I was about 19 years old when I found out about Andy Goldsworthy’s work through the beautiful documentary Rivers and Tides at Cinema Village. In retrospect, it was a pretty seminal discovery in my personal growth. I had seen a few of his installations over the years, but for one reason or another, I had never made my way up to the Storm King Art Center, where his famous Storm King Wall was standing. Each time I would go up to Dia: Beacon, I would remind myself to check out Storm King next time. Many more meetings with Louise Bourgeois’s spiders and that much more reminders later, thanks to other people’s enthusiasm, I finally paid a visit to Storm King.
The day before the trip we talked about packing lunch bags for our excursion. I ended up working pretty late that day. Around 11:40pm or so, I forced my self out of my bungee chair and started slicing and chopping some vegetables close to midnight. I knew I wanted to make 2 different kinds of sandwiches on the circular baguette from Zabar’s, and I wanted to make easy fillings that can stay in the fridge over night, using the vegetables we had at home. That way, I can quickly put together a sandwich that won’t be super messy in the morning, without spending much.
- Here’s what went in the oven and baked for about 40 minutes at 370 degrees:
Sliced egg plant, bell peppers, red onion, mushrooms + crushed garlic + salt and pepper + lots of olive oil
- After that, I chopped some sweet potatoes and carrots, and started boiling.
- Meanwhile, I started pan-glazing some tempeh with this sauce:
soysauce, garlic, orange juice, minced garlic, mirin, sesame oil, and sesame seeds.
- When the sweet potatoes and carrots are softened, I made it like mashed potatoes
- All things went in the fridge over night.
As I had planned, I was able to construct 2 kinds of sandwiches rather quickly for 3 people. First, the tempeh and mashed sweet potato sandwich.
I put the mashed orange roots on like I would a spread, and layer with sautéed kale, and tempeh.
After the vegetables have been baked, there are still a lot of garlic and herb infused oil left on the pan. I left it covered over night, and rub the bread on it. It makes a great base for the vegetable sandwich.
Layer order: eggplant + peppers + onions + mushrooms +more black pepper!
The previous day, I had eaten about 1/4 of the baguette. I felt like with so much stuffing, 3/4 of the circular baguette would yield enough sandwiches for 3 people- 2 mini sandwiches for each person + potato salad that Lucy was going to bring. I cut the 3/4 of the bread in half before assembling, so when they were all assembled, it looked like this:
Cut each half in thirds, wrap in parchment paper, and lunch was ready.
I packed the left over orange roots + kale and the pan glazed tempeh in a tupperware in a tupperware for Matt to take to lunch, and left for some fall foliage and sculpture.
The process of getting to Storm King was as beautiful, complex and arduous as Goldsworthy’s work process. I followed directions as instructed from the Map application on my iPhone, and somehow ended up on Caramoor Center for Music, which was a striking place. But still… WTF. I tried again right now just to be sure, but if you type “Storm King Art” on your Map application, it will give you a very precise direction to Caramoor Center for Music, an hour drive away from the Storm King Art Center. I even took a screen shot to prove it!
The lesson here when using GPS device, is to always find out the exact address of the destination. Shame on you google maps, for tricking your blind follower, and shame on me for being an unscrupulous simpleton. 그리구 언니들, 다시한번 미안 ^-^;
After a quick walk around the Caramoor, we decided to at least have our lunch there. We wanted to eat under the picturesque gazebo, but discouraged by the cold breeze, we settled with having our lunch in the car.
The situation wasn’t ideal, but our lunch was delicious, especially with the dill potato salad.
After our lo-budget style lunch, and a couple more detours later, we arrived at Storm King. We chit chatted as we walked through the meadows and the forest, circled around a Richard Serra and gave a quick glance at a Maya Lin. Andy Goldsworthy’s wall was just as expected, but what struck me the most was the open land and the autumn leaves. Every time I visit the Hudson River Valley, I fantasize about living up there. I hope to make it out one more time before all the leaves fall. Apple picking perhaps?
Risotto is warm, soft, and homey, just what I’ve been craving these days. To make it, all you need to know is 1 part rice, 5 or more part of liquid, and a generous amount of oil. But what inspired it this time, and perhaps you should take this as a warning to the wackiness that led to this goodness, are these—
3 uncorked bottles of white wine that’s been sitting in the fridge for the past couple or days.
I’ve been doing some impulsive buying I suppose. I had a bottle opened, and then forgot about it, and bought another one, and about the 3rd… I have no clue. But they’re they were. There were also some leeks and shiitake mushrooms in the fridge.
I got this idea from epicurious of cooking the vegetables separately from the rice so that they don’t melt in to the rice.
- Cover a pan with oil on medium heat, and add chopped leeks. Pour enough soymilk to cover the leeks and cook until it becomes creamy. Stir to keep the soymilk from sticking to the pan. Add salt and fresh ground pepper.
- As for the mushrooms, toss it on a baking sheet with some salt, pepper, olive oil, and chopped rosemary. Bake until it’s tender.
For the rice,
- On medium heat, add some chopped onions to a generous amount of Earth Balance and olive oil in a pan. Add a dash of salt.
- When the onions are transparent, add about a cup of arborio rice.
- Slowly start adding broth, a little at a time, and keep stirring. Taste to see if you need salt. Do this until the rice is cooked and creamy, not paste like.
When making risotto, the broth is really important, especially since I won’t be using any cheese. Knowing this but not thinking, I poured about an entire cup of Côtes du Rhône in the pot. Immediately, I regretted it, but after tasting it, I decided to go with it, and added a cube of veggie bullion and stirred it in to let it melt and blend.
Still I feared that the result might be too sour-wine-flavored for my dear lover/cohabitant and resident guinea pig. Luckily I had some dried porcini mushrooms. So I soaked some in water, and when they were ready, I added the mushroom water to the pot, and mixed in the porcini of course.
All together I added about a couple of cup of vegetable broth, a cup of the mushroom water, 2 cups of white wine, and even some moscato wine. I swear I wasn’t drunk.
When the rice was just about ready, just a bit of saffron was ready, and it really brought everything together. With the creamy leeks and mushrooms mixed in, it was perfect for us, perfect for today.
Here’s more proper recipe which this was roughly based on:
Risotto with Leeks, Shiitake Mushrooms, and Truffles from Bon Appétit
One of the many things in my abstracted to do list is to read up on different kinds of pastas. I tend to choose my pasta based on visualization of the result. Half of a buttercup squash in my fridge was what inspired this one. I had been planning on making a pasta dish with this little squash all morning, and normally, I would go with lumache pasta. I’m not sure why exactly but it just always seemed appropriate. But when I found out that they were flat out of it at the store, I decided to go with gobetti. I’ve always pictured gobetti with meaty, tomato based sauce, but with its chunky curls and strips, I thought it might be interesting.
Pasta with winter squash is something I started making during our harvest CSA season when we were getting heaps of different kinds of squashes. Sweet winter squashes can be roasted or boiled and puréed, peeled, chopped and stir fried, or just roasted in halves and scraped. I wanted the roasted flavor, but didn’t want to wait all day for it to cook. So I scraped the seeds out with a spoon, cut in thin slices, arranged the slices evenly on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle some salt, and just put it the oven.
While the squash is roasting,
- Start cooking the pasta until al dente.
- While the pasta is cooking, sweat some pressed/chopped cloves of garlic in a pan with some olive oil and salt.
- Add to the pan, capers, shiitake mushrooms, chopped leeks and rosemary, and let it cook. I pour just a bit of dry white wine if I’m drinking some.
- Take out the squash, peel, chop, and add to the pan.
- Add the drained (cooled if needed) pasta to the pan, mix it all in, and add salt to taste. (I like to add some kind of chopped green, like kale or collard greens at this point, and cook it until it’s slightly softened.)
- Mix in a dash of paprika and fresh ground pepper. Top it with some rosemary and toasted walnuts.
This dish never fails me, even with a slight variation. The chewy texture of gobetti, capers, and nuts with the softness of the squash was really great. Sweet and savory starchy dishes like this one is exactly the reason why I have to make things in small portions. But then again, this is so simple to prepare that I could always have more with just a little effort. Well. There’s one upside of being lazy.
