Girl Detective

I’m a carb monster, so breakfast for dinner is one of my favorite things, ever. Alas, my husband cries foul on the dodgy nutrition, so I took advantage of his absence last night and tried a new recipe for waffles. It’s part of a series of “genius” recipes they’re spotlighting at Food 52, and which I’m watching with interest given it included my go-to pasta sauce, Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter (I don’t even like onion!) Aretha Frankenstein’s Waffles of Insane Greatness are easy to make, smell amazing while cooking, and are utterly devourable. We didn’t have a crumb left.

For better nutrition, I did serve the waffles with sliced strawberries and cucumbers, kale roasted with olive oil and salt (yeah, the kids wanted nothing to do with this), and a Black and Blue (berry) smoothie with silken tofu.


Aretha Frankenstein’s Waffles of Insane Greatness by Genius Recipes at Food 52

This recipe (originally from Aretha Frankenstein’s restaurant in Chattanooga, TN) is the ideal I-just-woke-up-from-a-waffle-dream waffle, a morning-of alternative to the overnight yeasted kind. The cornstarch in the batter helps tamp down gluten formation, making these waffles silky and moist inside with a crust as thin and crisp as an eggshell.

Serves 4

* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/4 cup cornstarch
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup whole milk or buttermilk (or a combination)
* 1/3 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
* 1 egg
* 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
* 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
* Butter and pure maple syrup, for serving

1. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Add the milk, vegetable oil, egg, sugar and vanilla and mix well. Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.

2. Heat a waffle iron. Follow the directions on your waffle iron to cook the waffles. Serve immediately with butter and pure maple syrup or hold in a 200 degree oven, directly on the rack (don’t stack them or they’ll get soggy). These also reheat very well in the toaster.

Summer doesn’t officially end till mid-September, but my older, Drake, starts 2nd grade tomorrow, and Guppy starts kindergarten on Wednesday, so today was really it for the season.

It’s been a long crazy summer with several car and home repairs, a family trip, some health issues that have been addressed, swim lessons, soccer, day camp and I’m sure there was more in there. Nothing serious.

Here’s what I thought I’d do this summer: get to the bottom of the mending pile. Clean the whole house at least once. Stop the thistles in the backyard. Read about half again as many books as I did. Catch up with friends. Ride my bike a lot.

Didn’t happen. I darned a few socks. Cleaned a little here and there. Read some books, saw some movies, hung out with friends and rode the bike, though not nearly as much as I’d hoped. I did my best, and will try to let go of all the rest that didn’t happen.

I’m not sure how to make next summer less crazy than this one. Do less stuff isn’t necessarily the answer. Unless I kept my boys occupied, they fought. And one or both ended up crying. Not fun for anyone. There’s got to be something between exhaustion and pugilism, right?

Here are two more mediocre movies I’ve received in a crazy burst from the library. For the record, I did not expect either of them to be as mediocre as they were, but I’m reminded again that I should carefully vet the things I give my time to.

The Fighter is the one with Mark Wahlberg as the guy from Lowell MA whose older brother is a former boxer and his trainer. Melissa Leo plays his mother who is also his agent. There’s an embarrassing family (complete with an entourage of ugly stepsisters), a lithe lovely bartender girlfriend, and underdog tale, and will he/won’t he leave his family behind. I felt throughout that I’d seen this film before, and I have. It’s like Invincible (Mark Wahlberg as working class underdog sports guy with pretty bartender girlfriend, here played by Elizabeth Banks) with a smidge of Micky Rourke’s The Wrestler thrown in, as well as some of Ben Affleck’s The Town and Good Will Hunting about leaving behind the folks in working class Mass. who’ll drag you down. Not a whole lot happens over its almost two hours. Do you think Mark Wahlberg’s character wins in the end? Does he reconcile with his brother? The performances by Christian Bale and Melissa Leo are strong, but can’t carry this by-the-numbers sports movie and its telegraphed ending. Police officer and sometime trainer Mickey O’Keefe is played by himself. Loved him in the film.

I wanted to rent Fair Game because I read decent reviews of it and it’s directed by Doug Liman, whose Bourne Idenitity I liked a lot. Moreover, the Plame/Wilson scandal was something that I totally missed after I had my son Drake in 2003 and then lingering health problems through that winter. I probably eschewed the news because I was feeling down and overwhelmed already, but it was an embarrassing hole in my current event knowledge that I wanted to address. And probably, this movie was not the way to do it. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn are good, but not great, in the lead roles. Plot points feel like a checklist: here’s the scene we learn Wilson shoots his mouth off; here’s the scene where her loyalties are tested. The movie didn’t surprise me, or even interest me overmuch. Hints about Plame’s complexity were just that, and would have done well to be developed rather than showing a pretty blond actress running around the screen mostly looking pretty and worried.

Bad Ass Digest shows “A Changing World” with before and after pictures of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. via Morning News

Milk man is no longer a viable career option. Sadly, neither is cowboy.

Over at Tor.com Elizabeth Kushner writes about Shadow of a Doubt, perhaps my favorite Hitchcock movie, in “Noir Comes to Main Street”

But this is noir, no doubt about it. All the thematic elements are here: doubleness, dark secrets, stolen fortunes, femmes fatales (or their simulacrums), and even the requisite shadows through curtains. That the curtains are ruffled and filmy, the shadows barely noticeable unless you’re looking for them, is part of the point: just as the title hints, there are shadows aplenty in the world of Shadow of a Doubt. It’s just that no one wants to see them.

I’m not sure I agree that it’s noir, since it’s a little early for that genre, plus the gender roles are reversed. (not unlike how they are in David Mamet’s House of Cards) but it is a sweet little black and white thriller, with a smart, capable, strong teen heroine. If you haven’t seen it, seek it out.

Can you tell I’m not managing my library dvd queue well? That’s how the I’ve-never-seen-this-cult-classic Donnie Darko and Inside Job, the recent documentary on the banking collapse came in at the same time. (Along with two others, and then two others. Why do they all come in at once? I don’t think I reserved them all at once, but maybe I did. Sigh.)

Donnie Darko is the teen-angst movie of the early 00’s, reminding me strongly of Heathers. I could see falling madly in love with this film if I were younger and more disaffected. As it was, I liked Jake Gyllenhaal’s weird guy with hallucinations of a creepy guy dressed as a bunny named Frank.

I was not disaffected, that is, until after I watched Inside Job. My husband G. Grod declined to watch it, saying he knew it would anger and depress him. “But it’s supposed to be so good!” I protested, pointing out the gazillion encomiums on the cover, all from reputable sources, not dodgy ones. Matt Damon narrates this explanation of the collapse of the housing bubble and banking industry in 2008. As far as I can tell, everyone is evil, and what are viewers supposed to think if Elliott Spitzer and Dominique Strauss-Kahn are on the side of ethics? I guess this is why Dante imagined levels of hell. Faugh. Made me sick to my stomach.

While I watched it, G. went out with a friend to see Green Lantern at the cheap theater with the really good popcorn topped with real butter. He didn’t think the movie was much good, but enjoyed the popcorn, hanging out with his friend and some of the movie. Draw your own conclusion.

Back in the 80’s, I was a fan of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (you know, the one with four books in it?) and eagerly snapped up Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, his follow-up novel, which I enjoyed and has sat on many shelves in many domiciles over the past twenty three years. I was put reminded of Dirk when I recently re-read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and my husband said, “Isn’t the plot of that awfully similar to that [of the Dirk Gently sequel], The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul?” And thus two more books leaped onto my to read list. I thought to myself, no big deal, they’ll be fast, run reads, I’ll enjoy them and move on.

But I didn’t enjoy them a great deal. I enjoyed them some. I laughed sometimes. But not nearly as much as I remember doing the first time I read these. And both finished up in a whirl of action just past the climax really, with no denouement and incomplete story lines.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency has chapters that alternate between a man who is murdered, another who gets blamed for it, an Electric Monk whose job is to believe things, the sister of the murdered man, and a strange, possessive entity. This is in addition to a sofa stuck in a stairway. Dirk enters the picture to figure out what’s going on, and he does, kind of, eventually. See? It sounds funny. And it was, rather. But it took me several days to work through it, and it was fine, good perhaps, but I can’t grant it much more than that.

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul is about Norse gods roaming the earth among us. This story alternates among Kate, who gets injured when the Norway desk at the airport blows up because the large, not-too-bright man (guess who!) loses his temper; Dirk, who’s locked in a struggle with his housekeeper over who will open the refrigerator first; and Mr. Odwin, an old man who’s enjoying a pretty cushy lifestyle at a luxe retirement home. Again, it’s funny. Again, Dirk kinda sorta figures out what’s going on, but not before some poor schlub loses his head (literally) and the ending ties up too quickly and not entirely satisfactorily. I am glad I read it, though, as Mr. Gaiman owes more than a little of the premise of American Gods to this.

(Noted by a writer on Tor, here by Nicholas Whyte, and here at The Labyrinth Library.

In all, the Dirk Gently books and I have grown apart. Is it me? Did the suck fairy get into them? Don’t know. But I can’t heartily recommend them.

As you may know, I like a little smackerel of something around 3ish. Today I dunked graham crackers into Earl Grey tea, hot, with milk and sugar. It was good.

Interestingly, graham crackers with coffee? Not good. Newman O’s (i.e., “more healthful” Oreos) with coffee? Tremendous. Newman O’s with tea? No. The beverage/cookie balance is more tricky than one might think.

In the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, the one that gives the film The Help an A-, there’s an opinion piece by Martha Southgate, “The Truth about the Civil Rights Era,” that summed up how I felt about the book in just a few words: “fast-paced but highly problematic” then went on to explain exactly why the book and its popularity and the imminent success of the movie bothers me so much:

The architects, visionaries, prime movers, and most of the on-the-ground laborers of the civil rights movement were African-American. Many white Americans stood beside them, and some even died beside them, but it was not their fight – and more important, it was not their idea.

Implicit in The Help and a number of other popular works that deal with the civil rights era is the notion that a white character is somehow crucial or even necessary to tell this particular tale of black liberation. What’s more, to imply that what the maids Aibileen and Minny are working against is simply a refusal on everyone’s part to believe that ”we’re all the same underneath” is to simplify the horrors of Jim Crow to a truly damaging degree.

I can’t help but notice that the people who claim that books like The Help and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks are about humanity and not about racism are not people of color. I feel if you’re not disturbed by these books, then you’re not paying attention. I also feel that the sappy happy ending of The Help allows readers to leave the story feeling that racism has been defeated and that by liking the black characters the readers are themselves above racism. As Southgate said: highly problematic.

Ta-Nehisi Coates had similar things to say in “You Left Out the Part About…” after taking his child to see X-Men: First Class. While the original X-Men comic series hinged pivotally on the racial tensions of the Civil Rights Era, the new film focuses on Nazis, not racists:

But as “First Class” roars to its final climactic scene, it appeals to an insidious suspension of disbelief; the heroic mutants of America, bravely opposing bigotry and fear, are revealed as not so much a spectrum of humankind, but as Eagle Scouts from Mayfield. Thus, “First Class” proves itself not merely an incredible film, but an incredible work of American historical fiction. Here is a period piece for our postracial times – in the era of Ella Baker and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most powerful adversaries of spectacular apartheid are a team of enlightened white dudes.

I remember how surprised I was when I learned how the myth of Rosa Parks had been perpetuated in such a way that it diminished the Civil Rights fighters (again, nearly all of whom were African American, and were directly affected by the Jim Crow laws) in favor of reductively elevating one person’s story. We all know that Rosa was a tired seamstress at the end of the day asked to move out of the white section. Yes, she was a seamstress, and maybe she was tired, but she was in actuality asked to move from the “colored” seats for a white man. She let herself get arrested for not doing so because she and other members of the Civil Rights movement had been waiting for an opportunity to spark a major event, which was not her arrest, but rather the more-than-a-year long bus boycott by the African Americans, who surely experienced great hardship in doing so.

I’m not going to see The Help. I’m going to continue to say I don’t care for the book and why. And I’ll continue to wonder why people think we’re living in a post-racial society when smugness, ignorance and cruelty continue, whether we acknowledge them or not.

Sung to the tune of Sesame Streets “The L Song” which is covered by Barenaked Ladies on a CD we have, For the Kids.

Woo. Is anyone else out there feeling that burn of metaphorical friction as we’re whipped through the busy-ness that is high summer? I think the earth is telling us to work, work, work, even if we’re not working the earth.

Swim lessons, day camp, laundry, doctor appts, calls to return, mold in the basement, earwigs, ants, lunches to pack, car in the shop (AGAIN), vegetables to cook before they go bad, weeds to pull, land line not working…

Breathe. And do the next thing. And try not to lose my mind. That is all.

I won a copy of Laurie Hertzel’s News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist (book trailer here) last year on my friend Amy’s blog, New Century Reading, after leaving a comment about one of my own accidental job choices.*

I felt bad because there has been little or no free reading time in the months since I’ve started a book group, in addition to the two I already attend. But when I finished through both Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours, I thought, it’s finally time. And what a joy it was to find the time.

I was eleven or twelve when I decided that journalism was my future. I loved to write, I loved to snoop, I always wanted to know everything first. Those are pretty much the only qualifications, when you get right down to it.

Hertzel started working in the newsroom of the Duluth paper(s) in the seventies, and got shoved out of copy editing into reporting at one point. Reading the book is like sitting down with a smart funny friend who tells great stories. I loved hearing about the old school days of newspapers along with the many and various personalities of the newsroom, which reminded me pleasantly of The Imperfectionists. She also has a fascinating tale of how Duluth came to have a sister city in Russia full of Finns, and the strange and wonderful coincidences that followed from there.

This is a great book for those who love writing, are interested in newspaper history/evolution, the Northern Midwest U.S., or the emigration of Finns during the Great Depression. That’s a terrible sentence, and a good copy editor would fix it.

*Edited to add: my accidental job experience happened in the fall of my sophomore year of college. My roommate was reading the campus newsletter and said, “Didn’t you have good SAT scores? This ad says you can earn $15/hour for The Princeton Review.” I went to an interview, got called back, then trained, then taught classes, then trained some more, then got a management position, and then an executive management position, then got sick of marketing, nearly eight years after that initial interview, and went to grad school to study religion on a scholarship I got largely due to GRE scores higher than they would’ve been if I hadn’t worked for a test-prep company for eight years. I have found ways to sneak in teaching and presenting in many ways since then, even if those have not been officially my “job.”

I was surprised and delighted again when I watched Billy Wilder’s The Apartment for a second time at a revival with a friend. The Dairy Queen chocolate/caramel sundae didn’t hurt, either. Jack Lemmon is a mid-level schmoe at a gigantic insurance company. He distinguishes himself by lending out the key to his cozy, nearby apartment to executives for extramarital affairs. His neighbors think he’s a lush and lothario, but really he’s just that guy, you know the sweet, kinda funny, kinda sad one. He has a crush on Miss Kubilick, played by an impossibly young looking Shirley Maclaine who sports an adorable pixie cut and sweet smile. When personnel, in the form of Fred MacMurray, figures out what’s going on, it looks like Lemmon’s in trouble. He is, but not in the way he thought. If you’re a fan of the show Mad Men, with its pitiless eye on the sexual power politics of the time, this is another window on that world. The Apartment the last black-and-white movie to win the Best Picture Oscar, is a sweet little gem, and if you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. Also, the group of executives is a cornucopia of “hey, it’s that guy” guys that those of us who watched TV and movies in the 70’s and 80’s will recognize.

As part of my reading of Norse myths and Gaiman after my re-read of American Gods, I read Odd and the Frost Giants aloud to my boys, nearly 8yo Drake and 5yuo Guppy. Read aloud to my boys after reading Gaiman’s American Gods last month. It’s a story (or myth, if you will) based on characters from Norse mythology. In short, a young man named Odd leaves his village and goes into the wilderness. Strange things happen when he encounters a fox, bear and eagle. My appreciation of it was heightened by having recently read D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths, which explained a certain joke about a mare among other details. Guppy said he liked it “medium” but Drake really enjoyed it, as I continue to struggle with figuring out age-appropriate read-alouds for these two.

Now that I’d finally read Mrs Dalloway, it was clearly time to read Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, an homage to Woolf’s classic novel. Cunningham alternates among three women. Clarissa Vaughan is “Mrs Dalloway” a 50 something woman in NYC preparing for a party for a friend who calls her by the name of Woolf’s famous character. Mrs. Brown is a 50’s housewife in California, married to a recently returned decorated soldier of WWII. And Mrs. Woolf is Virginia, in the process of conceiving and beginning her famous novel.

I believe this book would be good even if you hadn’t read Mrs Dalloway. Yet reading them together was dizzying, in a good way, with echoes and enhancements as each made the other a much richer reading experience. I hesitate to watch the film of The Hours in case it might negatively influence my very happy experience with these books.

I started a book discussion group earlier this year, and several selections have been heavily father/son themed: Gilead, The Road, Lamb, and American Gods. I selected Mrs Dalloway because I thought it would be an interesting mother/daughter contrast, though I’d not yet read it. Once I did, I found that the mother/daughter theme indeed present, but one among many intriguing things to discuss.

Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning–fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

What a lark, what a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her when, with a little squeak of hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged into Bourton into the open air.

Clarissa, the Mrs of the title, is preparing for a party. She’s also juggling memories of the past with senses of the present, and moving in and out of complex encounters with her husband, daughter, and a former suitor. Her character, and the beauty and fortune that goes with it, is mirrored darkly in that of Septimus Warren Smith, a decorated veteran of the Great War as he struggles to navigate life and London, which Clarissa does with apparent ease and skill.

This is a short novel, not difficult to read, but deceptively complex and thought provoking. With its suddenly shifting points of view and intertwined narratives, it reminded me of films like Crash and Babel, deploying now in film what was once an daring experiment in writing back when a novel was written, not written to be filmed, as so many are today. I followed this with Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, which I enjoyed both on its own and as it helped illuminate Mrs Dalloway, to which it is an homage.

I borrowed D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths from the library to read along with Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which I remembered had a great number of references I wasn’t familiar with. I don’t recall reading the D’Aulaire’s Norse Myths as a child, though their Book of Greek Myths was one of my favorites. The new edition of the Norse myths has an introduction by Michael Chabon (which is also collected in his Maps and Legends) and was such an engaging, fantastically illustrated book with great stories that I went out and bought a copy for our home library. I don’t remember having this growing up, but I want my kids to. It indeed contributed to my enjoyment of Gaiman’s American Gods, as well as his Odd and the Frost Giants, which I just finished reading aloud to my two boys.

American Gods was my pick for the discussion group I’ve started on novels with themes of myth and religion. I’d been thinking about it before I became aware that its 10th anniversary was pending, that Neil Gaiman was going to appear as part of the Wits series at the Fitzgerald, and that it had been picked up by Tom Hanks’ production company as a series for HBO. It soon became clean that a July American Gods synchronicity was going on. I hadn’t read the book since it was released in 2001; I read it before September of that year, when the term American suddenly became more complex and problematic. I was more than ready for a re-reading.

The novel is an answer to a question Gaiman puts up front in the introductory epigraph:

One that has always intrigued me is what happens to demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands.” (Richard Dorson, “A Theory for American Folklore”)

The main character, and the everyday person the reader is supposed to use as the lens into the world Gaiman has created, is Shadow, a man serving time for a crime never detailed. Shadow is less an everyman, though, and more a traditional noir hero, a hapless, goodish guy who is at the mercy of various femme fatales and manipulative bosses. Part of the novel is a travelogue through some of the weirder tourist spots of the U.S., like the House on the Rock and Rock City. There’s also a substory set in Lakeside, an idyllic Wisconsin town.

This is involving, intriguing stuff, though I found it sometimes too sprawling especially in the war of the gods storyline. I liked much better the interactions of Shadow with other mortals, and with mortal incarnations of various gods and legends. Here, an interview with Gaiman by John Moe that took place recently at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, which I was fortunate enough to attend.

While there wasn’t universal love for the book at the recent discussion of it for my book group, yet it did generate a fascinating and deep conversation, so I think it was a very good pick.

After I finished reading The Mouse and his Child to 5yo Guppy and nearly 8yo Drake, I cast about for another book, and when I said “Narnia” Drake perked right up. I was torn between reading them in the order I read them growing up, which was chronological by publishing date. But I have a hardcover set that puts them in order by the events of the story. Since Drake can be a stickler for things like that, and I didn’t feel like arguing, we started with the book labeled 1, The Magician’s Nephew; the story takes place before that in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

A young boy named Digory moves to his aunt and uncle’s house in London when his mother falls ill. He makes friends with Polly, the girl who lives next door, and they discover that Digory’s uncle is trying to find ways to travel among worlds. The uncle tricks the children into exploring for him, and their adventures include a dying world, a wicked witch, a just-created world, talking animals and much more. Christian allegory, which I didn’t recognize so clearly when I read this as a child, abounds. It is a solid adventure story featuring interesting child protagonists confronted with a variety of moral and ethical dilemmas. There is some humor, but it was more apparent to me, the adult reading the book, than to my young children who listened to it. I enjoyed revisiting the book. Their verdicts? Drake said he liked it and was interested in the next book. Guppy was grumpy, and said he did not, so I may have picked a(nother) book he’s not yet ready for. I’ll keep trying. Next up is Neil Gaiman’s Odd and the Frost Giants.

I’ve bought a lot of books lately. Starting my own book group has meant I need to buy copies of things I want to audition, right? Plus there are my other two book groups. And thus, this tower.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (because I want to read his second, and thus want to read his first, first.)
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor (someone recommended it for my religion/mythic fiction book group)
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (ditto above)
Purple Hibiscus by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie (because a friend said she loved it)
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (rec. for book group)
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (because my recent reads of Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse made me want to re-read this)
The Hours by Michael Cunningham (because I’m reading Mrs. Dalloway for the upcoming myth/religion book group)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (rec for book group, local author)
Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie (next selection of my women’s book group)
The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov, ed. Burgin and O’Connor (likely the November myth book group book. This translation was the one that seemed to have the most love)
Lonely Polygamist by Bradley Udall (for Books and Bars)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Foer (September pick for myth book group)
Jane Eyre by Bronte, Penguin edition with cover by Ruben Toledo. (I collect editions of this, and loved this one so much I couldn’t leave the store without it.) Details of this one below.

(sorry no links; too tired. maybe later)

Because I’ve been writing other places about food, I don’t write so much about it here. And a few people mentioned that they missed it, plus I’ve been lax about blogging, so this is me killing two birds with one stick. I think that must’ve been a combo of “killing two birds with one stone” and “getting off the stick.” I don’t even really know if that last one means what I think it does. Anyway.

Here is what may very well be my favorite recipe. It’s easy, it’s tasty, it’s healthful, and it’s useful. By now, I’d think I’d have it memorized and wouldn’t have to pull out my broken-spined Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison every time I make it. Which I do. I’ve written about this recipe before. Here on Girl Detective (hey, apparently Guppy used to say, Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Tomatoes), and at Simple Good and Tasty. What I love about it is that it can be made year ’round, it’s adaptable (today I stretched the recipe with a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, a half-pint of local new potatoes, 2 cups of broth rather than 1/2 cup, and bunch of absolutely beautiful carrots.) I can be precise (by peeling the carrots and potatoes and measuring) or play fast and loose, leaving skins on and throwing in whatever’s on hand. Also, I sometimes (gasp!) do not rinse the beans, but just pour in the whole can, Which goes against foodie practice, but I can’t find anything anywhere that says it’s anything other than a matter of taste/appearance, which don’t impact this stew.

Chickpeas with Potatoes and Tomatoes, adapted from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 red potatoes, peeled and diced into cubes about the size of chickpeas
2 carrots, cut into 1/2-in. rounds
3-4 stalks celery, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1 pinch dried red pepper flakes
2 plump garlic cloves mashed with 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 c. diced tomatoes
3 c. chickpeas, cooked, or 2 15-oz. cans, rinsed
salt and pepper
1/2 c. water, broth or wine
1/2 c. chopped parsley
garnish with lemon slices and kalamata olives (it really is very tasty with these) and sliced pita bread

Heat the oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until it’s lightly colored, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Add the potatoes, carrots, chile and garlic and cook for 5 minbutes more. Add the tomatoes and chickpeas, season with 1 teaspoon salt and a few twists from the pepper mill, and add the water. Cover and simmer gently until the potatoes are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Taste for salt, remove from heat and stir in parsley.

(Another photo should go here, but something isn’t working, and telling the system administrator, who’s sitting next to me, hasn’t helped.)