Charmed, I'm Sure

photo illustrative magic courtesy of Philip Brooker

I have always been a hard sell when it comes to magic. Back when I toggled my first loose baby tooth, my parents explained about the Tooth Fairy -- your tooth falls out and the Tooth Fairy appears while you sleep, takes the tooth and pays you for it (your original Cash for Clunkers concept). I looked at them, smiled coolly and nodded. I didn’t believe a minute of it. I was over magic by the time I was five. Kind of too bad, but that’s the way I’m made. I didn’t burst my parents’ bubble. The idea of the Tooth Fairy seemed to make them so happy, and I didn’t object to handing over my teeth in exchange for the coins my father left by my bed.

Several years later, my adult teeth affixed firmly in my head, I’m beginning to believe magic isn’t such a bad thing and might, even, in fact, exist. Paul Bowles defined magic as “a straight connection between the world of nature and the consciousness of man, a hidden but direct passage that bypasses the word.” I might add it bypasses the eye, too, unfolding within its own damn time frame which is not necessarily ours. Perhaps that’s why we say a watched pot never boils, because though there’s science behind cooking, if the end result is any good, there’s magic’s involved, too.

It may also be why with Joe Meno’s otherwise excellent novel The Great Perhaps and with the film Henry Poole Is Here, two works about belief, magic, transformation, the whole shebang, the pivotal moment, the sea change, felt false or even forced to me. As with the Tooth Fairy, I wanted to believe, but I didn’t. Magic is not interested in proving itself to you, it just happens. I mean good magic, white magic. The other stuff -- when the roof leaks or your honey dumps you or the doctor says pathology, that to me isn’t magic. That’s life doing its best to bleed magic right out of you. Magic can happen despite that stuff, but you can’t set your watch by it. Like H1N1, it comes, it goes.

Maybe magic is Blake’s energy, eternal delight. I see magic with P, who makes art, and with S, who makes bread. Sometimes I’m even capable of magic myself -- more often, my husband says, than I realize. I certainly wasn’t capable of it at three this morning, in a knot of insomnia-induced dread (see previous post). Magic does not come on demand. It cannot be forced -- God knows I’ve tried. It can sometimes, however, be coaxed.

Ritual helps -- you know, indulging in the notion that something you do or say or wear can affect change. This is known as magical thinking, a rather sparkling term made famous by Joan Didion’s memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. Magical thinking is probably a mild form of delusion. I see nothing wrong with this. Magic comes with surrender, with infatuation with possibility, with being loose and giddy right up in life’s ugly little face.

And if magic is being coy or annoyingly elusive, the next best thing is to appreciate it and be grateful for it when it comes. This is what I tell myself, anyway. Then I curse and make dinner.

Magical Moroccan Tagine

Most Moroccan tagines take hours. The transformation that comes from slow-cooking is part of their magic. You can make this one, with very few ingredients, in minutes and you don’t even need a tagine. That is its own kind of magic. Freewheelingly adapted to the point of being unrecognizable, its origins can be traced back to a recipe by the oh-so-magical Paula Wolfert.

Enjoy over whole grain couscous or quinoa. Also very nice stuffed in a pita.

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 cloves garlic
1 head of broccoli

1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

a pinch of red pepper flakes or, even better, Aleppo pepper

sea salt to taste

1 large handful cilantro

In a large (14-inch or so) skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat.

Mince garlic and add, stirring, just for a minute or two.

Chop broccoli into bite-sized pieces, both florets and chunks of stem. Yes, you are using the entire broccoli. Magic does not appreciate waste. Neither do I.

Add broccoli to skillet, along with tomatoes, paprika and pepper flakes. Stir together. Reduce heat slightly, so tomatoes are still on the boil. Stir constantly. The tomatoes will (magically) thicken and turn jammy and the broccoli will become tender, in less than 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Chop cilantro. Add to broccoli. Season with salt. Enjoy the magic.

Serves 4.

Next up: Fowl play.

And When Life Offers You Turnips. . . .

What you'll probably never see on a Gourmet cover -- "Our top ten turnip recipes!"  Face it, turnips are no one's favorite vegetable (are they yours?  Talk to me.).  And yet they're as much a part of the vegetable kingdom as the more popular potato, they're almost indestructable, they last for ages, the staple of root cellars.  They're easy to grow and cheap to buy.  They get us through tough times.

Their shape is not unlike the noble onion, and at their tops, they have a stripe of purple, like a sash worn by dignitaries.  Turnip greens are great -- sky-high in vitamin K (one cup offers over 660 percent of your RDA) and barely there in calories (28).  The turnip itself, cruciferous like its better-loved kin broccoli, is rich in vitamin C, calcium (!), folic acid and magnesium.  It's a veritable pharmacy in root form.  

And yet, the turnip is often the vegetable of last resort.   Even M.F.K Fisher, queen of penurious eats, doesn't provide a turnip recipe.  We'd rather feed it to livestock than eat it ourselves.  The taste and texture is the root of the problem.  Turnips are often served mashed, so unsuspecting folk spoon it up thinking it's mashed potatoes only to find out otherwise.  Turnips are more fibrous and somewhat other than potato in texture.  They have more in common with the radish.  And yet their density makes it hard to use turnips as you do radishes or daikon.  It is perplexing, especially so since I have acquired nine turnips through my farm share program and I have a horror of waste.  What to do?

I am opposed to the concept of sneaking vegetables into recipes.  Sneaking sounds so furtive and underhanded. I am much more in favor of recipe enhancement, you know, like enhanced breasts.   To enhance means you're not denying anything, it implies an active desire to improve, to make better.  And to enhance a dish with vegetables means you're adding nutrition and flavor, yet very little money and effort. This is everything I stand for. 

This turnip-enhanced vegetable tagine draws on the Moroccan flavors I love.  It is layered in taste, easy to prepare and contains turnips, which as God as my witness, I will never look down on again. 

Heretical Vegetable Tagine With Turnips (Deal With It)

Traditional Moroccan tagines simmer away all day.  Honey, who's got the time?  This heretical version produces the same result in a fraction of the time (see, sometimes heresy is a good thing).   Steadfast turnip refuseniks, some good news -- substitute a can of rinsed, drained chickpeas for the turnips and you're good to go.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion

3 medium-to-large turnips

1 large carrot

4 stalks celery

2 peppers, red or green

6 collard greens or handful of Swiss chard or spinach leaves, sliced into ribbons

1 15-ounce can organic diced tomatoes

1 handful raisins

1/2 teaspoon each paprika, cumin, cinnamon, aleppo pepper (or cayenne)  and saffron

1 wedge preserved lemon or 1 fresh lemon

1 bunch cilantro

1 bunch Italian parsley

sea salt to taste

Fill a large pot with water, then bring to boil.  Peel turnips and chop into bite-sized pieces.  Add turnip bits to water, cover and reduce heat to low.  Simmer until turnips are tender, about 25 minutes.  Drain and set aside.  

In a large stock pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Chop onion, carrot, celery and peppers.  Add to oil, along with turnips.  Toss well.  Add paprika, cumin, cinnamon, aleppo pepper and saffron.  Stir in greens.

Add diced tomatoes plus any juice from the can.  Stir well.  Bring to boil, then cover and reduce heat to low.   Let it simmer on its own for 45 minutes or so, until vegetables are tender.

Add preserved lemon, chopped fine, or the juice of 1 fresh lemon.  Add sea salt to taste.

Just before serving, stir in finely chopped parsley and cilantro.

Serve over whole grain couscous.

Serves 4-6.

Naked Broccoli

Harry Crews once told me that when he writes, "I want to get as naked as I possibly can, to strip my mind, my emotional stuff, whatever I work out of, and say, Here it is, ladies and gentlmen, this is all I'm bringing."

I love that attitude. I try to be naked, too, to be honest in the midst of artifice.  I strive to bring nakedness to every aspect of my life.  I can usually manage it in the kitchen.  So in honor of the titanic Harry Crews, here's naked broccoli:

 

Take one lovely green head of broccoli.  Rinse off invisible nasties.  Cut into florets, keeping as much stem as you can stand.  That's where the phytonutrients are.  Tossing out the broccoli bottom wastes resources and cheat you out of the best nutritional bits.  Steamed, the woody stems turn tender and great tasteing -- like asparagus. Chop them into bits and you've got bonus broccoli.

 

Do you want to be plunged into boiling water?  Neither does broccoli.  Steaming preserves the nutrients in produce, too, so invest in a covered steamer or double boiler.  Place veggies in the put above -- the one with the holes -- water in the pot below.  Cover, bring to a boil, and steam for 6 minutes (or if you're a microwaver, give it about 3 minutes), then peek inside and check on your broccoli's progress.  It should smell vegetal and rich and be glowingly green.  You want stems that snap, not bend.  Give it another minute or two if necessary, then rinse in cold water or toss in a handful of ice.  like other vegetables, broccoli retains heat and will continue cooking until you bring down its temperature.

 

Stop and admire.   You have just made broccoli and it is beautiful.  Take off your clothes and do a little broccoli dance.   Now go read Crews' amazing autobiography A Childhood, The Biography of a 

Place (1978). 

Tomorrow's menu -- poetry, porn, Jamaican vegetable stew and if 

the photo gods are kind, a decent picture.