Cold Sesame Noodles with Kimchi

There are no two ways about it, my friend: kimchi is delicious. I bought some at the co-op the other day (they had vegetarian kimchi, so it didn't have nuoc mam [fish sauce] in it, which makes it more delicious) and I was trying to think of ways to use it. Then I remembered I wanted to make this recipe I found on Serious Eats.

Ingredients

• 1 "bundle" soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles)
  
• 1 1/2 cups kimchi
  
• 1 tablespoon kimchi juice from the jar
  
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons toasted black sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
  

Methodology

1. Boil water. While that's going on, mix the sugar and vinegar in a bowl. Measure out the kimchi and slice it up if it isn't already sliced; add kimchi and juice and mix.

2. Cook pasta as directed, about 4-5 minutes. Drain and run briefly under cold water, then add to bowl. Add the sesame oil and mix.

3. Eat! I topped it with Thai sweet chili sauce.

Notes

*Delicious. This is definitely a great batch of kimchi. Very easy to make, too, and pretty low calorie. The pasta is 210, the kimchi is about 100 total, so figure about 200 per serving. Serves 2.

*0/7 on the disaster index. The only difficult part was opening the jar of kimchi.

Book Review: To the Edge

A Man, Death Valley, and the Mystery of Endurance, by Kirk Johnson

Following his brother's death, NY Times reporter Kirk Johnson decided to become a runner. But he wasn't interested in doing any old race - he had his heart set on running the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile race across Death Valley, widely regarded as the most difficult footrace in the world. This book chronicles his descent into ultrarunning and (simultaneously) gonzo journalism.

In a normal newspaper story, the reporter remains at a distance from his subject - there is no "I", and so the tone is (perceived as) objective, rather than subjective, or at least that is what they strive for. In gonzo journalism, the journalist inserts the "I" and truly becomes "one of those crazies" (as he says), which is what happens here. While this gives a more interesting look at Mr. Johnson's struggle to go from a non-runner to an elite athlete over the course of a year, it also skews the perspective one gets of the race. Other participants wander in and out, never fully characterized beyond their most recognizable qualities - this one had cancer, these ones are twins, this one is an amputee.

The lack of distance is obviously something Mr. Johnson is neither used to nor comfortable with; he spends a significant portion of the book returning, like a good Times reporter, to the history of the race and that of Death Valley. The information is interesting, but ultimately irrelevant, and the book would have done better had he simply surrendered, Hunter S. Thompson-like, to the pull of the race.

This "distant lack of distance" works to his disadvantage in another way: Mr. Johnson is never entirely successful in exploring his reasons for beginning the Badwater journey. Just as he has no explanation for his brother's suicide, he seems to have no reasons for whatever drove him to commit this much time and energy to so strange a quest; the few he comes up with (to be closer to his brother, primarily) are never closely examined, and cannot be, because his brother is never really fleshed out as a character.

The story, while interesting, had the potential to be truly moving - a tale of self-discovery and healing. But instead of the reader feeling the sentiments, we're left with the sense that the author pointed at a photo and said, "This was very moving". Nice try, but we remain unaffected. Whether this is a quality of Mr. Johnson's writing or simply a fact of trying to deal with a difficult subject, I cannot say. The book is worth a look if you're interested in running and its history.

Veggies and Tofu in Brown Sauce （红烧豆腐蔬菜）

How do you tell someone you don't want to go on a date with them because they write awful poetry? What do you make for dinner after karate when you're really tired and out of sorts? When do these rhetorical questions become ridiculous?

I call this "brown sauce" because that's how it's always translated, but a closer translation is "red baked tofu and vegetables". Based on this recipe.

Ingredients

Tofu marinade

• 1/2 block tofu, cubed
• 1 T. garlic oil
• 1 T. soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• about 1/2 tsp sri racha sauce

Vegetables etc.

• 1/2 sweet potato
• 1 summer squash
• 5 mushrooms
• 1 baby bok choy
• 3/4 c. brown rice
• 2 c. water
• a few cloves of garlic
  

Red Sauce

• 3 T. dark soy sauce
• 1 T. kecap manis (sweet Indonesian soy sauce)
• 1/4 c. water
• 1/2 cube bouillon
• 1 T. vermouth
• 1/2 tsp. sri racha sauce

Methodology

1. Cut up tofu and put in marinade. Cut veggies into similar sized pieces.

2. Start the rice. You can dribble in a little of the tofu marinade for flavour if you want. Heat a wok over high heat with a small amount of oil in it and drop the tofu in. Leave it to brown on one side, then flip and brown the other. You can put some of the marinade on here, too, and let it reduce, or just throw the rest away. When the tofu is done, remove it to a plate.

3. Put a bit more oil in the wok and turn the heat down slightly. Add the garlic, then the mushrooms. When they start to brown, add the bok choi, the sweet potato, and the squash. Stir fry it for a few minutes, then add about 1 c. water and cover; the water will boil, cooking the potatoes. This is especially useful if your pan is small.

4. When the sweet potatoes (the veg needing the longest time) are almost done and the water has boiled off, add the tofu and the sauce. Stir everything together and cook a while longer to let the sauce reduce some. Serve over rice.

Notes

*Good and healthy, but nothing spectacular. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but while I wasn't displeased there also was nothing to make me sit up and take notice. Chinese dishes tend to use only one or two vegetables, which is frustrating for a vegetarian but tends to bring out more of the "essence" of those vegetables, as opposed to "a bunch of vegetables in a bowl".

*3.5/7. Middle of the road.

Pictures forthcoming.

Three Grain Passover Stew

Yesterday, Daniel, Claire, Sean, and I headed back to my parents' house for Seder. It was a nice meal, and then afterwards we all got food poisoning. Or possibly I got food poisoning, Daniel got the flu, Claire had a hangover, and Sean had...a migraine? Food poisoning? Who knows.

My illness began first (perhaps because I have this dumb, souped-up metabolism), and luckily this meant that I felt better first too, so by evening (and following a five mile run) I was ready to eat something. The only problem is Passover.

Luckily, I have my own take on how to keep kosher[1], and this recipe works well. It was meant to be kind of a "stash killer", using up a bunch of partial vegetables in the fridge, but I went down to the co-op and bought a whole bunch of other veggies, so that was not totally a success.

Three Grain Passover Stew

Ingredients

• 1/2 onion
• 3 large mushrooms
• 1/2 green bell pepper
• 4-5 baby carrots
• 1/2 sweet potato
  
• 1/3 c. lentils
• 1/3 c. brown rice
• 1/3 c. red quinoa
• 1/2 cube bouillon
• 1 tin tomatoes (diced, 15 oz.)
  
• ~ 3 c. water

Methodology

1. Chop vegetables and throw into a medium sized pot over high heat with about a tablespoon of oil (I use garlic oil). Throw in some garlic as well, and season with chili powder and paprika, salt and pepper.

2. After a bit, put in the lentils, rice, and quinoa, the bouillion, two cups of water, and the tin of tomatoes. Stir everything together and cover. Let it boil over medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding more water as necessary.

3. When cooked, put in a little more water and about half a teaspoon of garam marsala. Serve with buttered matzo.

Notes

1. I used to keep a really rigid sort of kashrut during Pesach, down to even high-fructose corn syrup, and all it did was give me an obnoxious superiority complex. Honestly, if you are vegetarian and do not care for eggs, Pesach can be really difficult, especially when you are running a lot (32 miles last week).

In Vietnam I ate one meal per day and kept Sephardic kosher, which-- I don't know. Generally my family keeps Sephardic kosher despite being Ashkenazim, which I think is okay. Lentils and rice are therefore acceptable in this soup, provided you feel vaguely guilty about eating them.

Anyway, my personal rules for Pesach, in case you were curious, are:

1. No bread, muffins, cookies, etc.
2. None of the five grains (wheat, oats, barley, spelt, rye).
3. Avoid as best I can corn and corn syrup. Other kitnyot like beans, rice, and lentils are okay. Peanuts are also okay.
   
4. Try to eat enough calories, because I will be really miserable if I don't.
   

Regardless of your interpretation of the rules, this recipe is Sephardic kosher and parve (depending on your bouillon, I guess).

2. This came out really full of tomatoes. It was wonderful. Be careful putting the carrots into the pot, as they roll and may try to escape from the cutting board in the wrong direction.

3. 1/7 on the disaster scale. \o/

Polenta and veggies, take II

Last time I tried this, the recipe came out so salty it was nearly inedible, so you'll probably understand when I say it took me a while to get back to the idea. But last Sunday, feeling exhausted after a long run the previous day, I wanted something delicious and easy, so I tried them again, this time with more success.

Ingredients

(for polenta)

• 1 c. yellow corn meal
• 1 tsp. salt
• a handful of raw spinach, about 1/2 c.
• 3 c. water

(for sauce)

• 1/2 zucchini
• 1/2 summer squash
• a few florets of broccoli
  
• 3-4 mushrooms, to taste
• 1/2 small onion
• 1/2 to 1 tin diced tomatoes
• a few cloves of garlic
  
• oregano, basil, chili powder, paprika

Methodology

1. Boil water, add salt. Pour in polenta, stirring constantly. There will probably be lumps. I'm sure there's a way to deal with this, but I just resign myself to it. When polenta has cooked into pudding (this is very quick), add in the spinach and stir until it's wilted. Divide into 12 muffin tins (or fewer if you want thicker cakes). Put in the fridge for about an hour.

2. Chop veggies. Put some oil in the bottom of a pot and add the garlic, then put in the onion and mushroom. Season. After a few minutes, throw in the squash, zucchini, and broccoli. When that starts looking cooked, add the tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste.

3. Split a polenta cake in half and warm it in the microwave. Spoon sauce over it and top with grated cheese (if desired). Eat.

Notes

*Very easy and ridiculously healthy - each polenta cake is about 40 calories, and the sauce is not much more. In fact, the main fat in this meal comes from the cheese.

*The polenta cakes keep well in the fridge for about a week, and are good with salad (I put vinegar and salsa on my salad, then leave it in the fridge at work until lunch, so it marinates), or with bottled pasta sauce if you are not feeling up to making sauce.

*You can actually make this "sauce" with any collection of veggies plus tomatoes. Experiment, it's fun. For a different twist, use whole tinned tomatoes (cut in half if you want).

*2/7 (if only I could get the lumps out of the polenta...)

Moroccan Stew

I found this on Runner's World's website. Since I had eggplant and zucchini to use up, it looked like a good bet. That said, I wouldn't call it an unqualified success; if you go look at the page I've linked to, you'll see that whoever wrote it has no idea how much stuff should actually go in - 3 cups of onion, 4 cups of zucchini? Serves 6? How much do these people eat?

On closer inspection, the photograph at the top of the article is obviously not the dish described. Maybe that should have been a warning sign, but what the hell - Runner's World is not exactly known as a source for gourmet recipes.

So I made some alterations, and then some more alterations. I'll write the ingredients list with the amount of stuff I cut up; see the notes section for more information.

Ingredients

• 1 biggish onion, chopped
  
• 2 T. garlic
  
• 1 tsp ground cumin
  
• 1 tsp turmeric
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 9-10 baby carrots, chopped
  
• 1 large sweet potato, chopped
  
• 1 eggplant, chopped (I used 1/2 Japanese eggplant, 1/2 traditional aubergine)
  
• 3/4 zucchini, chopped
  
• 1 tin diced tomatoes
  
• 1 tin chickpeas
• 1/2 cup raisins (I used a "raisins and cherries" mix)
  

Methodology

1. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of a biggish pan and throw the onion in. Bring it to a boil, then add garlic and spices. Mix. Add the rest of the veggies, the tomatoes, and the chickpeas. Add the raisins.

2. Mix well and add about 1 c. water. Cover and let cook until veggies are tender, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Serve with bread.

Notes

*Initially, this tasted like a big bowl of vegetables, and not a particularly inspiring one. There's no salt in the recipe, which makes it kind of bland. I would have said 5-6/7 on the disaster scale.

*After a couple of days in the fridge, however, this had somehow morphed and become a super delicious stew. With a pinch of salt on top and heated in the microwave, it made a great lunch at work, and probably it will be lunch today as well. 2/7.

*I have to admit that even my biggest pot wasn't big enough for the quantity of veggies I cut up. If I were doing it again, I'd use only 1/2 eggplant total, plus about 1 zucchini and a small onion. It might be worth using a smaller sweet potato, too. The spices were a good mix, but I'd add more salt earlier on. And less water; better just to keep an inch at the bottom and keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn.

*I'd almost recommend making this a day ahead of time.

Book Review: No Country for Old Men

A literary critic (of whom I am not fond) by the name of Harold Bloom referred to Cormac McCarthy as one of the four living (and still working) American novelists who write "the Style of our age", saying they have composed canonical works. So with this ringing in my ears, and the film version still playing through my mind, I decided to read the book.

Cormac McCarthy writes about the west, but not the vaguely-homoerotic wild west that we all know and love. This is West Texas, where there's antelope and dust and drugs and a bunch of stuff that's been around forever and not a whole lot else. The men are tough and taciturn; they don't use apostrophes or quotation marks, they're slow to anger and quick to strike once roused. They love their wives with a slow, steady passion. Their wives, on the other hand, are strong, steely women who do well by their menfolk (of course they're called "menfolk".) They may carry weapons, but in the end they're not too important, mostly functioning as reasons for the men to do the things they do.

The book's central thesis (or, I suppose, one of them; books are relatively poor places for straightforward philosophy) is this: you make choices as you go through life. There are rules and other, smaller choices you make which propel you along. And then eventually there's an accounting.

In some ways, it's similar to the "alternative universe" trope beloved by science fiction writers, except here the "what if" part of the universe doesn't matter. Only what happened is actually relevant. People live their lives thinking every day is a fresh start, that they can somehow divorce themselves from their pasts, but in a certain sense the past is the only thing that exists. Your past defines you, just as the past of the country defines what America is today.

This is not, as it happens, a philosophy I particularly buy into. But that's neither here nor there.

What surprises me is how McCarthy drags us through nearly 300 pages looking over the shoulders of Llewelyn Moss, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, and Anton Chigurh without ever really letting us into their lives. The way he uses and discards them makes it difficult to get attached, and none of them are especially likable (though I'll admit they each of them have their own particular charms). The plot, revolving around a drug deal gone bad and a big case of stolen money, is interesting but never really tied up - it's mostly a MacGuffin to keep the characters on the move, which is disappointing; you'd think that if you spent as long as CM must have writing a book this full of ideas, you'd have taken a few minutes to fix that.

The book was engrossing, true; I spent more than one lunch hour buried within its occasionally agrammatical pages. But though I liked it, I remain unconvinced that McCarthy is as good a writer as Bloom seems to think. The word I'm searching for, I believe, is "overrated". It's much like Bloom himself in that regard.

If you were curious, by the way, I kept a count: Chigurh kills at least 14 people ("on screen"; there's some implication that he kills others along the way).

Book review: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

Dean Karnazes is a runner, specifically one of a small group of elite athletes called ultramarathoners - people who run more than 26.2 miles at a go, but typically at least 50 kilometers and often more than 100 miles without rest.

As a runner myself, I tend to get my share of odd looks when I mention I spent my weekend running eight or nine miles. But this guy gets looks on a whole different level. For me, on any given day I can run five miles without too much trouble. He can run a marathon.

This book is his attempt to answer questions that everyone asks him: Why do you run? How do you do it?

The trouble is, these questions aren't easily answered, even for someone as well educated as Mr. Karnazes, who has obviously spent a lot of time thinking about them. His best moment comes early on, when he quips, "Addictions are never neatly defined." The rest of the book spends a lot of time trying, then, to describe a particular feeling that (much as it pains me to admit, being a writer) is fairly indescribable: the painful, euphoric sensation that you get when you run really far, pushing your limits, if not the limits of what a human being can accomplish. The "how" gets glossed over as well, because the answer is one that people who don't run will never really believe: you get to be a long distance runner by putting on your shoes and running every day.

Despite the fact that his answers are essentially, "Lots of reasons" and "You wouldn't really believe me anyway", the book has a lot of promise. It misses out on being a truly moving memoir - it's more a recitation of events, without any real characterization or narrative arc - but it's damn interesting and more than a little inspiring, which is pretty good. Three and a half out of five stars. You can find his blog here. The book can be found on amazon.com here.

Curried Kidney Beans (rajma)

Via the Veg Lounge. Because kidney beans are good for you.

Ingredients

• 1 tin red kidney beans, drained and washed
  
• about 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 T. garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tin whole tomatoes, chopped
• salt, cayenne pepper, garam masala

Methodology

1. Put some oil in the bottom of a pan and add the onions and garlic. After they have cooked for a few minutes, add about 1 tsp. garam masala and a sprinkling of salt and cayenne pepper.

2. Add the tomatoes and about 1/4 c. water and cook for about 5 minutes. When it starts looking sauce-like, add the kidney beans and cook for about 5 more minutes, until it looks cohesive and not like an assemblage of ingredients. Add about 1 tsp. more of garam masala, 1/2 tsp. cayenne, 1 tsp. salt.

3. Eat. Goes well with bread or brown rice.

Notes

*Warm and tasty. Fairly low calorie, too - kidney beans are 100 calories per half cup.

*That's it. Really easy. It's a nice pretty purple/red colour, too.