The Best American Poetry

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Lisa Vihos

L-R: Illia Mazurek, Lisa Vihos, Georg Vihos  (Photo by Stephan Mazurek)

I met Lisa Vihos when David and I visited Lakeland College in Wisconsin last October.  We were in a workshop together and I loved her poems.  Later we talked about food and cooking and I was thrilled when she agreed to contribute a recipe. Lisa's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Free Verse, Lakefire, Wisconson People and Ideas, Seems, and Big Muddy.  She loves to cook for family and friends (see how happy she is in the photo above, with her sister and dad?). Lisa maintains a weekly poetry blog here. And here's what she has to say about this week's recipe for spinach pie:

I learned how to make spinach pie from my paternal grandmother, Irene Vihos, who was born on the island of Melos and came to America in 1932 as a young woman with a small daughter and very limited English. My grandfather was already here, slinging hash in a Greek diner in Detroit. My father was not yet born. When I knew my Yaya, she lived on Avery Street in a dark house filled with old things. The bright spot in all this darkness was the kitchen, where she served nose-tickling Vernor’s ginger ale in colored metal tumblers and cooked up dandelion greens she had picked along the roadside, drizzled with olive oil and lemon. In the bright kitchen in the dark house, my Yaya taught me to make a puff pastry for spinach pie. She did not teach me to roll individual thin sheets of phyllo dough, though recipes for this can be found on the Internet. I am told there is one bakery in New York that still makes fresh phyllo. I switched to frozen phyllo in my twenties and never turned back. I like Athens brand, available in any grocery store.

A Note About Phyllo

Phyllo can be one of the most maddening substances on earth. After making many dozens of spinach pies in my life, here is what I have learned about it: Like a recalcitrant child, the phyllo dough will constantly be telling you, “you are not the boss of me!” And just as you would do with a child, you must lovingly push onward and let it know in the kindest of ways that in fact, you are the boss, and it is going to have to do your bidding.

It helps immensely to properly follow the thawing instructions as written on the box. Take it out of the freezer two hours before you will use it, just like it says. Do not try putting the phyllo in direct sunlight for a 20-minute speed thaw. Plan ahead! 

Have all the ingredients mixed and ready before you open the phyllo package. Don’t be leaving your phyllo exposed to the air while you are melting butter or mixing spinach or anything like that. If you must leave your phyllo unattended to go to the bathroom, answer the phone, or help a child tie a shoe, make sure to cover the sheets with a clean, dry dish towel to protect them from the air.

Work quickly and stay calm. A few sheets may stick together. A few sheets may end up in shreds. No matter. If you keep your wits about you and just keep pushing on, you will end up with a spinach pie. I have made a whole pie from shreds and a few well-placed sheets that kept their shape!  Remember, butter is your friend and can be used to glue everything together if need be.

In the making of spinach pie, as in life, there are no mistakes! Only reminders to pay closer attention to detail next time. Be quick, but not sloppy. Mend when mending is required. Do not skimp on butter. Stay calm. Be kind and gentle. Do not tear into fragile things. Share. Spinach pie tastes best when eaten with friends. Yasoo!

Lisa’s Yaya’s Spinach Pie

1 lb. package frozen phyllo dough

3 10 oz. packages frozen chopped spinach

8 oz. feta cheese, crumbled

24 oz.. container small curd cottage cheese (sometimes, I only use ¾ of it and I eat the rest for lunch)

2 eggs, beaten

2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

1.5 sticks of butter, melted (approximately - if anything you will need more)

3 Tbls chopped fresh dill (optional)

Remove phyllo from freezer at least two hours before you will be making your spinach pie and leave it on the kitchen counter to thaw. (Read the instructions on the box. They know what they are talking about! See “A Note About Phyllo” above.) Preheat the oven to 375. Melt 1.5 sticks of butter on low heat and keep it melted but watch so it doesn’t burn.

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Phoebe Putnam

me in Jaipur.

Hi all!  I want to share with you my favorite home-cooked Indian dish, which at home my husband calls "my mom's spinach," because no one in India, apparently, but Uttam's mom makes this particular spinach dish.  She invented it.

Now let me be absolutely honest:  when Uttam and I first went to India, he was very excited for me to taste his "mom's spinach," and I was rather less excited.  I don't like saag, the Punjabi dish that is creamy and mushy and dark brown and redolent of cloves.  I just don't have a taste for it.  So I was relieved and delighted when my future mother-in-law set before us little bowls of brothy, tomato-y spinach, hot and fresh tasting, flavored with cumin and flecked with golden drops of ghee, and a tall stack of soft, gently toasted chapthis.  We ate it in 120 degree weather, just before the monsoon season, on the cool marble floor of their great room, fans whirring, cross-legged, with our fingers.  But I think it's perfect for winter too, and hope you'll try it soon.

Braised Greens in Buttery Tomato Broth (& fast fresh bread!)

Cooking time: ~ 45 min, start to finish, serves 2-4.

INGREDIENTS

SPICES

We can all agree that the intimidating thing about Indian food is the feeling that there are all these spices.  But the good news is that this is a fiction.  There aren't all these spices.  There are really only 5 important ones, and you use at least four of them every time you cook.  The secret of cooking Indian food at home is this little round tin; no cooking happens in Indian homes without it

 

This little tin is the best.  It sits on top of our microwave, over our stove, and is much nicer than fiddling with a lot of screw tops.  Mine has my name engraved on it because my husband is romantic like that, but a regular one costs about $7.  The spices should run you about $2-4 per bag in an Indian grocery store.

Going clockwise, starting with the container with the spoon, you'll want to have on hand:  

1. Mustard seeds; 2. Cumin seeds (whole).  3. Turmeric. 4. Salt.  5. Cayenne pepper.  6. & 7. The two lumpy beige powders are cumin powder (in the center) and coriander powder.  In terms of #s 1-5, these don't vary from home to home.  #s 6-7: Someone might substitute something else for the cumin powder, which I like, but basically you'll always have the others.  

OTHER INGREDIENTS:

- When you're buying the tin and spices, also buy a small bag of "atta" (whole wheat flour), & a jar of ghee (you can use butter if you like but ghee is nicer).  Think how cool you'll look going up to the shopkeeper and asking for atta!  (pronounched AH-ta).

- Two bags of fresh baby spinach

- 1 jar of canned tomatoes (doesn't matter how big; you won't use all of it)

- 1 lemon

- A little olive oil

COOKING! 

easy easy easy.  ready?

1. Fast Fresh Bread first.  Put some flour in a bowl, 1-2 cups.  Add a 3-4 tablespoons of water.  1 tsp oil.  1 pinch salt.  Rub it all together until it's a very dry ball about the size of a grapefruit.  It shouldn't be sticky, wet, glistening.  If it is, add more flour. You want it quite dry, just holding together in a ball. Cover, set it aside. 

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Rob Shore

all photos by Bradd Shore

We met Rob Shore in May, 2008, during a trip to Mongolia where he was working as a Peace Corps volunteer. Today Rob lives in Atlanta, Georgia where he is a writer, producer, and photographer.  His essays are forthcoming in Harvard University Press and the Peace Corps at 50 Anniversary Story Project and his photography has appeared in Fifth Wednesday Journal and elsewhere.  Rob is at work on a documentary film series about American family rites of passage, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  He graduated from Emory University in 2006 with degrees in anthropology and film. See more of his work here.  Rob has this to say about cooking and today's recipe for ceviche:

From 2006-2008 I lived alone in a yurt on the Mongolian steppe.  My desire to cook was more out of nutritional necessity than any inherent interest.  A diet consisting of boiled sheep’s innards, dried milk curd, and the odd potato, carrot, or onion, is enough to drive anyone to culinary experimentation. 

In Mongolia I made peace with meat’s more cute and cuddly exteriors, as opposed to the cling-wrap and Styrofoam of American grocery stores.  I learned to sharpen knives on the underside of bowls and mugs.  The militarily punitive aspects of potato peeling were replaced by a deep affection for the Zen-like rhythms of the chore. 

Today, I cook because it is one of ways in which my mother and I relate as adults. I cook because good, home-cooked food is an incontrovertible excuse to drink good wine. I cook because people don’t expect twenty-something men with unruly hair to have secret ingredients.  I cook because no one else makes it spicy enough.

I like simple recipes that allow for a lot of experimentation and personalization.  I love dishes that are better on the second day, where leftovers can be the main event.  I love fish.

In the summer of 2007 I took up residence next to a river, miles from the village and without a neighbor in sight.  I lived almost solely on what I caught from the river: fat, beautiful rainbow trout.  I learned every conceivable way to prepare them: baked, smoked, sautéed, fried, boiled, stewed, and stuffed in dumplings.  I even took the risk of trying trout sashimi-style.  No cooking method, however, satisfied as much as cleaning a freshly caught fish, sprinkling it with salt and pepper, and laying it over the hot coals of a fire built on the banks of the river. 

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Sloane Miller

all photos©Christopher Labzda

Sloane Miller and I were in grad school together though she studied poetry and I prose.  Since then, she's used her love of language and writing, food and cooking to transform herself into an effective spokesperson and advocate for people with food allergies.  She's the mastermind behind the Worry-Free Dinners that make it possible for families to dine in popular restaurants without fear of breaking out in hives, or worse.  I was thrilled when Sloane agreed to contribute to Much Depends . . . Here's what she has to say about cooking and today's recipe: 

SLOANE'S FIVE INGREDIENTS OR LESS COLORFUL VEGETARIAN MEDLEY         

 

As someone with food allergies since birth, I'm acutely aware of what I am eating every moment of every day. Embracing that awareness/food-fear and transforming it into a love of food fostered a deep respect and love for the art of cooking. I started getting serious about cooking when I was 16. I had become a vegetarian because of palate fatigue (I just couldn’t eat another burger) and immersed myself in the then current literature about being a healthy vegetarian. My first two bibles were Moosewood  and Diet for a Small Planet. Moosewood was especially freeing. Every page was filled with a call to arms: “Here’s the recipe, but change it if you like; go, play.”

 

I became the family cook because no one knew what a food allergic vegetarian could eat. I read cookbooks for fun and watched PBS shows like The Frugal Gourmet instead of doing homework. I went to culinary school to learn French culinary technique. I threw elaborate dinner parties and brunches; I baked my own bread and made my own preserves. I stayed a healthy vegetarian for 17 years. (NB: I added meat back into my diet recently.)

 

Even though I have food allergies  (or perhaps because of), I love to talk about, think about, read about and learn about food. Some of my happiest childhood memories involve cooking. I loved to watch my bubby as she deftly poured pancake batter so it would cook in the shape of a bunny or Mickey Mouse. What a master! When I was a little older I was sous chef for my father as he made pounds of “Daddy Pasta” in his loft on 18th street: fusilli pasta, ground veal, peas, sautéed garlic and onions, sesame oil and cups of Parmesan cheese. For so many of us, cooking and togetherness go hand in hand.

For my blog, Allergic Girl  and my food allergy coaching and consulting business,  Allergic Girl Resources, Inc, I dine out between five and ten times a week. But when I dine at home, I want colorful, attractive, nutritious, healthy, low fat, whole food and inexpensive dishes made with as few ingredients as necessary. These recipes use little-to-nothing processed industrially, highlight local, seasonal produce and you can make them within about 30 minutes from walking in the door.

 

Like Moosewood, I say, add and subtract flavors or components as you see fit. No chard? Use purple kale or spinach. No apples? Pears are fab. No rice? What about quinoa, barley, amaranth, or buckwheat noodles. No sweet potato? Pumpkin or any winter squash totally works. Spicy chickpeas not your thing? Here are five other chickpea versions from the  New York Times. Don’t like spicy? Just warm beans and add more olive oil and some kosher salt and pepper (even some lemon works). Don’t like beans? Sub another veg protein like tofu. See how it easy it is?

 

MISE EN PLACE

First, get your mise en place. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees for the sweet potato fries. Chop garlic,

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Shaindel Beers

Here's our second post in what I hope will be an ongoing series featuring writers who cook.  If you would like to contribute, please send me an e-mail at bestampo@gmail.com.

Shaindel Beers and I have never met but we're Facebook friends and over the past several months I've been impressed with her updates describing and picturing her cooking adventures.  She immediately came to mind as a contributor to this series.  OK so the picture above has nothing to do with today's recipe but I couldn't resist posting a photo of Shaindel after landing a steelhead.  Here's what she has to say about cooking and today's recipe for Poets' Quiche: I started cooking when I was about eight years old because that's when my mother had my younger brother Aaron and was very busy. I think I felt grown up helping because there was a baby in the house. It's also coincidentally about the time I could reach the stove on my own. I'm the oldest of four, so the one problem I run into with cooking is that I frequently make enough to feed an army. Lee (my husband) and I aren't opposed to leftovers, so luckily this works out well.

I like to cook because it's my quiet time alone in the kitchen. When I'm doing something really time-consuming like canning, I set my laptop on the dining room table and listen to The New Yorker's fiction podcasts. There's something magical about being told a story when you're cooking. It's either that, or singing along with great female singer-songwriters like Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, Lucinda Williams, and others. Then it's like hanging out with all the female friends you've ever had while working. Yes, I've been known to belt out "Coal-Miner's Daughter" while at the cutting board.

I also like cooking because (to me) it's a solitary activity like writing. You can experiment and see if something's working before you share it. If you experiment and things go horribly wrong, no one has to know, just like no one has to know about first drafts. It's also a terrific way of sharing yourself. A lot of people don't seem to really cook any more, so they're impressed when you do. I recently processed about fifty pounds of apples into apple sauce and apple butter. I gave apple butter to my hairdresser and the man who mows my lawn, and they were so grateful. A woman on Twitter offered to drive an hour to buy apple butter from me. I told her not to make a special trip, but if she's ever in town, I'll just give her a jar. Last weekend, I canned nine quarts of apple juice from apples that I'd picked that day. I brought in a pitcher of juice for people in my office. This weekend, I'm going to try canning apple pie filling. One of my students told me during office hours that she does that, so I'm going to give it a try. If all goes well, that might be what my office suite-mates get for Christmas this year.

There's a contentedness in being self-sufficient that I think people in rural communities understand. Recently, at an author event, I shared a table with a cookbook author, and there were samples of her salmon dip available. The event was near where I go fishing, so I asked if she had caught the salmon, and she laughed and said, "These are supposed to be quick and easy recipes! It's canned salmon." The last steelhead I caught was two years ago, so it certainly isn't the quick and easy way, but it's the way I'd like it to be for more people. I caught the fish, Lee smoked it, and I brought some to the office with cream cheese and crackers.

 

 This recipe is something I came up with last week because I had an overabundance of eggs and leftovers from the garden. One of my friends nicknamed it "Poets' Quiche." The great thing about this recipe is you can pretty much use any type of bread--I've used cubed French bread, leftover garlic bread. You can use frozen spinach, you can have a layer of cooked sausage. Pretty much, anything works, so have fun with it!

Poets' Quiche

2 slices of bread (I used wheat)
1 red pepper
2 orange peppers
12 cherry tomatoes
10 eggs
approximately 1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of shredded mozarella cheese
black pepper and salt to liking

Lightly oil bottom of 9" pie plate. Tear up two slices of bread and line bottom of pie plate with bread. Slice peppers into rings, halve cherry tomatoes, and place on top of bread layer. Sprinkle with mozarella cheese. Beat eggs thoroughly and mix in milk and salt and pepper, if desired. Pour mixture over bread, vegetable, and cheese layers. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until cooked through in center.

I serve with sour cream and hot sauce, but then I serve everything with sour cream and hot sauce. Enjoy!

Thanks, Shaindel.

--sdh

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Grace Cavalieri

With this post we inaugurate a new series to showcase poets who cook.  We're delighted that Grace Cavalieri agreed to be our first contributor. Grace founded and  produces "The Poet and the Poem," now recorded at the Library of Congress for public radio. Her series celebrates its 32nd consecutive year on-air.  Grace and co-author Sabine Pascarelli have just published The Poet's Cookbook, with photographs by Dan Murano (A Solitary Moment).  The Poet's Cookbook includes full menus with more than 75 recipes for Antipasti, Minestre, Primi Piatti , Secondi Piatti, Verdure, Insalate, and Dolci.

Here's what Grace has to say about today's recipe:

Pomodori Ripieni is something my mother used to make. She even made this for my lunch when I came home from school. In the first part of the 20th century, there were no lunch rooms and cafeterias, no "Subway" or sandwich shops. Children walked home from school and back in one short hour. Nettie made Pomodori for me on toast. I guess that was our version of an open-face sandwich. 　Nettie's family　came from Sicily and my father, Angelo, who was truly a great chef, came from near Venice. If there were a class war between regions of Italy, it was never in the kitchen. This is the place that always smelled wonderful.

Dan Murano arranged these tomatoes beautifully in the pan. Mine are not always as symmetrical.

Stewed Tomatoes – Pomodori Ripieni

• 8 Fresh tomatoes
• 2 Cloves Garlic
• ½ cup of mixed herbs (parsley, basil and garlic ground together)
• 1/8 lb butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1 T olive oil

Cut tomatoes across in half. Scoop out seeds. Lay first layer in large pan. In place of seeds add the herb mixture and a dot of butter in each pocket. Place another layer of tomatoes on top. Drizzle with olive oil. Put ¼ cup water in bottom of pan, cover and cook on low for 45 minutes. Serves 4-6.

All photos by Dan Murano