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Spring greens from my
front yard
garden represent a labor of love
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As I reflect back on this semester at University of North
Carolina Asheville, (where I have the privilege of teaching and researching), I
feel huge gratitude to my friends, colleagues and my place of employment for
providing a variety of opportunities to share delicious plant-based foods with
groups of 20 to 100 people. Over the next few posts I will tell you about a few
of these events.
In April, my four writing group colleagues and I, with the
financial assistance of the National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished
Professor, Dr. Sophie Mills, hosted a Symposium on Storying as Knowledgemaking on a Friday afternoon. The funding was
used to bring in guest scholars from University of Derby in England, Dr. Fiona
Holland, and from Hopkinsville, KY, writer, Jennifer Brown. Together with my
writing group colleagues, we each talked about ways that we use narrative, or
storying for research or for otherwise making sense of the world around us.
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Spring greens and violets salad
and prepared artichokes
(some whole and some cut
in half with “choke” removed)
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My focus was on how our stories and reflections about and
with food influence how we eat. I am especially interested in how our
experiences (in particular how shared new one’s can guide or lead us to make
new healthier choices). My talk was titled
, “Reflecting on Shared Food Experiences:
What does it take to bring it home?” and it occurred as the symposium goers were dining on food that I (with
help) had prepared for them.
It is this meal that I want to tell you about. It was an all
vegan and mostly gluten-free menu with lots of local ingredients. I chose the
menu based on foods that had stories or other associations for me. About 20
people joined the 6 speakers for lunch.
Serving artichokes (beautiful edible flowers) invokes my
whole family, but especially my late step-dad, Frank Lanou. He had grown up in
San Francisco and Carmel, places where these large plants from the thistle
family have been cultivated for many years and they were on his list of
favorite foods. Many of our special family meals included an artichoke and
butter (for hot artichokes) or curried mayonnaise (for cold artichokes) in
which to dip the individual leaves. I still crave them when it has been a while
since I have had one.
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Mixed berries, Thanksgiving salad
and spring vegetable
platter
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A salad made from home grown greens, wild-found violets and
fresh spring strawberries and blueberries and toasted hazelnuts topped with
locally made and aged thick sweet balsamic vinegar represents how close we can
get and be to the source of our food.
Cranberry jalapeno salsa is a recipe I learned from a friend
and colleague who was also in attendance at the event. It is a lovely tangy,
spicy dip that is great on chips or as a salad topping or as a contrast to a
savory dish. The recipe comes from myrecipes.com (
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/cranberry-jalapeno-salsa)
I just left out the sugar and added a small amount of maple syrup in its place.
Agave would work just as well.
I included my vegan version of my mom’s Thanksgiving fruit
salad because it is a necessary dish for me at large gatherings and because I
hoped she would to be in attendance (she was!). I have made it every year for
thanksgiving wherever I am and whomever I am with since I moved away from home
more than 30 years ago. It is unpretentiously made from canned fruit and
Tofutti sourcream (recipe below). The original also had marshmallows and was
made with dairy sourcream, but its taste is remarkably similar and still takes
me home to fun family times when I eat it.
The cucumber, avocado and tomato salad is my signature salad
and a go-to lunch for me when I am cooking for one. It is super simple and is
dressed with seasoned rice vinegar and black pepper (recipe below). I included
spanakopita and the collard rolls because fresh spinach is plentiful, thick and
delicious in the spring time and because this is a dish that I associate with
my friend and sister-in-law, Lori and her mother Carole. The last time I was at
Carole and Mario’s house, Lori, her mom, and I made a giant vegan spinach and
mushroom spanakopita for Christmas dinner. I learned from these two fantastic
chefs to use double the spinach you think you will need to add toasted sesame
seeds to the mix and to the top of the spinach pie. The flaky, salty, nutty, filo on top is
delicate and belies the soft, almost creamy spinach and mushroom filling. Steamed
new potatoes, peas, mushrooms and asparagus are just the right foods for eating
in spring in North Carolina so they were tender, fresh and delicious.
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Neither version of grape pie looks exactly
like Nana’s, but
they tasted right.
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Grape and rhubarb pies take me to my grandparent’s farm. I
learned to make pie from Concord grapes from my Nana and learned to love its
thick, tangy, almost overwhelming taste at her kitchen table in she and my
Pap’s farmhouse in Belle Vernon, PA.
To make grape pie, you pick concord or other thick-skinned grapes
when they are ripe in late summer or fall. We had a bumper crop in our campus
“Ancient Garden” last fall. This is a student and faculty run garden where
plants that would have grown in Greece, Turkey and Italy in 500 b.c.e. are
cultivated and used for campus food events.
Once picked the grapes need to be removed from their stems
and washed. After washing, each individual grape is squeezed to push the
innards and seeds into a saucepan and the skins are reserved in a bowl. Once
all the grape skins are separated from their innards, the innards are cooked
over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes to soften them and then are pressed through
a strainer or processed through a Foley food mill. The seeds are discarded and
the innards are recombined with the skins to make the pie filling. The grapes
can be frozen at this point for later use. Once thawed, you simply add a small
amount of sugar or other sweetener to taste and a tablespoon of tapioca starch
per nine-inch pie and put into a prepared pie shell and bake it. It is
delicious at room temperature untopped or warmed slightly with a small scoop of
non-dairy vanilla icecream.
The moments and anecdotes that people shared about the
meaning and relevance of food stories were delightful as we all dined on this
lovely and meaningful food.
Spring Storying Luncheon Menu
Artichokes with
curried vegannaise
Cranberry jalapeno
salsa
Black bean dip
Tortilla chips
Red pepper and
eggplant spread
Spring greens salad
with berries, hazelnuts and violets and aged balsamic vinegar
Cucumber, avocado and
tomato salad
Thanksgiving fruit
salad
Spanikopita and
collard rolls with spinach and mushroom filling (GF option)
Steamed new potatoes
Mushrooms and peas
Steamed asparagus
Mixed berries
Grape pie (one with
and one without gluten)
1 large can of pineapple chunks, packed in juice
2 small cans of mandarin oranges, packed in juice (or light
syrup)
½ to ¾ cup of dairy-free sourcream (I like Tofutti brand)
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
Drain pineapple and mandarin oranges (you can save the juice
for another purpose) and place in a medium bowl. Add remaining ingredients,
stir and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.
1 medium or two
small cucumbers (your favorite variety), peeled and chopped
1 medium ripe
(but not overripe) avocado (can substitute chopped snap peas to reduce fat
content)
2 medium ripe
tomatoes, cut into small bite-sized pieces or 8 to 10 cherry tomatoes, cut in
half
2 to 3
tablespoons of seasoned rice vinegar
fresh ground
black pepper to taste
Put ingredients
in a bowl and toss together.
Many variations are possible: try adding
fresh coarsely chopped basil or cilantro; switching chopped strawberries or
mango for the tomatoes
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