The Urbane Homestead

Good, and good for you

There seems to be a lot of talk about yogurt in the blogosphere lately (e.g. here and here). Why now, I wonder? Perhaps because as spring turns the corner into summer, we look for the refreshing, the cool, the light. Perhaps also our inner forebears come out from the back brain where there is no refrigeration and seek to prevent the spoilable from, well, spoiling. And perhaps it's fashion. Just as brown is again the new black, yogurt is the new mocha latte.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's my recipe for yogurt:

Heat one quart milk, stirring constantly, to 180º. Then let it cool, stirring constantly, to 120º. Whisk in, thoroughly, two tablespoons of active culture yogurt (i.e. plain old yogurt). Pour into a jar, old yogurt container, or insulated jug. Place on heating pad set on "low," wrap in a towel, and leave overnight. Refrigerate. Eat.

And here's a recipe for ayran, a refreshing and wildly popular yogurt drink from Turkey: In a quart jar or shaker, put a cup of yogurt, a half cup to a cup of water, ice cubes, and a generous pinch of salt. Shake until smooth and foamy. Drink. Ayran is so popular in Turkey that they even serve it at the Istanbul McDonald's. Don't ask me how I know.

Maple syrup season

Spring is really on the way: it's maple syrup season! At my Quaker boarding school, it was the job of the sophomore class each year to make apple cider in the fall, and maple syrup in the spring. When I was a sophomore in, um, 1977, we collected the sap in a stand of trees several miles from the school, then trucked it back and and boiled it in a big vat out on the green of the campus. I remember standing around the vat on a grey afternoon, wearing wool plaid lumberjack shirts and boots, and warming our hands in the sweet-smelling vapor that billowed up in the cold spring air. It's a delightful memory and (for some reason) I love thinking of myself as a person with real-life maple-syrup-making experience. But it's not like making strawberry jam; it's a big project and not one you can knock off in a free afternoon, so it's another one of these things I keep in my mental hope chest of projects to return to someday. In the meantime, here's how, just in case you have time to make syrup. Let me know if you do, and we'll be right over; Henry makes fabulous pancakes.

Lunch

I returned from Florida with a rotten, rotten cold. So did Joe, but as usual his ran its course and vanished within a few hours, whereas mine lingers. All weekend I languished on the sofa, coughing consumptively and murmuring like a Tennessee Williams character, "I'll be bettah, come Spring...." And  lo, today the sun is shining, and here I am, back at work, sniffling only slightly but ready for action. (Although, when I say "action," what I really mean is "spending many hours deleting spam and reading email before getting any actual work done.")

And now it's time for lunch. I did manage to make one meal over the weekend: I threw a chuck roast in the big wide crockpot with some sundried tomatoes and their oil, a couple handfuls of those baby-sized sweet red and yellow peppers, paprika, ground allspice, and salt. Oh, and a half dozen cloves of garlic, cut in large pieces. It tasted great on Sunday with crusty bread, and even better yesterday with noodles. Now, here it is again in my lunchbag, looking very substantial.

I'm not sure, in my weakened state, if I'm up for that level of commitment. I might go out for some nice hot soup.

Pizza, again

Dinnertime approached. On weekends, we often eat better than we do during the rest of the week, because weekends are when I do all the cooking for the rest of the week, so that's when it's fresh. Sadly, cooking doesn't get a chance to happen every weekend, and that's when the whole system fails. This weekend, though, I managed to make a pot of Roman beans; I rinsed the beans and soaked them overnight in water, then rinsed again and replaced the water with stock, threw in a peeled, halved onion and a handful of peppercorns, and simmered until soft. Then I added salt (having learned the hard—ha ha—way that salt and sugar can't be added before the beans are fully cooked). The beans would make a delicious dinner served with rice or corn tortillas and sliced avocados and tomatoes. Yum! Even Joe will eat beans, since, of course, the more you eat, the more beautiful music you can make. For some reason, though, when it was almost time for dinner, we panicked and forgot about the beans, and ended up having pizza yet again. It's a scary thing when the pizza shop owner recognizes your voice when you call to put in your order.