It started with the first snowflakes last week, the Christmas songs I’ve been playing while baking the things that I love to send to my family, and the tangible joy I feel when I roast chestnuts as a street vendor with my husband.
This year there are more and more people who are trying chestnuts for the first time. And loving them.
Knowing that they aren’t nuts, that they are a complete protein (you can live on them), that they’re alkaline, and they contain very little fat might be the reason. Or could it be that they’ve been growing all summer in Italy, so that you are, in fact, eating “Italian Sunshine”?
HOT ROASTED CHESTNUTS!
Without chestnuts, I don’t know if I could handle winter. I’ve made a simple Chestnut soup for dinner tonight. I like easy, simple, and satisfying.
For my family who are far from me every year, I used the recipe that I have for making my Swiss Linzer Torte. But instead of rolling out the dough for the torte, I just pinch off some pieces and roll it in a ball, press down in the middle with my thumb, and fill with raspberry jam, if I have it. And some other kind if I don’t. I bake them for about 15 minutes, and then sprinkle with some of the ground almonds. Everyone loves them. You will too!
We belong to the local “Swiss Club”, where we get together every so often to eat good, traditional Swiss food, chat, watch a movie, and generally have a good time.
One of our friends is a cook in one of the resorts here, and we started to talk about “Rot Kraut”, a favorite fall dish.
Then the whole table took turns telling how they make their version.
Every person had a different way to make it, and everyone was excited and thrilled to hear how. I love those kind of conversations…so much better than trying to top each other on the latest bizarre news of the moment!
I don’t remember eating “Red Cabbage” while growing up in Cleveland. I did eat it in Switzerland though, where people went crazy over it, as a side dish to other fall specialties, like homemade “spaetzli” served with wild boar sausages.
MITSOUKO by Guerlain
So if you like “Red Cabbage”, I think you will love this “recipe” I got from a French house guest we had staying with us. She also was the one who introduced me to the Guerlain perfume house, and my favorite perfume, Mitsouko. I can’t remember her name, it was over 20 years ago, but I will always remember her.
She got this recipe from her great-great grandmother that is absolutely delicious. Funny, but when I told the friend who’s a cook about how I make it, he said he had never heard of doing it like this before with garlic.
By the way, he uses apple sauce…something I will be sure to try in the months to come.
Sadhvi’s Red Cabbage Recipe
1. Take a head of red cabbage and wash, remove any outer leaves that don’t look good, core it, and cut it up into the desired size.
2. If you use a pressure cooker for everything like I do, then you know how to do the timing, etc. If not, throw the cabbage into a big pot with a tight fitting lid.
3. Take a whole head of garlic (or so), peel, and put one or two whole cloves into each piece. This makes taking them out very easy after cooking, because you don’t want the cloves after it’s done. Place them amongst the cabbage in the pot.
4. Now sprinkle some good balsamic vinegar over the cabbage. It’s maybe a cup, maybe a bit more? It doesn’t matter! We have a store around here that has really cheap prices on really good condiments. So I understand if you don’t want to use your really expensive Italian Balsamic Vinegar. Use whatever you have on hand. No need to go out and buy anything special for this recipe.
5. Now sprinkle some salt over the cabbage. And now some nice olive oil.
6. Cook. Voila! Enjoy…now wasn’t that easy? It’s even better the next day, by the way.
I enjoy sharing women that are interesting and Fatimah’ is one of those women. I recently met her to ask some questions in order for you to get to know her better. She is so into music and has her own website where she is the DJ. Finding out that we both listened to Matt the Cat and Kid Leo on WMMS, the home of the Buzzard, back in the glory days of rock in the 70′s was actually not a surprise…
What was the name of the first record you ever bought?
What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about being over 50?
If there was anything that is my least favorite thing about being over 50, I guess it would be that I don’t have the physical strength and tenacity that I used to have: I don’t last like I used to! But my favorite things are I feel more conscious, more aware, and feel like I have wisdom.
What is your most favorite thing to do that is “creative”?
Dancing, singing, drumming, storytelling: I love them all!
Do you feel optimistic about the future? And, what keeps you going?
Oh yes. I do feel optimistic about the future! And what keeps me going are the possibilities. The unknown. The trusting. And the knowing.
What is part of your daily routine that makes you feel good?
I get such a good feeling and so much enjoyment while selecting the music or Informative Documentaries for each show, knowing that those good vibes are being passed along and shared; that is something that I love to do! Tune in from 7pm – 7am every day to feel it!
I had a lot of Basil plants that I’ve been using in salads all summer long…if you keep pinching back the plant, and never let it start to flower, it becomes very bushy and full. Which means, more Basil! Notice how I capitalize the word: Basil. It’s like a good friend, and I cannot imagine my life without it.
The other day I heard someone say it’s going to get cold, so I harvested all of my plants to make my version of “pesto”, knowing that with just one cold night, all that lovely taste inside those leaves would be gone, and therefore wasted. I never really FEEL like doing these kinds of things, I just somehow start to move in that direction, and IT happens on it’s own. I must have it in me from my Slovenia grandma or something. Or maybe from my other grandma, Mabel Carter? Both women had gardens, sewed their family’s clothes, and both put food up for the winter months.
ONE OF SADHVI'S PAINTINGS
So I got out my Cuisinart food processor, started to pluck Basil leaves (never stems), added olive oil and a little salt, and then blended until I got the consistency that makes it pourable into clean glass jars, labeled them, and voila! A base for pesto that will last a long, long time if it’s kept covered with olive oil, and in the back of the fridge. Just let it sit for an hour or so, to make sure the olive oil comes to the top to “seal” it, which preserves it.
SADHVI'S BASIL HARVEST
I had grown hundreds of pots of different types of Basil my first year that I started to garden, way back in the spring of ’94. I had never gardened before that. I was too busy with my “life”.
Then we got into a terrible car accident, and I slowed down.
And started to paint and to garden.
I didn’t know how to do either before the accident.
That first year I grew Thai Basil, I grew Purple Basil, I grew maybe 10 different types of Basil. And you know what? I only grow 2 types nowadays. The Genovese Basil and the Greek Basil. The other ones are interesting, but really, I don’t waste my energy on them, because the taste is only in those 2 I grow!
After harvesting all those different types of Basil that first year, I mixed them with garlic and pine nuts and olive oil and salt and put the mixture in sterilized glasses. Much to my horror, after a month in the fridge, they were all moldy and had to be composted – my heart almost broke in two! All that work for nothing. Well, being the type of person that has to make a big mistake the first time I do something, I’ve since been told how to do it the right way.
BASIL, OLIVE OIL, SALT!
So here’s a very simple way of preserving Basil from Martina, my Swiss-Italian girlfriend.
Martina told me to never add the garlic and the nuts. Only do that when I am making the meal, she said. This is the way her Italian grandmother taught her and I’ve been doing it this way every single year since, which makes this year my 15th year.
1. Take a big pot and fill with water and bring to boil and then add the pasta.
2. While that’s cooking, take a big mixing bowl and spoon out some of the “Basil, Olive Oil and Salt” into it. Let it sit on the counter for a while, and then, take a paper towel and wipe the sides of the inside of the jar, removing any of the mix, and make sure it’s covered with some olive oil; not a lot.
3. Add some fresh-pressed garlic cloves and some chopped walnuts or pine nuts (or whatever nuts you have), and mix.
4. Once the pasta is “al dente”, ladle out some of the water from the pot and mix in with “Basil, Oil, & Salt”/garlic/nut mix until it’s the way you like your sauce.
5. Drain the pasta, rinse, and add to the mix and toss.
Grate lots of the best Italian Parmesan cheese you can afford, get a good bottle of red wine, put some Frank Sinatra music on, and maybe a candle or two, and savor the taste of summer, preserved!
p.s. if you want to see how other people make and preserve their pesto, Culinate, which is one of the food blogs that I subscribe to, shares their tips. Just Click This!
It’s been really hot on the eastern side of the US. Or maybe it’s just a long hot flash? Either way, I haven’t felt like doing much cooking in the evening lately. So I try to take it easy and make simple things for dinner, like cold beet salad (I LOVE BEETS!) with fresh goat cheese and something from the garden, like dill. I have a feeling that everyone has their own recipe with their own memories from their grandma or mother making it, so I won’t post mine. You do know that I really don’t follow any recipes anyways, right? And that it’s too hot for me to prepare dinner AND write down what I’m doing?
Oh, and by the way, if you happen to be living on the western coast of the States, where it’s been cold, well, you can still make fresh steamed or juiced beets – beets are so good for you. Didn’t Dr. Oz talk about them recently?
But here is a recipe from Clara, who is almost taking the place of Oprah. I find this woman fascinating! She’s lived through the depression, and she looks terrific! She has her own website, and her own book. Maybe everyone but me knows about Clara, but if you are not familiar with her, take a few moments to watch her in action. I think you’ll agree, she’s a treasure.
