WATERCRESS CURRY LAKSA

 

Although I had it afterwards in the W. Village of NYC (somewhere on Christopher St.), but the original kind and first ever for this amazing soup was tasted abroad when I visited my friend Adeline, an Australian-Chinese I met in S. Korea, now back and living in her hometown of Singapore City, and she said it should be the first thing I tried. Laksa is a Singaporean food icon composed of sambal shrimp paste that's dissolved in coconut milk broth infused with lemongrass and sesame chili oil - the base immersion for egg noodles, pickled vegetables and shellfish catch of the day. I did a vegan version today, and reminiscing my past travels, I surrendered happily to my hunger, drinking the hot-sour-gingery-garlicky-spicy-pickle sweet-richly exotic-super food soup straight from the bowl. My laksa had swimming in it these aquatic greens (so ancient in its nutrients; watercress has been around since Roman times); slices of starfruit for sour; salted chickpeas and rice for heft; and for broth flavor, tomato paste and coconut milk with curry powder and chili pepper flakes, tons, and lime oil float (leaving a wedge in the hot pot, thus rendering it unctuous). And with chopsticks fervor, caught them all to the last bite. (P.S. A good friend from upcountry gave me the watercress and the tomato paste, and because she loves "Indian" food, which incidentally Singapore's tripartite culture includes India, Chinese and Malay the other two, this post is gratefully dedicated to her.)

Workaholism defined in culinary context according to Sean Brock, superstar southern chef, is “the actual opportunity to contribute to something I love, and I can achieve it while staying happy and healthy— and that’s success, because you are creating newer emotions.” Piping hot soup is my medicine food without a prescription. At food stalls in Shanghai, I remember inside traditional wet markets, at the height of humid summer locals drank hot tea and seemed to enjoy sweating it out with the grueling day. Why? They believe gustatory heat ventilated the body and opened the respiratory pores, thus releasing free radicals and toxins, and you're breathing well. A Japanese former coworker in New York drank hot water frequently everyday, never cold, and she was at the time already in her seventies yet looking late forties, with tightest of facial skin and ever so energetic, a consummate workaholic, not ever in caffeinated energy, but ever in "thermal" energy within her soul. My favorite food when I was living in S. Korea was kong-na-mul guk-bap, beansprouts soup with rice served in a sizzling stone bowl (dolsot), with raw egg on the side for tearing in rough flakes of crispy seaweeds and then adding them to the bubbling soup for its healing effects. Winters in Korea were pretty brutal (meteorologically affected by the Siberian vortex), and therefore this hot herbal-like guk was the savior of the day...

       

January is mild and rainy on Maui and it’s perfect soup weather— especially perfect after a cold early morning swim at Iao Valley. I love the proximity of the mountain and waterfalls where I live, and every time I’m exercising there my heart is filled. And so with hot nutritious soup, and with ingredients grown local put in my cooking, I give this love back into my body. I don’t go out much, and I cook all my food at home. And friends share so much with me. Ohana is an expression here in Hawaii which means a community of extended family where you belong. And again, borrowing from Sean Brock, "what life should mean to you... begins with two."  Sharing. Finally, his guiding philosophy was adopted from Alfred Adler, a contemporary of Freud and Jung, and simplified for him the purpose and meaning of life by contribution— to share in your best talent to others; and your food (as for me). And this will be the beginning of your principal connection and place in the universe of life.

“Heaven is a place of tireless creativity but each for the joy of working, and each, in his separate star, and will paint the thing as he sees it for the God of things as they are!”     - Kipling

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Mon Chéri

I have to honor the food I have with love. They're beautiful. And I can’t get any luckier. The play, Ah Wilderness!, by Eugene O'Neill, (I just finished reading it), surely had inspired me to feel this way - "Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!/That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!" Lounging all day with the book, a storm was suddenly approaching the island with forceful wind gust smashing the curtains, so I got up and shut the windows in several rooms at risk of rain spray. And returning to reading, I got hungry. Inspecting the fridge was cooked rainbow linguine begging for a good sauce. I have salted butter, I have fresh sage. And how about the surinam cherries for contrast tart? The shrub grows in the side yard of my place and they’re edible delicious ripe when deep red. And ’tis the season! Alas, that was quick and satisfactory dinner— twirling and mopping the plate of beurre blanc in the pasta, and literally the fruits just picked, from branch to my mouth, explode c'est bon. (Simply put: melt a decent chunk of butter in a pan with the chopped herb and lightly fry the sage, and then coat the pasta liberally with the sauce, adding crushed black pepper and chili flakes, mixing them all in with a tong and letting all the aromatic emulsions absorb every strand. Transfer to a square bistro plate. Arrange the cherries on top and around as pretty as pretty can be. Eat; marry into eating.)  

"They do not know the secret in the poet's heart. Food! I love the sand, and the trees, and the grass and the water and the sky, and the moon... it's all in me and I'm in it... God, it's so beautiful! We'll go to some far-off wonderful place ... somewhere out on the long trail - the trail that is always new ... [and] we'll watch the dawn come up like thunder..." 

The porch screen door rattles and detritus leaves and bougainvillea flowers blow in the hallway; victuals of the biosphere make their entrance into the kitchen narrative of my home. Poetry feeds too. And I did my part before the break of day at the refuge, the morning after the rain, rebuilding the collapse wall of stones protecting the forest pool. Like in the play, hard work replaces prayers, that all is forgiven, because the mountain hears. The downstream current was strong and I slipped dropping my heavy load, there was a breach, but I didn't wash away. I was saved. It was like... I was in the belly of the poem. And I was food. 

 

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GATHERING

 A small group of friends came and filled the table with cheer. And the colors and music, everything, kept up with Christmas. There was talk of pomegranates and figs unavailable at the store. All of us wore red. Pistachio and green onions paella was served traditional. Petite fudge cakes in the tin box. Flute glasses of ginger soda. Pine cone centerpiece (a gift from upcountry) glittered with stars. Priceless reaction. Silver and blue lights wrapped around the rocks, in place of tree. Toasting and picture-taking - To good times...

Medjool dates, sugared cranberries, and candied cashews. The vibrance of salad. A circle of hands in prayer around the table. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in a poem that the best anniversaries in life were what's celebrated and remembered in the silence of the heart. Decaf coffee is brewing in anticipation of the pineapple-queso fresco-crumble-pudding especial. If you love, love by quality, the aspect of your gathering...

Take this home. Reading the cards, opening the presents with tears. Unexpected fireworks outside the window, like popping a champagne. Singing along the Sound of Music album on the record player, songs of old lines you know. Washing and wiping dishes together. Saying goodbye with a deep hug. And waiting and waving as the cars drive out. Last night I wrote in my diary that the future has come early for this child...       

 

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ODE TO LEMON

ODE TO LEMON

Poetry is a Language that can’t be drawn from either. Think of a sugared citron. Or a Mario Batali lemon mousse. Yes, the magic in creation is evident in the created — beauty, taste achievement, sparkles in your eyes — but the feeling is elusive, love is offered up. What is writing without a lemon? What is cooking without a friend? Pick up a dead critter in the kitchen. Marvel at Dave Chappelle. It is impossible to never mind the pain. The lemon is still in the fridge, topside off, squeezed to lift the flavor of the crushed tomato gazpacho yesterday. Semantically the leftover fruit is the poet’s connection to the source of a poem. If only she’ll be there.

🍋

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NAPA CABBAGE IN DASHI AND MUSTARD

   Inspired by avid love for Japanese cuisine and binge-watching of Tokyoite food shows, this consommé was served for lunch today and was a hit. This traditional broth is vegan using whole petite sweet potatoes and Napa cabbage (just the lower half portion around the stem) as stock ingredients, and boiling them down together tightly, the former will render sweetness, the latter succulence. In the show, stuffed cabbage rolls were being prepared filled with shirataki (root noodles) and mushrooms and cooked holubtsi-style, the rolls dunked in clear boiling soup for fifteen minutes and once done, smothered on a plate with rich tomato sauce Ukrainian-style (Chef Saito, of the show, is a fusionist - yoshoku, melding western and eastern influences in his restaurant oeuvre. Enter dijon honey mustard to finish the soup, with sage and red chili pepper leaves. This soup is light but nourishing, and its flavor cosmopolitan. Veselka, in the E. Village of New York, was one of my favorite restaurants in the city. The name in translation means rainbow- no coincidence. 

The main dish I prepared with this soup had a condiment reminiscent of borscht ordered from Veselka (a cold beet soup with cucumbers, scallions and yogurt), yet in my small salad were the citric cukes and some segments of mandarin oranges with their zest (again, east meets west). On the plate is an ensemble of sprouted brown rice perfumed with basil stems, and broiled eggplant and zucchini frittata served with a thick dot of its own drippings, delicious with the palate cleaning dry borscht. One of the last food books Chef James Beard would write was about his "delights and prejudices" in the experience of cooking "as an analysis of good eating against fancy eating." America's culinary authority ultimately wrote about the renaissance of the all-American cuisine with the emphasis on tradition and terroir (of the land provided seasonally), reflected in a memoir based on his bon vivant lifestyle, the world's traditional food his teacher, and the musings from his childhood in Oregon, a frontier landscape bountiful of local fisheries and wild forages, ever to shape his poetry of good food and good eating, from his weathered hands and heart. This food blog has been, in an inspired way, a diary of that sort, travel writing from here to my fond past memories of the world - and above all this love and appetite is, as well, my food for poetry, and for poetry to my food.              

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