starting Harvard Law in the fall. We’re taking a day trip to Cape Cod which seems impossibly quaint to me. In July I’ll be going to Philly and Baltimore, and in August I’ll be in Brooklyn, D.C., and possibly San Francisco (the farthest west I’ve ever been is Las Vegas.) These are all fun little trips, but if you asked me where in the world I’d go if I could only pick one place I’d never been, my answer would be “to Mexico for Dia de los Muertos!” Not knowing this, Jamaica randomly asked me at lunch, “Hey! I’m going to Puebla for Dia de los Muertos– do you want to come along with me?”

Yes, ma’am. Yes I would like that, very much. I’m not getting my hopes up too much until I get clearance from my principal, and my fear is that first quarter grades are due that very week. Though I guess I could just give everyone a “C” and call it done. Anyway, we’ll see…

My legs are sore from lunges, my belly is full of good food and wine, and there is a thunderstorm rolling in. My day couldn’t possibly get any better, except for the following two bummers:

1. my superfancy bathing suit is not going to arrive in time for my trip and,
2. I have to drive to Monroeville in a few minutes for a hair cut. But even Monroeville, with its Route 22 traffic and its never-ending strip malls, will not spoil my optimism today, no sir.

vs

Thoughts?

(It’s really more difficult than one would expect to find an image of the Frownie Brownie).

For my 32nd birthday, I went to Lidia’s Italy: Pittsburgh edition. For $22, this is what you get at Lidia’s for brunch:

• a bloody mary or mimosa (we all ordered mimosas. I ordered two.)
• an amazing array of bread like cranberry scones and rosemary foccacia with three different kinds of butter (apricot jam butter, strawberry jam butter, crunchy sugar butter)
• an antipasti table to write home to your Auntie about. cured meats, cheeses, olives, some sort of stewed cabbage dish, canellini bean/tuna salad, i can’t even remember what else. insanity.
• an entree big enough to feed 3 or 4, no lie. we ordered crepes stuffed with butternut squash and goat cheese, manicotti, and frico. i’ve never had frico before. it’s a melty Monasio cheese envelope filled with potatoes, leeks, and different fillings (we ordered both “bacon and eggs” and “rosemary and mushroom”.) were you ever twisted enough to find out what it tastes like if you just melt and fry some cheese in a hot, buttered skillet? i am that twisted, friends, and thank god for it– now i know what to tell you “frico” resembles. and that’s not a bad thing at all.
• a dessert table: tiramisu, raspberry torte, flourless chocolate cake, lemon drop cookies, paper-thin chocolate and apricot cookies, etc…
• some damned fine coffee. i forgot to ask where they get their coffee from, but i fully plan on returning to find out.

It was the first time I’ve been to Lidia’s. I’ve heard mediocre things about the dinners there lately (as well as the service) and I almost bailed and went to Point Brugge last minute, but Lidia’s brunch was top-notch as far as I’m concerned. I will certainly return, and inevitably (involuntarily, even) I will gorge.

(Note: If I were someone awful and annoying, someone like Dane Cook, perhaps, this is where I would make a really un-funny observation about wide-girthed folks and their proclivity towards all-you-can-eat brunches such as these. Lucky for you, I am not Dane Cook, so it doesn’t need to be said.)

So, yes: stop by Lidia’s for brunch, if nothing else, and head on over to Zerrer’s Antiques in the Strip. The prices are reasonable, the owners are awesome, and you just might find a treasure!

FYI: If you are a fan of Lidia Bastianich (I don’t pay attention if it don’t rhyme with “Schmourdain”), she will be signing copies of her cookbook Lidia’s Italy at the Shadyside Williams-Sonoma on Sunday.

Lidia will personalize her new cookbook Lidia’s Italy and also sign her other titles. (Proof of Williams-Sonoma purchase is required.)

Be sure to bring your m-effin’ wallets, kids.

Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup

You’ll need:

• 2 cans black beans, rinsed
• 1 can diced tomatoes (if you’re into tomatoes, or not if you’re not.)
• 1 can pumpkin puree (or in this case, a small heap of freshly pureed pumpkin)
• 1-2 onions, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ c cooking sherry
• ½ stick soy margarine
• 4 c vegetable broth
• 1 t salt
• ½ t black pepper
• 2-3 t cumin
• 3-4 T balsamic vinegar

Instructions, photos, and biscuit recipe below!

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African Peanut Soup

In a large sauce pan, heat up:

• a dribble of olive oil
• a good-sized yellow onion, chopped
• two cloves of garlic, chopped
• a knuckle of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• pinch of cinnamon
• bigger pinch of cumin
• smaller pinch of cayenne – or a squirt of sriracha sauce, or a small spoon of chili garlic sauce

More photos and the rest of the recipe below!
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At x-mas time, when visiting my folks, some of our holiday presents included some excess bounty from their garden, including a shopping bag full of potatoes, a handful of sweet potatoes, and three obscenely large (and shaped) neck pumpkins.

Witness one of these obscene bastards!

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For x-mas I got Emma the Veganomicon cookbook. We’ve been trying a handful of the recipes out since then. A couple weeks ago we made homemade seitan for the first time using their recipe. Tonight I tried out their Chickpea Cutlets recipe and used it to make a big ass Vegan Chicken Parmesian Sandwich. Here’s how ya do…

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The Torley Manor Winter 2008 greeting cards!!! as inspired by this. Three color hand-screened in Torley’s basement workshop. If you want some, let us know!!!

Ideally, fake cheese would be firm in the refrigerator and melt when heated. Ideally, it would become stretchy and somehow recreate the opiates in actual dairy-based cheese (or is that the ideal?). And of course, ideally it should taste good and not be made of chemicals.

In a pinch, Tofutti brand products will get the job done but they’re so very very processed that the sheer glowing whiteness of the mozzarella slices and sour cream make me nervous. So onward!

There are a lot of variations on making fake cheese at home. The recipe we usually use is the “Classic White Uncheese” from a weird little cookbook that I am certain is owned exclusively by vegans. It’s the venerable Nutritional Yeast Cookbook by Jo Stepaniak (purchased for a buck or two at a used book store in Ithaca NY once upon a time.)

It’s pretty convoluted and absurd but I really like it a lot. It doesn’t get stretchy but it will melt and it will brown a bit if you broil it. It’s also firm enough to grate or slice. Yeah!

Step One: Get everything out and ready first. Normally I don’t bother doing this but this is fairly involved, so just get out and measure all your ingredients and oil the container you want to mold your cheese in at the end.

• 1/4 pound regular firm tofu
• 3 T nutritional yeast
• 2-3 T tahini
• 2 T lemon juice
• 1.5 T miso
• 3/4 t salt
• (this recipe calls for garlic powder and onion granules but I have never bothered)
• 3 T agar flakes
• 3/4 c water

Step Two: Blend. A food processor or blender really is essential for this recipe. Blend together everything but the water and agar. It looks gross. Roll with it.

Step Three: Dissolve the agar. Agar is a crazy and amazing seaweed that works like gelatin. You can buy it in flakes or a powder. I’ve only ever used the flakes for this recipe but have used the powder in other recipes with equal success, so really use whatever you prefer. Use the tiniest saucepan you’ve got, bring the water and agar to a boil, and simmer it for about five minutes till all the flakes are dissolved. If you don’t have a heat resistant (silicone) spatula, consider getting one. They are great for this kind of thing.

Step Four: Hustle and blend everything. Pour the agar/water into the food processor and blend the shit out of it, stopping frequently to scrape the sides down. You have to work fast because the agar starts to set up as soon as it gets cool. Blend it thoroughly but be snappy, and then pour/scrape everything down into your prepared container.

Let it cool for a few hours in the fridge (leave it uncovered until it’s cooled through) and then do with it what you will! Our plan is fake Philly cheese steaks! I made some homemade seitan for the first time today too. As Q put it, we are Kickin’ Ass in 08!