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May 11, 2008
The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts It's Made Of
[Warning: this entry gets really silly at the end. If you can't handle it, go read Dr. Stacey.]
I happened to be on the phone with Danny California while I was cooking dinner last night.
"What do you think about putting together lemon (both juice and peel, diced) with fresh ginger, two kinds of squash, and shiitake mushrooms?"
He was all for it. Of course he is the king of mushroom obsession (the kind you eat, just to clarify) and he does a lot of sorta Asian fushion stir-fry type of dishes. I put the dish together in a little pot and served it over eggwhites (but you could serve it over pasta or rice or nothing) and it turned out great. MR added a dash of garlic powder, and I'll probably use fresh garlic next time I make it. I also thought it would be great to make with shrimp or scallops. The trick is to juice the lemon, put the juice in the bottom of the pot with just a bit of water, and then dice up the peel and the ginger very finely and stir them around for awhile before adding the veggies. Some people have allergies to uncooked shiitakes, so be sure to cook those well.
I've been cooking with a lot of fresh ginger this weekend. Yesterday I made a fairly classic broccoli dish with garlic, ginger, and low sodium soy sauce. Today with lunch I'm going to use some frozen mangoes and spike them up with ginger and do something to them... haven't decided what as of yet.
One of the things I love most about cooking is that you can create tastes that are so radically different from the taste of each ingredient alone. I like to blend just a few strong ingredients, not a list of twenty, but high quality, fresh stuff, and then let them talk to each other and decide what they're going to taste like.
I called Danny back after our conversation because I wanted to tell him, in more detail, how much I appreciate the work he did on the Scranton campaign. It was his first union campaign, and he passed every test with flying colors. The most important thing, I've figured out after watching numerous organizers crack up, freak out, and burn out or run screaming out the door, is the ability to hold it together under pressure. It doesn't matter how you manage to hold it together, you just have to do it. Some of us do it by reaching out to our co-workers for support. Some of us need more space and time alone when it's crunch time. Some of us stop eating, some of us eat too much. Most of us drink an extra glass of wine and feel pretty good if we cut ourselves off at that. Doesn't matter how or why you do it, only that you do it. He did it. Both of my young organizers, Danny and little Lisa, held together beautifully under pressure. There were so many moments when I was quietly very proud of them, and since the campaign I've taken time to congratulate both on their personal victories. It's funny because they both have such good instincts that it never occured to them to screw up the way most organizers would under the same circumstances. So I had to point out to them how they could have screwed up and didn't. "You don't have adequate information to understand how good you are," I said to Danny. Funny how I can make a compliment sound a bit condescending... didn't mean to, but it's true. Until you've trained a bunch of people, you don't know all the ways that people can fail.
I know I wouldn't be able to keep doing the work I do if it weren't for my co-workers. Edward, Susie, and now little Lisa and Danny C. They make it all bearable. Hmmmm... is that how you spell that word? It looks funny, like it involves a bear. The furry, growling eat you for supper kind of bear. Points to ponder. I'm sure MR's mom will know.
Point being, without my co-workers, I'd be like fresh ginger without garlic, lemon, and soy sauce. There. Now it's a blog about food. There you go. I wonder which one would be which. Danny is definitely the mushrooms, since he eats so many mushrooms that they probably make up a large percentage of his body by now. I think Susie is ginger: unusual, spicy, interesting, versitile, and something you have to have with your sushi. Edward: as much as he hates them, I'd have to say he's like eggwhites: pure protein, no fat, no frills, the thing that has made me stronger than I ever though I could be. Little Lisa could be the lemon: full of sunshine and a wonderful addition to just about any recipe, but with just a bit of a bite. She's beautiful and sweet, but she's no shrinking violet.
MR is a nut. Cause he has so much unsaturated fat.
I think I would like to be Nancy's Organic Cottage Cheese. Half protein, half carb, lots of calcium for building strong unions, and just a bit of a kick from the live cultures. Ridiculously expensive, recently liberated from Vermont, and healthy enough to eat every day. Low fat in it's natural state, but if you add a teaspoon of flax oil, you get quite the perfect dish. And don't forget to top with Texas Pete!
If you were a food, what would you be?
Posted by april at May 11, 2008 6:13 AM
Comments
I think I would be sweet and sour pork because I turn pink when exposed to sunshine like a pig and I can be very sweet and very tangy at the same time.
it's bareable, I think. You learn not to mix up spellings of words that sound the same when it's not your first language. Otherwise, you run the risk of saying things like "me made very good love" instead of "law" like our prime-minister once did at a UN meeting.
Posted by: zeynep at May 11, 2008 12:48 PM
Sorry, Zeynep! It really is bearable. You are "bare" when you are naked. ;-))
Posted by: Judith at May 11, 2008 6:10 PM