Jesus Bar Lentil Soup

Jesus Bar Lentil Soup
 finally written down on February 15, 2013

Kirk, from his hospital bed, has asked for food. Thus food he shall receive. But then the divine Emilia asked the rational question, “What are you going to make?”
What indeed? It needs to be all foods in a bowl, heavy on the protein but with lots of veg and carbs. There is only one answer to that question: Jesus Bar Lentil Soup.
The Jesus Bar is the Barri Gotic in Barcelona. I can’t tell you the address but can give you directions. Come out of the Cathedral of Barcelona and walk down the long, lovely steps. Once on the flat small plaza, walk until you are in front the hotel, about 60 ft, then turn left.  There you will find a warren of small streets fanning out into the Gotic. Turn broad left and get lost. I think it’s two streets and Philip just likes the idea of getting lost.
The Jesus Bar is medium size for the neighborhood. When you walk in, there is a glass cold case on the right next to the reception desk. If you are a tired Gotician you can drop in, pick up some good stuff and heat it up at home. Thru the doorway on the left are the two dining rooms. The tables are small and rickety, the menu is in 4 languages and the service is quick. We went there twice and that’s how I learned the soup.

2 lbs lentils
2 lbs fresh chorizo
2 cups chopped ham
one large onion
5 cloves of garlic
2 stalks celery
1 large carrot
1 red bell pepper
2 small or 1 medium zucchini
2 medium red or white potatoes

Okay, this is really simple.
Chop up your aromatics and sweat them in your big soup/pasta pot. Use your favorite oil; mine is canola.
While that is happening, cube the potatoes and zucchini and dump them in the pot.
Put in the lentils and fill the pot ¾ with water and turn up the heat.
Put in the skinned chorizo and ham. You want to make sure the chorizo is melting.
Add at least 3 bay leaves, put on the lid, and set the whole mess on simmer.
That’s it. The cooking will take about 2 hours. But, it is always better the next day. DO NOT SEASON UNTIL THE COOKING IS DONE AND YOU HAVE TASTED. The chorizo and ham have a lot of seasoning. Happy Cooking ♡ß

De Feo & Johns

DeFeo & Johns

Now, I do understand that museum exhibits are not competitions and painting is not a contact sport. That being said and on the basis of their career-spanning shows at SFMOMA, Jay DeFeo wiped the floor with Jasper Johns. She was simply a better painter than he is.
Last Sunday was cold and four of us went to to see what all the shouting was about on 3rd Street. The early reviews, especially in the Chronicle, had spent most of the ink on Jasper Johns, I suppose because he is a bigger name and still alive. From the writeup I was expecting a small show for Jay, maybe one room. But what we found was an extensive life review of Jay’s work. ( My usage of DeFeo’s first name will become clear.)
Starting with her school and jewelry pieces, the curator of Jay’s show walked us through her life in art. It was in this first room that pieces of my own very early history came. Standing in front of the display of Jay’s jewelry, I saw an earring I remember her wearing. For those of you who’ve seen the show, it is the wire piece in the shape of a treble clef.
My parents were friends with Jay DeFeo and Wally Hedrick. My father, Robert Jenkins, went to school with Wally and there is at least one Sierra Madrean who still calls him “Wally Bill.” I don’t remember Jay and Wally coming over to our place on Hayes, three blocks from the Park (don’t make that face, it was 1958/60 and the rent was cheap), though they may have; I was a little kid so things that happened at home were normal. I do remember going over to their place, a second-floor flat in what I understand is a known address. (Hayward King lived in the same building.) There were always paintings stacked in the ground floor hall on the left of the stairs.
There is a big photograph of Jay working on “The Rose” in the SFMOMA show. On the edges of the picture you can see the doorways of the kitchen on the right and the front room on the left. The adults would sit at the kitchen table and visit while my sister and I would settle down in the bedroom, she reading and me restless until I fell asleep. Wally put a leather-seated swing in the doorway between the bedroom (the old dining room) and the front room. He let me swing on it a little. The original bedroom was Jay’s studio.
One more memory, just to tell you what a sweet woman she was. For Valentine’s Day one year, Jay filled cardboard hearts with Conversational Sweeties for my sister and me. She also included Avon testers of lipstick and nail polish. I don’t think my mother appreciated the gift but I loved it.
By the time you leave the first room of Jay’s show, you understand that she was a monochromaticist. Primarily she worked in shades of black on white canvas. And in the series she called “Veronicas,” there are various shades of brown. One of them is in the biggest room of the show. Motion in two dimensions is Jay’s genius and it is manifest in almost all of her mature work. There are three monumental sculpted paintings that sing that genius. All I will say about her most famous work, “The Rose,” is that I finally understand why it lives at the Whitney. I was not prepared for its effect on me. No photograph can describe it. You really must go see it.
Unlike the curator of this show, I will not tell you what Jay meant by “The Jewel.” To these eyes, it looks like a monstrance. It is made all the more compelling by the broken rays that seem to be bleeding. The cross at its center is pushing forward, toward the observer. The other paint sculpture on the same wall as “The Jewel” is the mind-altering image named “Incision.” From the same period (1958-66) as the other paint sculptures, “Incision” looks for all the world like a topographical map of the San Andreas Fault. Sculpted primarily in black lead paint, augmented with lead white and string, this piece is completely involving. Or is my response because I love maps?
Lead paint, she sculpted in lead paint. In search of the three dimensional image, Jay put her health in jeopardy. There were a couple of paintings referencing her gum disease and subsequent dental work from the early 1970’s. Jay breathed lead paint fumes for ten years. And she smoked (like everybody else). These sculpture/paintings taught her eye how to make three-dimensional depth on a flat surface. Her later paintings manifest the lessons she learned from the sculpture, and it was a hard lesson. Her photographs and collages are wonderful but the paintings are my favorites.
It might be noted that I’m not writing about Jasper Johns. He is more famous and less interesting than Jay. It was informative, nay, surprising to see these shows side by side. Having seen one, two or maybe a room of Johns, I did wonder what I was missing. This is the great Jasper Johns, why don’t I care more? Having seen the whole retrospective at SFMOMA, what I missed was the passion of the artist. Johns is a mechanic, and I ain’t talking Smokey Yunick. For Johns, process is all, with no final statement. Maybe he never wants to finish. Whatever he is up to, it leaves me cold. Art, among so many other things, is a conversation between the artist and the observer. Jasper Johns speaks a language that I don’t.
  This review is way too late. The DeFeo show will close on February 3rd. When I saw Duane on Tuesday, he a great fan of Johns, I simply said, “You have to go and see. There are only two weeks left.” Jay was lovely and very kind. But that is the memory of a little girl. What I saw last Sunday was the life of an artist in all of her depth and glory.

let your wine sleep

Put your wine down. It is such a simple idea and makes such a big difference. Coming from me, the most spoiled I-like-it-and-want-to-drink-it-now, this might sound strange. Here’s how it works. You are standing at a tasting bar, doing a flight of reds to see what the house is putting down. (We don’t waste the house’s time with whites or even Merlots.) Like all tasters you swirl, smell and then hold the wine in your mouth and breath over it before you swallow. Somewhere in the back of your mind you know this might look pretentious, but too damn bad; this is grownup work and we get to enjoy it. Once you have tasted and decided what to buy, you have to decide what keep in the dining room and what will go down to the garage. Now the nice people behind the bar will tell you that everything they are pouring are ready to drink right now. But once they understand that you do know what you’re doing, they will actually start talking about how long the wine could go down.

This Thanksgiving we drank (along with some other really nice stuff) a 2007 Alley Cat from our old favorite, Milliaire. An Alicante Bouschet, it went down for five years and responded like a trooper. When we first tasted it, the wine was already really fine, with heft and spice and a whole lot of jammy grape. But, oh, what happened after it took a good long nap. It woke up and came to the party. Out of the undifferentiated grape came a beautiful structure. The spice and tannin did not to get in each other’s way. The grape clarified and some beautiful smoke came out. It cut through the richness of the meal, turkey and all. It was so fine, I can actually remember it in January.

Deep in a valley just outside of Plymouth (Amador Co.) there is a lovely little winery called Dobra Zemlja. Their specialty is zinfandel and they are run by an old Croatian brigand with the very best white mustache I have ever seen. In 2008 we tasted a house Zin and could have just drunk it all. It poured like a stream, just red with a little spice and when I win the lottery I’ll go back and buy cases of that stuff. Somehow, we put a bottle down and drank it on this Christmas Day. More than any other wine of the Season, this one was the most surprising. When we bought it, it was a really nice if somewhat gangly clear Zinfandel, the wine of California, but what we had on the feast day of the birth of my Lord was wonderful. The spice that is natural to Zin clarified and came to the front of the mouth. The grape took on some raisin and the copper, terroir in both Calaveras and Amador counties, clarified and brightened the whole mouth. This wine stood up to the Beef of Merrie Olde England and didn’t look back. Take a picnic lunch and check this place out. info@dobraz.com

Sharing is a very good thing,we learned that in kindergarten. But sometimes we hoard a bottle just to ourselves. We drank our Milliare Jeunesse 2007 with split pea soup on a cold winter night about a week and a half ago. The Jeunesse is a Primitivo, a proto Zin that Steve Millier has been cultivating, let us say babying, for a long time. This wine is a single pure note with a smooth, silky finish. It is hard enough to make a big structured wine like the Alley Cat, but to get so far out of the grape’s way that it can speak all on its own is even more difficult. Putting it down clarified the mouth and integrated what tannin there was. Damn, Steve, you are good. http://www.milliairewinery.com

Five to seven, that seems to be the sweet spot for the Calaveras and Amador wines. Zinfandels don’t do well much longer than seven and many of them can go down for a shorter time. The Gold Country wines are completely specific and always informed by the terroir. The dirt of the lower Sierras is so complicated but copper is obvious. You’ve heard me sing this song before: just go up, spend the night and drink the wine. Stand at those wine bars and talk to the people, and you will find what you want.

Oh, and by the way, put some of  it down for a while. You will just love it.

First Pumpkin Pie

the first pumpkin pie 10/01/12

It’s fall in the dear old Bay Area. The temperature is (briefly) high enough to please this old Sierra Madrean and the first pumpkin pie has been made at the Prancing Pony. Making this pie with fresh pumpkin is really easy and for all of you squash fans (the veg not the game) it will make you very happy.

You will need: a 3-5 lb. pumpkin

                        one 12 oz can of condensed milk

                        flour, salt, eggs, milk and spices.

Put the sweet little pumpkin in a 350 degree oven and bake until a thin knife comes out easily. Let cool.

While your pumpkin is baking make your pie dough. Most of you have your own dough recipes, but if you don’t, here is mine.

a.  In your food processor put

       2 cups of your favorite flour (cake flour does not work well for this application)

       1 cup of cubed butter

       1 tsp of salt

Pulse the mixture until it makes a grainy texture. Larger lumps (no bigger than baby peas) are very ok.

b.  Add one egg and pulse again to blend.

c.  Put the lid back on and add milk. (I eyeball the amount but I think it’s about 4-5 tablespoons.)

     Pulse again. (This is the tricky part. You want to blend the milk but the dough should still be kinda                           dry looking. You are NOT looking for a ball of dough.)

d.  Turn the dough onto a floured board and knead with the ball of your hand until it only just holds together. Cut the dough in half and freeze the half you don’t need. It will come in handy.

e.  Put the half you will use in a damp tea towel and put it in the fridge for at least an hour.

(If this entire dough making process takes longer than 5 minutes, you are working too hard.)

When your pretty little punky is cool enough, skin it. (A sharp paring or boning knife will make short work of the tough outer skin.) Then cut it in half and using your very clean hands, remove the seeds completely.

Cut the punky into large pieces and feed it to your food processor. You will need some liquid to smooth the pulp; I use bourbon, because that’s the way I roll. You can use milk or even water. What you want is a thick, smooth consistency. I have a regular processor and need to feed it the punky in 3rds.

(If you don’t have the time, you can stop the prep right here. Put the punky pulp into an airtight container and keep it in the fridge with the dough. Freeze any pulp you won’t need for this pie. Now you have about 24 hours to carve out the baking time.)

When you are ready to bake:

           preheat your oven to 450°

With your favorite mixer, hand or stand, combine

           the can of condensed milk

           2 eggs

           1 cup of brown sugar

Blend until the eggs are fully incorporated.

Add 2 cups of the punky and blend again. Now you have custard.

Add the spices: cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg and ginger are all wonderful with punky. Start with a tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of any other that is to your taste. Adjust at will.

Roll out your dough and put it in a 9 inch pie pan. (Leave a nice edge over the pan; the dough shrinks in baking.)

Pour the custard into the pan. Put the pan on a baking sheet and into the preheated oven.

Bake at 450° for 15 minutes and then turn the oven down to 350° for the rest of the bake.

After about 35 to 40 minutes, you should start to smell the pie. Check it for doneness by inserting a knife in the middle. When it comes out clean, pull that pie from the oven, put it on a cooling rack and be happy.

This pie will keep in the fridge for at least a week.

Easter 2012


invasive, non native Bun-Buns
(buying lamb for Easter 2012)

Here they come, invading the semi rational space of the living and dining rooms. Emerging from their lurking place in the attic sometime during Holy Week, they spread furry cuteness all over the place and give Philip the willies. Invasive because they show up on formerly clear surfaces. Non Native because, to a bun, they were made in China, bought by my sister and mailed to Oakland from Sierra Madre. Bun-Buns is a technical term that covers all things fluffy and Easteratic. It covers duckies, bunnies and little bitty lambs.
Easter is the star of my year. The little Mother comes up from the above-mentioned Sierra Madre, the understanding boss gives me the week off and the games begin. The invitations go out about a month before and by the week in question I usually know how many hordes will descend. One horde in or out is not the problem; the problem is how many deviled eggs will be needed (more about that later.) There is time for lunches and visiting and slow, careful preparation.  
Besides its obvious theological enchantments, Easter means the biggest party of the year, it means lamb and that lamb is halal. We are honored, in the Oakland/Berkeley metro, to have a good sized Middle Eastern and South Asian population. The nexus of University Ave. and San Pablo Ave. boasts at least 3 places where one can get fresh, good lamb. I found this vortex of really good food when I was working at the late and still lamented Cody’s 4th St. The Indus Food Center at 1920 San Pablo Ave. Berkeley is a combination grocery and butcher where you can just about everything you might need. Even though it is way out of my way now, I still go up there when I need sour cherries for pie.
A year or so ago I read a good writeup of a big halal market just over the hill from us on Telegraph Ave. It’s convenient, but it’s not for me. No big jugs of sour cherries and terrible customer service. (If you are female, alone and not Arabic speaking, don’t ask for help.) But lo, sometime in January a customer of mine told me about a butcher shop just across that little spur of 32nd. She said the meat was wonderful and the folks really nice. So, sometime later, I checked out Oakland Halal Meat and Produce at 3101 Telegraph Ave where I found beautiful, very fresh meat and perfect service. They will cut it anyway you want and, if you tell them what you are cooking, what cut you need. This place is a real butcher shop.
Thus, mine mutter and I made our way to the little place to procure the leg ‘o lamb for the festal day. The sun was shining fitfully on Holy Saturday and I found a parking space within a half a block of our destination. Herself can still walk, at 87, but she is stately in her pace. As I helped her out of the car and up the street, we were greeted by a tall, noble man dressed in a long outer robe and skullcap. He looked like an imam and graciously asked if the lady was my mother. She sweetly acknowledged me as her daughter and the gentleman gave me a jewel I will keep: “A mother’s words go directly to God.” Folks like it when the mommy and I are out and about.
Oakland Halal Meat and Produce is a pristine butcher shop with a small veggie stall on the left. I believe the folks are from Yemen and they are very nice. We walked up and I discussed the number of meat eaters with the expert behind the counter. We agreed on 7lb and then the magic happened. He went to the cold room and came out with a whole cold fresh lamb. In moments, the whole was cut down to the leg we needed and put in the largest zip lock bag I’ve ever seen. As we paid for the meat we were presented with a bunch of ripe bananas. A gift from the shop. You gotta go to this place. When we brought our swag back to the house, I realized one more gift. That zip lock bag was big enough to hold the lamb and all of the onions for the marinade. Onions and lamb and lamb and onions, reach to the height of godliness.
On Easter morning after service and with all the linens ironed and the tables laid, the last moment work began. By the grace of Christ, I have a kitchen large enough that three adult women can work in it and enjoy each other’s company. Tonia was working under the altar, filling the best cannoli I’ve ever had. (Note: when choosing friends, try to include at least one Brooklyn-born, Italian-raised kick-ass soprano.) Kathryn, builder and sailor extraordinaire,  was addressing the largest collection of eggs for deviling that our house has ever seen.
You need to understand this about deviled eggs and Easter. There are those, notably my best friend Liz, who consider the perfect Easter dinner to be enough champagne and enough deviled eggs. Time consuming and finicky, deviled eggs with homemade mayonnaise are my signature dish. The whites get rubbery if they sit overnight in the fridge; the eggs have to be boiled, made and filled on the morning of the party. Oh, by the way, the eggs have to be very fresh. And there is no such thing as enough.
This is Easter in Oakland. I can get everything I need and dear men compliment my mother.  If you don’t do Easter, you might want to give it a try. There are deviled eggs, great music, love, friends and invasive, non-native Bun-Buns.

take me for a ride in the car

a ride in the car
The stars aligned so that Lizzye and Philip could take a ride in the car. After a lazy morning, we headed up the I-80 to Pinole and thus to the California 4. Stockton was our destination and good beer our desire. A ride in the car is a vacation for me. All we need is a destination, usually a late lunch somewhere. (Remind me to tell you about the Olema Inn!) New brewpubs are lovely but we had run out of them until two weeks ago. Our local started pulling ales from Valley Brewing Company and Philip was enticed. Since a ride across even part of this great state is my idea of a very good time, we took advantage of the MLK holiday and headed for Stockton.
We had wanted to come to her over the 4, my second favorite highway after 395, but missed our turn and ended up taking Vasco Road down to Livermore. Those are beautiful hills, very unstable and good only for cattle grazing and watershed. The brilliant winter green against the grey of winter rain made for a stunning drive.
We picked up the 580 East, toward Tracy and the 5. I-5 is the blood stream of California. Huge trucks filled with the bounty of of the state roar up and down this most important of roads. It took us directly to Stockton.  (What is the problem with Stockton? Why does everyone dismiss it automatically? In the history of this best of all states, Stockton is essential. A river and aggie town with a fine university, this dear old burg does not get the honor that she has earned.) Just north of Tracy,we came to her southern border and took Pershing into the city. What a sweet place—neat, medium sized houses on pretty streets. The campanile of the University of the Pacific rises above the flood plain, anachronistic but handsome. What with streets that change their names when crossing avenues, we got a little turned around but found our destination, the Valley Brew pub and sports bar.
We have some experience with pubs. We know them in Inverness, York and our dear Grosvenor in Pimlico, London. Our local is Barclays in Rockridge, Oakland where Philip had his first Valley Brewing ale. Valley Brew is by contrast a sports bar, with very high ceilings, brick walls and good sight lines. It is not a pub and certainly not a brew pub.  But Valley Brew is a good place to drink VERY good ale and beer. My crab cakes were crabby and held together with cornmeal, a delightful difference. Philip’s ribs were made with the house stout, that made a splendid sauce,  very dark with a hint of bitter. We bought three bottles of their varied best to take back to Oakland.
The ride home was just what I needed—the broad flood lands of the lower Sacramento. Large rivers frighten me; they are great powers I don’t understand. The Sacramento is the exception. With so many dams and diversions, she is much gentler, like a great cat who has been declawed.  I ride across her flat heart, watching the herons in the flooded fields and the black earth that feeds the world.  I’ve seen her magical headwater, coming out of a granite mouth in Redwood Park, Shasta City. Here on the flood plain, the Sacramento is a mighty water and the 12 from Stockton to Rio Vista is just the place to see her. Accompanying the white herons are assorted grebes and terns chasing each other across a classic valley cloud display. When the weather breaks in the San Joaquin/Sacramento delta, the effect is DRAMATIC! We are talking C.B. DeMille, with great rays of sun splitting thunderous clouds and Mount Diablo looking like the Hall of the Mountain King.
The 4 and the 12, the narrow highways that cross the middle of our state, are a perfect way to see the Great Central Valley. These are the pastures of plenty of which Woody Guthrie sang and they give us our peaches and radishes and kale and on forever. I love this drive even more than Sir Francis Drake Boulevard out to Pt. Reyes. I get a mini vacation and enough time to do political theory and moral philosophy with my favorite traveling companion. Take me for a ride in the car.

A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time
Joshu is the Zen master cat of this house. He is himself unto himself, unless he needs breakfast, belly rubs, out of the house or into it. Joshu has taken to crying his let-me-in cry to me from outside on the shed top while I’m on the computer. He is trying to drive me nuts. Last night he was doing his crying thing and making me feel guilty. Finally, I left the desk, walked down the hall, opened the front door and miaowed down the space between our house and Mr. H’s. As I turned in disappointment to go back in the house, there was Joshu. He tessered, because “there is such a thing as a Tesseract.”
In this year of my Lord 2012, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of A Wrinkle in Time by the great Madeline L’Engle. For most of us, this single slim volume is the door to all of science fiction. Before we read Heinlein or Bradbury or Asimov, let alone Gaiman or Jordan or Card, we read Wrinkle. How did the ALA give this book the Newberry Award in 1962? Well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
  “It was a dark and stormy night.” With this hoary line L’Engle opens A Wrinkle in Time and weaves her web there from. In that storm, we find our main character, Meg, up in her attic bedroom, worrying about everything. In a few short sentences, L’Engle shows us the whole Murray family: scientist parents, the perfectly normal twins, the scary brilliant littlest brother, Charles Wallace, and especially Meg. She is everygirl, with a mouth full of braces, glaring at the world through glasses and always ready for a fight. Her old friends confuse her with their sudden sense of affected maturity and neighbors drop insults about her family. Meg is uncomfortable in middle school, bored and missing her father. I have never seen a better or more succinctly drawn image of early adolescent angst.
The hero’s journey into the darkness to retrieve knowledge or gift is one of the two or three primary tales of human mythology. Meg wants her daddy back and will face any danger and the turmoil of wisdom to get him. During her journey, Meg meets guides of great power, a Happy Medium, the loving Aunt Beast and, terrifyingly, IT. In the sweet arrogance of the very young, Charles Wallace gets caught by a terrible power. As our heroine moves through dimensions and planets, she slowly dons the armor necessary to save her brother Charles. Daddy can’t save his baby boy. It is the myopic and snaggletoothed Meg who does battle against ultimate order with the chaos of love. Oh, and she gets her first kiss from a boy.
Now we come to the primary criticism of Madeline L’Engle and of A Wrinkle in Time, that she is writing Christian apologetics disguised as children’s literature. It seems that every civilization but ours is allowed to reference its sacred texts in its literature. When one of us quotes our scripture, as L’Engle uses “the foolishness of God” from 1st Corinthians, we are suspected of ulterior motives. But this great book is not a stalking horse for the Spanish Inquisition; no one is trying to brainwash anyone. Mrs. Whatsit quotes St. Paul because it is the clearest way to make her point to Meg. If L’Engle had quoted the Dhammapada, her critics would have thought her hip and open-minded. Instead, they pick at her with suspicions of duplicity. Give the old girl a rest—it’s just a story.
But, of course, it is far more than just. A Wrinkle in Time has opened so many minds to science fiction that we still recommend it 50 years later. To celebrate this wonder, I put it on display at the cash wrap. A few days ago, a handsome young woman was gazing lovingly at the original cover art on the anniversary edition. Her swain asked, “What is that book? I never heard of it.” Well, now he has and he reminded me that I, as a bookseller, still have work to do. The Tesseract is out there to be understood and Madeline L’Engle will show us. Joshu knows how to tesser. Do you?