Stout: It’s not just for brunch anymore

Back in December when the skies were thundering with snow and the Packers still had a chance at a championship, I fell into an abyss of stout beer. It all started with the Narwhal from Sierra Nevada.

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Dan brought home a four pack of this turbidly decadent beer to celebrate the recording of his latest album, Small Batch (to be released in April!), and there was no looking back.

Next came Breakfast Beer, an oatmeal stout from the folks at One Barrel Brewing Company. And then the nostalgically 80s-named Care Bear Stout. Goblets of this dark, sweet beer have me visiting this bar most Saturdays (and some Thursdays). I love these guys- not only is their beer delicious and brewed locally, they donate money to the Humane Society and declare “Go Pack” on their chalkboard the day of the Super Bowl even though Green Bay lost in the second round of the playoffs.

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Stouts swirled around me into January and February. There was Luna Coffee Stout from Hinterland served with a post-skiing brunch, Colorado’s Left Hand Milk Stout, Lake Louie’s Mr. Mephisto’s Imperial Stout and last weekend in Milwaukee, after a trip to the art museum to visit a photography exhibit- where I found out no cameras were allowed- I discovered Central Waters’ Peruvian Morning Imperial Stout at Sugar Maple in the Bayview neighborhood. Holy hell. That is one beer.*

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And somewhere in that stout blizzard I found this recipe for boozy stout brownies. The original recipe is vegan but I de-veganized it (mainly because two of my favorite people in the world- my mom and Dan- threatened to stop cooking for me and break up with me, respectively, if I went vegan and I didn’t want to give either of them the wrong idea.) I also doubled the amount of stout. I kind of thought the brownies would taste a little more like beer, but they were deliciously chocolatey and gooey. And who doesn’t love baking with beer?

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Lake Louie Milk Stout Brownies

De-veganized from Vegetarian Ventures by way of Chickpea Magazine

  • 1 cup flour
  • 3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup canola or coconut oil
  • 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup soy yogurt
  • 1/2 1 cup stout beer (I used Lake Louie Milk Stout)
  • 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line a 8×8 pan with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and cocoa powder. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, oil, yogurt, and beer. Make a well in the center of the dried ingredients and add in the wet ingredients. Fold dry into wet until a thick batter has formed. Lastly, fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour mixture into prepared pan and cook for 30 minutes or until the center has set.

Let cool slightly and serve warm!

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It’s up to you if guzzle a goblet of stout on the side. I chose a jar of milk. (Cow milk, mom, not that crazy hemp milk. No way.)

Happy baking.

*If I attempt to write about beer again, I promise to read some beer reviews- I have no idea how one reviews beer.

100

And just like that, this is post number 100 for Wisconsin Fun Next Exit.

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Over the past couple of years I have truly enjoyed writing here- in this tiny space of the atmosphere- and I hope you have liked it, too. While I may not tell you enough, I am always thinking about you. I hope that you have found something that made you laugh or think or want to get your buns into the kitchen. It makes me infinitely happy that that is a possibility.

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Now I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but lately I’ve been spending weekend mornings listening to 1970s Rod Stewart on the record player and cooking eggs. And because this is my 100th post, you just might want to listen to me. A couple of weeks ago I told you about eggs in purgatory. This morning I adapted an idea from Heidi Swanson (she calls it sun toast) and made eggs in Wisconsin: Melt a hunk of butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Take a round cookie cutter (or a Wisconsin one, if that suits your fancy/ is all you have) and cut a shape out of the middle of a piece of bread. Put the bread (both parts) into the skillet and toast both sides. Next, carefully crack an egg into the hole. Flip it with a spatula and cook the egg to your liking. Just before serving rub a garlic clove all over the toast. Or, if you are Dan, skip the garlic and grate sharp white cheddar all over the darn thing. A salad of arugula and olive oil is nice on the side. And coffee. Keep it coming.

If you are up for a little bit more flavor and punch, my other suggestion is to make ranchero breakfast tostadas, from my new cookbook, The Sprouted Kitchen. These are easily adapted to what you have in the fridge- I used whole yogurt instead of sour cream, a yellow onion instead of green and whole wheat flour tortillas in place of corn. They were delicious all the same.

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Ranchero Breakfast Tostadas

Serves 2
Adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked black beans
1/4 cup whole milk plain yogurt (and more for topping the tostada, if you like)
1/4 yellow onion, chopped
ground cumin
pinch salt
red pepper flakes
2 whole wheat flour tortillas
2 eggs
shredded sharp white Cheddar
avocado (optional- if you have one, it’s delicious)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 lime
Hot chili sauce

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Warm the beans in a saucepan (if using a new can, drain them first) over low heat. Add a little luke warm water, the yogurt, onions, cumin, salt and red pepper flakes and mash them up a little with a fork. Turn off the heat, but cover to keep warm. Fry the eggs in butter, olive oil or coconut oil. Meanwhile, place the tortillas in the heated oven until they become a little crisp. Assemble the tostada by topping a tortilla with 1/2 of the bean mash, an egg, avocado slices, shredded cheese, yogurt, cilantro, hot sauce and a squeeze of lime.

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It’s above twenty degrees and I’m off for a run. But be on the lookout- Dan and I have a surprise up our sleeves. A new corner of the universe where we will share the things that make us happy. Until then, thank you for reading.

Cheers.

An invitation

I have stopped and started writing this post in my mind several times over the last couple of weeks. I wanted to say something profound. Comforting. Something that would help us make sense. And now I find myself on the eve of the new year with the thought that, very often, the world simply does not make sense. But I wanted to offer something, so here it is, stolen from Bob Dylan’s ‘Goin to Acapulco:’

“It’s a wicked life, but what the hell, everybody’s got to eat.”

And now I’ll tell you what to eat: Eggs in purgatory. I have fallen madly for The Yellow House and yesterday I made this recipe after a cross-country ski adventure with Dan. We mowed it, along with Luna Coffee Stouts from Hinterland.

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I followed the recipe as is, and while mine did not look quite as beautiful as hers, it tasted like heaven.

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Eggs in purgatory (Uova al purgatorio)

From The Yellow House

1 loaf thick country-style bread, sliced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
28 ounces canned, peeled whole tomatoes and their liquid (or blanched, peeled whole tomatoes)
8 ounces canned tomato purée
Kosher salt
Ground black pepper
A handful of flat-leaf Italian parsley, roughly chopped
Parmigiano or asiago, shaved

Directions:

Toast the bread and set aside, covering with a clean dish towel. It’s okay if it cools a bit.

In a thick-bottomed, oven-proof pan or Dutch oven, melt the butter. Sauté the onion over medium heat until translucent and aromatic, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes. Do not allow the garlic to brown.

Add both the whole tomatoes and the tomato purée, stirring and using a wooden spoon to break up the tomatoes. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce to a simmer, allowing excess liquid to boil off and the sauce to thicken, about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper. Is the sauce too acidic, too sweet? Adjust as needed—sometimes it needs a pinch of brown sugar, a splash of red wine vinegar, or a dash of red pepper flakes.

Keeping the sauce at a low simmer, start the broiler on high. Using the back of your wooden spoon, make small wells in the sauce and gently crack one egg into the well. The sauce should still be on the stovetop simmering, so the eggs should start cooking immediately. When all the eggs are situated in the sauce, turn off the range and slide the pan under the broiler.

Broil, keeping a close eye on the eggs, until the whites are set and yolks have reached the desired doneness.

Place slices of bread on plates, and scoop eggs and sauce on top. Sprinkle liberally with parsley and top with cheese. Serve immediately with more black pepper.

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And now I offer you an invitation for the new year. It comes from a Native American elder and I first heard it while hiking across southern New Mexico. Our backpacking guide, Kate, read it to us one night using the glow from her headlamp. I then wrote it in my brown journal that I carried with me all 120 miles of the trip. When words fail me, I rely on the words of others and I found myself thinking about these words today.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive… It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company that you keep in the empty moments.

Here’s to daring to dream in 2013. Happy New Year.

The good land

In September on a gorgeous late summer weekend, Dan and I went down the road to visit our friends, Nora and Nate, in Milwaukee. As a kid growing up in Madison, trips to Milwaukee meant one of two things: a ballgame at decrepit- but lovable- County Stadium to watch Rob Deer, Robin Yount and Cecil Cooper lope around in baby-blue uniforms or a “we’re tired of winter and need to get out of the house and feel humid air” trip to the domes. This time around, upon arriving at Nora and Nate’s attractive and sunny hard-wood floored apartment across from the river, we abandoned our car for bicycles and pedaled unchartered (by us) Mill-e-wah-que territory. I believe I said aloud more than once: “I never knew Milwaukee had this many trees!”

Our first trip on the wooded bike path took us to Lakefront Brewery, home of one of my all-time favorite beers, Fixed Gear Red Ale. Our tour guide was an interesting combination of angry and cheesy, yelling at participants for talking but also leading us in a somewhat-inspired rendition of the theme song from ‘Laverne and Shirley.’ But, as all good brewery tour guides do, he kept us in the beer throughout the proceedings.

After the tour we traded our tokens for various samples of Lakefront’s offerings and sat next to the river until they kicked us out for a wedding.

Giggling as we were ushered away from the brewery, we hopped our bikes for the beach, weaving through the neighborhood where our cat, Danger Boy, was found mewing under a porch as a kitten. We made our way to Bradford Beach where our friend, Craig, was singing on a stage set up on the sand a hundred feet from Lake Michigan.

I reveled in the feeling of being on a surprise get-away as we cruised away from the beach past parks, old pavilions and people out enjoying the air. Dinner came next. Nora and Nate wanted to take us to their favorite restaurant, Roots. I traded shorts for bell-bottomed jeans, french-rolled my pant leg, threw our headlamps in my purse and we were off- another trip down the bike path took us to the restaurant on the hill, overlooking downtown. I believe I said aloud more than once: “I never knew Milwaukee had this many hills!”

Upon arriving at Roots, we noticed a nervous energy filled the air. Soon the news floated down to us- this was the last night this extremely popular farm-to-table restaurant would be serving dinner. Nora and Nate were crushed with the news, but we decided to live it up. We sat outside and were lucky to have their favorite waiter, a charming man with an even more charming South African accent. He and I must have thanked each other a thousand times over the course of the evening. We sipped on red ales and started with mussels nestled in a tomato broth that I sipped as a soup long after we divvied up the meaty mollusks. Next came the main course- Nora, Nate and Dan all opted for the grass-fed steak as I decided on the vegetarian succotash. I almost didn’t order this dish as the word ‘succotash’ for me conjures up images of a bad summer camp meal full of frozen corn and mushy lima beans, but in the end, I went for it, mainly on the recommendation of our waiter, who at this point in the meal I felt ready to trust with my life. The succotash was, in a word, heavenly. I can’t really describe it much more, except to confide in you that, in the middle of this fine-dining restaurant, I looked around to see if anyone was paying any attention before I picked up my plate and licked it clean.

I have only done that (in public) once before and it was the plate of the chocolate bread pudding at the Rendezvous Bistro in Jackson, Wyoming. If you’ve had it, you understand. (Additionally, that night our waiter in Wyoming informed us we were in the plate-licking section so it was okay.)

After the succotash we ordered dessert, but I honestly don’t remember what it was. I do remember, however, that Nora ordered tea, knocking the socks off our waiter when she asked for rooibos tea, apparently a favorite in his native South Africa. Delighted, he brought us a full tea service, complete with tiny pitchers of milk and honey. It was the perfect end to a beautiful dinner- sipping hot tea as the evening air grew chillier. We bid Roots goodbye and put on our headlamps, biking home through the quiet dark in the middle of the city.

The next morning Nate made us a delicious meal of eggs and bunsen burner coffee. We lazed around before deciding on one more adventure before Dan and I had to make our home. We were off to the biergarten. We headed the opposite direction on our bicycles two miles and landed in this magical place next to the river where I could spend every Sunday afternoon from here to eternity.

There were steins of beers, pretzals with mustard, good friends, corgis and a two-piece band featuring an accordian player from Slovenia. Alice Cooper was right. Milwaukee is the good land and I can’t wait to go back.

I would eat arugula in a boat

Arugula is the new kale. Lately I just cannot get enough of this spicy green. I’ve been putting it on pizza. I’ve been devouring it raw with a simple vinagrette of mustard, olive oil and lemon juice. I eat it with eggs. I’ll eat it on the bed. I’ll eat arugula in the kitchen. I’ll eat it playing with a kitten. I’ll eat arugula in the rain. I’ll eat it in the dark. And on a train. I’ll eat arugula near a deer. At Sardine I’ll eat it with a hoppy beer.

It may have been my inundation lately with children’s literature (not that I don’t love it) that drove me to Sardine on Saturday for brunch;  a place I can feel like an adult and maybe even an adult who has found herself on vacation. And so I found myself this past Saturday at Sardine with Dan, but only after a trip around the Square for- drum roll here- Harmony Valley arugula and Bleu Mont cheese curds (you knew there would be cheese).

With its high ceilings, wooden beams, white tile walls, and squares of butcher block paper draped over an iron rail, Sardine oozes a certain sophistication, but despite this, I still feel at home. Except now I live somewhere on the coast, where they serve oysters and I do things like go to happy hour without staying the whole night.

If you go to Sardine for brunch, try to sit at the bar (or outside, if a table is available and the weather allows it). The bartenders are quietly charming and if you pay attention, it’s a tutorial on drink-making. You can also play the game that I invented this past trip to the bistro- if you had to consume one of the garnishes in the rocks glasses that line the bar (oversized-green olives, lemons, limes, gurken, sugar- the raspberries, orange slices, and cucumbers didn’t count) in one minute, which one would you choose? See, I may pretend to be sophisticated, but these are the things I think about.

On to brunch. I started with a greyhound in a tall glass and pondered the menu. I usually opt for the caesar salad but this time my eyes landed on the arugula salad: Arugula, shaved shallots, blueberries, hazelnuts and farmer’s cheese dressed in a lime vinagrette. Boosh.

I have to admit, when my salad arrived it paled in comparison to the appearance of Dan’s grass-fed burger with bleu and frites. I may have even uttered something disparaging about the size of the salad. But then I took a bite. Citrus, salt and pepper flavors took charge and I quickly ate my words. This salad may have looked small, but what it lacked in quantity it made up in flavor. I was unable to identify the salt source (the cheese? vinagrette?), but this salad definitely had that, dare I say it, umami. And paired with a hoppy beer from Three Floyds Brewery my brunch was out-of-sight.

I like arugula. I do!

 
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Pizza: A love story

This is the story of girl

meets boy

meets pizza.

A love triangle with a new twist: Homemade whole wheat pizza crust.

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Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

This recipe comes from Dinner a Love Story

3 3/4 cups flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill White Whole Wheat)
2 1/2 teaspoons instant or other active dry yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1 1/3 cup room-temperature water

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar. Add the water and, using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix until blended, at least 30 seconds. The dough will be stiff, not wet and sticky. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature until the dough has more than doubled in volume, about 2 hours. Divide the dough in two and shape each into flattened balls. (Dough can be frozen at this point.)*

When you are ready to make a pizza, preheat oven to 500°F roll out one ball of dough in a rectangular shape and place on an oiled cookie sheet.

*I skipped the step of dividing the dough and found that it makes a perfect amount for one cookie sheet (one pizza). And while this pizza is supposed to serve 5, Dan and I can take it down, just the two of us.

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Top the pizza with your favorite ingredients and cook at 500 degrees for about 15 minutes. When I first made this a couple of weeks ago I had bought a bunch of arugula from Harmony Valley at the downtown Madison farmer’s market with hopes of recreating a pizza I had in Chicago last winter: a spicy arugula salad with lemon and shaved parmesan topped a thin crust pie. Heaven. So I improvised a recipe that I found on Dinner a Love Story. I topped the crust with tomato sauce and slices of Cesar’s mozzerella and baked it for 15 minutes. When it came out of the oven I dressed the pizza with a salad of arugula, lemon, olive oil and parmesan cheese. It was love at first bite.

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Under the Iowa sun

In my pretend life, the one where I write for a living, plan dinner parties with hand-written menus and cloth napkins, eat peaches by the bushel and have never heard of the common core standards, I found myself in Tuscany this past weekend. While suspended in real life in my new striped hammock, I spent hours imagining myself in a terraced farmhouse with white-washed walls and windows wide open to the wasps, butterflies and wafts of lemon trees. I was so moved by the descriptions of the long lunches followed by siestas, that I declared to Dan that next summer will be a summer of Tuscany (which Dan quickly deemed ‘Under the Madi-sun’) as I reclined awkwardly in my hammock trying to eat/drink my inspired lunch: hunk of blue cheese, end of bread, garden tomato drizzled with olive oil and poor-woman’s sangria (red wine, flat Pelligrino, squeeze of lemon, ice).

It may not be Tuscany, but I did get to go with my family to our cottage in Iowa in late August. And while it wasn’t perfect- there was my mom’s cracked wrist and the loud air conditioner on the ugly house next door where there used to be wild flowers (picked for bouquets placed in tin can vases)- it was just quite. There is simply something about the corner of Iowa where we spent our summers growing up. The air is softer and the light glows more golden than anywhere else I’ve been before dusk. A light gust will make you hold your breath and remember an evening squeezed between your grandparents on a bench swing at a nearby county park.

Nostalgia surrounds you.

The wooden roller coaster, the nutty bar stand, crickets, the sheep. An empty lot where the Fun House used to be. A stone bench that bakes all day in the sun. The roll-up cupboard hiding the green glass jar used for Country Time lemonade.

We cooked in the yellow kitchen, a meal my mom remembered from The New England Butt’ry Shelf Almanac. It’s the perfect meal for a late summer harvest. I’m almost sure they would serve it in Tuscany, but I bet it tastes even better in Iowa.

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Casserole of Summer Squash

From The New England Butt’ry Shelf Almanac

About 2 lbs. of summer squash, washed and cut into cubes or small slices

1 white onion, peeled and chopped

3 large (or 5 or 6 medium) tomatoes, quartered

2 tsp. fresh-ground pepper

1 Tbs. salt

2 Tbs. sugar

1 tsp. dry mustard

1 Tbs. dried oregano*

1 cup breadcrumbs or cracker crumbs

1 cup grated Vermont cheese

4 Tbs. butter

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Parboil squash for 5 minutes, then drain. Put olive oil in 3-quart baking dish or casserole. Put in squash, onions and tomatoes. Mix together the salt, pepper, sugar, mustard, herbs, breadcrumbs, and one-half the grated cheese. Spread mixture over top of the vegetables. Dot with the butter. Cover the casserole and bake for 50 minutes. Remove cover, scatter the other half of the grated cheese over the top, and return uncovered to the oven until cheese is melted and browned. Serves 12.

*At this point I should tell you that we revised the recipe- we added cubed eggplant and used an old baguette for the bread (ripped into bite-sized pieces). We used fresh herbs and a variety of cheeses, none of them from Vermont. It was delicious.

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Two nights ago my mom gave me an extra copy of The New England Butt’ry Shelf Almanac. When she opened it she found a poem copied by my grandma on the inside cover with the note, “I love this poem!”

Portrait by a Neighbor by Edna St Vincent Millay

Before she has her floor swept, or her dishes done,

Any day you’ll find her

A sunning in the sun!

It’s long after midnight

Her keys in the lock

And you never see her chimney smoke till past 10 o’clock

She digs in her garden

with a shovel and a spoon.

She weeds her lazy lettuce

By the light of the moon

She walks up the walk like a woman in a dream,

She forgets she borrowed butter and pays you back in cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow and if she mows the place

She leaves the clover standing and the Queen Annes lace!

 

It’s no wonder I daydream of words all day.

 

 

Full circle

About 42 million years ago when Dan and I visited Bayfield in March, I found out that I was going to be interviewing for the Greater Madison Writing Project. While on vacation in Boulder in April, I found out that I had been accepted to the program. And as of last Thursday, I can call myself a fellow of the GMWP Summer Institute (barring a couple of assignments that I still owe my team of enthusiastic leaders). Being part of the summer program meant presenting a 90-minute ‘Teacher Workshop’ in which I shared something that I was wondering about how I taught writing. I considered prezi and power point, but the truth is, I love blogs. So I created another one for my presentation- you can find this blog, entitled ‘Inspiring Writers,’ here.

Before my summer writing adventure began in July, Dan and I took a trip back to the Bayfield area, but this time we didn’t stop at the edge of the land. This time we took the ferry across the drink to Madeline Island.

Oh, Madeline Island. We jumped off rocks into Lake Superior, cooked delicious meals in the campsite and had riproaring campfires. We drove around listening to Neil Young, drank beer at Tom’s Burned Down Bar, checked out real estate and decided that we could retire now and work later.

And speaking of Bayfield, the photo behind this story has been making me happy/ weepy for several days now. If anyone knows anyone getting married in the midwest area anytime soon, I think you should encourage them to hire this woman.

All of this leads me to beets.

You have stuck around this far, so the least I can do is give you an idea for dinner. Dan and I recently dined with our friends Martha and Dominic, who always give me inspiration for salads. On this evening in their backyard we had a salad of garden tomatoes, olive oil, basil and mozzarella cheese and one of shredded beets dressed them in citrus and herbs. I have been making a version of this beet salad religiously since that night.

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Shredded beet salad with citrus and herbs

1 bunch beets (I have been using golden beets)

Handful of fresh herbs (I like a combination of parsley, chives and lemon basil)

Juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime (and zest of lemon and lime, if you are so inclined)

Splash of orange juice

Glug of olive oil

Salt and pepper, optional

Shred the beets in a bowl. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a jar and give it a good shake. Pour dressing over the beets. Enjoy as is, or mix with spinach/ arugula/ lettuce.

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My mom and sister, my salad gurus, have taught me that you can marinate components of the salad and then use this in place of the dressing (for example, cucumbers that have been soaking in oil, vinegar and herbs). I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Madeline Island, so I am heading back. This time I will be bringing a jar of shredded beets to pour over greens for our salads as we ponder that cabin with the lakefront view.

Cucumber luge

I am going to cut to the chase: This post is hopelessly passé. I planned it for the end of March, when the bone luge (drinking sherry out of a bone) was all the rage. I’m sure no one hip has thought about a bone luge since the time it still rained in Wisconsin. But I mentioned it here, and I intend to follow through. Here was my issue: Vegetarians want to drink booze out of random vessels, too.  This must have really been nagging at me back in March because I woke up at 6 a.m. the first morning of my vacation in Boulder pondering it. Aha! I would create the first vegetarian bone luge.

Dan and I mapped it out over lunch at Pizzeria Locale. We had to replace the bone with something unoffensive to non-meat eaters. Our first thought was celery, but then we moved on to cucumbers. A plan was in place. We recruited our hosts, Mary and Jeffrey, who were mildly intrigued by our probably misdirected passion for this project. We bought the necessary supplies and embarked on our adventure. The first step was hollowing out the cucumbers in order to create a proper runway.

Step two involved coming up with the proper technique for pouring a shot of vodka down the cuke slides into our mouths (this was spring break 2012 after all). Dan took the lead on this one, working out the perfect angle. Needless to say, chaos- and a bit of a mess- ensued. But so did a delicious dinner of cucumber and pineapple salad, salmon (so I’m really a pescatarian at times, but I still don’t want to drink out of a bone) and grilled kale. It was a heck of an evening. And while that fleeting trend may be long gone, don’t be afraid to hollow out a cucumber this evening, pour a shot of your favorite liquor, and toast to the rain.

You are my sunshine

The cats are panting, the tea is sunning itself in a tall green jar, and all I want to be doing is jumping into this Iowa lake over and over and over.

It’s officially summer. And it’s officially too hot to cook. Thanks to an inspired vegetarian dinner party that my sister put together for friends a couple of summers ago I now have the solution for hot summer nights. And it is as fun to say as it is to make: Gazpacho.

I have to admit, the first time I remember trying gazpacho I was less than smitten. A bunch of us were celebrating my sister’s upcoming wedding at her friend’s family’s lake house on Pine Lake (one of the thousand Pine Lakes in Wisconsin) and while I have many wonderful memories from that excursion, trying the gazpacho was not one of them. Everything else was magical: A swimming adventure across the lake to jump on someone else’s water trampoline, sitting on the dock at night with my mom and sister and talking about their year spent in Moscow, a sailboat ride with a nalgene full of gin and tonic, singing ‘You are my Sunshine’ around the large wooden dinner table while the setting sun glowed through the tall windows that were cranked open to allow a breeze. And a dessert- so simple, so summer perfection in a bowl- blueberries, sour cream, brown sugar.

But I didn’t give up on gazpacho entirely, and when my sister suggested making it again, I was ready and willing. This time it was love. Here is my sister’s recipe for gazpacho.

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Sena’s Gazpacho

Serves 2-4

Ingredients:

1 bottle of Knutson’s Very Veggie Juice
1 T olive oil
1 (or 2- depending on how spicy you like it) jalapenos, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 cucumber, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime
1 clove garlic
1/2 white onion, chopped
Cilantro
Parsley
Salt
Optional: tomatoes, carrots

Directions:

Blend all ingredients, but leave a little chunky (I used my birthday gift- a hand-held blender- and did it right in the pot). Chill for at least an hour. Garnish with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and a sprig of cilantro, if you like. Enjoy on a hot summer day.

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For our dinner party two summers ago we served it with beergaritas and a black bean taco bar (And dark chocolate and coconut sorbet for dessert? Or I am daydreaming that?) Last night I added a side salad of raw kale with salsa verde. Happy summer.