Beginning End Again

I decided then and there after a cursory squint at a new recipe, that I was going to eat a burger. Only after purchasing the ingredients and making the patties did I pause long enough to realize that this demarcated a first meal of sorts. Times when I considered the various possibilities for a hypothetical euphemistic last meal, I have inevitably looked towards foods which throw all caution to the wind. Foods of extreme expense, from hard to reach locations, which create a sensatory experience that touches on the wonders of being alive. First meals seem to be altogether another kind of animal born of innocence, symbolic observances tinged with hopeful glad tidings. Certainly they must stand on different territory than anything associated with longing and imminent death. But too late for all that, I had unconsciously selected a non-symbolic burger and suddenly the day was upon me- the first day of spring, my first colonoscopy, and the subsequent need to break the fast.

Going a little deeper I shouldn’t be all that surprised with my choice. After all I still look upon my days working at Burger King with a special gush of fondness. As gatekeeper to the French fry world I felt that I held an important position which deserved to be amply rewarded at break time when I would lower my mantle of responsibility and just go cow crazy. More significant than maintaining order at the salad bar or dispensing orders at neck breaking pace, learning the ins and outs of having it your way opened my eyes to a permissive world of individual taste with its rousing provocation for variation. Dare I add that tangentially I began to understand a little bit about propriety as well? There is actually time and appropriate place for a Whopper with cheese, extra everything minus the meat. So while initially I may have embarked upon this life with some hard fast rules about hamburger, fillings and the importance of a good seeded bun my ideas have expanded somewhat. Move over extra pickle; clear the way ketchup, git along cheddar and bacon. While I still crave a good burger, it is now more often than not stuffed with wholesome and considerate sunflower seeds, whole grains and even some carrots too.

But as much as I relish the veggie burger and rely upon them with more regularity than I care to admit, I felt this nagging inner voice dissatisfied with my rather mundane choice. Had I really fasted for just about two whole days in which I salivated over everything that practically moved, to break the fast which happened to coincidentally fall upon the first day of spring and also preceded Good Friday, the End before the Great Beginning… with a veggie burger?

Well yes I did, and satisfyingly so. My mind drifted back to the catchy Have it Your Way jingle and I couldn’t help feeling a little foolish falling for the inducement to always want something more. And this is often how I go about chasing the world: a pluck of color, a splash of flavor, a galloping hunger to taste something new and alive. Sometimes it happens too that one stops tasting and seeing, and all difference becomes strangely the same. And the real asking and meeting is on the razor’s edge between end and beginning.

Mushroom Quinoa Burger makes about 8 patties: adapted from Epicurious.

Ingredients:
1/3 C quinoa
2/3 C water
1 small red pepper chopped fine
1 small onion chopped fine
10 oz. chopped mushroom of choice
Olive oil
1 can of chickpeas, liquid drained
4 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
½ C dried bread crumbs
1/3 C oatmeal
6 porcini mushrooms ground into a powder with spice grinder
1 tsp. toasted ground cumin
1 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
1 egg
Salt and pepper

1 C dried bread crumbs

½ C mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. Chipotle Tabasco
2 tsp. ketchup

Directions: Put quinoa and water in a saucepan and simmer for about 15 minutes until the grain is translucent and cooked through. Wipe mushrooms clean and remove the stem end (I usually only chop off the very end unless it is apparent that the stem is too tough to eat) and quickly blitz in a food processor. Heat up fry pan over medium heat and add a tablespoon or so of oil. Add pepper, onions, and mushrooms along with a touch of salt. Fry vegetable mixture up until onions sweat and mushrooms give off their moisture, about 8-10 minutes. Add mixture to a medium sized bowl along with the cooled quinoa. Meanwhile drain the chickpeas and blitz in a food processor until more pasty than chunky. Stop before the chickpeas are completely smooth. Add this bean mixture to the vegetables. Add the cilantro, bread crumbs, oatmeal, porcini powder, cumin, nutritional yeast, egg, and salt and pepper. Mix through. Set up two plates, one scattered with the remaining cup of bread crumbs and the other to receive. Make approximately ½ inch thick, 3 inch wide patties and coat on all sides with the crumbs. Allow them to rest on the plate and cover with wrap before placing in the refrigerator overnight to firm up. To make the chipotle mayonnaise, mix together the mayo, Tabasco, and the ketchup. When ready to eat, heat up a good heavy weight pan or non stick pan to medium high and add a few tablespoons of oil until shimmering. Carefully load up the burgers and cook until golden on one side before flipping and browning the other. I am sorry to say that I don’t quite remember the time involved. Epicurious recipe says about 4 minutes total, but I recall more than that for each side. I trust you will cook it just right! I will say that I cooked my burgers this way and also with the Forman Grill, and hands down the FG was my favorite creating a great crust. Either way this is a great tasting burger with or without all the fixings wherever you are beginning, middle, or end.

Like Moth to a Flame

Groping through the dark leather landscape of my mother’s pocket purse as if on secret mission, my small groping hands flutter atop compact and facial tissues before settling upon the sharp tell tale crinkle of a cellophaned buttery Brach bow. As a child, spaces big and small loomed large like a puzzle to be inhabited and understood. This was not the quest of a swashbuckling conqueror full of grace and bravado, but rather the impulse sprung from an unnamed place bounded by fear of the unknown and boredom with the familiar.

Sometimes a seemingly unremarkable moment sticks-- longer than a few seconds and gains reverse momentum to still another unremarkable moment in time years earlier. These two points then form a bridge which the mind attempts to pass through repetitively in the hopes to wear a connection. Recently a picture of butterscotch sauce and ice cream, which I have never eaten except as components to a banana split sundae called out; sending me back to a chilly forlorn day made up of shades of grey where I sat pushed on a cold metal swing by my mother. I leave the desolate park hand in hand with her, butterscotch candy the only burst of color in this scene, slowly melting in my mouth. This scratchy recollection shorn down to the bare details, a few frames only manages to captivate me with its striking ominous mood. Like a detective I match this alien feeling, a brutish sky bearing down suggesting a summer storm to come, to other fragmented moments where I rubbed elbows with some yet-to-be-defined sensation. Suddenly I am deluged with snippets of memories of a younger me creeping about, pushing the edge of my small existence: at the silent bottom of a tiled pool, in the tangled decay of woods out back, in the weirdly lit dank basement, exploring my parent’s shadowed closet. Each dark and unsettling interaction with the world, destabilization of that once known, without exception was followed by scared stiff legs bounding back to the safe shores of mother.

Under the present spell of butterscotch, I hypnotically follow my tracks from tottering out of the park that day to now stirring thick golden syrup as it gently cascades billows of confectionary perfume into my kitchen. The taste is smooth and haunting, a lyrical sublime flavor similar to the toffees and caramels consumed in the past but I detect something more. It is longing and nostalgia mixed into the lingering taste of molten butter and sugar. Lulled by the rich color of flaxen honey, I recognize the arms of my mother that were always there, the wide embrace of welcome, the creamy succor of safety, and the enticing promise of sweetness. All those times I discovered that lone piece of candy or stick of gum in the bottom of her sack I pounced upon it- a prize I feared would be seized from me, all attention and focus placed upon extracting the goodness out of it as if life might blossom into something extraordinarily marvelous. My world in its smallness grubbed about pilfering doses of candy, scouring the corners of home looking for the seams to bust out of. I never could have understood or imagined the magnitude of the love of a mother always on the flip side of danger who could give everything, least of all a little sugar- and did.

Butterscotch Sauce makes 2 cups: Adapted from March 2008 issue of Saveur.

I never grew up with anything the likes of this. It is fantastic, buttery and sweet without being too rich or cloying. This sauce already feels like a staple along side the ketchup. I envision plunking, shmearing, and dripping this into everything. And though a food sharer, I paused a moment before passing the spoon…

Ingredients:
8 Tbsp. Unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. Corn syrup
¼ C Water
¾ C Sugar
¼ C Brown sugar
1/3 C Half and half
1 tsp. Brandy
1 tsp. Vanilla
½ tsp. Sea salt

Directions: Put butter, corn syrup, and water in a saucepan over medium low flame. Stir until melted and add both sugars. Scrape down sides and then allow the mixture to come to a boil without further mixing. Syrup will turn a golden brown and when it reaches 245 degrees, remove from heat. Stir in half and half, brandy, vanilla, and salt. Cool and serve over ice cream. Broken pretzels and toasted nuts would be nice.

Slipping Out of Winter

Dare I consider the oyster, bold yet finessed bivalve partial to a bed of ice and a bracing splash of mignonette sauce? I travel on the long bushy tale of winter, weary and still numbed by the cold. The thought of something so ephemeral flitting upon my tongue, splay of a thousand colors, while interesting is ultimately too brilliant for my blunted turned in senses. My favorite briny sweetmeat which quivers in tandem with my own pulse, cradled in concave shell one part porcelain and ‘nother part nature’s fossilized gnarl, captures life’s interplay between humble fragility and arching strength. This pale body loosely formed somehow manages to capture the quickening of senses where taste, impulse, and movement coalesce to form a single diaphanous shape which rises, settles then dissolves into the next lingering moment. Raw unmediated potency.


“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster” -Jonathan Swift

But I’m simply not prepared for such aliveness, for so much personal involvement. I have been in temperature induced torpor and am more in need of gentle ministration. While I listen to the siren song of bony mollusk holding onto tide’s brackish edge, I’ve got my eye fixed upon a restorative elixir which will melt the remaining corners of winter and cast a spell for pleasurable things to come. The formula is simple. A soup with enough body to provide sustenance without overdo, the temperature comfortably hot without scalding tongues, served straight from a teacup- spoons be damned, and flavors whittled down to bare components, uncomplicated, clear, perhaps even the basis of taste.

Barely there onions cooked to a sweet buttery note represent the earth and thereby require the smallest amount of toil. Pre-shucked oysters gently heated turn edgy raw cores into creamy tender pillows-of-the-sea where the focus shifts from the bracing explosion of life to the matrix behind which sustains. Finally, the amalgamation of saline liquors is the primordial milk which binds the entire creation. The entirety puréed and then effortlessly gulped--relief. This slip of a soup, this mineral sweet bisque of faraway place is really the final thing for coming out of winter.

Oyster Bisque
Ingredients:
2 tsp. of butter
½ onion finely chopped
8 oz. of oysters shucked, liquor separated
1 bottle clam juice
1 cup half and half, plus a dribble or so more to taste
Cayenne pepper
Ground pepper and salt
Oyster crackers, buttered toast points

Directions: Melt pat of butter in a pan on medium heat and add the chopped onions with a pinch of salt. Cook until onions are translucent and sweaty. Next add the oysters and continue cooking until their skirts gather and bellies turn opaque. Put into a blender. In a saucepan heat up the clam juice, half and half, and oyster liquor to a simmer. Add some of the hot liquid to the blender until just covered and blitz until smooth. Pour puréed mixture back into the hot cream and heat through adding a pinch of seasonings. Taste and tinker, perhaps even drop in another swoop of butter before promptly ladling into a thin lipped teacup. Oyster crackers and toast optional.