Day 5: The Furlough and a Fork World Tour

Country: Japan

Eh…I don’t think this counts, but by Day 5 I really just wanted something simple. So I picked up an avocado-cucumber roll at Whole Foods.

I checked the website for Genji, the company that makes these and even they call it “Japanese-inspired” cuisine.

But then I remembered that my brother brought me some cups of dried soup from a trip to Japan. Authentic! I think he got them partly because they’re so adorably tiny. Here’s one next to my gigantic American coffee cup.

It’s like a mini snow globe or a terrarium of dried fish and mushrooms.

After I added water, I was shocked when the thimble of soup made my entire apartment (though also small) smell like a Captain D's.

Given that I can’t read the packet and didn’t see any sort of expiration date (and my brother picked these up last summer) I could only brave a couple sips of the broth with onion.

It was salty.

That’s all I’ve got.

But more than appreciating the taste, it made me appreciate my brother. And sometimes that’s the best part of a meal, right?

Day 4: The Furlough and a Fork World Tour

Country: Jamaica

Taking a break from restaurant food, I cooked a little meal for the guys in Parachute Musical; their manager Nick; and their lovely lady friends Amanda, Mary and Sarah. We decided on Jamaican food a few weeks ago when we planned the dinner, so it worked perfectly into my ethnic food furlough project.


When I went on the road with the band a while back we had a moment of van boredom when we scrolled through the pictures on my camera. I remember someone coming across this photo of I-tal stew and asking about it, which is partly why I chose it for the dinner.

I learned about I-tal, a Rastafarian vegetable dish named after the word “vital,” from The Urban Cookbook by designer/filmmaker/cook King Adz. I picked the book up (oddly) at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

But as Amanda put it, it’s more than a cookbook: “It’s about how to be a good person.” Along with recipes for street food like Turkish kofta kebabs and Portuguese trinchada, it has profiles with artists about what inspires them from different cities in the world.

As for the I-tal, I’ve experimented with it before, having made the Urban Cookbook version and a recipe from Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen. But I gotta say this week’s I-tal wasn’t my best.

I enjoyed the company as always though, and had some help in the kitchen. Ben, for example, made the rice. But cooking’s a new thing for him, so he had a hard time tearing himself away from the package directions.

Ben: “It’s like I’m dismantling a bomb.”

Find recipes for I-tal by clicking here, and be sure to check out the awesomeness of Parachute Musical by clicking here.

The following video happened while the band warmed up for a show in Atlanta. Moments later we found a leak in the van. I’m telling you. That job has some beautiful moments. But it ain’t easy.

Day 3: The Furlough and a Fork World Tour

Country: Greece

Depending on how you wear your jeans, Zavos in East Nashville used to seem either annoying or hip because no one ever knew if it was going to be open.

But that was the old Zavos. Things have been sorted out with it now (liquor license obtained, etc). Given all the drama, I expected it to be more dive-ish inside. Not so. Here’s a blurry glimpse (including Jaime, who doesn't think she’s in the shot).

We split some lentil soup, a salad and the appetizer platter with roasted red peppers, hummus, a few hunks of feta, tzatziki and baba ghanoush. All so fresh.

But during out little taste of Greece, I most loved getting reacquainted with tzatziki. Against the rich olives and cheese, it's like white space for the mouth – cool, bright, ahh.

Although you often see it on appetizer plates, it's traditionally eaten throughout the meal as a sauce with meats. As one of the owners ran off to fetch more for a table, we overheard him say this: "It's like the Greek ketchup."

Here's a recipe for an interesting take on tzatziki, and of course, it's also on the menu at Zavos. Foxes, however, are not.

Jaime (looking at menu): Mm. Fleet foxes.

Me (looking at menu): Foxes??

Jaime (pointing to the ceiling -- the way people do when they're talking about the music in a room): I like Fleet Foxes.

Day Two: The Furlough and a Fork World Tour

Country: Mexico(ish)

We went to Las Maracas in East Nashville last night. It’s one of my favorite neighborhood hangouts, but I wouldn’t call it the finest or most authentic spot in town.

For example, here’s my plate of carbs and cheese.

A couple months ago we saw Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show having dinner at Las Maracas, but then moments later we watched a guy a few tables over barf into his booth seat and TRY TO PRETEND IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

He covered it up with napkins.

We watched.

Horrified.

Yet, we go back.

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Liz (re: her margarita): It’s bigger than my head. I can hardly pick it up.

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Ann (under the influence of tequila and the unusually warm weather): This is the best day ever. My pet parakeet could fly away, and I wouldn’t even care. Some days you win. Some days you lose…Today’s a win.

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Jeff, holding up a fortune that he drew from the stash I keep in my wallet. A poor choice?

“Demonstrate refinement in everything you do.”

Ann (re: Jeff’s attire): You’re wearing sleeves in this weather. I’m impressed.

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Ann’s Ideal Margarita: An Experiment

Coconut water
Tequila
Lime Juice
Soda Water

Combine in quantities according to taste. Serve over ice.

Bluegrass Mariachi!

Day 1: The Furlough and a Fork World Tour

So I’m on furlough from work this week. Whoop, whoop!

If I had money I’d be jetting off to an exotic locale.

But as a financially challenged journalist, I’ll settle for the next best thing: Eating my way around the world with ethnic cuisine in Nashville.

I began on Saturday night at Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Cuisine.

Apparently I’m going to workout a lot on my furlough too.

Woodlands is a Southern Indian restaurant, and I love so many of the elements from that region – coconut, curry leaves, fenugreek, tamarind. We tasted iddly cakes made with rice and lentils; dosa, the crepes with filling such as potato and pea; and spicy rasam soup so loaded and deep with flavor that every spoonful feels like 1,000 stories. I was also intrigued by the coconut chutney. It’s an innocent-looking paste in a pale green shade (the color of buttery mints you find at weddings), but the green color in the chutney comes from chiles.

Overheard from the white dude sitting at the table next to me: “Wow. That green shit is hot. I thought green was the universal color of mild. Red is like, ‘I’m really hot.’ And green is like, ‘Come to me for comfort.’”

Find a recipe for rasam here.

So this is random

One of my new lovely blogger/twitter friends, Jacklyn Johnston of JayeWalking, tagged me in a post last week asking for 7 random facts about moi.

Well.

Clearly I’m quite shy talking about myself, so with arm twisted, I shall oblige.

And to keep it going, I’m tagging two of my favorite people in the known universe -- Ann at Extra Ordinary Beauty and Caroline at Six Word Biography. Can we hear (or see in photos) 7 facts about you, please?

Thank you for asking, Jackie, and here goes…

1. I write for a living, and I write every day. But sometimes a simple email can paralyze me with self-doubt. What’s up with that?

2. I think I lived a past life in the 1940s while embroiled in a mad love affair. Songs like this one make me feel good/sad from the ends of my hair to the edges of my toe polish. I especially love this music on weekend mornings while I’m taking my time to wake up and drinking a good cup of coffee.

3. I wish I could throw a dinner party and invite Paul Reubens (but only if he came in character as Pee Wee Herman), Cyndi Lauper, Amy Sedaris, Vivienne Westwood, Johnny Depp, Patricia Field, Tom Robbins, Erykah Badu and David Lynch. We would eat only Dr. Seuss-ish foods like green eggs and ham….and purple sweet potatoes. I waltzed into Whole Foods one day to find these – whipped with just ginger and coconut milk (no food coloring!) – and I just about died.

Come to think of it, I’d want Dr. Seuss to be there, too.

“I learned there are troubles
Of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead
And some come from behind.

But I’ve bought a big bat.
I’m all ready, you see.
Now my troubles are going
To have troubles with me!
-- I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew by Dr. Seuss

4. I can twirl the baton, like, kinda well. It’s a skill I spent a major portion of my youth through college perfecting. Now at age 35 with no immediate plans to join the circus, it’s not something I put into practice. Ever. It was fun while it lasted, but if I have kids some day, I’ll probably steer them toward piano lessons. Or the circus.

5. If I could be a character from literature – for, oh, just a few months -- I’d choose Brett Ashely from The Sun Also Rises.


Yeah she was a troubled little minx, but I like her eccentricity and charisma. I like that she was a guy’s girl in the rambling tough-yet-also-fragile sort of way. Plus she got to hang with the fellas in Paris and Pamplona.

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?“

-- Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

6. Six Feet Under is the last show I truly loved. This is one of my favorite scenes. And I’d say it’s apt for a food blog. Look at all the types of folks that came together over the table.



And here’s another Alan Ball classic from American Beauty. But I don't guess coming together over food guarantees understanding. Been there, yeah?



7. At work I’m responsible for a little column every week called Chef du Jour, a Q&A with a Nashville chef. I always ask the chef to tell me what he’d eat for his final meal if he could choose it. But of course I’m always asking. I never get to answer. So here’s what I would say….

A pimento cheese sandwich
A plate of my dad’s collard greens (simmered long with ham hock, honey and hot pepper)
My grandmother’s green beans
My brother’s wife’s sweet potato casserole
Squash casserole from Arnold’s on 8th
A couple slices of homegrown summer tomato
A wedge of my grandfather’s cornbread (cooked with onions) and generously butter
And for dessert, blackberry cobbler with my mom/dad's homemade ice cream
...and a piece of lemon icebox pie out of a casserole dish like my brother used to make it

Making meatloaf

Yesterday I went to see Jeanne Dielman, a 1976 film by Chantal Akerman.

It’s three and a half hours long with very little dialogue. In other words, I could hear the man two rows up and seven seats over chewing his popcorn. No worries though. I’m sure he heard me too.

I'm no film expert, but I do know that this movie involves watching a widowed, single mom and prostitute perform her daily household routine over three days – breading veal cutlets, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, making coffee, setting the table. There seems to be lots of setting the table.

Nothing really happens for long stretches of time, but that’s part of what kept me hooked. I kept waiting for something. The “I’ll be damned if I’m leaving now” kind of thing. Then I realized that something is always happening. And the real point I suppose is that the extended length of scenes forces us to experience Jeanne Dielman’s kind of sad role in society – washing dishes and all.

During one scene, when she kneads meatloaf for a solid three minutes, a guy in the theatre let out a flutter of laughter, which totally set me off too. It was the most uncontrollable bout of silent, row-shaking inappropriate laughter I’ve experienced since, oh, maybe church at age 7. It was excruciating, and sort of awesome.

And also, after hearing about a friend who frantically whipped mousse while mad at her boyfriend, I’ve been thinking about food as a conduit for releasing aggression. The meatloaf scene reminded me of that a bit.

If you’re in the mood to make meatloaf, I suggest this recipe, which I made for a photoshoot at work a few months ago. My co-workers seemed to like it. I hope you will too.