Beets, The Back Story

Last night's picnic is today's rain. But I'd like to think of rain as the back story of spring. Behind all the blooms of cherries and scents of lilac are gray days of pressed clouds. Without days like today, our green would not be as vibrant. Thus is true for the beet or beetroot (to hopefully broaden our audience here) who sit long under ground and then rise to be unearthed in muted tones and once roasted--bleed all over your plate and fingers. The phoenixed root vegetable.

Beta vulgaris, the common beet, has an interesting history or back story as I like to imagine it. The first recorded history found beets along the Mediterranean in Europe and Northern Africa. And like most food, it spread thanks to violence, riots and a rise in popularity during war when roads were shut and people had to eat what grew in the ground--wild in their backyard. Yes, even our cozy chestnut folks, we can give thanks to Alexander's army storing them and throwing out their shells as a trail to mark their conquests. The beet, as you might imagine, have a far less glamorous past or story.

The Romans were the first to eat the actual root. Previously, just the greens were eaten by the Greeks and used for medicinal purposes--digestive benefits mostly. Conquering Europe was just part of the Romans claim to fame really as much as it was spreading the notion that the common beet root was edible. But perhaps my favorite back story lies in a wanna be Roman, Napoleon, who opened a school directly for the study and uses of beets--mainly for its sugar. And as you might have guessed it, the Napoleonic Wars helped for beet notoriety when sugar cane was no longer being shipped to France via England, something needed to be done.

Yet some could argue that beets have another history, quieter and with even less pomp. The common beet grew in monasteries and in peasant farms all across Europe and thrived in sandy soiled Poland where is grew wild. Borscht has kept Poles and Russian warm and fed since the 14th century. Somehow I see the beet living more in the flat fields of Poland then the gardens of Babylon.

Regardless of which back story you want to believe, beets certainly leave an impression even if it is the day after--as my plate above shows. Their modest shy appearance somewhat bulbous-ugly become poppy-pretty on a plate. Please don't limit your love for beets as a mere winter vegetable roasted in a pot pie. Think winter's white is summer's bloomed red. So in honor of the Romans who weren't too proud to eat the bulbs, here's a salad maybe even Napoleon would have eaten somewhere taking a break from conquering half of Europe. Enjoy.

Roasted Beets & Orange Caprese

6 beets, washed, roasted & sliced 1/4"-thick
2 oranges, supreme
8 ounces fresh mozzarella, sliced 1/4"-thick
3 tablespoons fresh mint, chiffonade
Salt, to taste
Olive oil, drizzled
Balsamic Vinaigrette, drizzled
1 tablespoon orange zest

1. Wash and trim beet greens. Wrap in foil, individually, and roast in the oven at 400 for one hour.
2. Let beets cool for ten minutes, then peel and slice them. Reserve.
3. Supreme an orange is really just cutting the peel and pith with a knife and then segmenting each section.
4. Chiffonade the mint, here's to pay homage to Napoleon. Chiffonade simple means ribbons. Remove the mint leaves from stem. Lay each leaf on top of one another, roll like a cigar and then with an knife or scissors, cut into thin ribbon-like pieces.
5. Arrange on a plate: first beet slice, orange supreme, mint.
6. This also looks good as a tower, as my friend-chef Benjamin Freemole, who will soon be famous (trust me), tells me, "the higher the tower, the more expensive it will look."
7. Sprinkle with a bit of salt, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette and end with a garnish of orange zest.

An Elephant, Tulip & Chickens

There seems to be few things in this world that you can title without tripping on metaphor. It might be why I like how children decide on names. For example, a friend of mine has a son who is two and named their four chickens, grandma, snake, pumpkin and river. As if all that he knew, either good or bad, could be explained in those birds--which too often as adults we don't even see as birds, but eggs, pastoral, a Sunday meal, soup stock, compost.

Most days my head wakes long before my body, but I try to sometimes remind myself to name what I see, to catalog the concrete-wood floor, robe, teeth, water and peppermint. I feel lucky currently because this naming game is easy with what I see each morning from my window--elephant, tulip and chickens. The elephant I unearthed out of the Tiber, the tulip was picked by my husband and the chickens are a strange but playful reminder of daily living. A trilogy of sorts. But here I am getting metaphorical. Let's go back to naming things and being present.

Presently, I am approaching another birthday. I tend to be, if possible, more contemplative around birthdays as if they are some personal "new year" or time for resolution and reflection. So in times like these, I do what any almost sane person would do to avoid the usual malaise of aging, I make chocolate mousse.
See, here I am being grateful for having chickens because good eggs make good mousse. Mousse interestingly enough translates as froth or foam in French and if you have fresh farm eggs, your frothed chocolate might even be French worthy. Maybe.

Thankfully, I have both chickens and a simple recipe , which only has five ingredients. Thanks to my mother via the Grand Rapid Press, I'd love to think this recipe came from some dutiful Dutch lady diligent in not just her perfectly placed blond bobbed hair, but also in making a perfectly bouffanted mousse. But what I like even more about this mousse is the fact that my mother would make this dessert at random, if she had extra egg whites or just because she wanted to use her fancy green glasses. I recall opening the fridge as a child and looking for some snack say after school on a Tuesday and there I would see five green glasses filled with a shadowy richness. I recall just staring at them and naming each glass slowly: chocolate mousse.

And maybe that's why I have wanted to make this treat, not for showmanship, but some dessert during a weekday night to pause a moment. It is another reason I love this mousse, served in a tiny bowl or glass, each person just stares and I think hopes each spoonful doesn't disappear as if naming the experience with their spoon: delicious.

This chocolate mousse is certainly birthday worthy, but I like to carry on the tradition of the modest cook, who just happens to have too many egg whites? Enjoy.

The Modest Chocolate Mousse

6 ounces chocolate (I like to use a mix of dark and semi-sweet)
3 tablespoons cold water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 eggs, separated

1. In a double boiler, melt chocolate. (Be sure to not get any boiling water into your chocolate)
2. Using a wooden spoon, stir chocolate until smooth.
3. Add cold water and blend well, then add sugar and incorporate until smooth.
4. Remove chocolate off boiling water and add vanilla. Be sure to blend well and let chocolate mixture cool slightly, about three minutes.
5. Beat in egg yolks, one at at time, into chocolate mixture. After you add each yolk, stir chocolate until smooth.
6. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into chocolate. Be sure to do this in batches to not have any streaks of white.
7. Place in ramekins, champagne glasses or heck, even jelly jars would do in the fridge for at least two hours.
8. Serve with fresh whipped cream, fruit, mint leaves or just plain.

Yields about five to six champagne glasses

The Democracy of Bicycles

I wouldn't ever consider myself a political poet. I wouldn't want to be. It's partially what I adore about poetry-- a land that exists as words shyly hugging the left side (no pun here to politics, well, maybe a little) of the page. Sure, there are great political poems, Easter 1916 by Yeats to name a well known example, but I'd like to think it has "stayed alive" in the political poetry archives due to it's sound as sense instead of just sloganed language with political intent. Sometimes shouting is just noise and not words you want to carry in your head or heart.

I used to be much more politically driven, now, I'd rather work on my garden. I'd like to think that the quiet movement of making a tiny plot and home in this world more green is a political stance. My stance is my body bent over pulling weeds and planting arugula, nasturtiums and basil. As if my flag is nothing but the leaves on my sage bush that outlasted a gray Missoula winter. My country is filled with people who consider themselves hardy perennials in a world that wants plastics and perfection. We the hardy, we the greened are imperfect in our becoming. Because that's what nature gives you, it gives you metaphors of becoming. The pear tree outside your window now in bloom will be fruit, the blue birds building a nest will bring flight and the trilliums on the forest floor are now spring's perfect white to summer's green. All become something.

But now I am getting too metaphysical, so let's turn to the poetry of Robert Frost instead. "Nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold." The gold of spring forsythia cannot stay gold but will be the green of summer shade. Maybe even our political shouts of our youth will be our quiet acts of gardening as adults. Maybe most character traits you develop as a young adult, seem to just shift to some other place as you age. So my once political nature to save anything that looked cute and mammalian, has turned into a different focus. Now, I am pro-bike and I pedal.

Really, there are few things in this world that move me like libraries, post offices and public transportation. It's as if regardless of any ism a country holds at least they can all agree on these three. I cannot say our country has a grand example of public transportation systems, yet in our small town of Missoula we do have Bike, Walk, Bus Week. This week, thanks to the good people at The Way to Go Club or http://missoulainmotion.com/ we are a city that cycles, commutes and carpools, or tries to all year long.

Even as I sit here at my desk watching the cool rains of late April, I will ride my bike. I will join the democracy of bicycles and quietly pedal to work. Really, I don't do it for any political purpose as much as I do it to have some quiet before the business and noise. It gives me twenty minutes to breath and pedal to a rhythm to remind myself I am not in a box, that I am becoming something too. Viva La Bicycle!

Enjoy the poem.

To Begin

I wear my seatbelt when I like myself,

my hands at ten and two like the cuckoo

clock in my kitchen which I won’t let coo

or chime since the elf hen inside started

saying shoes. I wanted to shelve it away

with the pencils or ship it to Caracas,

but clocks are endangered there.

I leave my house before the sun finds

the alarm, ride my bike to work and flirt

with cars to nudge me into curbs, alleys or dirt,

so I can start my day face first to the morning

light and ignore people moving in boxes

of metal. I turn up the wren housed in my heart

who warbles from its perch on my desk

and sings with each tick of my pencil.

I am the Walrus of Michigan

I hate to say this out loud, but I read a lot of poetry that makes me want to read less poetry. But when I find someone I really adore, I am loyal. Perhaps even stubbornly loyal. Yesterday on Poetry Daily, www.poems.com, Bob Hicok's poem, "Watchful" reminded me of why I am a loyal reader of poetry. It's like listening to music on a radio station you know might have some good songs, but for some reason hasn't been playing any of them. Sure, you could turn on your i-pod or put in a CD, but you don't. You just stay tuned and just about when you tell yourself you really are silly to still be listening to this station, something finally plays. And you want to stop the car, even if you are driving on the expressway. You want to savor the music and you want to savor the moment you are having savoring the music. Such is this poem or most poems by Bob Hicok. Please check it out. Check him out, he's from Michigan and didn't have a degree until after he had four books of poetry. He's both stunningly funny and stark in his insight. I'll say it again, I am a loyal fan.

With this said, I feel shy to post a recent poem I've been working on, yet perhaps under the tall balding shadow of Bob Hicok the Michigander, I too can try to be a poetic voice for Michigan. Maybe someday, Bob and I could bring back the ever popular campaign our home state had so aptly titled, "Say Yes, to Michigan!" Frankly, I am not sure what we were suppose to be saying yes to? Say yes to the Great Lakes, sure. Say yes to Vernors, double sure. Say yes to the U.P. yup. Say yes to unemployment and shadowed Detroit, not so sure.

You see, my feelings of poetry are very similar to how I feel about Michigan. I am loyal, stubbornly loyal to writing poetry and to the state where I was born, raised and educated in. Yet I find myself not fully able to "Say Yes, to Michigan" and well to say yes to poetry, all the time. For now, in Montana with a lot of flat grass and rock between me and Michigan, I long for lakes and the light of spring in thick birch-oak forests and the smell of wet earth unfolding. But sometimes you just have to write a lot of bad poems to work at one good line of poetry just like maybe you have to live a lot of places to work at your loyalty to where you were born. As I live far from Michigan and write poems about my home, I find myself finally being able to adore the state.

I've never been one for watching sports and I truly don't understand rooting for teams on television, but it is how I feel when I hear of any positive news about Michigan. As if I am cheering from the sidelines for this state that seems to be making headlines as Hicok has said as, "the poster child for our recession." And maybe it has been, with a 24% unemployment rate and a long list of disappointments in the auto industry, Michigan could be photographed on your milk carton. But in the Michigan of my mind, it is beautiful, broad in changing landscapes and there is always water, a "water winter wonderland" ( another more poetic campaign slogan).

And so, I give you this poem, Michigan. I am sure there will be plenty more, I hope. And maybe this is just a clumsy poem to hopefully get closer to writing a good one someday. But I give this to you as a token for all the time I spent staring at your water and dreaming of myself as coming from another state, somewhere not so in the middle. But I thank you, Michigan, for teaching me to accept what we are. We are middleWest. And even if we see ourselves as walruses, may we be beautiful in our seal suits.

(Please note: there aren't any walruses in the Great Lakes. Despite the questions I used to field from tourists who would ask, "Are these shrimp fresh from Lake Michigan?" Sorry, just lakes of fresh water.)

Enjoy the poem.

The Walrus in Us

Winter houses gulp people whole

like a broad mouthed whale, curtained teeth

and chimneyed tails, beached in drifts of snow

and stale forced air. Most days, not even mail

brings relief, just pages of catalog-fresh strangers

smiling barefoot on a distant shore. You forget

your feet on sand, now slippered fins you walk

as horse whale. Your body, walrused in months

of winter, sinks in the ocean of your youth.

So you build a raft from scraps of summer,

where you want to live as winged instead

of pinniped. No longer couched to routine, you float

and crest over waves of middle age, sprouting

grey hair, until you hear a choir barking

in tune and find yourself comfortable in a seal suit

looking zoo cute, even with long whiskers.

Som Tom For Spring

Last week, we had spring. It was a lovely day. I spent it with a shy crocus while I ate lunch outside jacketed out of the wind and under the budding sun. I think the crocus was smart not to bloom quite yet for winter returned and suddenly spring went white again. That nature, it sure is smart.

Unlike me, who quickly found my feet again and boxed up my boots and found my flip flops to click around the house. But that was that one day last week and now we are back to slippers and warm oats for breakfast and a drizzle of honey instead of the sun.

And so we March on in March where we have time changes and spring dated to arrive, but the flip flopping of winter to spring and back again continues. It's as if we are in seasonal limbo when we get these glimpses of green, a bold mud puddle pushing away ice and even the faint smell of earth under melting snow. And yet we must carry on, still layered. We tell ourselves we love oatmeal and woolen hats after all these months while catalogs start to arrive with tanned people all dressed in their catalog-fresh beachwear on "holiday." Maybe you even pass people at work who find it cute to say, "Aloha". No, not so cute.

So perhaps you are like me and you're not going on vacation to some palmed destination and cannot seem to muster a love for anything baked or roasted while you tell yourself you are not deep in cabin or suburbian fever. No, you are simply bored with even your favorite late winter recipes and cannot seem to muster a sense of cravings. You know you want something fresh, something with a pale shade of green. Something with the hint of coconut on your tongue. This Thai salad might not solve any seasonal limbo malaise, but it certainly helped me.

Last week, the day spring came, we also had Thai week at our cooking school and this salad developed from some ingredients we special ordered; however, I'd like to think you too could find some of these even if it isn't Thai week in your world. Perhaps you could invent some type of week for yourself and come up with something even more creative such as a week dedicated to the coconut. Or maybe "everything has gone galangal". Instead of the adage of when in Rome for a week of Italian food, why not make it "when in Cambodia?" Something off the mark, but close enough.

For example, I taught a group of Indian priests, who told me that they didn't have Valentine's day in India, but a day loosely translated as, "The Day I think of You as my Sister." Frankly, I don't think anything got lost in translation, rather a better idea developed. Such is true with this recipe. It calls for green papaya, but if you cannot find it you could use cucumber instead. The important part is to get the flavors of the tangy sweet well deserved vacation in your mouth from anything melted or mashed.

This simple dish called Som Tom in Thai is, according to one food blogger who traveled through Thailand, a favorite among Thai ladies. Maybe I should call it, "My Spring Salad I would serve to my Sister if she could come over for Lunch." Whatever you call it, I hope you make it. Enjoy.

Simple Som Tom

1 Thai chile (these are really hot, you could use a small red chile for color and they are a bit milder in heat than the green ones)
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup lime juice, freshly squeezed limes
2 tablespoons fish sauce
4 tablespoons palm sugar (you could use brown sugar instead)
1 pound green papaya, julienne
1/4 cup bean sprouts
1/4 cup toasted coconut
1/2 cup toasted peanuts

1. In a small bowl, add the chile, garlic, lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar and mix well until the sugar dissolves.
2. In a large bowl, add papaya, bean sprouts and coconut and mix well.
3. Add dressing to papaya mixture and blend to coat. Add peanuts last and mix well.

Enjoy your food vacation.

The Citrus Among Us

No matter what form they sprout into as satsuma or pomelo, citrus satisfies during the gray days of January. I'd like to claim that I only eat seasonally but due to the fact that I now live in Montana, I have more than just an earnest interest in eating only beets. Although I have a fondness for these sanguine and hearty veggies, I do have a dwindling root cellar that I have been currently avoiding. Even my strong Irish taste for potatoes seems subdued. Currently, I am boycotting anything boiled and mashed. All I want are blood oranges as an afternoon snack, grapefruit juiced with carrot and ginger and backpacks that hold southern reminders of warm days to come. While out skiing in the cold, the perfect fruit--snug in it's down jacket of rind and pith--manages to keep shape, perfectly sweet in the winter sun. I love to watch the peels curl on the snow. Sometimes I imagine that even birds find the thrown rinds as a treat to store as incense for their nests. Here's proof of the heights I will climb to eat an orange in the cold sun.

There's something about the smell of citrus in winter that makes me feel like I am holding some token of warmth, some reminder that somewhere someone might be sweating not under just layers of wool. This past week we received a package of such a reminder thanks to my aunt Jan, who sends boxes of Honey Bells to her northern family members. We've been devouring them to say the least and finding ways to integrate them into meals in salads, but mostly they've simply become a coveted dessert.

My favorite use of the Honey Bells--besides eating them out skate skiing--was with a salad I adapted from this month's Bon Appetit. I turned it into a rice dish and added a vinaigrette. Also, thanks to my brother in law's salmon we brought back from Alaska, this meal felt like something we truly should bow our heads in thankfulness. Enjoy.

Salmon, Fennel, Mint with a Hint of Sun

1 cup rice, rinsed, cooked & slightly cooled
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 whole star anise
4 cups of water
1 one pound salmon fillet with skin
2 Honey Bells or navel oranges
4 cups fennel, thinly sliced
1 cup fresh mint, chiffonade

1. Place sugar, vinegar, star anise and four cups of cold water in a large deep skillet. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Bring to boil over high heat and stir until sugar dissolves.
3. Add salmon fillet, skin side up, cover and turn off heat.
4. Let stand for ten minutes, then turn salmon over. Cover and let stand for five to six minutes or until salmon is opaque in center.
5. Remove salmon from liquid and cool.
6. Meanwhile make vinaigrette:

Vinaigrette
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/4 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon juice from orange

7. This vinaigrette is really just a template, play around with sweet and sour and yes, fish sauce is a key ingredient here even though there is a small amount.
8. Segment your oranges. First cut the bottom 1/4 inch off each orange. Stand orange up on flat end and using a sharp pairing knife, cut off peel and white pith. Hold peeled orange in one hand over a large bowl and cut between membranes, releasing segments into the bowl.
9. Add fennel, mint and flank salmon into bowl and toss with vinaigrette.
10. Season with salt and pepper and first place cooled rice on a plate and place salmon salad on top.

I seriously thought about taking a photo of this because it was so lovely, but by the time I went for my camera, both my husband and myself had devoured this dish.

To The Waterfall

I've met few people who've vacationed to Mammoth Cave in March. Most Midwesterners head to Florida or the Texas shore for spring break, but one year our family headed to the hills, the Kentucky hills with a stop off at the state's National Park. I might have been seven or eight, I don't remember, but what I do recall was being hesitant of the smell of wet earth and the quiet of all that darkness so far below the ground. Sure, I recall the folklore and some stories of the caves discoveries, but mostly I remember a hike we took to a waterfall outside of the park.

It was gray and slightly raining. We cloaked ourselves in parkas and started heading towards the trail map. I was fumbling with my jacket and fell behind, I recall passing another family debating to hike or not. Their voices were calm, but concerned and the debate was about their young daughter and if she could handle walking over all the wet rock and slippery earth. She looked my age, my height and she too had heavy glasses. I recall listening and wanting to interrupt and tell them that they could come with us, but I didn't. I just stared. The little girl stood between her parents saying nothing. The parents decided against the hike. The girl didn't argue, she followed suit and watched as her mother helped her take her jacket off and climb back into the car.

I caught up with my family and really, I cannot tell you more details of the waterfall other than the cold wet rock layered in moss was dotted with spring flowers. While I stood with wet tennis shoes and damp socks all I thought about was that little girl, somewhere in her warm car looking out the window. I thought that if I knew her, I would send her a picture, a letter or some detail about the waterfall. I didn't want her to feel like she was missing out.

This past week, my book was rejected yet again and this time I was given comments in regards to my poems. I am beginning to think I would rather have a sterile letter simply stating the rejection in polite business English. No, not this letter for this editor found it an opportunity to be more personal and to tell me that my poetry is arbitrary. I responded in polite business English myself, but found her word choice a bit harsh.

And what does this story of the girl at the waterfall parking lot and being rejected have in common? Frankly, I write poems for that girl. I think and hope I will always write poems for her. In my mind, she's my audience or the person who maybe didn't go along with me and I want to do my best to show, explain, share and hopefully give her an opportunity to experience too.

I'd like to think that this desire doesn't come from my ego as much as it is from a belief that if you want to write than you need to have a story worth sharing, a poem with a point. Something to give to this world as an offering and not as some absolute. So here it goes, a new poem for a new year. Enjoy.

Sirens at 31o

Clara hangs blank CD’s from cherry trees,

to blind hawking magpies, while her daughters

wait for wind to turn the silver in sun

to catch seconds of rainbows without rain.

The three trees weight heavy in late summer

like Clara’s girls grown, still living under her

eye and locked screened door. A window opens

at dusk lifting hints of radio to fill the orchard

with pitched notes in the off key of dance halls,

tight jeans and slow smiles from boys under hats.

The girls sing louder than a meadow starred

with flowers. Louder than drown out owls.

As if their song were a car filled with gas

each chord a knitted feather to lift the past.