It's Not Me, Cupcake, It's You

When I moved to San Francisco my friend Heather said, “Muffins on every corner. God forbid they should put in a hardware store.”

In recent years, as you may have noticed, it has been all about cupcakes. Now, I'm in favor of just about every combination of flour and sugar. But I got tired of cupcakes quite a while ago.

And now for some very good news: A little birdie says America has finally had enough cupcakes, and we're about to see really good bagels on every corner.

Sorry, no. But almost as good—and on a day like today, maybe even better: we are apparently about to get a whole lot more ice cream sandwiches. Pinch me. http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/229839?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+entrepreneur%2Flatest+%28Entrepreneur%29#7

©2013 Laynie Tzena.

It's the Little Things In Life

You love sardines? Great. Me, too. 

What’s that? Can’t abide ’em?  No problem. There is never a shortage of other things to read. Come back in time for dessert.

You say the coast is clear? It’s just us sardine-lovers now? Okay, great. You have to try this.   

Yesterday I was walking down the street, or maybe up the street, and realized that sardines + kalamata olive oil + borage (no, not borax, silly, borage, the herb) = pate from heaven. I looked online today. Found a couple of interesting entries. Here’s my version:

Pate A la Sunday

1 can water-packed sardines
Pinch fresh borage (or use oregano)
Pinch Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
1 tablespoon walnuts
1 green onion
1 lemon or 2 Meyer lemons
2 tablespoons Amoretti kalamata olive oil (or use your favorite olive oil and chop a couple of kalamata olives and add them)
1 tablespoon butter
Pinch smoked paprika (or use cracked red pepper and regular paprika)
Pinch salt
Pinch freshly-ground black pepper

Toast walnuts and chop them. Mince onion. Juice and zest lemon or Meyer lemons. Place all ingredients in food processor. Taste and correct seasonings as necessary.

Spread on some whole-grain bread, on a cracker, on some leftover matzo, on your sweetheart’s arm--it is straight heaven. (No, not your sweetheart’s arm, the pate. Yes, I know your sweetheart is wonderful.  Well, I don’t know for sure, but I’ll take your word for it.)

©2013 Laynie Tzena.

In Other News, Toothpaste Is Applied With A Brush

My new dental floss comes with an instruction manual. Okay, it’s just one page. Okay, it’s a little piece of paper that sits behind the floss in the container. It says, “Tips for use.” Maybe they hide it behind the floss in the package so it doesn’t scare you.  “Uh-oh. This could be difficult.”

But I thought I’d better read it. I usually take that approach. I read people’s t-shirts while we’re waiting in line. 

The one-page, “We’re too cheap to pay to print something impressive” manual—which is the way my mother pronounces the name of the guy they just hired—

“No, Mom, you don’t say, ‘Man-u-el.’ It’s ‘Mon-well,’” I explain.

 “Uh-huh."

Anyway, there’s a little picture of someone playing  “Cat’s Cradle,” then a closeup of somebody’s teeth, which someone else is giving a thumbs-up—

What? That’s how you floss? You thread the ribbon between your teeth? And all this time I’ve been winding it around the doorknob and hoping for the best. (On the plus side, we now have a cat. He took a look and said, “Hey, my kind of people!”)

The piece of paper is not done talking. The next thing it says is, “Why Should I Floss?” 

Now, here’s where I got stuck. No, not stuck on what those words mean in English. My reading skills are right up there with yours (or else you’re not reading this, so who needs you?). But the question stopped me.

Because last I checked, no one makes you buy dental floss. No one comes up to you while you’re reading about how embarrassed Gwyneth Paltrow was that when she went au naturel under that dress there was just a little too much nature showing and says, “You don’t _have_ to buy the floss, of course, but Freddie here thinks it would be a really good idea.”

No. It’s just there, in its various forms, including the ones without mint that people buy for some reason. If you’re going to have to floss, you might as well have some flavor, is my view. 

It says, “You want me? Fine. You don’t want me.  Fine.” If the floss were human, while you looked it over it would be doing its nails.

So wouldn’t you think that by the time you're—you should excuse the expression—forking over your seventeen dollars for the small package, you would have made the commitment? You would be among those who didn’t need to be told why flossing might be a good idea?

Unless it’s like those other products they assume one person is buying for another?

Life is so confusing these days.

©2013 Laynie Tzena.

Hold That Thought, Where Exactly Is W. Kamau Bell When You Need Him, or GOAPS Has It All

Today I made an excursion to GOAPS (“Grooviest Of All Possible Stores”). Everything went smoothly, and I got out of there quickly, with no annoyance at anything whatsoever.  It was sheer bliss, and I am now a better person.  I might even be groovy.

Of course, I had help.  I was trying to decide whether the organic almond butter was really worth it (“How thick is the almond shell?” I wondered, forgetting that RadioLab program on “Choices” I had listened to yesterday, not to mention the shorthand I’d learned years ago from my friend Bob:  “Analysis, paralysis”). While I was considering the alternatives so I would make the perfect choice, a crisply dressed, slender man maybe ten years my senior (I am, like Jack Benny, “39-and-holding”) pushed my cart away.

This proved not to be a red herring (which GOAPS wouldn't have any truck with, anyway), as he went on to tell me why television is horrible (I told him I didn’t watch much), and also that the Federal Reserve is evil and the Kennedys had been trying to do something about it and that’s why—never mind.  

I said that I was sorry to hear that.  He then wanted me to forget the almond butter and 
buy hazelnut.

“Okay,” he said. “Ignore the studies.”

“My only problem is that you keep telling me what to think,” I said. (By “think,” I meant, 
“think about politics.”  I don't have a whole lot of opinions about nut butter.  I'm in favor of
all of them.)

“I'm all ears,” he said.

Since nothing we said was likely to help the Kennedy brothers, rest in peace, or have much of an impact on the Federal Reserve, I said I’d pass.  

He was not pleased.  He was soon counseling someone else about the best choices for her. 

W. Kamau Bell told  a rather eager audience member at a recent New Parish show, “I'm going to put you on ‘Pause.’”   

Perfect! Except that I just remembered it now.  So I just said, “I think we can agree on TV” (and instantly made a decision to watch more of it).  

After he had moved on I decided to go with the regular almond butter, which the GOAPS representative had told me was their best seller, assuring me that GOAPS wouldn’t ever carry anything sprayed into oblivion or otherwise icky. 

At least, I think that’s what he said.  So far, so good: it tastes fine, and I haven’t grown another arm—though some days that might come in handy.

©2013, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena. 

Dessert Is Important, or What Have You Done For Those People--Right Over There--Lately?

“What’s for dessert?” I asked the teacher at the ethnic foods cooking class.

“We won’t be making dessert,” she said.  “I don’t care for it.”

* * *

Someone once asked Miss Manners what to do when people are rude, which were the best words to use?  Miss Manners wasn’t biting.  She said that actually, you shouldn’t say anything. The person who corrects another person is rude.

“But people need to know what they’re doing wrong!  They need to know what people are thinking!” said the person, wondering if perhaps Miss Manners had lost her touch.

Au contraire, said Miss Manners.  “You really don’t want to know what people are thinking.  Because many times they are thinking you are a fool.”

* * *

One of the tellers at the bank told me that this year she had given up Facebook, Twitter, and something else I’ve forgotten for Lent.  45 days.  I know how she feels.  I’m off chametz (wheat, oats, rye, barley, and spelt) for Passover.  I’ve been observing that aspect of the holiday for a few years now.  The first year, I said to a rabbi I know, “I’ve been thinking, ‘Well, I won’t really miss it, I don’t eat that much bread anyway.’  But then I thought, ‘Maybe you’re supposed to notice it.’”

She laughed.  “Good, Laynie,” she said.

* * * 

Somewhere I read that it’s a good idea to do a thing or two each day that you don’t want to do, just for exercise.  (For example, that cooking teacher—never mind.) 

So, right now, I'd like to go to bed.  But I promised Jason, who is also off chametz this week, that I would give him a salad recipe.  (Matzo has an interesting effect on the digestive tract.)  And I promised Beth, who gave me a ride home from a party even though it was absolutely not on her way, that I would give her this very recipe before blood orange season was over, and Cindy, who brought Meyer lemons from her own tree to my singing class, that I would give her a version of this recipe without blood oranges, which her partner hates. 

Do It Anyway, Honey, Salad (serves 2—maybe you and that cutie?)

For the salad:

A healthy handful of baby Swiss chard
   (or cut up regular Swiss chard into small pieces)
A purple mustard green or two, including the stem, which is just heaven
   —watery, like celery, but with a kick
Fennel top (usually called the “frond”—looks like dill)
One organic blood orange (unless you are Cindy, in which case, a navel)
One organic Meyer lemon

For the dressing:

2-3 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon Amoretti pomegranate balsamic vinegar*, or a good aged balsamic
Smidgen of dijon mustard**
Pinch of your favorite salt (try the Himalayan one)
Freshly-ground black pepper (not too much; the mustard green takes that role here)

Rinse greens and fennel frond.  Mince the fennel frond, and slice the Meyer lemon very thinly—you don’t need to peel it—and remove the pits.  Peel the blood orange or navel as you would to section it, reserving the peel to dry later (for the item we’re not talking about this week but next week you can find by searching on the blog for “Laynie’s Morning Miracle.” Shhh.  Don't tell anyone.  Okay.). 

Put that smidgen of lemon zest and/or mustard in the bowl, followed by the olive oil and vinegar.  Add seasonings and whisk together, then add the greens, then the blood orange, minced fennel frond, and Meyer lemon.

You’re welcome.

And now I am going to bed.

*If you are off vinegar for Passover (“Pesach”), use fresh lemon juice and an extra blood orange.
** Dijon is made with wine, but if you want to be on the safe side, substitute lemon zest for mustard during Pesach.

©2013, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

A Whole Lotta Butter, or My Tortillas Come With A Certificate

“I just don’t eat anything my sister-in-law makes,” she said, after explaining that said relative goes through a pound or two of butter a day. 

The conversation had turned to allergies. She had her share, and she shared them with me. I was trying to squeeze my vitamins into my bag when she went on to tell me that when bugs are fed GMO corn tortillas, they break apart.

I think she meant the bugs, not the tortillas. Something about the B vitamins in them. I thought B vitamins were good for you. Life is so confusing these days.*

Minutes later at the shop around the corner someone told me she was making a super-duper Mac n’ Cheese with three cheeses.

I looked at her. Not related, I think, but just in case: Don’t invite these two to the same party.

*Right. I’m not a GMO fan, either, for a whole lot of reasons. But I have a sister and once had a sister-in-law, too, and there was something about the gleam in her eye when she said she was going to avoid every disease in the family--

Oops. Time for the Fancy Food Show. Good thing I’ve got my vitamins.

©2013 Laynie Tzena.