What's For Breakfast, Mom?

When you’re a kid, it’s easy. Mom (or Dad) makes breakfast, for most people. But once you’re out of the house? Or say Mom and Dad, rushing to work or sleeping because they work at night, can’t make breakfast for you—what then? Or say you’re little Ruth Reichl and you know Mom’s concoctions could be dangerous? What do you do?

You might reach for your favorite bowl, a nearby box of cereal, and pour some milk over it. Or you might improvise. Once you’re grown, you can improvise in all kinds of ways. You can eat whatever you want and call it breakfast.

Heresy, you say? Actually, it’s tradition. There have been all kinds of breakfasts over the years. The word we use today didn’t even come into use until the 15^th century, says Wikipedia. And if you enjoy eggs at dinnertime you’ve got plenty of historical company, since that’s when the first meal of the day was eaten, for Brits, until the 13^th century. But ancient Egyptian working people ate in the morning—and what a meal!  Beer, bread, and onions.

You say you can’t eat anything in the morning? Call yourself an “Aquinian” (wait till your friends hear that one). Thomas Aquinas is said to have viewed eating early as a sin, suggestive of other “appetites”—like drinking. Better to have an empty stomach and pure thoughts.

Might have worked for him, but not me. If I don’t have breakfast I get crabby. And just like you, I’m busy and don’t have time for anything elaborate. I often have “Laynie’s Morning Miracle” http://cookwithlaynie.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-all-about-ed-and-mollie.html on hand to heat up; when I don’t, I reach for some muesli, soaking it while I get dressed. I’d found some in the store, but they were either too sweet (I lived for Sugar Frosted Flakes in my shorter days, but these days I’d rather have that sugar in pastry or gelato, thanks) or just not all that interesting. So one fine day I made this, and I’ve been creating variations on it ever since. I pull the latest version out of the fridge and while I’m getting dressed it is communing with some milk. 

Don’t tell Thomas.

“Mama’s Muesli” (About four 1/3 cup servings)

1 cup rolled oats (I use the thinner ones; if you want to use thick ones, soak the muesli overnight)

1/3 cup rye flakes

2 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted

1 tablespoon toasted pistachios, chopped

1 tablespoon sunflower seeds

1 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted (required; they give this an amazing flavor)

½ teaspoon ground hempseeds

¼ teaspoon flaxseeds

¼ teaspoon dark flaxseed meal (you can also just choose one, but I like the texture of the whole ones so I use both)
2 dates (I love Cire from Flying Disc Ranch [at the Ferry Plaza market on Saturdays and maybe at the Berkeley one at Shattuck and Vine on Thursdays], black dates, when Michael has them at the Crocker Galleria market, and also his dry dates like Kway and Thorry; you can also use Deglet or Medjool)

1 tablespoon raisins (I like Thompson)
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon 

Pinch of salt

Combine everything in a bowl, and keep in a container in the fridge. When you're ready for breakfast, scoop 1/3 cup out of the container and put it in your favorite bowl, then pour milk over it (I like reduced fat milk—not as thin as skim—but almond might be great, too), do something for a few minutes while everybody gets acquainted, and enjoy!

“So many ingredients!  Who has time in the morning?”

Ah, but that’s the beauty of it. That’s not when you make this. You make it when you come home from work or from a show or you’ve got something on your mind and you’re not tired enough to go to sleep yet.* Consider it a gift you give yourself for the morning.

*If you don’t want to make everything in one night, make it a two-step process. Maybe tonight you chop the dates, toast the nuts and seeds, and put all of the above in a bag with the raisins. Tomorrow night you add the flaxseed meal, oats, and rye flakes, stir, put a scoop in a jar with milk of your choice to cover, and presto! When you wake up, breakfast is served.

P. S. This is so much simpler than those problems you’ve been solving all day long. Plus, nobody’s looking over your shoulder. Why not put on some music and make yourself something delicious? 

 ©2018 Laynie Tzena. All Rights Reserved.

Fungus Among Us

I suppose you could buy mushrooms from other people than the Garrone family. I just don't know why you would, unless you live in New York, or Chicago. And even then, I'm pretty sure they ship.

I first met John Garrone of Far West Fungi over 20 years ago, when I moved to San Francisco and happened on the Civic Center market. John told me recently that it was somewhere else at the time, around the corner or something. But I remember him at pretty much the same location he is now, not far from the escalator to the underground I was probably taking to work. Maybe I was on lunch hour.

It's not just the mushrooms, although Far West Fungi probably has everything you could ever want in that department. It's the absolute friendliness--not the kind of "Fly Me!" friendliness we see a lot of these days, but the kind that comes from an obvious love of people--with which John greets everyone.

I can't remember ever not loving mushrooms. Even the canned ones. I know: They have that weird texture, they smell funny, and if you put an open can and a fork in front of me I would probably finish the can before you came back.

When I was in high school the local wing of the French National Honor Society flew to the place where people really speak the language. We did the French equivalent of what Europeans come to see in these parts. Here, it's Las Vegas, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, and maybe Monterey. There, it's the Eiffel Tower, the Loire Valley, Mont St. Michel, and Montmartre, where everyone visits a church called Le Sacré Coeur.

I remember two things from that trip: the castles in the Loire Valley, and lunch after we went to church: Coq au Vin aux Champignons.

To the other kids champignon was just a long way of saying mushroom. And mushrooms, they agreed, were gross. Did I really want them?

I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

John Garrone has very good manners, so you have to look closely to see him rolling his eyes as he hears me tell yet another customer about the Miso-Soba Soup from The Book of Miso. John's interest in miso soup ia on a par with his interest in Brussels sprouts.

Someone once asked him, "What do you like to do with Brussels sprouts?"

"Personally, I throw them out," he said.

Miso Soup with Buckwheat Noodles and Eggs

(adapted from The Book of Miso by Aikiko Aoyagi and William Shurtleff)

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 small onion, thinly sliced or 1/2 bunch scallions, cut in long strips

1 zucchini, sliced into half coins

3-4 large or 6-8 small shiitaké mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup water, stock, or dashi

2 oz. soba (buckwheat) noodles, broken into 4-inch lengths and cooked*

1 tablespoon red, barley, or hatcho miso (the original says 3T but that's overkill, to me)

2 eggs

1 tablespoon minced parsley (optional)

Heat your favorite soup pan and coat with oil. Add the onion and sauté until transparent, then add mushrooms and cook until just shy of being done. Follow with the zucchini, also cooked till almost done. Next, add water and bring to a boil, then the cooked noodles and return to the boil. Place the miso in a bowl and add some of the hot liquid, whisk to combine, and return to the soup. Now increase the heat to medium-high and carefully break in the eggs, keeping the yolks whole. Cook for 1 minute more, or until the whites are just firm. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley.

This is like French onion soup meets poached eggs meets mushrooms and noodles. It should be illegal.

*There are rituals for cooking soba noodles. You cook them partway, put them into very cold water, drain them, cook them some more, back in the cold water, drain again, cook them some more--and then go out and shoot yourself because they are still not perfect.

If you have all that time on your hands, let me just say that Honey, do I have filing for you. If not, I say just cook them, deliver them to their winter vacation, drain them, and then add them to the soup at the proper time.

If anyone complains, my cooking instructions are as follows:
Don't invite them again.

But what if they live with you?
Then you already know what to do.

©2009-2014 Laynie Tzena.

It's all about Ed and Mollie

So here we go! With a big "Thanks" to Ed Brown and Mollie Katzen--Ed for Tassajara Cooking, where he said, "A recipe is a framework" and a whole world opened up, right in my kitchen; and Mollie, for those wonderful drawings in the Moosewood Cookbook, the welcoming voice on every page that said, "Dive in. Have fun!" and not only got me cooking but probably also got me started in creativity development. Because one of the best places to express your creativity is your very own kitchen.

In addition to cooking for friends and other loved ones, I've been a breakfast cook for a sorority house, a prep cook for a natural foods cafe, and a private chef.

My mother's a great cook, but she never said, "Do this. Don't do that." By the time I really started cooking, I was not only out of the house; I was across the country. (And long-distance calls were something you thought about first. "No, I can't hold on," you'd say to a receptionist. "This is long distance!").

Still, Mom has taught me many valuable lessons. Once, I found something rather firm in my soft-boiled eggs.

"Ma," I said, "There's a shell in the egg."

"No charge for the shell," she said.

Enough about eggs. Let's talk about oatmeal. I grew up with Quaker Oats. Great packaging, but these days I save rolled oats for cookies and oatmeal soup. For breakfast, I'll have steel cut oats, thank you. In fact, I had some this morning--the last of yesterday's batch. I reheated them with a bit of orange flower water. (You can get it at Middle Eastern markets; in San Francisco, you can get it and most of the ingredients below at Rainbow Grocery.) Sometimes I open the bottle of orange flower water on my counter just to smell it. It is straight heaven.

"Laynie's Morning Miracle":

2 tablespoons walnuts
1-2 tablespoons raisins (I like Thompson for this)
2 pieces dried fruit, diced (I like to use Deglet Noor dates and either a Bartlett pear, a Turkish apricot, or a Frog Hollow nectarine)
2 teaspoons dried orange peel*
Pinch cinnamon (if you don't use cinnamon often, try buying small amounts in bulk or buy cinnamon stick and grind it; you'll notice a big difference in flavor)
1-1/2 cup water
Pinch salt
1/2 cup steel cut oats
1 tablespoon raw wheat germ

Dry-roast the walnuts in a skillet. Place the raisins, orange peel, dried fruit, and cinnamon in a saucepan. Pour water over these and, when the water comes to a boil, add the salt. When it returns to the boil, stir in the steel cut oats. Simmer, covered, for 10-15 minutes (check after ten minutes to see that it doesn't get stuck to the bottom of the pan, if your pan is like mine). Once cereal is cooked, add the wheat germ to the skillet with the walnuts and gently toast. Then combine the walnut-wheat germ mixture with the cereal and serve. If you want to gild the lily, add some maple syrup.

*If you can't find dried orange peel where you live, just save the peels from organic or unsprayed oranges and tangerines you buy. When you have a half-dozen or so, preheat the oven to 250°, pull out a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper. Take a scissors and cut the peel into 1/4-1/2 inch squares. In no time at all (1/2 hr.-1 hr.), you'll have plenty of homemade dried orange peel, and your house will be filled with the loveliest fragrance.

©2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena.