Snug Solitude-Part 1

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It’s Ann here today. While I’m busy cooking with canned tomatoes, Andy is in OurLittleCorner griping about off-season fresh tomatoes that taste like wet cardboard.

The first entry of M.F.K.Fisher’s 1948 series, Alphabet for Gourmets, is “A Is for Dining Alone.” It begins “…sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should be indulged in lightly…There are few people alive with whom I care to pray, sleep, dance, sing, and (perhaps most of all, except sleep) share my bread and wine.” And she concludes the essay with “…snug misanthropic solitude is better than hit-or-miss congeniality.”

Lots of great writers in this 2008 book (which includes the essay by M.F.K. Fisher)

In sharp contrast to that, Michael Pollan in his 2008 In Defense of Food advises, “Try not to eat alone.”

So should we side with Fisher or Pollan?

Among our extended group of family and friends we have many who are eating alone these days, for a variety of reasons. And, to be honest, most of these folks would side with Pollan.

I’ve been wracking my brain for months about how to advise these solo eaters, and it’s not easy. Of course, you can suggest that they invite folks over often for a super-simple, home-cooked meal – or that they go out often for casual dinners with friends, but ultimately, the majority of the time they will come back to their kitchen to cook and to eat alone.

Today’s blog will be my first – but not my last – on the subject of solo eating. More blogs will come – but not back to back. It’s all too important and challenging – and, yes, rewarding to figure out.

My personal criteria looks something like this:

A main dish for solo eating should need…

  • a very, very short prep time
  • a short cooking time
  • not too many ingredients (except spices)
  • very, very little dicing and mincing
  • no frying – except in a wok or dutch oven
  • little effort to clean up

And that dish should be fairly nutritious, provide lots of leftovers both to freeze and to eat a few days later – and shouldn’t be ridiculously expensive.

I’ve been searching all of my favorite on-line sites for inspiration…SmittenKitchen.com, Food52.com, NYTimes.com, BarefootContessa.com, SeriousEats.com – and smaller ones such as TheMediterraneanDish.com, PinchofYum.com, CookieandKate.com, and TheWoksofLife.com. A few cookbooks have been useful too – What We Eat When We Eat Alone by Deborah Madison and a brand new one by Caroline Chambers (mother of 3 young boys…so in a different cooking world than we are) – What To Cook when You Don’t Feel Like Cooking (note: Chambers has a very active online presence too, including a Substack site and a weekly newsletter with recipes and ideas – and products to buy :).

There won’t be many recipes that can fulfill all of my criteria, but here’s one that comes pretty close. Plus, it has 6700+ positive reviews on the NYTimes website: Crispy Halloumi with Tomatoes and White Beans. And as far as being “alone in the kitchen with an eggplant,” I’ll have a simple recipe with eggplant up soon!

Note: halloumi is often made with “non-animal rennet,” so it works for vegetarians…just check the label.

Crispy Halloumi with Tomatoes and White Beans

Halloumi should be served immediately after frying and does not rewarm well, so fry only the amount you think you’ll use in one sitting and refrigerate any unfried halloumi for later. Don’t omit the honey and lemon…they’re vital to the flavor. This is a riff on a NYTimes recipes by Nargisse Benkabbou.

  • Olive oil, as needed
  • 1(8-oz) block halloumi, cut into about 9 slices 
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed (or buy a jar of Christopher Ranch Chopped Garlic and use that to simplify your prep even more)
  • 1 (15 oz) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes (or, if you have amazing summer cherry tomatoes, substitute 1 lb of them, halved)
  • 1 tsp honey, plus more for serving
  • 1/2 tsp dried oregano or thyme
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 1(15-oz) can cannellini beans, butter beans or navy beans, drained
  • 2 T lemon juice
  • Minced parsley for serving (optional)
  • Crusty bread or rolls for serving (optional)

Heat 2 T olive oil in a medium-sized pan over medium heat. Add 4 slices of halloumi and cook them for about 2 minutes on each side. Remove the halloumi from the pan (it will be added back in later). Add the 2 cloves of minced garlic and saute for about 30 seconds, then add the canned tomatoes, honey, and oregano. Season with salt and pepper and simmer for 2-3 minutes (if you are using fresh cherry tomatoes, you’ll have to cook the mixture about 10 minutes).

Stir in the beans and then arrange the fried halloumi slices on top of the tomato-bean mixture in the pan. If you want the stew to have more broth, add a little water or vegetable broth. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed.

Drizzle with a little olive oil, squeeze the lemon half over it all and then add a light drizzle of honey. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately with bread.

There are tons of ways to vary this recipe – which makes it even more useful. You might stir in a big handful of fresh baby spinach leaves to the hot mixture or add 1 T minced anchovies or add 2 tsp of white miso paste. Consider frying an egg and serving it on top. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes during cooking – for some spice.

Recipe brought to you by BigLittleMeals.com and Andy and Ann.

Something Is Rotten in the State of…

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It’s Ann here today. Andy is in OurLittleCorner making faces😁 .

Is something rotten in the state of Denmark England? California? maybe even Albuquerque? Those are the settings for my three new favorite works – two novels and a TV series, and all are post-apocalyptic. And I make no claims to even liking science fiction (though I would prefer to categorize these works as something other than science fiction. Margaret Atwood, apparently, likes the term “speculative fiction” – which seems apropos).

I’m always impressed with good writing – and good television. And it seems Andy and I are constantly on the lookout for the next best read and/or watch.

After I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road I swore I would never read another post-apocalyptic novel again. It was that alarming. But time heals all things, and I’m now totally enamored with these futuristic works…Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus on Apple TV, Ian McEwan’s recent novel, What We Can Know, and Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel Parable of the Sower.

I asked an editor from the San Francisco Standard to give me a brief review of Pluribus, and here’s what she wrote:

“Pluribus may paint a picture of the future that’s unnervingly one-step from our future AI reality, but at its core, the show is really about being human. In the face of her new world, the main character vacillates between states of anger, lust, hilarity, loneliness, and sadness — feelings that apparently (thank god) aliens are incapable of. So it’s a good reminder that the flip side of human suffering is joy and they’re interconnected. And aliens with their perfect little lives are clearly missing out. (But then again — are they? Stay tuned for Season 2!)”

And I asked a formerLSU college professor to comment on What We Can Know – and here’s what he had to say:

“Although it is set in decimated post-apocalyptic 2120’s (where many of the dire predictions have come to pass), What We Can Know is much more than a cautionary tale.  McEwan is not only a great story-teller, he packs so much insight and creativity into his paragraphs that I found myself frequently rereading parts (partly to understand but mainly to marvel at his incredible way with words).  It is the kind of book you hate to see end.

And, since none of the family (yes, the Standard editor and the college professor are family 🙂 has read Parable of the Sower, let me discuss it a bit.

I bought this paperback from the Maryland Book Bank (provides free books for needy children) – and they apparently got it from the Goucher Prison Education Partnership. Interesting journey, it’s had.

I’m fascinated with Butler, whose mother was a housekeeper and father a shoeshiner and who was born in Pasadena in 1948 and died in 2006. I hate to admit I had never read about her or about any of her works until now. There is a brief interview with Butler at the end of Parable of the Sower. In the interview she describes herself this way: Who am I? I am…comfortably asocial—a hermit. … A pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.“

The plot of Parable of the Sower (remember it was written 33 years ago) is set in California, beginning in 2024, and its follow-up novel, Parable of the Talents, is set in the 2030’s, which is eery, to say the least. Climate change and water shortage, drugs and disease, inequality and corporate greed are just a few of the issues being faced by the people, including the main character, a Black woman named Lauren.

Where is the upbeat part that makes the novel not totally depressing? Lauren believes that she has an idea that will bring positive changes to the world. Her name for this is Earthseed. Earthseed is what drives her and keeps her going.

And here, in my opinion, is the most-soothing, most-optimistic line from Butler’s novel: “From what I’ve read…the world goes crazy every three or four decades. One trick is to survive until it goes sane again.” I so hope that’s right.

(and one aside: if you really want to be freaked out consider this. In Parable of the Talents, the U.S. is being led by a president who hopes to rid the country of non-Christians, has brought back slavery, AND has the motto “Make America Great Again.” Mind you this was written in 1998. Prescient?

If you’re into reading more “speculative fiction,” here are some others to consider.

from MentalFloss.com

How does this all relate to food? It’s both scary and kind of funny to read all of the online sites about food for post-apocalypse times. In my brief research I was more interested in what still could be grown – not what we should store up (canned goods, beans, honey, and alcohol (!) for example). A lot of what can be grown depends on what caused the apocalypse. I’m going to suggest you read the BBC’s Science Focus take, “This is what you’d eat after the apocalypse, according to science.” The possible crops are peas, carrots, potatoes, sugar beets, and spinach.

I’m not sure whether apocalypse survivors will have access to spices, but today’s recipe could be made without any and would still be nutritious. Meanwhile, let’s savor all those seeds, bulbs, tubers, and rhizomes that give us the spices we can enjoy today.

Aloo Gajar Matar

And a final note – as we speculate about the future: maybe we all need to have Selaginella lepidophylla, aka The Resurrection Plant. It’s not going to help with providing food, but, according to HighlandMoss.com , its “ability to rise from the state of the ‘dead’ has made it a symbol of hope and rebirth across various cultures….In folk magic, it’s believed to bring peace, power, and protection from bad spells into a home.” Better yet, according to The Brain Maze on Facebook, it reminds us that “even in the most desolate conditions, life always finds a way to return.”

Aloo Gajar Matar (Indian Potatoes, Carrots & Peas)

  • 2 T oil
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 2 tsp minced garlic
  • 2 tsp grated ginger
  • 1 tsp Diamond kosher salt
  • 3 c cubed red potatoes (about 1/2″ cubes)
  • 3 T water
  • 3 c peeled and diced carrots 
  • 1 c frozen green peas
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp coriander
  • 1/4 tsp Kashmiri chili powder – or cayenne
  • 1/2 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp amchur (dry mango powder) or 1 tsp lemon juice 
  • 1/2 c chopped cilantro for serving (optional)

Heat oil in a large skillet (which has a lid) over medium low heat. Add the turmeric, garlic and ginger and fry for about 1 minute.

Add the cubed potatoes, salt, and water and stir well. Cover and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes.

Add carrots and stir them in; cover with lid and cook on low for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When carrots and potatoes are both soft and cooked, stir in the frozen green peas and the remaining spices – ground cumin, coriander, chili powder, garam masala, and amchur – or lemon juice); cover and cook on low for another 5 minutes, stirring several times.

Garnish with cilantro and serve with roti or naan.

Recipe brought to you by BigLittleMeals.com and Andy and Ann.


Whether the Weather Be Fine

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It’s Andy here today. Ann is in OurLittleCorner thinking outside the box .

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold  
Or whether the weather be hot,  
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.
(19th century British nursery rhyme)

When it comes to the weather we are very spoiled here Sonoma County. For most months of the year we’re blessed with sunny, mild days. But January definitely is not one of those blessed months; it is even considered by many to be the most depressing month of the year. One source put it this way: “it’s that time of year where darkness seems to be sucking away our daylight and cold, rainy weather eats up the rest.”

Gene Kelley in the 1952 movie Singin’ in the Rain – was this a desperate denial of the January gloom?

A few gloomy January evenings ago I found myself repeatedly checking my weather app (even as I was at my keyboard composing this blog). Although it was pouring rain outside I was hoping that by some miracle it would clear up by morning so our scheduled bicycle club ride would not be cancelled — again. No such luck— my app showed nothing but rain at 10:00 am when the ride was scheduled to begin.

Screenshot from my app showing the forecast for 10:00 am on ride day — clearly the ride wasn’t going to happen.

This brought to mind Bob Dylan’s famous lyrics, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” which he wrote in 1965, long before the first weather app appeared in 2007 (as a feature on the original iPhone). Did I really need a weather app and why was I compelled to keep checking it?

I did a little digging on the web to see if others shared my weather app obsession and quickly found plenty of evidence that I’m not alone. Especially informative was a 2023 Guardian piece by Hannah Marriott with the byline “We used to check every day, now it’s every minute: how we got addicted to weather apps.” Here are a few interesting tidbits from her article:

  • Fifty percent of US smartphone users regularly use weather apps
  • Android and iPhone app stores list more than 10,000 apps that have the word “weather” in the title (yes, the article says 10,000) .
  • Revenue generated by weather apps jumped from $530m in 2017 to $1.5bn in 2023.
  • The climate crisis will increasingly spur the growth of the weather app “ecosystem”
  • Weather apps are part of a general trend towards “digitizing one’s life and schedule”.
  • Apps can include options such as a“bee index” as well as indices for swimming, cold and flu, campfires, sinus, golf, and arthritis

But what interested me most is why these apps are so addictive. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford University’s Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic and the author of Dopamine Nation, suggests that weather apps appeal to our “dopamine-seeking brains” (dopamine is the “feel-good” hormone that supposedly gives us a sense of pleasure). Lembke claims that “it is not just the quantification but also the way that those numbers are displayed, the graphs and the charts. The brain has a way of really glomming on to numbers.”

Her bit about the brain “glomming on to numbers” must be about brains other than mine. Rather than stimulating pleasure, numbers and charts create twinges of anxiety in my brain — no doubt from suppressed memories of my struggles with math and statistics as a student. That doesn’t mean that I never feel moments of pleasure when checking my weather app. As a case in point, a few days after the rain-cancelled bike ride my app showed that the next scheduled ride would be on a rain-free, sunny day. That definitely boosted my spirits.

Screenshot of the dopamine-producing Wunderground forecast for 10:00 am on the day of the next scheduled ride.

I’m no psychiatrist, but I’m guessing that those icons of the sun displayed on the app (see the above screenshot) were what appealed to my dopamine-seeking brain. Not only has research shown that exposure to sunshine itself produces dopamine, there is good evidence that anticipation of “positive events” (such as an upcoming sunny day?) can have a similar effect. I guess this means that I’m doomed to be forever checking my weather app trying to satisfy my dopamine-hungry brain.

From John Denver’s 1971 Poems, Prayers, and Promises album. Art by Kandy Myny

ln the mean time I’m going to take a break from my weather app and work on generating some dopamine by turning to Spotify and listening to Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues (source of the “weatherman” lyrics), perhaps followed by John Denver’s Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy. I’ll pass on Gene Kelley’s Singing in Rain.

Have a good remainder of January and may your dopamine flourish.

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