by Sam Tackeff | Nov 3, 2014 | Uncategorized
Leaving work tonight, I walked to the train with one of my coworkers, but then had to miss it because I didn’t have enough loaded onto my Charlie card. I trudged up the stairs as the train slipped away, and had 12 minutes to wait on the platform. “C’est la vie!” – I texted to Devon, but of course I had Laurie Colwin’s ‘Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen’ to keep me company on my Kindle, so I’ve learned that a few extra minutes to myself are always welcome, and nothing to get frustrated about.
My reading was stalled however, as across the tracks, an unstable woman railed on about Menino, his wife, and Caroline Kennedy’s entitlement, and how they aren’t “of the people”. A cloud is over Boston, I should note, for those not living here, as the loss of Mayor Menino was truly devastating news to anyone who has lived in the city. He was a kind and giving man. As she yelled on, a man with a thick Boston accent stopped to disagree with her, and we all watched agape for some minutes until a train rolled in and they both got in and left. I put away my Kindle, and waited for the red line to Alewife to come.
There was no broccoli tonight. I had the best intentions of broccoli. Something green, a little bitter. The truth is, I was tired, and I wanted hot dogs and beans, one of the dishes I’ve been craving since childhood. My grandfather used to make them – he always kept individually saran-wrapped hot dogs in the freezer to microwave in a pinch. For many decades, he was in the meat business, and you could say that hot dogs, in a way, are a sort of family legacy.
I used to favor exclusively Pearl’s, a family owned business in Massachusetts that boasts the best: “Once you have them you will agree that Pearl frankfurts are the frankfurts that all others should be measured by”; and I still keep my eye out for them in the store. But now I’m more likely to pick up a package of Applegate organic uncured beef hot dogs, and the organic baked beans from Trader Joe’s, which are sweet, but not sickly so.
You’ll want to warm your hot dogs in the pan before heating up the beans, otherwise you’ll have cold hot dogs, and boiling hot beans! And instead of vegetables, there were warm, buttery crescent rolls. The kind that come in a can, and give you a tiny heart attack when you break the seal and the dough bursts forth from the cardboard with a large pop.
I’m not particularly nervous about my race on Saturday, but I know that I need to be well hydrated all week long to deal with the potential heat in Savannah. So I’ve been drinking water like a boss. And then there are the sneezers, and the snifflers, who have breeched my safety bubble while packed like sardines on the red line. I’m starting to get a little paranoid – is that a scratch in my throat? Am I going to get sick? Tonight I went to the store to see if I could find a packet of Dr. Dahl’s ColdChaser, which I got in my head was going to ward off all possible sickness, but I’m pretty sure that they are only available at Whole Foods and other stores in California. So I’ll keep on hydrating, and hope for the best.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 2, 2014 | chicken, Pantry Staples
It snowed today. The first snow of the season, but I’m not ready for winter. I always get a touch of the SAD – winter is long and cold in New England, and despite growing up here, it never really gets any easier. I spent the day trying to convince myself of the joy that snow brings – thinking back to boarding school days, where it was always wonderful to be on campus when the first snow arrived. Suddenly, a common occurrence was a brand new marvel: you’d see the snow through the eyes of students who had grown up in warm climates, delighted in those large white flakes for the very first time.
This day, however, was colored with my own melancholia, as I had a last lunch (soup and grilled cheese in front of a fire) with my friend Alexann, before driving her to the airport to fly away to Denver. I came home, made myself a cup of tea, and wrapped myself in a blanket. This never gets easy.
By evening, the sky was clear, and we were treated to a beautiful sunset.
For dinner, I knew that I wanted to make something with my defrosting chicken from my Walden Local Meat share. I had two large boneless, skinless breasts, which isn’t what I usually cook with – I’m a bone and skin gal – so I wanted a dish where they’d stay moist, and something a little bit rib-sticking for this cold fall day.
With the Patriots game in the background, I looked through my Eat Your Books bookshelf, to find which of my cookbooks have recipes for chicken breasts and pumpkin. I found myself flipping through a Donna Hay – and liked the look of her ‘baked chicken and pumpkin risotto’, but wanted to make it with pumpkin puree rather than the chunks of pumpkin she calls for, so I adapted the recipe to my own liking. It’s probably sacrilege to call this a risotto, but the dish calls for arborio rice, so I can justify it to myself. Italian purists, please look away, or consider the alternate title: “Pumpkin Rice with Allspice Chicken”.
Baked Pumpkin Risotto with Chicken
This recipe served two (very generous) portions. For four, I might double it, and you’d have leftover lunch for one, the next day. If you’d like a little bit soupier rice, I’d add a touch more chicken stock at the beginning.
1 cup arborio rice
1 15 oz. can organic pumpkin puree
2 oz. butter, melted
1 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper
pinch of nutmeg, pinch of allspice
olive oil
2 chicken breasts, preferably organic and free range (about 1/2 lb. each)
salt and pepper
a tablespoon allspice
1/2 cup grated parmesan
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
In a bowl, stir together arborio rice, pumpkin, melted butter, and chicken stock. Add a good pinch of salt, a few twists from a black pepper grinder, a pinch of nutmeg, and another pinch of allspice. Stir, transfer to a shallow baking dish, cover with foil, and bake at 400 for 35 – 45 minutes until rice has cooked through. (This batch, for whatever reason, took me almost an hour.)
While rice is baking, heat up a frying pan with a little olive oil on medium. Season chicken with salt, pepper, and a generous coating of allspice, and cook in pan, about 4-6 minutes on each side, until cooked through – it might take an extra minute or two on each side if your chicken is thick. Take off the heat, let rest for a few minutes, while you chop your parsley and grate your cheese. Then chop, the chicken, making sure to reserve the juices.
Once rice is done, put in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper, and stir in the chicken and it’s juices, parsley, and parmesan, making sure to stir well, until creamy. Serve warm.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 1, 2014 | Writing
Today it rained. It was cold and grey all day long.
I helped my friend Alexann pack what was left of the home that didn’t go into the two pods on their way to Colorado. We worked through the things to be tossed. The last of the cabinets. Her landlord fed us warm apple cake out of the oven. The back of the car was packed with the last of the closet items. That was an adventure that involved folding for a quarter of an hour in the rain.
There was cleaning. I felt inspired to go home and throw out the majority of my belongings to avoid the hassle of any future moves. I inherited a Swiffer. I adopted her violets. I really hope I don’t kill them.
And then, after some hours of good hard work, we were done. Just like that. The rooms were empty.
And so we rested. We drank tea, and coffee. We got carded at the wine store. “And how old are you today?” the woman behind the counter asked me? It took me a full minute to think about it. We left with a bottle of red, and parted ways, briefly, before heading towards another friend’s house to have one last celebration.
We had burritos.
We stood in the kitchen, watching Love Actually, but not really watching. We talked. For hours, about all the usual things. It was good.
We talked about blogging, about business, about creating something to support women and moms. About what it means to make a place for yourself on the internet in this day and age. I gave my best advice I could. If you want to really get into blogging. Write. Start writing now. Forget about the blog, web hosting, comments. Forget about it all, and just write. For days, weeks, months really. Write until you have enough content that you can go on autopilot and learn all the things you’ll have to learn to run a website, at least, if that’s what you ultimately decide that you want to do. I think there’s so much more out there though. A blog – it can be one piece of. But the internet, it can be scary. You have to learn, I think, about the hard things. The horrible comments. The trolling. I had to tell them about gamergate, about how the internet can be a violent place for women. It really pained me to share that. It’s a lot, really. But all this – it’s nothing to worry about. Start writing now. Just write.
I’m getting a little heavy here.
We drank wine.
Tonight I’m grateful that dear friends can be kept thousands of miles away. That the internet and modern technology bring us all together like never before. I’m looking forward to a weekly email chain. A book club where you read the books together, and don’t meet. (The inverse of our usual book club, which should have been called drink wine and talk about the gym club.) Although, on further thought this evening, I realized that we could just have book club on Google Hangout and each sit in our respective houses and crack open bottles of wine and talk about the book together. Wouldn’t that be nice?
