Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

"...delicious hoshigaki potential"

 
~Hanging Hachiya persimmons to become hoshigaki, image found here~

~~~~~

Peeled persimmons, hanging by string...beautiful, don't you think?

Last weekend I posted a poem titled "Six Persimmons" by the poet Shin Yu Pai - and she left a kind comment on the post, saying:  "..You are so lucky to have such delicious hoshigaki potential hanging from your tree branches."

I must confess - I had no idea what 'hoshigaki potential' referred to, much less 'delicious hoshigaki potential'...so of course I had to google it.

From the Slow Food USA website:

Hoshigaki are persimmons that are peeled and dried whole over a period of several weeks through a combination of hanging and delicate hand-massaging, until the sugars contained in the fruit form a delicate surface with a dusting that looks like frost. Unlike sliced dried fruit, which tend to be brittle and leathery, hoshigaki are succulently tender and moist, with concentrated persimmon flavor.  The hoshi gaki method is traditional to Japan, and came to America with Japanese American farmers.  Because they are so labor-intensive, hoshi gaki all but disappeared from commercial production.

To be eaten fresh, the Hachiya persimmon must be completely soft, otherwise it is unbearably astringent.  For drying, however, the fruits are perfect when they are still firm like apples, which generally happens from the end of September to the middle of October. The riper they are, the more delicately they must be handled.

Making hoshigaki requires patience, careful monitoring, and a fair amount of dexterity.  The process involves peeling the persimmon, and then hanging the fruit, several on a string or over a pole.  After hanging the fruit for 3 to 7 days, the persimmon will form a skin that needs to be massaged in order to break up the hard inner pulp.  The massage process goes on every 3 to 5 days for three to five weeks.  By the end of this lengthy process, the sugars will come to the surface of the fruits, leaving a white bloom. The hoshi gaki are fully done when the pulp sets and you can no longer roll it.

Take a look at the drying persimmons over at Slow Food USA.

There is also a fascinating series of images - taking the fruit from the tree through the drying process - on the Otow Orchard website.  Go to the bottom of the page, and you'll see the series of 25 images - it's a time-consuming and fascinating process.  Their orchard looks just magical - they have a blog that is very much worth a visit.   

~~~~~ 

 I must confess that I'm fascinated by the thought of drying my persimmons.  Next year, I think I'll definitely give it a try.  I think my persimmon is Diospyros virginiana - the American or common persimmon - it is astringent (due to the tannins).

~~~~~ 

 
~one of two remaining persimmons on my D. virginiana tree in mid-January~

~~~~~ 

From 'Desiring Happiness' by Daisaku Ikeda: 

Suppose there is a bitter persimmon. By soaking it in a solution of lime or buckwheat chaff, or by exposing it to sunlight, we can make the persimmon sweet. There are not two persimmons, one bitter and the other sweet -- there is only the one. The bitter persimmon has not been sweetened with sugar; rather, the inherent bitterness of the persimmon has been drawn out and its inherent sweetness allowed to emerge. The catalyst, the intermediary that assisted the transformation, was the solution or the sunlight. T'ien-t'ai likened earthly desires to the bitter persimmon, enlightenment to the sweet persimmon, and the process whereby the sweetness was brought out to Buddhist practice.

I love how persimmons are often used to represent transformation in Buddhism - again, the painting 'Six Persimmons' often pops us - with the six persimmons representing different stages of enlightment.

~~~~~

 

~Annabelle Lee, chowing down on a persimmon~

~~~~~

This year I hadn't harvested the persimmons from my tree, I just enjoyed seeing them there, they're quite beautiful.  I hadn't thought too much about eating them, or about making persimmon pudding or persimmon candy.  The persimmons had just hung there, on the branches, through our unusually cold December and early January with several periods of extreme cold (or at least what seemed like extreme cold to this coastal South Carolinian...).  They were frozen when I decided to try one last weekend - and I harvested the remaining two just in time, since a four-legged garden pest (the lovely and charming and fruit-loving Annabelle Lee) had already discovered that frozen persimmons were wonderfully sweet and had been harvesting them for the past week on her own (she's a very resourceful and determined English pointer).  I cut them in two, and at the last minute decided to share and I gave the resourceful garden pest her last persimmon of the season - while I ate the other one.  The flesh was beautiful, the sweetness amazing - and on a below-freezing morning, I feel in love with persimmons. 

I can't wait until next season - nor can Annabelle. 

~~~~~

 

~~~~~

Hoshigaki:  Preserving the art of Japanese hand-dried persimmons
    

a satsuma cake!

 
~ice, falling off the live oaks~

~~~~~

 It's a cold and dreary day - I woke up twice last night to the sound of sleet on the Airstream:  brief bursts of frozen precipitation.  This morning while outside with the dogs, I first thought glass had broken and scattered in the wind - until I realized it was ice that had formed on the live oak branches, that was falling with each wind gust.  There were many closings, including the major bridges for most of the morning.  I'm sitting in my slowly warming Airstream, editing the 4th chapter of my doctoral student, Maria's, dissertation.  It's the first draft of this chapter, so I'm slowly making my way through it.  She has set a defense date of 11 March 2011 - so her dissertation must be 'defensible' and in to her committee by the end of February.  There's still much to be done - but we will get there.  She's working hard.

~~~~~

  ~my satsuma, kept warm by a mound of wheat straw~

~~~~~

 I've struggled with ways to keep my satsuma tree warm over the past few winters - when it was just tiny (only a foot tall) I covered it with blankets.  I then tried leaves kept in place by a ring of plastic.  That worked well - except the leaves got wet and become heavy - so I'd remove them, add them back - it was kind of a hassle. 

I'm determined though to keep this satsuma alive and kickin' - and most importantly, producing.  I've bragged about my satsuma crop before - I harvested five fruit two years ago, and didn't have a crop at all last year (I blamed it on the unusually cold winter - that we seem to be repeating this year).  This year I have it hidden on cold days and nights under a rather unattractive mound of wheat straw - two bales of straw surround it, and then I sprinkle (loosely) more straw over the top of it.  So far so good - and even after an unusually cold December and now this icy day.

You see, I've got to keep my satsuma thriving - because I can't wait to make these clementine (satsuma) cake from satsumas from my own garden.  Does this recipe look delicious?  The clementine cake is a Nigella Lawson recipe - but over at Greg's Food he substituted satsumas for the clementines to make this cake -  almond flour and satsumas?  Yum.   

~~~~~   

 

 Clementine Cake by Nigella Lawson (recipe and above image found over at Greg's Food)

4-5 clementines(about 1 lb)
6 eggs
1 c plus 2 tbs sugar
2 and 1/3 c. ground almond meal/flour
1 heaping tsp baking powder

Put the clementines in a pot of water and bring to a boil for about 2 hrs. (We did 1.5 hrs and it turned out great!) Take out the little green stem parts and put into a blender or food processor. Pulse to liquify. Add in the rest of the ingredients and pulse to blend, or like we did, pour liquified orange pulp into a mixing bowl and whisk in the rest of the ingerdients.

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Butter (or margarine) a 8in springform pan and line with parchment or wax paper (and butter that as well). Pour in batter and bake for 1hr. Like in the original recipe, we put an aluminum foil hat on the cake for the last 20 minutes - it was getting pretty dark.

~~~~~

~a book of family recipes~

 
~Mom's Book of Family Recipes~

~~~~~

Well, I finally finished it.

Shortly after my Mom passed away, I gathered all of her recipe boxes (yes, boxes) and I started talking with family members about their favorite recipes.  Mom was a wonderful cook - and a generous one - and our household was one in which it was the rare visit to not be offered a slice of homemade pound cake as you walked in the door, or given a glass of freshly brewed iced tea before you sat down - and almost everyone was asked if they wanted to stay for dinner - there was always enough to go around, and sometimes it felt like Mom waved a magic wand and an abundance of dishes appeared.  She was one of those effortless cooks, at least the effort wasn't something she made a big deal of.

I started working on a book of her recipes two years ago through the photobook website Shutterfly.  She passed away on 15 April 2008.  I started tossing in family photographs, especially photographs of her last year - our Mother's Day dinner at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, Mom at the stove with my brother demonstrating the correct way to make gravy from turkey drippings, a photograph that I took during Christmas of 2007 of the last fruit cake she made.  I included photographs of her and my Father's wedding, of her decorating Easter Eggs with my niece (her only grandchild) and of my Mom, my niece and I celebrating my niece's 16th birthday with a german chocolate cake my Mom made.  The recipes range from jello salads that my Mom used to make when we were young, the Christmas cookies of our childhood and the cakes of our adulthood, my Mom's favorite chicken-broccoli casserole and my Dad's favorite Whoopie Pies.  Each recipe represents a dozen or more family stories - memories tossed in with the ingredients, mixed thoroughly and baked until a cake tester comes out clean.

At the end of the book, I wrote about the compliment given my Mom by one of her sisters.  She said that if everyone my Mom had made a cake for over her 74 years of living came to her funeral, that the funeral would be filled to overflowing (and it was).  I can't tell you the number of times that my brother, father and I were told "Don't touch that!" as a hot pound cake, german chocolate cake or coconut cake came out of the oven.  "It's for someone else."  During the first Christmas after she was gone, I went to Virginia and all I did was bake cakes for all of the people that I knew Mom would want to have one - from early morning to late at night I obsessively baked cakes, trying to fill her absence by filling cake pans and plates.  To this day, I feel closest to her when I am baking a cake for someone other than myself.

When I returned home today from the lab, there at the gate was a box filled with 15 copies of my Mom's Book of Family Recipes.  It's 75 (front and back) pages and contains 50 family recipes.  It's bound in brown leather - and the 'cover' photo is of my parent's dining room table, partially ready for Thanksgiving dinner in November of 2007.  I like the simplicity of the table - only the china had been set, there were no glasses or flowers or food dishes placed on the table yet.  Outside the window you can see the late Autumn brown leaves of the English oaks that surround the house.  But soon after the china was placed on the table - flowers were added as a centerpiece, other family members arrived, and dishes magically and effortlessly appeared (even as cancer was metastasizing throughout Mom's body) - and dinner was served.  It was lovely.

~~~~~

 
~Mom's favorite Baked Praline Popcorn~

Store in an air-tight tin after preparing.  Mom would make it at Christmas - and often prepare bags of it for Trick-or-Treaters at Halloween.

~~~~~

Mom's First Morning of Summer Vacation Apple Turnovers

 

So while I was in Virginia, the guy (aka Fred) who designed and built the Earlysville Raceway added to his price negotiations that I would also have to make him apple turnovers like my Mom used to make them.  Of course, he had me in the negotiation, since I was desperate for a pen to secure the Pointer Sisters during my visits - so on the Saturday before I returned to South Carolina I made the turnovers for Fred.

A deal is a deal, right?

I wasn't exactly sure what turnovers he was thinking about - but I defaulted to the only ones that I knew.  When my brother and I were young - each summer our parents took us on a family vacation.  Usually we'd drive somewhere - the Florida coast, Niagara Falls, the Great Smokey Mountains, or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware - and we'd always leave insanely early (my parents didn't want to miss a minute of vacation time).  But regardless of how early we would leave, Mom would get up before all of us, and make apple turnovers.  It was an easy recipe - and they were as good warm as they were cold.  So of course you'd get one before you left the house - and then she'd wrap up the remainder for the drive.

~~~~~

To make them, you first cook the apples.  I usually cook golden delicious apples (about 4 or 5 large ones) on the stove top over medium heat (add a little bit of water to a pan, slices of apple minus the peel, and some cinnamon).  When they are soft, take them off the stove and drain the liquid.  While they're cooking, crack open one of those 'cannisters' containing eight biscuits (the larger biscuits) - and with a rolling pin flatten the biscuits into a thin circle.  When the apples are done, place some apple on half of the biscuit circle, then fold over the other half and use a fork to secure the end of the turnover.  Then heat some canola oil (just a thin layer of oil - it doesn't take much) in a fry pan and when it's hot, put the turnovers in the oil.  Once one side browns, flip them over and brown the other side.  When they're done, dust with cinnamon sugar...and eat.

Then - run get in your car, roll the windows down - and get on the road.  Your're on vacation!

An Afternoon Spent Out in the Cold

~the Airstream, in the early morning after a snowfall~

~~~~~

The rain turned into snow shortly after it got dark on Friday evening - big huge wet flakes that looked beautiful while they're falling.  I didn't go outside for a few hours - and then when I did the place looked completely different.  Honestly, I think the Pointer Sisters hated it - they're delicate you know.

Our southern power lines aren't well-suited for snow - and the lights flickered on and off a few times during the evening, and the electricity went off for about an hour sometime in the middle of the night.  I was relieved when it came back on (and when I heard my Vornado space heater turn back on).  Otherwise - it was a bit creepy hearing the wet, frozen snow shift on the top of the Airstream during the night as the wind blew - the sounds seemed to be amplified inside, making one thing that chunks of an iceberg were shifting around overhead.

~~~~~

 

~the view out of the Airstream kitchen window~

~~~~~

The view was quite different, that's for sure.  Of course it didn't last long, a few hours - but it was fun while it lasted. 

~~~~~

 

~the back garden~

~~~~~

Our southern foliage isn't meant for a heavy wet snow either - the bamboo was laying virtually on the ground, as was a cherry laurel - the camellia branches were spread out and falling over too (those large leaves).  The leyland cypresses were beautiful though - and for a few brief hours made my lowcountry garden look like one much farther north.

~~~~~

~a good use for snow~

~~~~~

So - the lab was to show up at 1 pm for a farewell gathering for the eclair-baking postdoc.  His three-year postdoc has come to an end - although pending grant submissions include his salary for the various projects proposed.  As I was preparing for folks, I realized that I wouldn't need to make an ice run:  snow works great, right?  How rare an event is that - that there is snow when I need to put beer on ice!

~~~~~

~clams~

~~~~~

My neighbor, Clammer Dave, went out this morning and brought us back 100 clams.  He farms them at Capers Inlet, part of the Capers Island State Wildlife Refuge Area.  After he brought them in, he went out again - and said he was going to be out on the water until about 6 pm.  Now that's what I call a cold afternoon spent outside.  The clams are beautiful though - don't you think?  
  
 ~~~~~

~the eclair-baking postdoc and the lab's former senior student~

~~~~~

The eclair-baking postdoc was responsible for the clam preparations.  He first placed them on a baking sheet - and then placed them on a grill on the fire until they popped open.

~~~~~

~clams casino~

~~~~~

Once they popped open, he took them off the grill and topped them with chopped green pepper and garlic and olive oil and bacon - and placed them back on the fire until the cheese started to melt a little.

They were delicious.

He also made some with capers, others with just butter and black pepper (I think it was black pepper).

We had our fill, and there were still some left over for him to take along with him to Columbia, SC today for a post-move treat.

~~~~~

~the Lab's former Senior Doctoral Student~

~~~~~

The lab's former Senior Doctoral Student, Ben, joined us (I mentioned his defense back in late September).  Within minutes of his arrival, he had us laughing (as his often fascinating Ben-centric Universe generally has us doing) - and this time his fondue fork storage technique (being held by his toboggan - which many of us think of us a sled, but which others call a winter hat or tuque - do you see it there?) was also being used as an alien communication device...from time-to-time he'd put his hand up to the device (aka fork) and start talking.  Of course Ben brings out my own inner 10 year old (which isn't terribly hard to do) - and fortunately no one caught me on film communicating with aliens via my own fondue fork. 

~~~~~

~the Lab's Senior Graduate Student~

~~~~~

This is the Lab's current Senior Doctoral Student, Maria.  She looks like a movie star in those sunglasses, doesn't she?  She came quite prepared for a cold afternoon - complete with her snuggie.  I had to laugh because I didn't know that folks actually bought snuggies (or as these guys said, offbrand ones) - but it ended up that not only did Maria have a snuggie, but so did Ben.  I have to rethink my whole lab history now, in light of this new information.

(We did catch Maria shivering a few times, so I was glad that she brought her snuggie with her - although I think she was a bit too embarrassed to wear it properly.) 

~~~~~

~Quimbolitos~

~~~~~

This are absolutely yummy.  Maria, the Lab's Senior Graduate Student, made them.  She was born in Ecuador - and she followed a recipe of her Mother's (similar to the once below, except that Maria didn't add the brandy/cognac or the cream cheese).  I had a leftover one for breakfast this morning.

Interestingly, Maria's Mom wraps her quimbolitos in banana leaves - but on this website, the recipes calls for Achira leaves - Canna leaves from Cannas grown for agricultural purposes.

According to Wikipedia:

Canna achira is a generic term used in South America to describe the cannas that have been selectively bred for agricultural purposes, normally derived from C. discolor. It is grown especially for its edible rootstock from which starch is obtained, but the leaves and young seed are also edible, and achira was once a staple foodcrop in Peru and Ecuador. 

(You can read more about agricultural varieties of Cannas here). 

Maria's Quimbolitos

Ingredients:

1 cup corn flour, sifted.
1 cup wheat flour, sifted
5 eggs separate yolks clear
Cream cheese ¼ cup (optional) 
10 tablespoons butter
8 ounces sugar
Raisins
1 glass of brandy/cognac (optional)
1 teaspoon baking powder
Achira Sheets casing - Maria used banana leaves.

To Prepare:

Beat the yolks, they are creamy Gradually add sugar, butter and cheese, then add the liqueur, baking powder, cornmeal and then wheat flour. Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and add it to preparation prior to envelopment. Clean sheets, cut into squares and put the piece of dough with raisins on a square and wrap them.

Cook (like tamales) in saucepan or double boiler for 40 minutes approx.

~~~~~

~the Microbial Laboratory during wartime~

~~~~~

And here they all are - with a few friends.  During an afternoon spent out in the cold.

~~~~~

~carolina coleslaw~

 
~Carolina Coleslaw~

~~~~~

On the way back to Charleston from Virginia I stopped off at the home of one of my Mom's sisters, a family I've mentioned before.  They're farmers, and I always leave with a bag or two of whatever they are harvesting at the time, and this trip I left with the largest head of green cabbage that I have ever seen.  I had mentioned this giant cabbage to another of my Mom's sisters, and so she emailed me the recipe below for what is appropriately called 'Carolina coleslaw'.  I don't know where she got the recipe - but I like it (there seem to be two distinct groups of coleslaw lovers:  those who like mayo and those who do not.  I have been slowly migrating over to the 'less mayo the better' side, for some unknown reason).

This is simple and good - so I thought I'd share. 

~~~~~ 

Mrs Collum says "This isn't a fancy recipe but we like it and it just gets better and better the longer it sits in the refrigerator."

 

Carolina Coleslaw

 

1 large cabbage trimmed, quartered and cored

1 medium pepper, cored, seeded and chopped fine (red and green at Christmas, yellow at Easter)

1 medium sweet onion chopped fine

 

Dressing

 

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. dry mustard

1 tsp. celery seeds

1 cup cider vinegar

2/3 cup vegetable oil (or olive oil)

 

Slice each cabbage quarter fine.  Toss together with pepper and onion

 

Mix sugar, salt, mustard and celery seeds in a small saucepan, add vinegar and oil and let come to a boil over moderate hear, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Pour over cabbage and toss well.  Cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate unit ready to serve.

 

 

The original recipe called for 1 cup sugar and 1 tsp. salt.

~cookies~

 

~chocolate kiss peanut blossoms~

~~~~~

I've never known what these cookies were called - but yesterday I went through my Mother's Christmas cookie recipes, and found this one.  I'd never made them myself, and in my own silly cookie snobbery, I had always thought of them as a boring cookie choice.  But today, when a friend came over and we spent an entire Monday baking - I found myself gravitating towards all of the cookies of my childhood, somehow thinking that making them would make my Mother smile, wherever she is.  So there are now gingerbread men, pecan tarts, those $250 Neiman Marcus oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies (remember that recipe?), date-filled wontons - and bags filled with baked praline popcorn crunch covering the kitchen counters.  The coconut balls, that is the coconut part, needs to chill overnight - so coating them in chocolate is something I'll save for another night.  My Father called me today -I think because he knew that my kitchen was busy, that there were dishes in the sink that needed washing and that there was flour spilled on the floor and hot cookies just out of the oven, and that always - always there was one that was accidentally damaged as it came off the spatula - and he was imagining what they might taste like, and if they would taste the same as they did before his wife died of lung cancer.

What is it about these tastes and smells from our childhood? 

~~~~~

1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar, 1 egg, 2 Tbsp milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract,  1-1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, additional granulated sugar, chocolate kisses

Heat oven to 375F.  Beat butter and peanut butter in a large bowl until well-blended.  Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar, beat until fluffy.  Add egg, milk and vanilla, beat well.  Combine flour, baking soda and salt, and gradually add to peanut butter mixture, beating until well-blended.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls.  Roll in granulated sugar, place on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.  Place chocolate kiss onto cookie, pressing down lightly.  Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.  Cool completely.  Makes about 4 dozen cookies. 

~an evening's harvest~

~~~~~

This evening's harvest:  two gorgeous pomegranates!

~~~~~

This evening's cocktail:  a pomegranate martini!

~~~~~

Pomegranate Martini

Ice cubes
1 1/2 cups fresh pomegranate juice (see recipe below for making juice if you can't find it at your local store)*
2 ounces Absolute Citron Vodka or white tequila
1 ounce Cointreau Liquor
Splash of sparkling water
Squeeze of lemon
Superfine sugar for dipping
Pomegranate seeds, garnish (optional)

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Place pomegranate juice, vodka, Cointreau, sparkling water, and lemon juice; shake, Pour strained liquor into sugar-rimmed martini glass. Garnish each with some pomegranate seeds.  To create a sugar-rimmed glass, take a lemon or lime wedge and rub the drinking surface of the glass so it is barely moist. Dip the edge of the glass in the sugar.  Makes 2 serving.

Pomegranate Juice:
To make Pomegranate Juice, cut a ripe medium-sized pomegranate in half and squeeze with any conventional juicer or press. If necessary, strain the juice through a mesh strainer. Each Pomegranate should yield about 4 ounces (1/2 cup) of juice.

~~~~~

And while drinking my martini, I'll watch Isabella Rossellini's video:  Green Porno.

Caldeirada

This morning Stanley and I dragged ourselves out the door early and went for a walk on Sullivans Island - strong rip currents had been predicted and an astronomical high tide was in the making.  It's been interesting for a few years to watch this barrier island change - move as they are known to do - with a sandbar that used to be one that you would swim out to at low tide now proving to be a tiny strip of land in it's own right.  This morning Stanley and I got caught in the middle of it - with the higher than usual tides rushing across the lower areas as I waded through a foot and a half of seawater while Stanley tried to jump over the ribbons of approaching foam.  The wind was cool but the water still felt surprisingly warm.  The island was quieter than normal - it was a beautiful morning.

~~~~~

But it's a day to remind myself that I need to finish packing up this house (and soon) - now, a few hours later - the wine glasses and margarita glasses and martini glasses are packed away and in storage - as is a rather large lamp and all of the miscellaneous glass carboys that I've collected over the years for God-only-knows-what-reason.  Blankets that won't make it into the Airstream have been placed in airtight bags.  I took a full car load to my storage unit - and returned to a place that is looking less lived-in each day.  My kitchen is down to three wine glasses, one drinking glass - and just the pots and pans that have made the cut into the Airstream.  Oh, yeah, I still have the KitchenAid mixer - I'm not ready to part with it yet (although I'm not sure that why - since I haven't been using it much - but I did think that today might be a nice day to make bread - for the Caldeirada below).      

~~~~~

So - it's a cloudy day and there's a cool breeze and it's a day to have something going in the kitchen, something to smell, and something to warm you.  Below is a recipe that a graduate student in the lab, Ben, passed on to me awhile back. It is how Margarita, his former Dutch boss' Portuguese wife in Holland, fixed Caldeirada and taught him the recipe (except there were no quantities). The present state of the recipe is how it evolved in Ben's kitchen over the last several years. You can find plenty of other variations on the dish on-line - it's often referred to as Portugeuse fish stew I think. This dish is traditionally something made along the coast to cook with whatever is caught that day - Stanley and I didn't catch anything on or walk (nor did we try to) - although we did manage to swing by the grocery store afterwards and pick up a nice piece of halibut.  The bay leaves came from the bay tree out in the garden - and I also added a bright red hot pepper from the garden.  It's cooking now, and the house smells like sweet peppers.

~~~~~

Ingredients

0.5 cup EVOO
0.5 cup white wine (dry chardonnay or pinot grigio)
lotsa garlic (~tablespoon of minced but the more the
merrier)
1 medium/large onion (white, yellow, or vidalia work)
tomato (normally one but you can take out or add more based on desired final
consitency)
3 bell peppers (I do 2 orange and 1 yellow but you can vary this as well)
bay leaves (equal to # of fish or chicken breast)
~1 lb meat (normally fish but can be chicken also)
smidgin of curry (or more than a smidgin)
salt and pepper
potato (yukon golds are good, sweet potatoes work well too)

In a decent size pot (like you would cook chili in) add EVOO, wine (these two should cover the bottom nicely), garlic, onion (cut in half and slice), tomato (wedges), sliced bell peppers, bay leaves and curry. Mix. Salt and pepper this mixture to taste (if using chicken, salt more). Add fish or chicken cut in small (1 inch) cubes and stir. Thinly slice potato (the thickness will determine cooking time) and lay in a single layer on top of mixture. Bring to boil on medium heat then cover and heat at medium to medium low for 20 min.  Check potato layer doneness, if not done, check meat. if meat is done and potatoes aren't, stir potatoes under and continue to cook. Normally I just stir under after 20 min and then cook for 10 more minutes. Serve in bowl. Will make enough for 3-4.

Additional comments: If using fish, smaller pieces may be more prone to disintegrating when boiled so take into consideration - I tend to add the fish after the potatoes are almost done. Also, if you want to increase recipe, just increase all accordingly, don't worry about having relatively less potatoes. You might have to cook longer as it takes longer to get to temperature.

'You can have my husband, but please don't mess with my man...'

You've just gotta love the blues.  After work today I listened to South Carolina blues woman Wanda Johnson sing a few songs, backed up by Shrimp City Slim - down at the Mills House on Meeting Street.  The place was packed (hey, it was a free show) - the drinks were flowing - and Wanda was great (as always).  I saw her for the first time several years ago, as part of the Lowcountry Blues Bash.  It's the last few days of performances, but I'm sure glad that I got to sit for awhile and listen to Wanda sing before it's all over for '07.  From what I've heard about Wanda, she writes most of the lyrics to the songs she sings - and all I can say is that she must have a mighty fine man...

But today wasn't so much about the blues as it was about pie.  Key Lime pie.  Tomorrow is my mother's 72nd birthday, and since Key Lime pie is her favorite dessert, I couldn't resist ordering her one of Sublime Pies and Cakes' award-winning pies.  Sublime doesn't ship just yet, but when I arrived there at 10 am this morning to pick up the pie, the Pie Queen herself was there - and my pie was frozen, vacuum-wrapped, and I was given precise instructions on how to ship the pie to my mother.  First, I had to get the $4.99 styrofoam cooler from Publix, and while I was there, I needed to get 5 lbs of dry ice (I got a little over 8 lbs).  The pie, which was in a cardboard box, went into the cooler first, then I added the dry ice, and then some packing material.  Now, finding someone to ship the pie was a bit more challenging - I stopped by the UPS Store next to the Publix, and it ends up that they don't have Saturday delivery to my parent's zip code in Virginia.  Hmmmm.  Luckily FedEx would deliver it overnight - but first the styrofoam cooler had to be packed into a cardboard box.  All I can say is that tomorrow at some point in the morning, my mother is going to receive a very large box that contains a normal-sized pie.  I'm guessing that when my mom takes her first bite of her award-winning birthday pie, she'll have to ask my father 'I wonder how much it cost to do this' and she'll shake her head like she's thinking her daughter is a nutcase.  But I'm also guessing that she'll love the pie. 

But I couldn't resist - the pies are beyond delicious - and the Pie Queen herself was about as nice a person as I've come across in awhile (so go and order a pie, 843-225-LIME).  In fact, I became a fan of her little store and bought another pie on the spot - one that I took back to the lab where we renamed it New Guy Pie in honor of the postdoctoral fellow's first day.  I am so thrilled that the New Guy is here - and was even more thrilled that he was anxious to get things going - and I had to laugh when he said that folks where he was working, back in Maryland, told him that he'd get sick of academic life real fast because everyone in his new lab would be nerdy and arrogant.  Okay, well, maybe a little nerdy and arrogant (okay again, some might say alot nerdy) - but I had to laugh since Katherine was off with her husband to a poetry event in West Virginia and Maria spent the day with her hair in a gazillion braids in preparation for an 80's party she was going to later (where I'm guessing she'd convince folks to do the salsa) and Ben was pondering whether his broccoli seedlings were surviving the cold and I had just spent the entire morning figuring out how to mail a pie.  I think the New Guy, who claims to be a jazz musician and sculptor, will fit in just fine. 

So on the way to hear Wanda sing, I stopped off at LimeBlue and gave Jeff a piece of New Guy Pie and petted his dog Janie.  Jeff told me about something he had heard on one of the morning shows, where they were interviewing a guy who was talking about what would happen if oil-degrading microorganisms were released into the world's oil reserves/reservoirs.  This guy seemed to think that microorganisms were going to biodegrade all of the world's oil, disrupting an already disrupted power base, reeking havoc on the planet.  Jeff couldn't remember if the microorganisms were native ones or if they were genetically-engineered - but he thought it sounded silly and I'd have to agree.  In theory it's a fantastic tale of microbial might, in reality it'd be a hard sell.  Plus, I've heard that 10% of oil gets damaged already in the refining and transport process - in other words, microbes are there already.  But if they were close to 'eating up' oil - all 3,000 plus compounds found in oil - then there'd be far less of the stuff contaminating the planet as it is.  I'm sure thought that a few folks heard this guy and were terrified and pondering the evil microorganism and it's erradication.   Heck, don't they know that if microorganisms weren't around, oil wouldn't have been made to begin with?  Any anyway, I'd personally like to engineer a microorganism that degrades plastic - I think we need to get rid of 90% of the stuff.

Anyway...just so no Key Lime pie-eating microbes take over in the next 24 hours, my mom should be enjoying a fine piece of pie tomorrow afternoon for her birthday.