New York, New Yawk

Here I am in the Big Apple, not doing so much as looking out the window while the rain comes pouring down, and reading a gothic romance (it's from the 18th century, so there's a little literary credibility there). My friends' daughter, Annika, is taking a nap, and so we're taking a break from city activities. Though truth be told, all we've done is gone to see Up in 3-D. We're planning on walking up to Fairway soon to procure ingredients for a great dinner, but I don't know how long the little one sleeps for. It doesn't really matter; I lived in the city for two years, so I don't feel like I have to run around shopping and seeing shows. Especially in the driving rain. It's cold here!

Tomorrow will be more of a city day. I'm going to meet with my friends Sue and Julia, probably for dinner and wine, and I'll probably leave my home-base apartment a bit early in the day to shop at H&M. I've been dreaming of a slice of Zabar's coffee cake for four years, so I might splurge Saturday morning on my way to the LIRR. I'll have to compensate with mountains of broccoli and gallons of carrot juice, but sometimes culinary memories have to be sated and re-explored.

To me NYC is food and parks, anyway. I'd forgotten how amazing the grocery shopping is here: loads of foreign staples and fresh pastas and amazing fruit and vegetables. Fairway was a wonderland last night despite the crowd and rude clerks, and I'm so looking forward to Zabar's. Dean & Deluca is tempting, too, because I know I can find nigella seeds there. My friend Glenna, with whom I'm staying, has been my city cooking companion since we met at seminary, and so seeing her always means making delicious food and indulging in the kind of easy, close friend conversations that one doesn't often have, and so are a kind of nourishment in of themselves. We used to take long walks up Riverside Park; I also took lots of solitary walks when I was lonely or thinking, and once T moved here, we would walk through the Inwood parks with overly sugared coffee and bagels and the newspaper and just be happy.

But the baby has awakened and I'd like to get back to this rare bit of city socializing. God, vacation is good.

Homemade Beef Jerky

I have to force myself to grade ten more papers in the next 2 hours, but I can't resist taking a break to encourage you to make your own beef jerky.

I've never really liked store-bought jerky--it's so hard and dog-foodishly over-processed--but in my search for new protein-rich snacks it occurred to me that homemade jerky just might prove the ticket: chewy, portable, salty, sweet, lean, and somewhat naturopath approved. Besides, my toaster oven has a dehydrator setting, and I've been dying to use it. (As it turns out, the dehydrator is nifty but the oven is better. But do use dehydrating racks, if you can. They'll save you the mess of wiping down greasy oven racks.) And I am so glad that I tried it out, because this jerky is yummy to eat and painless to make. The hardest part is waiting 24 hours for the strips to marinate and dry so that you can eat them with childish abandon.

After doing some internet research, I decided upon a relatively lean cut of steak (top loin) and a marinade of tamari sauce, sweet chili sauce, agave nectar, and thai fish sauce. The soy and sugar in the marinade aren't ideal healthwise, but they seem important if you want your jerky to be salty-sweet, which most people do. You want a pretty lean cut of meat because fatty jerky is both messy and disgusting. Plus, it will go rancid much faster than leaner beef. The same is true for poultry, so make your turkey jerky (so fun to say aloud) with breast meat.

The only downside is that jerky is a somewhat expensive snack, even homemade. 2 lbs of steak cooks down to around 1 lb of jerky. But compare that to the store brands, and this is a steal. Plus, it's a nice alternative to peanut butter crackers or cheese, and hits the spot if you crave something salty.

Here's the rough recipe:

1 C tamari (or regular soy sauce)

1/2-1 C sweet chili sauce (hot would be great, though)

a couple squirts of agave nectar (or some brown sugar)

2 T fish sauce (optional)

2 lbs lean steak

Freeze the beef for an hour or so, so that it's easier to slice into thin (approximately 1/8 of an inch) slices. Dump the marinade ingredients into a ziplock bag or tupperware and shake to mix. Add the beef, coat completely in marinade, and throw in the fridge overnight.

Sometime the next day, place foil on the bottom of your oven, and preheat your oven to 160 degrees (or 200 degrees with the door slightly cracked). Lightly oil your dehydrating racks or oven racks and place the beef strips in rows on top of them. Leave to dry out. This can take 2-4 hours, depending on how thickly you sliced your jerky. The oven temp is so low that you can go about your business without too much concern. I went to the gym, but maybe I'm reckless with appliances?

Pull the jerky out when its flexible but dry, and the coating is a beautiful dark caramel. Cool completely before storing in a tupperware in your fridge.

This won high ratings from T, and the cat seems pretty interested in it, too. Make some today and your family will love you forever. Or at least until the container is empty, at which point you just might make some more...

Taking Deep Breaths and Focusing on the Inner Carrot

I'm learning a belated lesson in patience and the evils of superficiality. As my body detoxifies from its fairly benign history of misuse, my skin continues to worsen. I probably have the worst acne of my life right now, and age 15 didn't find me looking too pretty. It's getting difficult to work up the courage to put on my clothes and walk out the door, and even scary to host friends at our house without feeling pressured to cake on concealer and wear my long hair down around my cheeks. Poor T has to deal with a wife who's an emotional wreck with zero self-esteem and listen to my angry tirades against the naturopath who has me looking like this.

But. I'm sticking with it. The no wheat, no dairy, no sugar, no caffeine, all veggies, all meat, all water diet: the wacky nutrition regimen that has me drinking carrot juice and eating broccoli and turkey for breakfast. Because as horrible as this is physically and psychologically, I know it's good for me. And once all of this gunk is out of my body, and once my body is able to digest everything more easily, my skin will improve.

The thing with naturopathic medicine is that it is a slow, creeping process. Americans are used to going to the doctor and coming home with a miracle drug that cures our acne in 3 days; it is not in our collective patient psychology to wait 3 months for improvements to occur. The waiting game is hard. It's hard to wake up each morning, look in the mirror and cry. It's hard to have a gorgeous husband and not begin to question how he can look at you each day with such wonder and love; can such blind passion be real? And it's hard to admit, also, that this problem you're facing is a minor one in the grand scheme of the world, and that you should be grateful to have acne and not leprosy, and to have health insurance and a job and a beautiful man who loves you no matter what you look like. It is so much easier just to take a drug and stop thinking and feeling. And it's even easier to be seduced by our society's dominant ideas about beauty, and to associate one's beauty, or lack thereof, with one's success in the world.

So as I prepare to travel back east this week to visit friends and family, I'm working on finding my self-worth beneath my face and projecting it outward. I'm drinking lots of carrot juice and trying to focus on the positive. And it's hard. But if I'm going to detoxify my body then I might as well detoxify my mind and spirit, too. I think that both of those things have been neglected for a long time, having been filled with negative thoughts and energy.

This doesn't mean I won't wake up tomorrow morning and cry. It doesn't mean I feel proud of my face or that I want to leave the house. But it does mean that I won't let these feelings consume and define me, and I'm going to try really hard to reach that mythic "inner beauty" we're always hearing about.

Besides, I'm going to need to be in a real zen place when my father and grandmother both tell me how horrible I look. Which they'll do. Repeatedly. So that when the inevitable occurs I'll be able to stand there and smile, focusing on the inner carrot. And plotting revenge.

Weird Science

Remember when you were little, and you would mix up a bunch of kitchen ingredients or bathroom supplies or backyard dirt and berries in a container like an amateur alchemist, just for the sheer joy of concocting something new? To see what fantastic, smelly potion you and your compatriots could design? And then dare each other to consume?

I still love doing that in the kitchen. These days I don't mix ketchup and vanilla extract on a double dare, and the only mud pies I like are of the Mississippi variety, but I love perverting other people's recipes and making them my own. My father calls this shit cooking, swearing up and down that this is the Yiddish term for kitchen improvisation. I don't know about that. It sounds like an excuse my Russian great-grandmother came up with to justify Sunday night failures. Still, it's the term that rings in my head every time I tie my apron on and set to deconstructing someone else's recipe, and it always makes me smile.

Now that I'm doing a lot of gluten-free baking, my mad scientist urge has to be curbed a bit. All successful cooking relies on chemistry, but GF baking in particular, because the unusual flours, starches and gums are simulating the protein, taste and texture of wheat gluten. Too much brown rice flour can leave pastry chalky and bitter. A heavy dry:liquid ingredient ratio makes for dry, crumbly inedibles. A heavy liquid:dry ingredient ratio yields mushy goods. Plus, you have to use more flavorings and sweetness to mask the flavor of rice and bean flours. A good recipe is hard to come by, and it's tempting to adopt an orthodox attitude when you find one you like.

The thing is, I just can't do that. Why leave well enough alone when you can put your own unique stamp on something, and then feel extra proud when you succeed in producing something delicious? So, after reading a bunch of GF blogs (I love Gluten Free Girl) and the introductions to trustworthy GF cookbooks, I decided to get jiggy with my muffins.

I need to pause here and mention my love for muffins, and pretty much every other carby breakfast treat. I love scones, rolls, buns, biscuits, croissants, tarts, savory pastries, even toast with really good butter, or mashed avocado and lemon juice, or crushed tomatoes and garlic. Breakfast just isn't the same without a wheaty companion, and I've been eying my recent egg and veggie breakfasts with lackluster appetite. So I allow myself to splurge on Sundays, which is when we go to the in-laws for brunch. My father-in-law is a rail of a man who disdains dietary guidelines, and so their house is a wonderland of salty, buttery, white-floured foods. It's pretty much impossible to follow any sort of diet there, and so rather than sit and mope while everyone else indulges (I tried that, and it was terrible), I've started bringing goodies that we can all share.

Truthfully, my goodies have run the gamut from delicious to "eh," but I think this week's sour cream apple muffins with grated coconut and toasted walnuts will be a hit. And what's so cool about them is that they worked--they rose, fluffy and moist, with a tender, slightly sweet crumb--even though I threw a bit of this in and a bit of that in, and basically turned my nose up at the GF gospel of no alterations. I did start with Annalise Robert's phenomenal recipe for a brown rice baking mix (I mix up big batches and keep it in my pantry) and I drew inspiration from her pumpkin muffin recipe and Gluten-Free Girl's sour cream apple muffins. But then I changed the sugar to honey and reduced the amount, added some vanilla extract and cardamom, used pureed apples, added some sour cream and molasses (it gives the apples a kick), and 2 big handfuls of unsweetened coconut and toasted walnuts. The best part? I didn't measure a thing once the leavening and flours were in the bowl.

There's something liberating about using your own kitchen sense to concoct something that will warm people's hearts and tummies, and something so satisfying in recognizing that you're learning to work with new materials, and doing so well. Baking is the best way to set a poor day aright.

Here are my muffins. Enjoy!

Sour Cream Apple Muffins with Coconut and Toasted Walnuts

1 1/4 cups brown rice flour mix
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon xanthan gum
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg or cardamom
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
water as needed
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons Canola oil
2 tablespoons molasses
approximately 1 C apple puree or sauce
1/2 C honey
couple handfuls each unsweetened coconut and toasted walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry and wet ingredients separately. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Don't leave floury pockets in the bowl, but don't over-mix because this will lead to drier muffins. Scoop batter into a greased muffin tin (go ahead and fill it to the top) and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when you insert it into the middle of a muffin. Remove from the pan and leave to cool on a rack.

Eat with a warm cup of chai and your sweetie by your side. Or, at least with the chai. Let's get our priorities straight here.