time goes by, tables turn
home-grown mushrooms and sandwich dreams
Last week I was feeling just a smidge of existential despair, but that has mostly passed, and this week I’m now feeling both moderately unhinged and deeply bored. I got stuck in bad traffic on the way home the other day and although it was obnoxious, I was actually a little excited that something slightly out of the ordinary had happened. If you’re trying to keep yourself and others safe there is nothing to do and no one to do it with, and yet amidst record hospitalizations gyms are opening back up for some reason? I hope I’m not alone in feeling like most of the world has entirely lost the plot, but what can we do except keep going, really? At least it’s getting dark later than 4:30pm these days, and we have a few days of sunshine to look forward to.
I’ve started knitting a new sweater for myself, which is giving me something to look forward to. It’s progressing more quickly than I anticipated— I feel like I only just learned how to knit, but it’s actually been 18 months, and since I do it pretty much every day it makes sense that my skill level would have improved. My ennui has not led to a lot of interesting choices in the kitchen this week, but there’s nothing wrong with falling back on old favourites in a time when it feels impossible to care about something as mundane as what to eat for dinner and you can’t just order pizza again.
Also, because I had something else more pressing I needed to be doing at the time, I made a playlist housing all the songs I’ve referenced in newsletter titles. Since my newsletters aren’t generally about any one thing the idea of trying to give them cohesive titles usually makes me anxious, so instead I go full livejournal and just choose something vaguely relevant or something I’ve been listening to a lot. The tracks are in order (anyone who know me knows my playlists are almost never intended to be randomized) and I’ll keep adding to this list over time.
We all have sandwiches we ate years ago that we still think about, right? That’s normal? I dream of the Cubano from Tuck Shoppe (RIP), and the 3-cheese grilled cheese at The Winking Judge (RIP), and a salami and fresh pecorino panino I had at a lunch spot near the Piazza del Duomo in Florence. But one of my favourite sandwiches to make at home is the red-hot tempeh BLT from Isa Does It. Slices of tempeh are marinated in Frank’s Red-Hot mixed with some soy sauce, a splash of liquid smoke, and a bit of water to thin, and then pan-fried to brown like bacon. It doesn’t feel exactly like a BLT or anything— nor does it have to— but it’s filling and fantastic in its own right. The marinade actually gives more of hot wing vibe which, as a buffalo sauce lover, I have no issue with. I like Noble Bean tempeh for this because it has a slightly looser texture, so it really sucks up the marinade.
To go on the side I made some wedge fries in the oven (so not fries really I suppose, just delightfully crisp pieces of roasted potato shaped like fries) using purple potatoes, and they were a beautiful change from my usual choice of Yukon gold. The one drawback to making this dinner in the winter is that even the best BC hot houses are producing tomatoes that have all the texture and flavour of a kitchen sponge… but a tomato-less BLT is not an option. And the good news is that any leftovers of the tempeh are excellent in a breakfast sandwich, with tomato or without.
The oyster mushrooms in the kit we’ve been growing were large enough to harvest this week! We got about half a pound, and the kit should produce another few crops of them before the mycelium have exhausted their food supply. This batch got a little longer in the stem than is maybe ideal, which happens without enough fresh air exchange, but the stems are still good to eat so it’s no real loss— they’re just a little chewier.
I haven’t been feeling very creative the past few days, so I just made a mushroom carbonara with them. I’ve used oyster mushrooms in carbonara before and they complemented the dish so well I suspected they’d make a decent sub for pancetta, and they did! The stems are especially meaty in texture and sautéing in cast iron at a medium-high heat gives them good crispy edges. I cooked them in bacon fat (because I keep insisting the tomato paste can of it that I keep in the freezer will be useful), but to make it vegetarian, any smoky add-in while frying would work: smoked paprika or salt, or a dash of liquid smoke. I love making carbonara because it comes together so quickly with pretty minimal effort and ingredients, but it still feels a little bit fancy.
Over the weekend I made a really good korma using Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s cashew & coconut korma sauce recipe. The wonderful kofta in her recipe are a fair bit of work, but the rich sauce comes together easily and you can use it as a base for any number of other things if you need something more straightforward. I had some cauliflower and bell pepper, and a couple chicken thighs from the freezer, plus a handful of peas, and it made a curry that was so satisfying and delicious I was still excited to eat it on day three. Marinating the chicken tikka-style in yogurt, lime, and spices for a little while before cooking made it tender, and added even more depth to the sauce.
Finally, for most of us in the northern hemisphere, there will come a time between November and March when you will look in your fridge and realise with a heavy heart that it is time to make borscht, simply because you have too much of every ingredient used to make borscht. I can’t explain the science of how I’m never excited about borscht while I’m deciding to make it or while I’m cooking it or when I’m about to sit down to eat it, but when I actually eat it I’m like, “HELL yeah, borscht is delicious!” I use a can of fire-roasted tomatoes in mine which creates a strong flavour, so it’s really more of a pink tomato-vegetable soup with an earthy undertone— shredding the beets makes it more even and subdued (plus, they cook faster). A little dill and sour cream on top will round it out, and a piece of bread to mop up the leftovers is the reward for using up all those winter vegetables. Eat with a glass of stout for the full experience.
Media:
Anyone who has worked in the food industry knows: restaurant workers have always worked sick. This by Chris Crowley for Grub Street details some of the ways workers have been encouraged or guilted into working through illness, injury, and pain, because restaurants often are run at such a baseline level of staffing and functionality that one person missing one shift can throw off the whole operation… or so its workers are made to believe. There’s also a mentality within restaurants that some level of working through your suffering shows your commitment to the job (readers of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential will recognize this as well).
The pandemic is the first time in a long time—possibly ever— when food service workers felt that “illness was treated as anything besides an inconvenience,” but it’s still more complicated than “just stay home”. The lack of security and paid leave in much of the industry means that for some, a week or more off work means not being able to cover basic expenses, or potentially not even having a job to come back to once the isolation period is over. In BC, we currently have the CRSB (Canada recovery sickness benefit), which you can apply for if you’re off work due to isolation or because your workplace is closed, and five days of paid sick leave. But these don’t cover everyone, and can involve a lot of bureaucracy before you actually get the financial help you need. Additionally, the baffling choice of reducing required isolation time from ten days down to five in most cases means a lot of people might be back at work before they’re actually better, and could end up infecting others simply because they had no other choice but to return to work.
The scales have started to tip in the past two years, but while industry employees still have so few options to take care of themselves, there is a long way to go. It’s no wonder that there are “staffing shortages”— even aside from covid forcing people to stay home, who wants to work for less money and more abuse? If we value restaurants as important to a city’s community and culture, when can we start to value the people who work in them?
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. And here’s something to remember the next time supply chain shortages strike a business near you.