Eredien's Journal

[I'm trying out Dreamwidth's crossposting feature; if you're getting errors on either LJ or DW please let me know.]

The many books which I find to read often change me. The few books which find me to read them change the me who I am.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, is such a book.

Detailed summaries are everywhere, so I'll only touch on the plot: in the late 80's, the main character is fifteen, and her favorite uncle--a gay man semi-closeted by the kind of silent family agreement that with time becomes a silent family dispute--dies of AIDS. The grief in this book is large, and real, with the quality of startling mundanity that real grief has.

The other characters in the book feeling the fact of the uncle's absence from their lives is what creates the character of the uncle, or more accurately the character of the uncle's absence, for the reader. The book's prose and the characters' emotions are the tools that Brunt gives the reader to feel around for the edges of the hole, the space--once filled, and now empty--in the structure of the story. One miracle of this book is that this whole writing structure is totally unforced, almost invisible, effortless and agentless as heartbreak. A second miracle in prose: this theme of negative space is explored literally in the book by the device of a painting, and that doesn't feel forced either: having the metaphor made concrete in the book seems the most natural of devices, evolving solely from the characters' interests, memories, and conversations.

This theme of negative space is, of course, a metaphor for the secret surrounding AIDS and the family's individual secrets surrounding the larger, half-spoken truth of the uncle's life with his longtime partner before his death. Wolves doesn't shy away from using that metaphor with precision and great sensitivity--and even better, eventually drops all metaphor when confronted with such human, impossible, life-changing, grief as AIDS. The grief in this book is gloriously, purposefully, deliberately angry, made political by personal necessity, and so, so valuable for that: the fact that it evokes the political and moral climate surrounding American queer people in the late 80's and early 90's, and the way that it does so, made me remember watching Philadelphia as a closeted 14 year old and realizing at the time that it was considered an act of award-winning cultural daring for famous people with thousands of dollars and corporate backing to act out love in the way I actually loved, or to act out dying in the way I understood that people like me were probably going to die.

I can't imagine what it would have been like to read this book as a straight person, or even as a younger LGBTQ person (as fascinated as I would be by hearing those perspectives), because the angry grief this book contains made me more happy to be myself and be no one else. Even though I was personally done feeling apologetic, guilty, homophobic, or self-hating about coming out and being out as a queer person, I didn't even know that I still felt apologetic, guilty, homophobic, and self-hating over having closeted myself in the first place. Wolves' finely detailed examination of personal, historical, and cultural grief surrounding the AIDS epidemic allowed me to see myself, my choices, and my unhappiness with those choices in context. I'm able, finally, to show compassion to the closeted queer girl I was half a lifetime ago, am amazed that I have such a capacity for compassion and love, and feel thrilled that it's necessary to continue to show myself such compassion.

Wolves, being built around death and secrets, may seem depressing. But this novel is a truly amazing coming to terms with the necessity of life's eventual end and the loss of loved ones, via the recognition that there is so much joy, color, love, art, capacity for self-exploration, and forgiveness bursting out of a merely fictional loss that it gives one immense amounts of hope for the nonfiction of life.

Please, please read this book; I'd love to discuss it with you, my friends.

When I was very small, I would go behind my house and take the fuzzy red berries off of the trees and soak them in water and feed the tea to my dolls assorted animal figurines. Turns out I should have been drinking it myself, because:

a.) Most varieties of sumac found in the US are not poisonous, and the one that is looks really different from the other ones
b.) Man, it is tasty. It is my new taste of summer.
c.) Full of vitamin C!

I used this Steve Brill recipe with Staghorn Sumac, which grows wild at the edges of wooded fields and along parking lots and roadsides throughout the northeast--it's the one where the leaves turn a flaming orange-red for a week in the fall. There are also other varieties of edible sumac elsethere in the country. I really, really suggest this food. It is fresh, it is zingy, it is delicious without being overwhelming, it is a lovely pale pink color, and it is free.

Especially if you, like me, love acidic foods. Imagine a caper that is vaguely sweet instead of salty. That, my friends, is sumac.

Note: the sumacs that grow in the USA are not quite the same as the sumacs that people make a ground Indian spice out of, sadly, but honestly it's quite good by itself.

Here are some recipes for things you can make with Sumac!

This is more a recipe than a review, but this was so delicious I wanted to write it down right away. I have been eating a lot of variations on "lentils and..." lately, and wanted to talk about some things that make that delicious instead of totally boring every day.

The first thing is MDH brand Chana Dal Masala spice (warning: this amazon link is for 10 boxes). I bought a box of this stuff over at one of the many little conveniece stores that dot the Teele Square area back when I lived in Teele Square. Many of those stores seem to specialize in varying brands of Indian food -- one does really good naan, another bulk spices. Anyway, this is one that has a lot of bulk beans and premade spice blends. This spice blend is: delicious, cheap at $2.49, comes with a basic chana dal masala recipe on the back, and makes a *lot* of food since you only use a small bit at a time. I keep the box in the fridge to discourage pantry pests, but since the box has an inner liner it doesn't get clumpy.


The second thing is the lentils I use, which I also got from the same place as the MDH spice blend. They're half-moon-shaped (split) yellow lentils rather than the small flat round lentils you may be more familiar with, but you can use either. Personally, I find that the chana dal lentils cook up faster and tenderer than the other kind of lentil, without turning into mush if you forget and cook them a little bit too long. I also find that when you're making the masala base, you can just let the lentils boil for whatever time it takes you to make the base and then they're ready to add. I got two pounds of these babies for $2.99, and they're very filling; I've eaten about 20 meals off the package. Here's a link to where you can get them online, but I am sure you can find them cheaper at your local Indian grocery.

The third thing is something that was given to me by ab3nd's previous roommate, when I complimented him on how good his cooking smelled and asked him about what he was making. He had an extra bag of Swad brand Panch Puran and gave it to me. If you scroll *way* down on the website it looks like it lists for about $2.40. This is the most delicious stuff. I now use a tablespoon or two every time I make food with lentils. I think it also might be good with some types of Chinese food although that's the food experimenter in me talking. I basically would eat it raw if I were not busy cooking it up with vegetables and onions. It contains: whole mustard seeds, whole cumin seeds, coriander/caraway seeds, and some totally unknown-to-me spice which looks kind of like that little part which sits in the middle of a peanut and tastes slightly bitter and slightly green, a little bit like celery. I've...almost remembered what it's called in English as I sit here eating them and trying to remember the word for the taste filling my mouth, but it's a no-go. It might be asafotaedia.


For the masala sauce:
2 Tbsp soy margarine
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp brown sugar (unpacked)
1/2 Tbsp better than boullion beef flavored soup concentrate
1 clove garlic
2 cubes frozen basil
3 cubes frozen cilantro (I love me some cilantro)
1/2 can tomato paste (6 oz can)
1 can TJ's tomato sauce (15 oz can, you could also use diced canned tomatoes for a chunkier masala sauce)
1/4 lb frozen green beans (that's about 1/4 bag if you have a 1 lb bag)
1 small pepper (optional)
3 medium-sized carrots
1 medium yellow onion
About 3 Tbsp chana dal masala spice
About 3 Tbsp panch paran
About 1 1/2 cups dry chana dal lentils
Water
Pepper
Salt
2 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika (optional, didn't do much for flavor)
1 Tbsp (yes) ground dry mustard
3-5 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp ground ginger (probably better with fresh, but you'd want to use less)
1 Tbsp chili powder (optional)
1 Tbsp ground turmeric (added a nice color and flavor boost)
2 tsp curry powder (I used McCormick's. Most of the things in the spice mix I added more of separately, but I didn't have fenugreek, bay leaves, celery seed, or nutmeg, and the curry powder mix had all of those).
5 Tbsp red crushed chili flakes (I have a cold and wanted to kill it dead.)

For the rice:
1 1/2 c white rice of your choice
About 2 c water
Pepper
Salt
1 tsp olive oil (optional)

Prepare rice:
I make the rice in a rice cooker. I find that when I add oil the rice sticks a little less to the pan, which is supposed to be nonstick and mostly is but sometimes isn't perfect. I just add the oil, rice, spices, and water all together, swirl it around a little with the rice paddle, and let it do its thing. If you are making this for a lot of people, you will want to make a lot more rice, but I mostly wanted rice as a kind of side-dish so I made less.

Prepare lentils:
Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. When ready put in the lentils. Keep up the temperature to a rolling boil. Don't be like me and let the pot boil over as you are chopping carrots, though.

Prepare vegetables (this sounds complex but isn't):
Chop carrots in half lengthwise and then in half widthwise. You want large chunks of carrot but want them all about the same size so they cook evenly. Set aside.
Chop garlic cloves. Set aside.
Chop pepper into small strips. Set aside.
Chop pepper (large chunks work well here).

Prepare sauce:
Heat medium-large pot on stove. When warm add olive oil and margarine together (less fat than just using soy margarine, and less burning and a better taste than just using just oil). Let this warm until it bubbles up a little but isn't brown. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add garlic. Mash the garlic around in there until you have nice garlic-flavored oil. Add the basil and do the same thing. The garlic should be just a tiny bit brown when you add the panch paran. Sautee the whole spices in the flavored oil for about 30 seconds. Now the garlic should be a little more brown. Add the broth concentrate, and stir to dissolve. Add the onion. Stir to coat onion with oil and spices. Do not burn the garlic!

Turn heat down and let onion brown a little. It will sweat out its oniony goodness into the pan, which is what you want. If it starts sticking add a tad more olive oil. Then add the brown sugar. This will carmelize the onion and make the oil smell delicious. When onion is clear and browning on the edges add tomato sauce and a little water. Then add tomato paste, stirring to dissolve the paste into the sauce. You might want to turn the heat up a little here but don't overdo it.

Add the cilantro.

By now the lentils are almost done. When the masala sauce starts to thicken, add a few ladles of sauce from the lentil pot to flavor the sauce, and to thin it down a little bit and stop it from sticking to the pot.

Toss in the remaining spices except the chili flakes and powder. Add the nutritional yeast. Then add the chili flakes and powder to taste.

Turn off the heat to the sauce.

Put in the vegetables:
After you turn off the heat, let the warmth of the sauce cook the vegetables perfectly for you. Just pop a lid on the pot for about 5 minutes and everything will be nice and crisp, plus the sauce will be a perfect consistency. First the carrots and frozen beans, then a minute or two later the pepper. The beans should go in frozen, this ensures they are not overcooked by the end. The carrots should end up cooked but firm, not limp and soggy. You put the pepper in last so it is not overcooked, because peppers are pretty delicate.

Put in the drained lentils, and stir.

At the very end stir in the apple cider vinegar. I find it compliments the tomatoes and cuts the spice a little.

Things I would have added to this dish: a bay leaf. I didn't have any, though.

Serve with rice.

Basically, this was delicious. I had two helpings and there was enough left over to last me until at least Wednesday for lunches. So I would say this serves 4-6 people.

I really like asparagus. But the kind of asparagus you usually get at any store usually has, well...very tough stems. It's not like eating asparagus: it's like eating a branch. Even vegans don't want that. So, since I cannot miraculously get good asparagus around here, and I have enough roughage in my diet with the daily oatmeal, I thought to try Trader Joe's frozen asparagus.

I used it in my previously mentioned Bento box, in a recipe that just covers the asparagus with the bare minimum of deliciousness (lemon, olive oil, salt, and pepper) and then leaves it to cook in the oven for a bit. The asparagus really is the star of this dish; it needs to be tender and juicy.

I put the entirely frozen asparagus right into the lemon juice mix and waited. It came out great! The asparagus is small enough to cook tender all the way through without getting too mushy, and there is no woody or bitter aftertaste. There is not a *ton* of asparagus in the package, but asparagus is such a delicious and assertive vegetable that you generally don't need more than 2-4 spears of asparagus per person (on risotto, or pasta, or what-have you).

The only drawback to its being frozen is that sometimes the very tips of the heads break off. But that's ok: they're still delicious. It is a little cheaper than regular asparagus, too, which is good. I hope TJ's carries it all year round.

Trader Joe's Organic Low-Sodium Vegetable Broth was not the broth I wanted. I generally prefer the "better than broth bullion" vegan beef or chicken flavor broth concentrate, but the last time that I went shopping I couldn't find it anywhere (Shaw's was out, it seemed), so I just got this broth-in-a box. I prefer paying for the concentrate because otherwise you are really paying for a lot of water with flavoring, but I figured I should review this anyway.

You get 1 qt of broth. It's fat-free, low-cal, and gluten free. It also has *way* less sodium than their normal vegetable broth, at only 6% sodium. Some nutrients, but not enough to rave about. I think I picked up the organic kind without really noticing; I don't even know if TJ's carries non-organic vegetable broth or what it tastes like.

Mostly, it's water with a lot of vegetable juices. It tastes vaguely sweet because of the carrot juices they put in. If you're like me and love the taste of celery but hate the texture, you will like this broth, because you can really taste the fact that celery is the third broth on the list. Unfortunately, it does have tomatoes and onions in it, so this is no good for people who are sensitive to those vegetables. It is also slightly seasoned, but not overwhelmingly so.

It has recipe suggestions, like "omit oil and use broth instead," in the back. This does in fact contain a slight bit of olive oil, so it is a little bit oily--you don't need to add a lot of extra oil.

How else does it taste? Mostly of celery, with a slight hint of tomato and onion, sweetness from the carrots, and a little bit of parsley flavor. There is a slight olive oil aftertaste, and it has a nice feel in your mouth. I will probably use the rest of it to make miso soup; it's light and tasty without being overwhelmingly like "I'M BROTH!!" which is an effect you can sometimes get with broth concentrate pastes, or non-low-sodium broths, which I sometimes find too salty.

The only drawbacks are that you are essentially, again, paying for flavored water, and you have to use it up within 10 days after you open the box. Thankfully (or maybe not), if you are making a good deal of food, 1 box of broth will not last you too long (I used about 6/8ths of the box in the cheesy green bean couscous casserole, but that is an entire medium-sized casserole dish full of food and should last for several days).

I am eating Thai tonight with thomasyan, doma, and a friend of thomas'. We decided on Thai food last week, and currently heating are:

1.) Plain white rice
2.) A large pot of Thai Mango Curry, sans lemongrass since I couldn't find it (you can substitute pineapple if you are not a mango person)
3.) A plate of somewhat overdone but really delicious coconut dessert crepes from The 30 minute Thai Vegetarian Cookbook, substituting flax seeds for eggs.
4.) 1 and 1/2 cups of tamarind drink concentrate, homemade, which will probably eventually get drizzled all over the crepes and added to water to make a drink.

I was trying to find tamarind paste, but only found Badia tamarind pods, so I bought those at the store instead. You have to peel them and shell them, but they taste amazing. I added about 5 or 6 peeled pods to 1/2 c vinegar and 1/3 c packed brown sugar, boiled that down for about 15 min until it was a syrupy paste, strained out the seeds with a colander, then put 2 Tbsp sugar, 2 c water, and the tamarind paste back into the pot and boiled it more until all the ingredients combined, about another 15 min. It's really good, and apparently tamarind is the sweet/sour flavor my Thai and Mexican cooking has been lacking. It made me think of going to San Francisco and getting burritos in the Mission District with rax. You can also save the concentrate in the refrigerator for up to two months and just add it to stuff.

The pods were only $1.89 at the supermarket, and I still hav 5 or 6 left in the bag, so they're a really good value. A little bit of work to prepare, but honestly it's no worse than making rice.