I blame my mom. Growing up eating her hearty Italian pasta dinners has made nearly all other grains seem insubstantial. Rice is good, but you have to eat more of it to get full. Wheatberries are filling, but they take too long to cook. Couscous is, well, wimpy. That's right, couscous is wimpy. How can anyone get full on a dinner of delicate, fluffy couscous? I can't. That's why I have relegated it to breakfast.
For breakfast, couscous works. It's a welcome change from oatmeal and is just as versatile. It can be made with water or milk and tastes great with add-ins like nuts, dried fruits, or fresh berries. Of course, a drizzle of melted butter, maple syrup, or honey only makes it better.
This Warm and Nutty Breakfast Couscous is packed with belly-filling good carbs and lean protein. It's crunchy, chewy, sweet, and filling. It's definitely not wimpy.
Food, Family and Memory
Food, Family, and Memory
Chicken Southwest
I had my first dinner party when I was twelve years old. I invited six girls. I can name them all now: Annie Kleinsasser. Katie Kleinsasser (her thirteen year old knowing and powerful big sister who wore a bra). Sara Bingham. Kathy Golden. Sue Cross. Dee Dee Ruff. We were just finishing the sixth grade. We’d be going on to Junior High School.
This was going to be something BIG.
I felt it was worthy of celebration. I would have liked to invite six boys but I also would have liked to travel to the moon and I had about as much chance of that as getting the nerve to cook and then eat actual food in front of Kevin Hoffman, Bill Holland, Dan Chapman, Steve Acker, Jamie Oyama and Robbie Ellis.
La Vie Bohème en Giverny – Monet’s Palate
Naively, I asked for larks. The grocery clerk seemed perplexed.
“You know,” I added … “song birds? And, laurel branches, please.”
Armed with my shopping list from my 1954 edition of the Alice B Toklas cookbook (the Hashish Fudge recipe was expunged from that edition) I was beginning life as a newly wed. I didn’t realize that Alice B Toklas was not Betty Crocker; that our local grocery store in Fort Worth, Texas was not a wildfowl and gourmet food purveyor circa Paris 1920’s; and that I wasn’t cooking for Picasso, Hemingway, Matisse or Braque. I was a recently graduated art student and lookin’ to live La Vie Bohème. Anything that associated delicious food and painting was what I most wanted in life. Since I was a woman and not a man-with-a-wife, if I wanted it, I was going to have to do it all myself! And, so … arm in arm with Alice, I started my career as a would-be painter/chef. Never made Alice’s Larks. However, the super impressed clerks at my market thought I was an authentic epicurean, and I never dared tell them otherwise.
Make It Snappy
There are certain social barriers we face throughout our lives, that
when knocked down, make a big impression on us. Especially when you’re
a kid. When I was in the 6th grade at Hawthorn Elementary School my
homeroom teacher whose name escapes me, but for our purposes let’s just
call her Miss Pritchard, had a kickass ginger snap recipe. Up until
that time the store bought ones always burned my tongue so I just ruled
them out in my cookie lexicon. They were also flat where Miss
Pritchard’s were fluffy and thick. The sugar that dusted the store
bought ones gave off that diamond glint but Miss Pritchard’s looked
like something you saw when you opened a treasure chest. They were
also crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Hoo yeah!
Supermarket Sweep
I pretty much know where everything is in every supermarket in LA. Owen’s Market has the best meat counter. Elat Market has the best hummus and eggplant dips. Whole Foods, as much as I don’t want to admit it, has the best pre-cooked shrimp. The Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica is great for heirloom tomatoes. Fresh & Easy has the best olive bread. Bay Cities has the best baguettes. I could go on for pages. It’s not my fault. It’s genetic.
When I was younger, I thought it took five hours to drive from LA to Santa Barbara because my mom convinced us we had to stop to eat at least three times on the way (at John’s Garden for fresh juice, at the Malibu Fish Market for fried fish sandwiches and at some divey Mexican place in Oxnard for tacos). When I went away to college I found out it takes five hours to drive to San Francisco and about 1 1/2 hours to drive to Santa Barbara, and, in fact, you probably don’t have to stop to eat even once on the way.
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