Of Mushrooms and Minnesota

Or two vaguely related topics joined together in one blog post.

Last week, following a couple of days of spring rain, I began plotting a bean patch in my backyard. Considering possibilities for a border, I remembered my failed shiitake logs and crossed the yard to relocate them. To my amazement, I found all 10 logs in fruit with mushrooms! This is a full two years after they were inoculated. I had given them up for dead, another crop snuffed out in my care.

Some of the logs, in fruit

I consulted a shiitake guide for advice on harvesting. The recommendation was to wait until the caps open and flare out, so I decided to leave them unmolested for a few more days. We were about to leave for St. Paul, Minnesota, to bring our son home for the summer break.

Thus begins the Minnesota part of this post. My son completed his freshman year at Macalester College, providing the occasion for our fourth visit in two years to the Twin Cities. I thank him for choosing a location that's such a delight to visit. Minneapolis and St. Paul offer urban amenities at bargain prices. Some of our favorite "cheap eats" are adjacent to the Macalester campus; we've had excellent Vietnamese lunches at Indochin on three of our four trips. Other neighborhood eateries we've enjoyed are the Khyber Pass, Pad Thai Grand, and Shish.

We made a repeat visit to Fika, which surely must be the best museum snack bar in the world. It is housed in the architecturally-impressive modern wing of the American Swedish Institute and features artfully-prepared contemporary Scandinavian food at museum cafe prices. I've become a bit obsessed with Scandinavian fare since our first visit there in November. I've not been able to successfully replicate the incredible golden beet and apple soup I enjoyed, but I did acquire an excellent healthy cookbook, the Nordic Diet, and I've registered for a Coursera class on the Nordic Diet.

The Twin Cities have a burgeoning reputation as a foodie area and we'll need many more visits to become even partially acquainted with the culinary offerings. Minneapolis is home to my favorite food broadcast, NPR's The Splendid Table.  Anthony Bourdain was appearing at a sold-out event with the Travel Channel's Andrew Zimmern, a Twin Cities resident, while we were in town.

At my son's college, food has an ecological focus (in addition to being tasty). The service is managed by Bon Appetit and strives to incorporate sustainable and humane farming, locally-raised food and health-conscious options. I wish campus food had been this good when I was in college!

At least two culinary luminaries have graduated from Macalester. Dave Miller, a California baker of organic bread, is featured in Michael Pollan's new book, Cooked (which is now my favorite Pollan book, an honor previously held by his Botany of Desire). And Louisa Shafia, author of the excellent Lucid Food, is getting rave reviews for her recent release, The New Persian Kitchen.

Which brings me back to the mushrooms (and soon, a recipe).

When we returned home, I checked the logs and was thrilled to see a shiitake explosion. Several had opened and were ready to harvest and of impressive size.

What to cook with my first batch of beauties? I consulted Lucid Food and found an Asian soup that looked promising. I substituted Japanese sweet potato for the rutabaga and tempeh for tofu and it was delicious.

Asian Shiitake Soup
(adapted from Lucid Food by Louisa Shafia

4 scallions
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
1 large Japanese sweet potato, peeled and diced (about 3-4 cups)
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 star anise

Asian Shiitake Soup

3 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari
4 cups chicken stock
8 ounces tempeh
2 cups shiitake or other mushrooms, diced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
Salt
Toasted sesame oil (optional)
Chile flakes (optional)
Rice or other vinegar (optional)
Fresh cilantro (optional)

Thinly slice the scallion greens and set aside. Mince the scallion whites.

In a soup pot over medium-high heat, add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Saute the scallion whites and garlic for 1 minute. Add the sweet potato, white pepper, star anise and 2 tablespoons of the soy sauce and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Decrease the heat and simmer, covered, until the sweet potato is tender, about 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt.

Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the remaining olive oil. Fry the tempeh for 2 minutes on one side, then sprinkle a little salt over it, flip and cook for 1 minute more. Add the shiitakes, ginger and the remaining soy sauce and cook for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat.

To serve, ladle into bowls and add 1/2 cup of the tempeh mixture to each bowl. Garnish with any or all of the optional ingredients. I used Fustini's lemongrass-mint vinegar, which was excellent.

Card catalog

In my quest for simplicity, I long ago surrendered any thoughts of reducing my book collection. I've  read many essays that offer sage advice on detaching oneself from the possession of books, but until I'm confronted with moving to Paris or a nursing home, I don't see any particular need to purge in this area. Occasionally I worry my floors will collapse under the weight of the books, and once or twice I have succumbed to this worry (or the reluctance to purchase another bookcase) by carting up a stack of unloved volumes and lugging them to Goodwill or the used bookstore. Discarding a 1980s guide to sailing around Cuba (no idea how that came into my possession) has caused no regrets; yet, I still suffer over the poor decision to give up my Fearrington House Cookbook 15 years ago.

Some of the offending shelves

So I'm reconciled to allowing books to be one category of overindulgence. Like anything of which one has too much, the primary nuisance tends to be its organization. When I'm searching for a book I know I own, and I can't find it, it's never because I loaned it out to someone and forgot. I always remember who has one of my books, even if he or she has had it for five years and I've lost all hope that it will be returned. The books that frustrate me are the ones that I know are in my house but I can't remember in which bookcase or pile. This is primarily a problem for non-fiction books because fiction is alphabetized by author. Many times I've wished for a librarian to help me catalog and organize my books. Also, some of them are rare or otherwise valuable and should be inventoried for insurance purposes.

And then, in a moment of serendipity a few days ago, I discover that a digital librarian assistant already exists on the internet! It's called LibraryThing and I had somehow never heard of it until one of my local bookstores linked a story comparing and contrasting it with Goodreads. The latter I've been using irregularly for a few years, mostly to keep track of books I want to read. It also has cataloging capabilities which I had not noticed, but LibraryThing's cataloging is more powerful, according to the Book Riot reviewer.

I immediately downloaded the RedLaser barcode reader for my iPhone and began scanning. I can scan an entire shelf of books and tag them by location, a system that will work beautifully as long as no one in the house moves a book without tagging the new location in my digital catalog. I can note signed books, sort books by century, rate them, and otherwise unleash my inner data geek to frolic in bliss with my book geek. Only two things have so far held me back from continuing to the second shelf: this takes time that could be spent reading, and I have a nagging feeling that I should wait until I'm packing up to pull out the carpet and refinish the floors, a task that has been on my wish list for years. So I have to think about that before I get too carried away. But realistically, the floor job probably won't be happening this year, and by the time I get to it, the books will need to be pulled and dusted again anyway. Let the cataloging begin!

Kitchen Makeover

The only useful countertop

Cookbooks, tea and coffee

I've dreamed of a large kitchen with multiple work surfaces, plentiful storage, a Viking range, perhaps a wood-fired bread oven, and an attached greenhouse for herbs and plants. But I have a kid in college, so no chance of that happening in the next four years, if ever. Still, something had to be done. My small kitchen was so inefficient. I had only one counter that could be used for a work area because the other countertops were filled with jars and canisters and small appliances that wouldn't fit in the cabinets or pantry. If I wanted to knead bread, or use the food processor, I had to relocate things from the counters to the dining room table, then move it back later. Plus, it was just plain cluttered and ugly. And the lighting was bad.

Cluttered countertop, no room to work

Bad recessed lighting

I've hated my kitchen for a very long time, and that's too bad, because I love to cook and spend huge quantities of time in it.

Recently, an opportunity presented itself in the form of a talented and affordable contractor who had a few days to spare and was conveniently located in the neighborhood. I had some ideas of a couple of minor improvements that would make my kitchen work better for me, primarily moving out the cookbook case and putting in some adjustable shelves for the more attractive of the countertop items. The kitchen also badly needed painting, and we could do something about the bad lighting. I suggested track lights, and Ken said that would work but he'd need to take out the soffits above the cabinets. That was more construction than I had in mind, but it wasn't a budget buster. So for a very reasonable investment, in six days I got this:

New bread-making area

Cookbook shelves have been relocated to dining room, replaced with these adjustable shelves

Track lighting makes the kitchen much brighter, and room for storage above cabinets

Facebook Time

Everyone with a computer, or a smart phone, knows how time can be frittered away on the Internet. Facebook is the number one offender when people are asked, "what is your biggest Internet time-suck?" This may be why, nearly every week, I see a link to an essay explaining why the writer is quitting Facebook. Various reasons are listed for ending this addictive habit, and deleting one's account is the Internet equivalent of quitting smoking cold-turkey.

In my quest to rid myself of unnecessary encumbrances, my participation on Facebook has naturally come under scrutiny. I've been less bothered by how much time it takes, mostly because I'm more of a lurker than a participant, than how much of my mental energy it extracts even when I'm not online.

I get annoyed by some things I see posted on Facebook. I almost never respond, primarily because I don't want to waste my time arguing with people who will never agree with me, but I think about them for hours or days afterwards. I have the arguments with the posters in my head, pointing out that their information is not factual or logical.

So I think about staying away from Facebook. Then I realize I'll also deprive myself of the good aspects, namely staying in touch with friends who were long-lost until this new technology appeared. As an introvert, I've never been good at keeping in touch when geography and changing life circumstances remove people from proximity. Facebook has made me regret my "out of sight, out of mind" tendencies, showing me that some friends from the past likely would still be friends, maybe even better friends now, and I welcome their re-entry into my life, even if it is only virtual.

Fortunately, I've discovered that Facebook can be streamlined. Maybe I don't want to go to the extreme of un-friending people who drain my mental energy, but I can hide them from my news feed. Likewise, I can change my settings to receive notifications of updates from selected friends and family members. Investing a few minutes to determine who gets removed from my news feed and who gets to the top of it has solved the problem of Facebook for me.

Plastic

Even an avowed anti-hoarder has a need for some storage containers, especially in the kitchen if she cooks.

On January 4 of this year, I welcomed a new refrigerator into my kitchen. The primary purpose was to improve our energy efficiency as it replaced a 20-year-old model that didn't seal well and ran constantly. But the side effect was a clean-out of not only my refrigerated items, but cabinets and pantry as well. I couldn't let the new fridge make the rest of the kitchen look shabby!

As I removed food from the old refrigerator, I began thinking about ways to prevent some of the nastiness from infecting the newcomer. Aside from the perhaps inevitable issue of moldy mystery leftovers that tend to lodge in the deep corners of any icebox, the main problem seemed to be leakage. In nearly every bin, I scraped away bits of gunk that had somehow escaped from its packaging. I identified the primary culprit as torn plastic.

Inside the new refrigerator

Several years ago, my pantry suffered an outbreak of mealy worms and nearly every opened bag or box, and even some that had not been opened, had to be discarded. What to do to prevent future infestations? I started storing grain in the fridge, usually in the thin plastic bag in which it came home from the co-op's bulk bins. This worked to keep the bugs away, and the plastic bags didn't take up any extra space in the door bins, but they often ripped, spilling rice or quinoa or flour. Also, the item I needed was often at the bottom of the stack of bags.

Pantry

For the new fridge, even though it is slightly smaller than the old, I decided to use glass jars for storing grains and highly-perishable flours. I can easily see what's inside and glass doesn't leak. An added benefit is reducing our exposure to possible toxins in plastic, although I'm not a purist about that and definitely don't aspire to the level of plastic elimination as this mom who wrote about her extreme detox regimen. Still, it's likely a good thing for our health and for the environment to reduce our use of plastics.

Kootsac bags

For the co-op bulk bins, I found some terrific lightweight, sturdy and reusable nylon bags from an Etsy shop in Canada. These keep even the finest ground flours intact. Once home, the contents are transferred to airtight glass jars or stainless steel bins and the bags are rinsed and dried for the next shopping trip (they air-dry very quickly).

Finally, I slightly reorganized my kitchen in hopes of improving efficiency. Mostly this meant moving the Vitamix off the counter where it prevents the cabinet door from opening to the top shelf of my cookbook case. This shelf is now the beverage area.

Coffee, tea, soda, smoothies

Storage Wars

Nearly 27 years ago, when I graduated from college, I vowed to never own more than could fit into my sky blue VW bug. I had dreams of working as a traveling journalist, or foreign correspondent, and I knew remaining mobile and light of possessions would help in my globe-roaming future. Yet six months later, when I moved to Charlotte, N.C., for my first full-time job as a reporter for United Press International, my dad was already pulling a small U-haul with my belongings, although at least it was only an old sofa and a bed.

Today I doubt I could fit the contents of one of my closets in that old VW. The dreams of youth have been replaced with the pleasant realities of middle age, which in the United States of America at least, comes with a lot more stuff. Along with the husband and two children came home ownership and its furnishings. Also, I discovered I hate flying, which greatly eroded the previous appeal of globe-trotting.

I look around my house and see what is still in my opinion too much stuff, although I know it's quite light in comparison to my peers. I don't shop for recreation; I rarely enter a store for anything besides groceries. So I've avoided accumulating clutter of the knick-knack variety and only have those types of items as a result of gifts, mostly from my mother who is the Clutter Queen.

When I was visiting my parents during the Christmas holidays, I saw a television show about people who get into bidding wars over the contents of abandoned storage sheds. Apparently the appeal of this show, apart from the drama of the bickering, is to witness the variety and quantity of nonsense on which strangers have wasted their money accumulating. I glanced at my mother's possessions and could easily imagine them featured on that show. I renewed my vow to not go down that path, even though I'm reconciled to requiring at least a small truck for any future moves.

Books are not clutter

Returning home to Michigan, I turned a more critical eye to my own clutter, such that it is, and have been working to reduce it. I've been clearing closets of clothes I know I will never wear again and desk drawers of irrelevant papers. I will concede to being a hoarder of books and acknowledge that I will probably never mend my ways and will be perpetually short of sufficient book shelving. However, I did manage to removed a few items. Ok, to be honest, it was only user manuals for long-departed computers and a 20-year-old Fodor's guide for Mexico, but hey, that's something!

Next up: food storage.

(almost) Instant Soup

Did you know that in roughly the time it takes to open a can, pour the contents into a saucepan and heat it to a simmer, you could have prepared a tasty, nutritious and low-sodium soup from scratch? Such is the wonder of miso.

Many groceries sell instant miso packaged in little cups to which hot water is added. This is certainly a nice convenience for the office, but if you have access to a stove, you can make your own in about the same time it would take to heat the water.

Miso, a fermented soybean paste popular in Japanese cooking, can often be found in the produce section of the grocery, although at my favorite food co-op it is kept in the dairy case. While the price for a jar or tub may seem expensive, a little goes a long way. Depending on the variety and your taste preference, as little as a teaspoon can adequately flavor a cup of broth.

Miso Soup

I'm partial to the miso produced by the South River Miso Company, which can be purchased online or in some natural food stores. The company sells several varieties of miso, traditional and more boldly-flavored. My favorites are garlic red pepper and dandelion leek. Kept in the refrigerator, an opened jar will last indefinitely.

To make the soup pictured, I diced a carrot, a rib of celery and a slice of onion, sautéed them in about a teaspoon of coconut oil, added a cup and a half of water and brought it to a simmer, tossed in a handful of baby spinach and let it wilt. After removing the pot from the heat, I stirred in about 2 tablespoons of garlic red pepper miso. That's it! In less than 5 minutes, I had a delicious, filling, healthy, low-calorie and inexpensive lunch (2 points for those on WW).