Yvonne Offers Three Cures for Lunchbox Letdown

Do you brown bag it at lunchtime? Are you getting tired of the same old, PB&J or ham and cheese sandwiches? Well here are three fresh sandwiches ideas that will wake up your taste buds and make your Cafeteria Fry friends jealous.

Curried Chicken (makes 2 sandwiches)

*This one requires a little planning ahead in that you’ll need to cook chicken breasts or thighs (ideally skinless and boneless) in advance. I cook four or five at a time and freeze them to have meat on hand for several lunches.

1 cup cooked chicken, cubed*
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1 tart apple or pear, cubed
1 tbsp chopped cilantro (or basil) *optional
1 tbsp chopped pecans or walnuts *optional
1-2 tbsp plain, low fat yogurt or mayonnaise
1-2 tsp curry powder
ground pepper to taste

Mix curry power and pepper with yogurt or mayonnaise and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Spoon mixture onto seven grain or whole wheat bread and enjoy!

*I like to prepare 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts with a tbsp of olive oil, combined with ½ tsp smoked paprika, ½ tsp regular paprika and about 1 tbsp of fresh chopped thyme or oregano, or 2 tsp. of either herb, dried. Bake at 350ºF for 25-30 minutes, until juices run clear.

Tuna Salad (makes 2 sandwiches)

1 tin of albacore tuna packed in water, drained
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1 pickle, finely diced
½ - 1 tsp dried dill
1 tbsp pickle brine
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 – 2 tbsp low fat yogurt or mayonnaise

Flake tuna with a fork. Add celery, pickle, brine and juice. Combine with yogurt or mayonnaise. Spoon mixture onto a spelt or whole wheat bagel or pita.
Avocado and Tomato

1/3 ripe avocado, sliced (the rest of the avocado will keep in fridge for at least a week)
Sliced tomatoes
Freshly ground pepper

Cover two pieces of grainy rye bread with the avocado slices and top with fresh ground pepper. Store tomato slices in a small airtight container and place on top of avocado just before eating. Delish!

*This combo is even better with a slice of cheese and a few arugula leaves.

These are just a few of my favorite concoctions. Use them as a jumping off point to create your own. And if you have a Panini press... I am so jealous!

Sandy’s Kitchen Addiction

Before I moved last summer, I lived for more than a decade in a place with a tiny kitchen that I nonetheless managed to cram with tools and gadgets that I’d use a few times and forget. (Case in point: Yvonne recently returned a juicemaker I didn’t recall owning, let alone lending.)

It was a sickness that I ultimately controlled by writing so many books that I didn’t have time to troll kitchen stores.

Still, when I moved, I had 18 boxes marked “kitchen.” This is remarkable considering I never really cooked, and baked only sporadically.

Worse, I’d done a pretty major purge. In my college neighborhood, anything let by the curb disappeared in minutes. It mitigated my shame to know that the following nearly-new kitchen tools found good homes with needy students:

• Breadmaker
• Handmixer
• Espresso makers (3)
• Coffee pot
• Bodum coffee press
• Electric Grills (2! I was vegetarian – how much grilling did I anticipate?)
• Waffle maker
• Whisk, zester, cherry pitter, melon-baller and other assorted tools
• Baking pans of every shape and size

I unpacked boxes in my new, bigger kitchen, I was surprised at how little space I had left over. Yet, as I began to cook and entertain, I found there were gaping holes in my collection, including a few items I’d ditched!

An edited list of kitchen stuff I’ve acquired since the move:

• Whisk, meat thermometer potato masher, garlic press (oops – that makes 2!), cutting boards, and various other utensils
• Non-stick fry pan
• Roasting pan
• Ramekins (to make pannacotta for Yvonne)
• Nespresso coffee maker (love it so much I’ve proposed to it)
• Le Creuset pot (ditto)
• KitchenAid stand mixer (with ice cream maker attachment – completely unnecessary and so much fun!)

Amount of unused kitchen counter space: zero

Amount of unused cupboard space: zero.

Number of items I’m missing from a New York Times list of 10 essential kitchen tools: 7.

Specifically:
• chef’s knife
• large stock pot
• large cast-iron skillet
• paring knife
• solid wooden spoon
• microplane grater for citrus zest and hard cheeses
• quality kitchen scale

I suppose I should prioritize these over the food mill I’ve been craving, especially since I’ve liberated a rusty specimen from my mom’s basement and it still works.

I also borrowed mom’s immersion blender, and found it has enough power to lift my house off its foundations.

I really want one of my very own.

I believe that immersion blender would change my life.

And that, my friends, is a sickness.

Yvonne’s Long Cold Hunt for Culture

After four weeks on a movie set in Northern Ontario, I got a serious craving for a hit of culture last week. So I decided to visit to the Algoma Art Gallery, which is just down the street from my hotel, here in Sault Ste. Marie. The gallery’s website showed some intriguing images, giving me hope that it would turn out to be a local gem.

Pulling on my boots and parka, I braved a swirling blizzard to reach the gallery, where I crammed six bucks into the donation box near the front door. Heading into the main gallery, I found exactly none of the paintings posted on the site. Instead, there were three very small collections of works. One was interesting, the second mediocre and the last… Well, let’s just say I wished I’d spent my six bucks on a latte and muffin at the local café. Ever optimistic, I checked out the gallery’s gift shop hoping to buy gifts for my camera crew companions. I came up empty, as no one would thank me for Christmas leftovers, semi-precious stones, or moose-themed table accessories.

Fifteen minutes after I’d arrived, I was back out in the snow.

With a population of over 70,000, there must be some talented people in this city, so it’s disappointing that the local gallery isn’t making more effort to promote them. I caught a glimpse of what could be in their most clever installment—a totem pole made of car parts.

It was hidden in the back of the gallery, among the garbage bins.

Pushing Gallery Letdown aside, I trudged over to the museum and slapped down another Latte & Muffin fee to view the museum galleries, which, while interesting, failed to deliver much in the way of education. Although there was information about how people lived in the area through the years, and a good display on the Edmund Fitzgerald, I left feeling that I’d didn’t know much more about the city than when I arrived. In fact, I found the most interesting tidbit on a plaque outside of the museum, which described how thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were rounded up as “enemy aliens” in World War I and interned at the Sault Ste. Marie armory.

Later that day, I received an e-mail from the charming couple that owns one of the best cafés in the Soo, along with a happening night club. And guess what? Culture does come to town after all, in the form of some really great music!

From jazz to indie to folk, here are some of the diverse artists featured bringing their talent to the Great White North:

http://www.myspace.com/markberubemusic

http://www.myspace.com/elizabethshepherd


http://www.myspace.com/goodlovelies

http://www.myspace.com/laurenmannmusic

http://brownman.com/electryctrio/

If music isn’t enough, I suppose I could grab a hockey stick, curling broom, or ice fishing rod, and succumb to the local passion for winter sports.

But you’re more likely to find me in my hotel room with the heat cranked up and a cup of tea, soaking up popular culture on my wide screen TV!

Bite This! Sandy Makes the Best Soup Ever.

Lest you think my culinary crush has waned, fear not, the Barefoot Contessa still reigns in my kitchen. And as winter lingers on in these parts, I’ve been testing her soup recipes.

In the past week, I’ve chopped and roasted vast quantities of squash and root vegetables, producing some very tasty brews. But it’s the tomato soup below that stands far above the steaming crowd.

Even junk food addicts love it. Why? Sprinkle with parmesan and it becomes pizza in a bowl!














Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Ingredients
• 3 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons good olive oil
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions)
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 (28-ounce) canned plum tomatoes, with their juice
• 4 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1 quart chicken stock or water

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Toss together the tomatoes, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread the tomatoes in 1 layer on a baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes.

In an 8-quart stockpot over medium heat, sauté the onions and garlic with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the butter, and red pepper flakes for 10 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Add the canned tomatoes, basil, thyme, and chicken stock. Add the oven-roasted tomatoes, including the liquid on the baking sheet. Bring to boil and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes. Pass through a food mill fitted with the coarsest blade*. Taste for seasonings. Serve hot or cold.

*Note: If you don’t own a food mill, just use a immersion blender and prepare to floss tomato seeds and greenery out of your teeth.

Note 2: Proceed with extreme caution when using an immersion blender with hot liquids.

Note 3: A tomato soup explosion—and I’m not saying I had one—can cause one’s kitchen to look like a set from Dexter.

Note 4: A food mill—essentially a strainer with a press and a hand crank—seems like a stupid investment until you’ve had a tomato explosion. But how is it possible that such a contraption can cost $200 at Williams-Sonoma?

Note 3: Stay tuned for more on my addiction to kitchen gadgets.

F-Arty Friday: Have a Seat!

The Husband and wife team of Charles and Ray Eames made huge contributions to architecture, photography, industrial design and furniture design. They are best known for the last, becoming two of the most influential furniture designers of the mid-twentieth century. Many of their sculptural chairs, made of plywood, plastic and metal, have become icons of modern interiors.

You will probably recognize more than a few of these as they’ve been widely replicated since the 1950’s.



Charles was an architect and photographer who also designed movie sets, while Ray was an artist, designer and filmmaker. They married in 1941, and together honed the technique of wood molding, using thin sheets of wood veneer formed under heated pressure. They were so successful at this that the US Navy commissioned them to make splints and stretchers during World War II.


In 1949, the couple designed and built their own home in California as part of the Case Study House Program, sponsored by Arts and Architecture Magazine. One of the goals of the study was to find housing options for all the soldiers returning to the US after the war. Each house was designed for a hypothetical client, and the Eames designed theirs to suit their lives at the time: a working couple with grown children, who required studio space and a living space. Another goal of the study was to use technologies that had evolved from the war for something besides killing people, so the Eames House was designed to be made entirely from off-the-shelf pre-made parts. It demonstrated that a house could be prefabricated and still be a successful home.

According to the website for the Eames Office: Their design and innovative use of materials made this house a mecca for architects and designers from all over the world. It is considered one of the most important post-war residences built anywhere in the world.

In the artists’ own words:

“Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world.” -- Charles Eames


“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.”--Ray Eames

Bite This! Sandy’s Culinary Crush

A writer who isn’t writing is like a loaded weapon without a target. For the past decade, I’ve never NOT had a project on the go, but with Yvonne working on a movie in northern Ontario, we’re taking a bit of a break.

Some people would kick back, read books, catch up on the TV she missed. Not me. I’ve got energy to burn and need to directly it wisely, lest I become as neurotic as some people probably already think I am.

So I decided to learn to cook.

Before Writing, there was baking, but I’ve never had much interest in preparing food with nutritional value. Besides, Before Writing, I was a vegetarian and tofu gets boring fast.

Yvonne, on the other hand, has been into cooking—and watching cooking shows—for years. Until recently, when she described her kitchen escapades, all I heard was “wah-wah-wah.” I only tuned in once, when she happened to mention the lemonade for her bourbon sour recipe came from the Barefoot Contessa.

It was a really good bourbon sour.

Now I have a nice kitchen, time to entertain, and a carnivorous appetite. So when Yvonne gave me a Barefoot Contessa (AKA Ina Garten) cookbook for Christmas, my target was clear.

It was love at first recipe. The Contessa is perfect for the novice cook, with short recipes, simple instructions, and pretty pictures. Visit the foodnetwork.com and you can find hundreds of reviews of her recipes, offering helpful tips.

My Contessa highlights: beef bourguignon; roast chicken; roasted vegetables; chocolate layer cake, and squash soup.

My Contessa lowlights: gingerbread cake (spicy goop – have I lost my baking mojo?) and gritty espresso ice cream.

Yvonne probably deletes without reading my lengthy e-mails describing my kitchen feats, but I’m planning a welcome home feast for her return.

Till then, it’s all Contessa all the time. And with Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson on deck, I may never go back to writing. Reaching my word limit on a given day is satisfying, but it doesn’t fill a plate at a dinner party.

My favorite Barefoot Contessa recipe to date is Beatty’s Chocolate Cake. But as this effort is really about cooking, I’ll share instead her recipe for roasted vegetables. Who knew fennel could taste so good?

Oven-roasted vegetables


Ingredients
• 2 small fennel bulbs, tops removed
• 1 pound fingerling or small potatoes
• 1/3 cup good olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound French string beans (haricots verts), trimmed
• 1 bunch thin asparagus, ends removed, cut diagonally into 3-inch pieces
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the fennel bulbs into 6 wedges each, cutting through the core to keep the wedges intact.

Place on a sheet pan. Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise and place them on the pan with the fennel. Drizzle the olive oil on the vegetables, then sprinkle with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Toss with your hands.

Roast the vegetables for 25 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender, tossing once while cooking. Toss the string beans and asparagus with the roasted vegetables and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the green vegetables are tender. Sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese and roast for another minute or two until the cheese melts.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve hot.

F-arty Friday: Yvonne Turns the Lens on Richard Avedon

One of my favorite photographers is Richard Avedon, who revolutionized fashion photography after the Second World War. Handsome enough to be a model himself, Avedon’s groundbreaking work for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue set a new standard in the trade. It’s often said that his photos defined the American image of beauty, style and culture.

Here’s what Avedon himself said about the subject:

I was overwhelmed. (Fashion Editor) Mrs. Vreeland kept calling me Aberdeen and asking me if a wedding dress didn’t make me want to cry. They’re all serious, hardworking people—they just speak a different language.

So I took my own models out to the beach. I photographed them barefoot, without gloves, running along the beach on stilts, playing leapfrog. When the pictures came in, Brodovitch laid them out on the table and the fashion editor said, ‘These can’t be published. These girls are barefoot.’ Brodovitch printed them. After that, I was launched very quickly. Those candid snapshots were in direct contrast to what was being done. I came in at a time when there weren’t any young photographers working in a free way. Everyone was tired, the war was over, Dior let the skirts down, and suddenly everything was fun. It was historically a marvelous moment for a fashion photographer to begin. I think if I were starting today, it would be much harder.

Avedon’s true passion was portrait photography. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to see an exhibit of some of his portraits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was one of the most powerful and emotionally stirring exhibits I’ve ever seen.

Of his portraits, Avedon says:

My photographs don’t go below the surface. They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. But whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I’ve lost what’s really there…been seduced by someone else’s standard of beauty or by the sitter’s own idea of the best in him. That’s not usually the best. So each sitting becomes a contest.

One famous face Avedon shot several times belongs to Brooke Shields. On working with the photographer, Shields told Interview magazine, “When Dick walks into the room, a lot of people are intimidated. But when he works, he's so acutely creative, so sensitive. And he doesn't like it if anyone else is around or speaking. There is a mutual vulnerability, and a moment of fusion when he clicks the shutter. You either get it or you don't.”



Brooke obviously got it, because here’s what Avedon had to say about his subjects:

When the sitting is over, I feel kind of embarrassed about what we’ve shared. It’s so intense. Snapshots that have been taken of me working show something I was not aware of at all, that over and over again I’m holding my own body or my own hands exactly like the person I’m photographing. I never knew I did that, and obviously what I’m doing is trying to feel, actually physically feel, the way he or she feels at the moment I’m photographing them in order to deepen the sense of connection.

Avedon’s photographs tour art galleries and museums all over the world. If you’re lucky, there may even be some of his photographs in the permanent collection of a gallery near you.

And if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible.

*All Avedon quotes and photographs from http://www.richardavedon.com.

Bite This! Yvonne’s English Hubby’s Cracking Omelet

This is a standard in Yvonne’s house. When we’re too lazy to shop or cook a big meal, we open the fridge and grab eggs and cheese and any veggies that might be hanging around. In minutes, my husband has whipped up a simple meal worthy of guests.

Or at least, Sandy.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

6 eggs or 4 full eggs and 2 egg whites

3 tbsp milk or water

pinch salt

1 tsp. freshly ground pepper

2 tbsp grated cheese

1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme or 1 tsp. dried

*Optional: Assorted chopped peppers, zucchini, cooked broccoli or mushrooms, or chopped ham.

Whisk all ingredients together well.

Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 tbsp olive oil and a small pat of butter.

When the oil is warm, pour in the egg mixture. As the mixture firms up, in approximately two minutes, lift the edges with a spatula to let more of the liquid pour off the surface of the omelet and onto the pan.

If adding chopped veggies or ham, sprinkle them over the omelet at this point.

When top is almost cooked, fold omelet over and cook for another minute.

Inside of omelet should still be slightly moist.

Serve warm with salad.