Poftă bună

Yesterday evening I cooked Romanian for what is surely the first time in my life. The menu was simple but intriguing: stuffed celeriac.

I skinned the root and then dug out a cavity which would hold the filling. The filling was very simple - the celeriac that had been removed, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Once stuffed, put the diced root in a pan with some olive oil and that lemon-infused water that kept the root from browning. Well, browning too much, in my case. 

Cook until done and serve.

It was tasty. Celeriac has a gentle celery flavor that was easily penetrated by the garlic's sharp pungency. While I ate it on its own, I think that it would be the perfect accompaniment for beef, particularly a beef roast. Will I eat the leftovers with a Vienna all beef hot dog? This is a definite possibility. Still, roast beef is the best bet.

After dinner I went to Chocolate Shoppe for dessert and to get in a bit of reading. I opted for the new flavor on the block, Apple Cider Doughnut. Highly seasonal. 

It was quite good, as you would expect.

While there I noticed that Chocolate Shoppe has a new flavor contest ongoing. I grabbed an entry form and came up with a flavor on the way home.

Now all I need is a catchy name.

I forgot to wear my new apron

It is really nice to be cooking again, even if I am not always cooking for someone else like I did over the weekend. Last night it was pan-fried walleye für mich.

Did I use rye flour for the breading? You betcha! It turned out well, though more garlic and onion powder wouldn't have hurt. Those pickles were a different story, however. I bought them for reasons I cannot fully recall. There were no non-shelf stable ones, I guess. They were mushy and blah and got a free one-way ticket to the wastewater treatment plant. And so good pickles are on the grocery list.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 88: The proof of the brownies is in the eating.

(Listen to the prelude.)

(mid-April 2023)

The third of April is a red letter day in our house as it’s our youngest cat, Piper's, birthday. And this year she turned the big 1-0.

Here she is as a wee kitten. I remember well going to the cat adoption lady's house and seeing her newest litter. Piper was so new and so small and zipping around the room like a madman. Or madcat, rather. She'd charge at me as I sat on the floor and then carom off my leg before launching an attack one of her siblings or maybe a defenseless pillow.

And here she is on her big day 2023 trying to relax in one of our plush cat houses and looking irritated that one of her humans is sticking some device in her face. "Go away, hoo-man!"

Of course I gave her plenty of extra treats to celebrate. I tried to get a photo but she nommed them down too quickly to get a decent picture with my very basic phone camera.

We hope to have her for many years to come and, with all of the money I pay the vet, I expect we shall.

********

Earlier this month I was poking around the websites of local bakeries to see what my rye bread options were when I discovered that one of them offered rye brownies. I pondered this miracle food and suspect that one of those cartoon clouds appeared above my head as I did some quick culinary ratiocination. I came up with:

rye flour + dark chocolate = manna from heaven

So I set out to conjure some of these magical treats in my kitchen. I began by assembling a double boiler and melting the chopped bittersweet chocolate cubes and extra dark chips.

As the chocolate melted, I mixed the eggs, butter, sugar, and whatnot.

Everything got thrown into the same bowl and mixed together. I poured the batter into a pan and it looked rather half-assed, truth be told. “But,” I reasoned, “appearance is no measure of taste. Never judge a book by its cover and whatnot.”

The old adage was right. The brownies may have come out of the oven looking like my cat's (not Piper) diarrhea, but they tasted incredibly delicious.

I sampled, of course, but took the rest to work. I am just not to be trusted with brownies.

The whole brownie thing threw me off of my original task which was to find rye bread. While rye is less common, it's certainly not impossible to find a loaf of it in these parts. I think it's more the case that you have to get to a bakery for a good variety as grocery stores don't stock a lot of quality Central/Eastern European breads. Can I go to my local supermarket and find a pukka loaf of rye bread that my German, Ruthenian, and Polish ancestors would recognize and be proud of?

Yes.

Is there more than 1 or 2 varieties that fit the bill?

Nope.

And so, in the end, I decided to just bake my own rather than running around town trying to find the perfect loaf. I began by retrieving the bread maker that a cousin had given us from the basement. I gave it a good cleaning and then set to work.

The recipe in the manual for rye bread is quite lame, in my opinion. It called for a mere ¾ cup of rye flour but a whopping 2¾ cups of wheat. How is anyone supposed to taste the rye with that ratio? So I tweaked it a little bit.

Things went well at first. The dough rose as expected.

It smelled great too. And then I took another peek some time later and saw that it had fallen. Soon the bake cycle kicked in and I ended up with this.

Not exactly Martha Stewart level aesthetics.

Besides needing to have the flour ratio adjusted further, it tasted fine. Hearty and a bit dense with a rich, nutty wheat sweetness. It simply needed more rye. No doubt there is some arcane wisdom out there on baking bread which describes the best rye to wheat ratio, which wheat varieties taste like what, the best yeast to use, how to get a certain texture, and so on and so forth. My bready experiments shall continue.

In addition to baked things, I found myself with an inexplicable craving for pozole earlier this month. Pozole is Mexican pork and hominy soup. While I do not recall how or when, I nonetheless acquired a taste for it and have tossed around the idea of hitting all of the Mexican restaurants in the area to find out who does the best pozole.

I bought some pork and hominy thinking that I had the rest of the ingredients already. The recipe calls for dried ancho chilies which are boiled and then pureed before being added to the soup. Now, I’ve made pozole before and would have sworn that I had some dried anchos in the cupboard. But, when I went and looked, I found that I instead had a lifetime’s supply of guajillo chilies and had no idea why.

I tried in vain to recall what motivated me to buy those but couldn’t. My best guess is that they were leftover from an attempt to make mole sauce at some point in the dim and distant past.

Another trip to the store and I was ready. I made my pork stock.

As that cooked, I boiled, rinsed, chopped, and pureed until everything was ready to be thrown into the pot.

No, that cup of coffee was for the chef, not the soup.

Once the pozole was cooking, I thought it looked nice and hearty with chunks of stuff everywhere. It smelled great too.

I cooked it long enough for the marriage of the flavors to be consummated and then served myself a bowl.

It turned out very well and I was happy that I hadn’t gotten lazy and simply bought a can at the store. That stuff isn’t bad but it doesn’t have all the onion and jalapeno in it. Plus, I think my version has a more piquant chili taste to it, if I do say so myself.

Lastly on the food front, I’ll note that I recently discovered that the Wisconsin Brewing Company out in Verona, a Madison suburb, had brewed a Grodziskie once again and had it available in their taproom. I managed to convince a friend of mine to head to the brewery with me for a couple so I’d have some company.

Grodziskie is a Polish style of beer that dates back centuries. It’s traditionally brewed with 100% smoked wheat and “should” be light in body and color with a good dose of fizz and a nice hop bite. Usually it’s low in alcohol but that can vary according to the brewer’s taste.

It was delectable! Light, smoky, fizzy – I wish they’d brew it more often than once every couple of years. My only gripe, which really isn’t much of a gripe, is that I wish it were just a tad hoppier. A minor quibble. I wonder what would happen if some of that wheat were to be swapped out for rye...

********

Bonus photo. It was Easter not too long ago so here’s a rabbit I saw in a backyard. I am used to seeing what I think are Eastern Cottontails so I have to wonder if this was someone's pet that that was set free or if it escaped like a scene from Watership Down.

(Raise a glass and watch the postlude.)

The Corona Diaries Vol. 84: A little hideaway beneath the waves

(early February 2023)

One day in January, I hopped on the bus and headed downtown to look at pictures and learn a little something at another one of those National Geographic Live presentations. Last year it was all about bears and this time a marine biologist, Diva Amon, graced us with her presence. As we discovered, she has plumbed the depths of the oceans for interesting tales of marine life.

It was a fascinating look at the denizens of the shallows as well as the deepest depths of our oceans and their habitats. Amon began by explaining how the lives of the myriad of plants and animals that call coral reefs home are all intertwined and that there's an interdependency that must be realized in order to have a healthy, thriving reef habitat. That was the colorful part. The photos of fish of all brilliant hues went away and she then took us down to the ocean floor and to all of the eldritch creatures that call that cold, dark place home.

I don't recall what this thing is called but it would fit perfectly in some kind of Lovecraftian tale of horror with those tentacles and general unworldly appearance.

All of the life that lives by vents on the ocean floor was simply amazing. Those giant tube worms, hordes of albino crabs, et al. Just incredible to think that they live without light, near water that is just above freezing, and under the enormous pressure of thousands of feet of water.

At one point, Amon showed us some video footage from an undersea drone. As the submersible creeps forward, something begins to emerge from the Stygian gloom in the light ahead. What is this square thing? Turns out to be a clothes washer. Close by is a wrecked shipping container that had fallen into the ocean from one of those enormous cargo ships that helps keep Walmart supplied with cheap goods from China. Thousands of these things fall off of cargo ships every year. Sad.

Still, it was an absolutely fascinating lecture.

Beforehand, I had checked out some new art exhibits that decked the halls leading to the theater. One was called “Healing Journeys: Heritage and Resistance” and featured paintings by one Christopher Sweet that portrayed Native American ways of life.

I think this was called “Reflected Memories”:

I just like the colors on the left and the scene on the shore makes for a nice contrast to the red, yellow, and orange.

This next one was called “Earth Sky Blessings”:

I believe the whole thing was painted on cardboard and that tree has a rough texture from where it was ripped. Really neat.

Another exhibition on display that night was called “See Me - Expressions of Identity” and featured watercolor portraits by Chele Ramos whom I assume to be a Madisonian since her work featured local characters.

Here’s Theresa Marie, singer with Madison’s The People Brothers Band.

I also really liked this one of a local glass blower at work.

********

I’ve been doing a fair amount of cooking lately. To begin, I made some beef paprikash that turned out well, if I do say so myself. Plenty of onion and tomato chunks plus a near perfect amount of paprika. A good hearty meal when you're in the bowels of winter.

There was a recent article in one of our local papers about the adventures of an eater who seeks out the hottest dishes in town. He went to a Southeast Asian restaurant not too far from our place and his report included mention of a dish called chicken larb which he had ordered at a non-white person level of spiciness. 

The photograph accompanying the article looked extremely delicious and didn't appear to be filled with obscure ingredients so I attempted to make it at home with The Frau’s full approval and backing.

While I threw in some red pepper flakes, it was not particularly spicy. But it was quite tasty and I earned several Brownie points with my Frau.

It’s meant to be a cold chicken salad type of dish but we served it hot. I used ground chicken instead of minced. There’s shallots and scallions along with fish sauce and a generous portion of lime juice. And cilantro. Oh, and toasted rice powder.

I’d never heard of much less made this last ingredient before but it sounded easy enough. Roast some sticky rice in an ungreased pan until suitably browned and then grind it into a coarse powder. How hard can it be?

The roasting was easy. I then put the rice into our oldest but smallest food processor. It did virtually nothing, leaving just a thin layer of dust at the bottom and the rice kernels looking a bit bruised but basically intact. I feared that the motor would overheat and then start on fire trying to pound those kernels into a powder with a very dull blade that would have had a hard time cutting butter. And so I threw the rice into the much newer, though also much larger, food processor.

But even its deadly sharp blades proved no match for this stupid rice. I suppose the coffee grinder would have done the trick but I brought out a mortar and pestle and did it the old fashioned way. While I only had to grind up a bit less than a quarter cup, my arm got extremely tired and sore mashing up that rice. Next time I will find some roasted rice powder at the store.

********

I took a guided winter stroll that had a group of us wandering around the Aldo Leopold Nature Center property and skirting Edna Taylor Conservation Park as well.

There were several small children for this walk and the guide had some age-appropriate reading material on hand.

Yes, a kid’s book on how to identify animal poop! And tracks, too.

It was a lovely morning. A bit below freezing and snow everywhere which was just perfect for capturing the tracks of critters.

Despite young children running about and playing, it was still rather serene out there.

I came across these berries but was not sure what they were. They weren’t those highbush cranberries I noticed on my walk around my neighborhood back in December. And I know that it wasn't holly either. Well, that was my winter berry knowledge exhausted.

Whatever they are, I was sure some birds use them for a snack. Then again, it didn’t look like many had been gnawed off. It’s a mystery.

Farther down the path we came to a copse of pine trees which had small cones.

These trees were near the pond which had all sorts of tracks on and near it. We saw some wabbit twacks that lead to the bridge. Presumably a wabbit was sheltering underneath.

Out on the pond, there were deer tracks.

This walk proved a fine way to relax after a busy work week. We didn’t see too many animals on our tour. Just a couple of squirrels that were frolicking and a woodpecker pecking. So not a lot of chances to put my new knowledge of how animals survive the winter to use.

Despite this, it was still great fun to look at all of the tracks and imagine what the animals were doing at the time they made them, whether it be grabbing a bite to eat, fleeing from pesky humans, or simply going for a stroll. Plus, it was relaxing to get out in the snow amongst the trees and tall grasses, to enjoy some quiet away from cars and noisy snowblowers.

********

Bonus photo. Here we have a friend of mine dressed up as H.P. Lovecraft's Great God Cthulhu for Halloween. I believe this was taken on Chicago's north side and that many children were nearly frightened to death by this hideous apparition. Those that survived the encounter were driven mad.

 

 

(Listen to the postlude, if you dare!)

The Corona Diaries Vol. 69: Dodging Horny Deer in Pursuit of a Mysterious White Dot

(early October 2022)

Although the autumnal equinox falls in September, I really think of October as the beginning of fall. September has vestiges of summer with still warm temperatures and trees only giving a hint of what’s to come but it’s October that really ushers in the change of seasons. The leaves change more quickly, decorative Indian corn is to be found, and Halloween beckons with store shelves filled with a billion cavities worth of candy. It’s also when deer mating season begins. Bucks go into rut, anxiously waiting for a doe who will put out for him to come along. And so horny deer are often seen carelessly crossing the roads in pursuit of some action.

There was a slight chill in the air on 1 October when I jumped in my car just after dawn and headed east to the fringe of Madison where it meets the Town of Burke. I was keen to take some photos of a couple Trachte buildings that I’d recently heard of and to explore a mysterious white dot.

A couple weeks previously I had been checking out the far east side of Madison on Google Maps trying to get a handle on the growth of the housing developments that sprawled on the fringes of the city and lament how much of the countryside had been lost. At one point I noticed an anomalous white dot in a group of trees. I immediately made like Deckard in Blade Runner pretending Google Maps was an Esper machine and started calling out commands to enhance the image. 

Unfortunately, just like my cats, the site was not keen on responding to my voice and so, when I said, “enhance 224, 176”, absolutely nothing happened. And so I was forced to manually zoom in and rotate the view. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t tell what this mysterious dot was but I assumed that the anomaly was the top of a silo poking out from the tree canopy.

Farm ruins!

My first stop that morning, however, was just up the road from the anomaly where a pair of Trachte buildings sit nestled in the tress, slowly being consumed as grass and brush reclaim the area.

Nearby were a couple other outbuildings that looked as if they hadn’t seen use in ages either such as this one tucked a bit further back.

Having gotten my Trachte photos, it was off to find that mysterious silo. I drove slowly south along the road but didn’t see anything other than the new day’s sun peeking through the trees.

I pulled over to the side of the road, got out of my car, and started poking around on foot. Wandering into the ditch I finally caught a glimpse of a sandstone (or was it limestone?) wall tucked back in the brush.

I had driven this road many times over the years but never noticed the wall. It will no doubt be more obvious when the trees have shed their leaves, but I think it’s set back just far enough to not be visible at a casual glance when you drive past.

Despite the rising sun and the muffled roar of speeding cars in the distance, it was rather spooky setting out into the ruins. By the time I got to them, the din of the highway was completely absent and it got even more eerie as a silence settled upon me.

The wall was part of the remains of foundation of an old barn.

I saw no trace of any of the wooden structure. Looking around this area that is nearest the road, I couldn’t see the silo so I wandered deeper into the woods to the other side and voila! There it was hidden in the trees.

Walking towards it, I ran into the foundation of another barn. This one was set deeper and I had to step down.

This one was perhaps built after the first one as the walls were largely concrete instead of stones.

Finally, I was at the silo.

It looked to be in good condition so perhaps all of that concrete was poured when this silo was erected. Underneath was a spooky space, likely home to critters or maybe it was the workshop of a crazed serial killer…

There was a round concrete space next door which perhaps was the base of a silo at some point in the past. Just to the north was a large concrete rectangle that looked like it may have been a trough.

A cursory internet search didn’t reveal any history of the farm or who owns the land currently. The subdivisions are still mainly to the south but I suspect it won’t be too long before the area is subdivided and littered with cookie cutter houses.

On my way home – almost as if on cue – a buck ran out in front of my car.

********

The previous owner of my house put a carport onto the back of it and so there’s a small gap between a gutter and the side of the house itself. That end of the gutter gets runoff from a valley and fills up with stuff causing water to drip down onto a window sill. This is really annoying because the sill is made of metal so the dripping is a bit loud. The water then runs off onto the driveway where there is a 1” gap between the driveway slab and the foundation of the house.

My predecessor had filled part of that gap with some kind of grey goop that had the consistency of caulk. The remaining space simply had what appeared to be some leftover black plastic garden edging dropped into it. Perhaps this undergirded some kind of filler in the past but now it was doing little.

Having resolved to keep water away from my foundation, I asked some friends who are also homeowners about how to take care of this. Most weren’t sure but one recommended pouring sand into the space until there was just a little room at the top and then laying down this new-fangled gap filler. You place it atop the sand and then heat it with a torch or heat gun so it melts to fill in the space.

This would mean buying sand and a torch. Surely there was something cheaper. After an internet search, I found there was.

I bought some backer rod which is a tube of semi-rigid foam that’s ½” in diameter. A bit like those pool noodle floatation thingies. I made a braid out of it and stuffed it into the gap a bit less than ¼” below grade after power washing the foundation and a bit of driveway. Then I slopped in some concrete patch which I think is sand and limestone in some kind of petroleum-based goop. I am no whiz with a putty knife but I think I patched it well enough. Three days later it had hardened.

We’ll see how it takes to having a shovel being dragged across before long but it seems solid enough.

********

Our wedding anniversary was in the latter half of last month but, unfortunately, our plans to have dinner at the fancy, relatively new The Harvey House fell through. And the florist never delivered the flowers I had ordered. A real shame that the floral shop just a few blocks away closed. Never had a problem with them.

Shortly after this, I was exhorting my Frau to make reservations there again when word came down that The Harvey House had just been mentioned in the New York Times. Ooh. Might be a long wait to get a table now.

So our anniversary was a bust. But I have plans to make it up to my Frau…

********

With the weather getting slightly chilly, it was time to start making the transition to winter cooking. For me, it chiefly means more casseroles, stews, and the like. The first thing I made was Graupeneintopf which I believe means “barley stew”. However, the recipe in my German cookbook is more of a casserole. It’s very simple but delicious. Brown some ground beef, onion, and celery root. Throw in barley, beef stock, and some tomato paste. Cook until done.

It is basic, hearty fare but is tasty enough and serves as a nice foundation for the hot sauce of your choosing.

********

Back in September, a friend of mine down in Chicagoland who is a big World War II buff told me to choose one of his unread books on the subject and that we’d discuss it when I went down to his place again in early October. I chose Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945.

The subject matter was grim. War is hell but I suppose one could argue that the war on the Eastern Front during World War II was grimmer than some other theatres, including the Western Front. Author Catherine Merridale approached the subject from a sociological point of view rather than a purely historical one. That is, it wasn’t a strict account of the battles, it was more about life for the average Soviet soldier. I take it that “Ivan” is a generic name for a Soviet soldier like “Tommy” was for English troops or “G.I. Joe” for Americans.

Merridale begins by noting that the Soviet army was made up of men from various parts of the Soviet Union, many of whom had no love for Stalin and/or weren’t ethnic Russians. Some even thought that German occupation might be a step up for them.

Being a soldier in the Red Army was sheer horror. When Germany began its march east to Moscow, the Soviets were ill-prepared, under-equipped, and had military leadership – including Stalin – who had no idea what to do. The Soviet Union was huge and so the one thing it did have in large supply were bodies. The Red Army could just throw wave after wave of men at the Germans.

The book talks about how party apparatchiks were assigned to the army to try to maintain morale and report on treacherous behavior. So the soldiers were being watched at all times as they dealt with a lack of food, lice, improper clothing, a shortage of munitions, et al. We also learn about some soldiers who would receive Dear Ivan letters in which their wives informed them they had found someone else.

Soviet doctors did not recognize what we call PTSD today so, if soldiers afflicted with it didn’t improve, they were simply sent back to the front or even executed if they didn’t obey orders.

The Red Army defeated Hitler at a great cost. It repelled the German invasion and fought its way to Berlin. For the first two thirds of the book, we feel a lot of empathy for the members of the Red Army as they take on the marauding Huns at a great cost. But the empathy becomes strained when restraint is abandoned as they raped and pillaged the whole way to the German capital.

Immediately after the war, Stalin hailed them as heroes and promised largess from the state for their service. But after a year, Stalin abandoned these heroes of the Soviet state and many veterans had a hard time finding housing, feeding themselves, and integrating back into society.

Certainly not a happy tale, but it was nonetheless very interesting. I have read about Eastern Front a bit, mainly about the Siege of Stalingrad, but those texts were all about the battles, the maneuvering, and the strategies. Ivan’s War told a story mainly at ground level and kept a human face on the combatants instead of rendering them into chess pieces. In film terms, think The Big Red One vs The Longest Day.

After reading this, I needed something lighter and so I decided to read something I should have read decades ago…

********

Bonus photo time! Here’s Grabby eyeing up the Frau’s new bag of candy corn.