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In Korean, noo roong ji is the toasted crust of rice that forms at the bottom of the traditional Korean stone rice pot (people in Seoul love the taste of toasted rice -- it's even an ice cream flavor there).

In Japan, where toasted rice is considered overcooked and undesirable, it's called okoge -- also slang for a single woman who spends a lot of time with gay men.

???

Quotable

"When poor Southern families created 'soul food,' all they had was produce from their humble backyard gardens. Soul food started as local, organic, and sustainable—terms we’re now more likely to associate with Trader Joe’s than Amy Ruth’s. Vegan food activist Bryant Terry wants to change those associations; to bring the growing movement of health and eco-conscious food back to its (low-income) roots."

- Heather McGhee

Recipe: Thai Red Curry Paste

This is just one recipe for Thai red curry paste. There are many
variations.

3 shallots, sliced
1 stalk lemongrass
1-3 bird's eye chillies
3 cloves garlic
1 3" piece galangal, peeled and sliced
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 Tbsp. ground coriander seeds
3 Tbsp. nam pla
1 kaffir lime leaf
1 tsp. shrimp paste
1 tsp. palm sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. red chilli powder

Process all ingredients in a food processor.

Red curry paste may be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator
for about 2 weeks, or frozen for up to 3 months.

Recipe: Thai Green Curry Paste

This is just one recipe for Thai green curry paste. There are many
variations.

1 stalk lemongrass
1/2 Tbsp. ground coriander
1 Tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. shrimp paste
1 tsp. palm sugar
1-2 green chillies
3 cloves garlic
1 3" piece galangal (or ginger), peeled and sliced
3-4 kaffir lime leaves, stems removed
1 cup fresh cilantro (including leaves and stems)
1 tsp. nama shoyu
2 Tbsp. nam pla

Process all ingredients in a food processor.

Green curry paste may be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator
for about 2 weeks, or frozen for up to 3 months.

Recipe: Mussels in a Lemongrass Bath

Last night, my cousin came over for dinner. It has recently been a somewhat difficult time on that side of the family, so I felt that we needed a sumptuously nourishing meal to linger over. I made mussels as a starter; then grilled shrimp over a julienned red cabbage-bell pepper-mango salad with a Thai-style dressing; and, finally, small servings of grilled salmon with a side of broccoli, drizzled with a thick Thai red curry coconut sauce, fresh cilantro, and black sesame seeds.

Mussels in a Lemongrass Bath for 3
2 lbs mussels, scrubbed and bearded, and rinsed thoroughly and drained
1/4 cup chopped spring green onion
1 bird's eye chilli, slit in half lengthwise
1 teaspoon green curry paste
2 stalks lemongrass, chopped
3 cups broth
2 teaspoons peanut oil

Heat a large pot over medium-high heat, and then heat peanut oil until medium hot. Add green onion and bird's eye chilli and saute until onion is beginning to get translucent. Pour in broth and add green curry paste and lemongrass. When it's beginning to boil but not quite, add the mussels, bring completely to boil, cover, lower heat to medium, and steam the mussels for about 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Remove the mussels that haven't opened, and serve the rest.

Recipe: Grilled Shrimp over Julienned Red Cabbage-Bell Pepper-Mango Salad

Grilled Shrimp over Julienned Red Cabbage-Bell Pepper-Mango Salad for 3

(This is a slight variation on a similar earlier post.)

Salad
1/3 of a whole red cabbage, julienned
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 orange bell pepper, julienned
1 mango, julienned
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped (can also add fresh chopped mint)
1 bunch scallions: chop 3 of them finely; chop the rest on the diagonal into 2-3" pieces

1 pound shrimp, cleaned, de-veined, tails left on; rinsed, patted dry, and marinated for 10 minutes in salt, pepper, a tablespoon of peanut oil, and the juice of 1 lime or 3 key limes

Dressing
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup nam pla (fish sauce)
Splash peanut oil
1 tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
1 bird's eye (or serrano) chilli, minced
1/2" piece ginger, julienned

In a measuring cup, mix dressing ingredients and set them aside for the flavors to marry. 

Heat grill on high heat and spray with grapeseed oil. When grill is hot, place shrimp and 2-3" long scallion pieces on grill in one layer. When the shrimp is pink, turn the heat off and flip each shrimp.

Toss the salad ingredients with the dressing, and divide the salad among three large bowls. Top each salad with a third of the grilled shrimp and scallions.

Literatarianism

As I mentioned, Geoff Nicholson's essay about books he's read with descriptions of disgusting meals sent me into a reverie about foods I've read about that left me salivating -- not in books that were otherwise about food necessarily (that's too easy) but in which the world created by the author is so richly imagined that you're given smells, tastes, even textures that draw you in, so deep.

The first book (or rather, series) that came to mind was Harry Potter, so remarkable because so much of the food, drink, and sweets are completely imaginary, and yet J.K. Rowling leaves you craving a warm, comforting mug of butterbeer or the adventure in every box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (includes spinach, liverwurst, and ear wax, but also sweet flavors like "a nice toffee"). Let me say, this is moreover a feat because the "real" food mentioned in the books is of the heavy, bland, British variety, like Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie, and treacle tart (except when the Beauxbatons students are in town, and the house elves make bouillabaisse and blancmange appear). And yet somehow cauldron cakes washed down with pumpkin juice sounds enticing; I would even sample gillywater or take a gulp of Ogden's Old Firewhisky. I'd probably skip Hagrid's cooking, though -- rock cakes don't tempt me.

The sweets! What variety: Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, chocolate frogs, pumpkin pasties, the aforementioned cakes and jelly beans, Licorice Wands, Pepper Imps, Sugar Quills, tooth flossing string mints, Fizzing Whizbees, peppermint toads, fudge flies, Acid Pops...

Finally, I love that so much of the food served at Hogwarts is made with the vegetables from the patches near the greenhouses and that Hagrid raises chickens. A school after Alice Waters' heart!

From my childhood (much of which was spent reading, and the rest of which was spent eating and cooking, I think), Anne of Green Gables's terrible mistakes in the kitchen got across how painfully eager she was to belong and shed her status as an uncivilized, not-to-be-trusted orphan. Two incidents stand out.

Anne accidentally gets her bosom friend Diana drunk by serving her currant wine, thinking it's raspberry cordial, at a time when there is a growing prohibition movement and Diana's mom Mrs. Barry anyway doesn't trust Anne. The understanding Marilla isn't too hard on Anne, and says, "I should think Mrs. Barry would better punish Diana for being so greedy as to drink three glassfuls of anything!"

Anne also lets a mouse get into the pudding sauce because she gets carried away imagining she's a nun ("of course") and forgets to cover it. "I'm a Protestant, but I imagined I was a Catholic taking the veil to bury a broken heart in cloistered seclusion, and I forgot all about covering the pudding sauce. I thought of it next morning and ran to the pantry. Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in that pudding sauce!" (Anne does, of course, voice the thought that drowning in pudding sauce is relatively a rather nice way for a mouse to die.)

Literatarian feasting is aplenty in Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. Aside from all the mouth-watering, perfect food Gopnik and his family enjoy during their five years of cafe life in Paris, there is an adorable scene in which, just before returning to their home town of New York, their son has an interview with a New York kindergarten and, when asked what his favorite breakfast is, he answers (suitably for a child who has spent his first five years of life in Paris), "Croissant et confiture."

Growing up vegetarian, I could not help but being equally fascinated and repulsed while reading The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. Maxine's Chinese mother cooks 'coons, hawks, skunks, city pigeons, wild ducks, wild geese, black-skinned bantams, "turtles that crawled about the pantry floor and escaped under refrigerator and stove" and "catfish that swam in the bathtub." And she allows absolutely no waste, so use is also made of the strange innards of all of these unlikely creatures.

If you love this sort of thing, just read the chapter "The Literary Glutton" in Anne Fadiman's adorable book of essays about loving reading, Ex Libris. She writes, "In Anna Karenina, all the essential differences between Oblonsky and Levin are laid out in the Moscow restaurant scene during which the former orders three dozen oysters, vegetable soup, turbot with thick sauce, capon with tarragon, and fruit macedoine, while the latter longs for cabbage soup and porridge." Nothing more need be said, and we understand the Oblonskys and Levins of the world.

Juicing

My father-in-law is interested in taking up juicing for health, so I did some Internet research for him on the best juicer to buy if you're going to be juicing a lot of vegetables in addition to fruits, including leafy greens and wheatgrass, and if you want your juice to be of the highest nutritional quality. (Caveat: I myself have not test driven the juicers, but rather combed through juice lifestyle-oriented sites that compared a number of different kinds of juicers alongside one another and included dozens of reviews of each, and also compared models within a single brand.)

Based on my research, I recommended that he buy either the Omega Model 8006 Juicer / Nutrition Center (the latest Omega model) or the Omega Model 8003 Single-Gear Juicer.

Omega makes single gear (masticating) juicers that literally chew fruit and vegetable fibers and break up the plant cells, resulting in more fiber, enzymes, vitamins and trace minerals. Masticating juicers are more efficient than the cheaper centrifugal juicers because they extract more juice (so, the pulp comes out drier). Masticating juicers can juice virtually any fruit and vegetable, and single gear juicers can juice leaves and grasses, like wheatgrass, spinach, lettuce, parsley, and other leafy greens and herbs. Masticating juicers also operate at slower speeds (RPMs), resulting in less foam, heat, and noise, 

which means the juice comes out with its enzymes not degraded by heat and not as oxidated, so you can keep it in the fridge for 1-3 days. In addition to extracting juices, these juicers can also make purees, patés, sauces, nut butters, frozen yogurt, and fruit sorbets. Some also come with attachments for making pasta.

Their disadvantages compared with centrifugal juices are that they are slower to use because they have smaller feeding chambers, slower feeding times, and take slightly longer to clean, but these are small inconveniences if your goal is drinking very high-nutrient juice.

Juicing is not a substitute for eating fruits and vegetables; when you juice, you don't get the benefit of helpful fiber. But juicing helps you to access the beneficial vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidant phytochemicals that are stored in fruits and vegetables and can neutralize carcinogenic free radicals and protect our cells' DNA from breakdown. Fiber is not broken down well by the body, so when you eat whole fruits and vegetables, the body expels the fiber along with much of the goodness fruits and vegetables contain. Juicing at home is also a lot more potent than buying bottled juice, because processing, bottling, and time break down the helpful nutrients. When you juice at home, you consume the juice right away or within a day or two, so you get the most nutrients.

Juicing sites recommend that you wash your fruits and vegetables thoroughly before juicing to remove any pesticides, to try and buy organic produce for juicing if possible, which is free from pesticides, herbicides, etc., and to shop at local produce markets where the produce will be fresher than if it has been shipped halfway around the world. In-season produce is also at its pick in terms of nutrition. Pick the fruits and vegetables with the deepest colors and strongest fragrances. The sites also recommend that you peel citrus fruits and leave in the white pith, as it contains high levels of vitamin C and bioflavinoids. Some fruits with a low water content are not as suitable for juicing and are better being broken down in a blender and then combined with the juice output of the juicer, like bananas and avocadoes.

One tip I loved: leave your juicer set up on your kitchen countertop to remind you to juice.

I also loved the recipes with healthy fats mixed into juices for a creamier treat, like olive oil; soaked cashews or almonds; pumpkin, sunflower, or flax seeds; seed oils like flaxseed oil; or vegetables like avocadoes. The oils help the body take in fat soluble vitamins that fruit and vegetable juices contain.

Also recommended was adding a tablespoon or two of soaked raisins, soaked dates, or chopped figs for sweetness.

A lot of people juice one vegetable or fruit at a time (for instance, carrot juice, apple juice, or tomato juice), but it's much more fun to make interesting juice blends, such as these ideas:

Pear-fennel-watercress

Apple-strawberry

Apple-carrot-celery-parsley

Carrot-fennel-celery-apple

Carrot-apple

Apple-beet-ginger

Lemon-melon ("melonade")

Tomato-apple-garlic-parsley

Red bell pepper and lemon

Spinach-mango

Basil-parsley-soaked pine nuts-garlic-olive oil (presto, it's pesto juice!)

Pumpkin with soaked cashews, nutmeg, and soaked dates (which I think will taste like pumpkin pie)

Green mango and pineapple with chaat masala

Apple-raspberry-brewed black tea

Mint-lime-cucumber

Apple and red grapes with some soaked peanuts (which I think will taste like PB&J)

Add-ons like ginger for zing, red chillies or hot sauce for heat, cinnamon, vanilla, rose water, tamarind, coffee, tea, saffron and many other kinds of flavorings would be fun to experiment with.

Another good point made on the juicing sites is that you will have dry pulp left over after juicing. Instead of throwing it away, you can add the left over pulp to foods (like baked goods) to increase your dietary fiber intake. If you don't have time to make dishes with the pulp on the day of juicing then you can simply put the pulp in a bag and freeze it until you are ready to use it. While the nutrients in freshly made juice break down quickly due to oxidation of enzymes, the benefits you get from fiber do not decline if it's stored frozen. You can also use the left over pulp and peelings for garden compost, or for artistic uses like to make your own paper. Certain types of pulp can be used to feed the birds in your garden.

Wheatgrass is a big reason that many people get into juicing, because it must be juiced: wheatgrass is non-digestible due to its high levels of cellulose, but juicing it makes the nutrients that wheatgrass contains available. One ounce of wheatgrass juice is said to contain the same amount of nutrients as 2.5 lbs of green vegetables. It is grown from the red wheatberry, a special strain that contains high concentrations of chlorophyll, amino acids, enzymes, minerals and vitamins. You can grow your own wheatgrass indoors from a starter kit, which can be more economical than buying it, on a windowsill that receives sunlight daily. It should be cut when it reaches around 7-8".

I also sent my father-in-law a list of potent "superfood" fruits and vegetables (in rainbow order – think of this as a checklist, and try to get the whole rainbow in each week):

- PURPLE: grapes, prunes, plums, cherries, cranberries, raisins, blueberries, peppers, açai, pomegranate, dragonfruit, purple bell peppers, purple carrots

- RED: tomatoes, pink grapefruit, watermelon, apples, beets, strawberries, red bell peppers, red cabbage, chard, currants, damson plums

- ORANGE: pumpkin, carrot, squash, yam, mango, apricot, cantaloupe, orange bell peppers, passionfruit, mangosteen

- ORANGE-YELLOW: oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, peaches, lemons, limes, papaya, pineapple, nectarines, goji berries, golden beets

- YELLOW-GREEN: peas, beans, spinach, green bell peppers, collards, cucumber, mustard greens, kiwi, avocadoes, bananas

- GREEN: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, bok choy, broccoli sprouts, wheatgrass, karela, other sprouts

- WHITE-GREEN: garlic, onions, celery, leeks, scallions, shallots, ginger, asparagus, pears, artichokes, endives, mushrooms, chives

- SEA VEGETABLES: spirulina, kelp, seaweeds

More about juicing and Omega juicers:

Harvest Essentials

Cool Tools

Epinions on the Omega 8006

Is the Novel You're Reading Making You Hungry? Just Pick a Different Book

I have been chortling through Geoff Nicholson's essay, "Go Ahead. Spoil My Appetite," in the New York Times, and I just had to share the best tidbits from it. It's all about how he prefers novels in which the descriptions of what the characters are eating are either nonexistent or disgusting, so that he doesn't have to sit there feeling ravenous and food-envious "while sitting alone on the couch sustained only by instant coffee."

He prefers to read about characters suffering because of what they're eating:

"In 'Gravity’s Rainbow,' ... Tyrone Slothrop samples various hideous English candies, flavored with the likes of quinine, pepsin, eucalyptus, tapioca, until, choking, he’s offered a Meggezone, 'the least believable of English coughdrops.' This is a real product, a nasty little black lozenge, still available, and if my childhood memory is reliable, Pynchon’s description of its effects — 'Polar bears seek toenail-holds up the freezing frosty-grape alveolar clusters in his lungs' — gets it about right."

"'Moby-Dick' ... struck me as a vast smorgasbord ... of bad eating: the Try Pots Inn, where even the milk tastes of fish; the grim formal meals aboard the Pequod; and the notorious scene of Stubb’s Supper, in which the second mate gets a craving for whale steak and sends a crew member to slice some flesh off a poor dead beast attached to the side of the ship.... As Stubb eats he hears sharks in the water far below tearing apart the rest of the whale carcass."

And finally:

"'Naked Lunch' contains my favorite description of disgusting food. Burroughs writes: 'In Egypt is a worm gets into your kidneys and grows to an enormous size. Ultimately the kidney is just a thin shell around the worm. Intrepid gourmets esteem the flesh of The Worm above all other delicacies. It is said to be unspeakably toothsome.' This is surely Burroughs’s own hallucinatory invention, but I’d still like the recipe."

Next up: some of my favorite good reads for good eats : )