I love my family more than anything in the world, but after braving the gizzards and innards of Thanksgiving Day, I decided to have my own holiday feast.
A week later, the menu was set. I’d already OD’ed on the oven-charred vegetables, heavy sauces and starchy sides of the season, so I went for a light-yet-festive Mediterranean theme. The centerpiece was going to be seitan kebabs.
On feast day, I prepared a marinade and opened the packets of seitan expecting solid blocks, like tofu, that I could cut-up. What I found resembled shredded chicken. Skewer that?! I took a deep breath, stepped back, and went to my bookshelf. Read more…
One of the treasures I discovered on my last trip to the Strand Bookstore was an early edition of Great Cooking, by the Food Editor of Essence Magazine, Jonell Nash. I really like her recipes, writing style, and philosophy.
Nash advocates a varied vegetable, fruit, and grain-based diet, and spent years reformulating traditional recipes in order to “keep the rich, familiar taste” yet “lose the heaviness” of African-American, Southern, and Caribbean food. Fat, salt and sugar were cut to make room for more herbs, spices, and fresh ingredients.
Nash has a blog on the Essence website, and her first post is about Meatless Mondays–a widespread, Oprah-endorsed campaign to abstain from meat on Mondays to live a healthier life and conserve resources.
I am really excited about the idea of carnivores welcoming vegetarianism into their lives on a regular basis, and wonder just how far it will go.
It has been four months since I went vegan, and I feel better–physically and mentally–than I have in a long time. And (knock on wood) I have not gotten sick once–even though every day someone else comes down with a flu or cold.
I hope more people will catch on and get hooked, just like I did!
Last night I enjoyed some veggie tacos made with blue corn taco shells. They were very tasty, especially after toasting in the oven for a minute. It has been a while since I’ve had crunchy tacos. I pretty much only eat the ones my mom makes, at my request, when I visit her. For many Americans my age, it is a comfort food that we grew up with.
Back in the day, a chicken taco was pretty exotic.
So, as I was enjoying my blue corn tacos filled with spicy red cabbage slaw, black beans, sprouts and shredded zucchini, I was reminded of an awesome essay from the cookbook Nuevo Tex Mex, by David Garrido and Robb Walsh. It introduced the taco chapter, and was titled: The Taco Dichotomy: Soft vs. Crunchy.
According to the authors, the biggest difference between Mexican food and Tex-Mex is crunch:
” Mexicans don’t care much about crunch. And on this side of the border, we are crunchaholics. Maybe Americans like crunchy foods because we crave stimulation. Maybe crunching relieves stress. Whatever the reason, Americans have had a long love affair with salty, crunchy foods.”
Whether its the crunchy, bright yellow, prepackaged shells filled with shredded cheddar, iceberg lettuce, diced tomato and sour cream of my childhood; or the tiny, soft, white tortillas wrapped around tender chunks of grilled steak–dressed simply with radishes and lime–that I experienced in Baja California many years later, I love tacos.
The trick is that, this time around, I enjoy tacos without the ground beef, steak, cheese or obligatory dollop of sour cream; which opens up a whole new universe of tacos. In my head I am already picturing my next dinner party, and all the fun taco toppings I want to try.
I got some phenomenal recipe ideas from Garrido’s book–like mushroom salsa. I also want to try some of my own ideas, like saffron-tinged garbanzos, cilantro-lime cashew ricotta, creamy chipotle corn slaw, seitan ropa vieja, nopalitos, rajas in tomatillo sauce, potatoes pipian, black bean falafel, jicama pico, pumpkin and raisin adobo, and last but not least, guacamole…all laid out accross the table to be sampled in limitless combinations!
If you were invited, what would YOU bring?
To inspire you, here’s a hilarious commentary on the modern taco shell by George Lopez. Fast forward to the 4:40 mark.
