Pampers and Paklava

Seven year soup

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When you’re down and troubled
And you need some love and care
And nothing, nothing is going right
Close your eyes and think of me
And soon I will be there
To brighten up even your darkest night

~Carol King, You’ve Got A Friend

Dee-and-me

I count myself lucky. I’ve had many wonderful friendships in my lifetime, but I was especially blessed to have had this one. One friend who knew me from the time I was a little girl until the time I was a grown and married woman. Forty-four years of friendship. Neighbors across the street when we were six and college housemates when we were twenty.

Housemates and friends. Me and Dee. Living together. Cooking together.

I still love to cook and I’m certain the roots of my passion go back to the days when Dee and I scoured the Moosewood Cookbook for recipes. The first edition was published in 1977, the year I graduated from high school. Moosewood was the seminal vegetarian cookbook.  And–lucky us–since Moosewood Restaurant was just down the hill from the house we rented in Ithaca, NY.

As Cornell University undergraduates, we didn’t dine out very often and, when we did, it was a huge treat. Most of the time we cooked Moosewood recipes in our tiny kitchen on College Avenue. Spanakopita. Vegetable Stroganoff. Cauliflower Cheese Pie with grated Potato Crust. Countless simple, delicious recipes.

But the undeniable favorite, our signature dish if you will, was Mushroom Barley Soup. It was the first soup I ever shared with Dee and also the last. She made this soup for Joel and I, when we visited her home outside Boston, a year before she died from breast cancer.

On this day, for seven years now, I make this soup and remember her. Life may be short, but the memory of a good friend lives on.

Dee and Beth

Ain’t it good to know, you’ve got a friend.

Mushroom Barley Soup from the Moosewood Cookbook

Serves 8

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2-1 teaspoon salt
  • 3-4 tablespoons tamari  or soy sauce
  • 4 tablespoons dry sherry
  • 6-1/2 cups stock or water
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 2 medium cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced
  • fresh ground black pepper

Preparation

  1. Cook barley in 1-1/2 cups of the stock or water in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until barley is tender (20-30 minutes). Add remaining stock or water, tamari and sherry.
  2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a skillet. Add the onions and garlic. Sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Add mushrooms, and salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is very tender (about 10-12 minutes).
  3. Add the sauté with all its liquid to the cooked barley. Add fresh ground black pepper to taste and simmer, partially covered, for another 20 minutes.

Just like my friendship, the Moosewood Cookbook is over forty years old. Last fall, 2014, The Moosewood Cookbook: 40th Year Edition was published. I’ve read that some of the recipes have changed from the original 1977 edition. You can buy it here:

The heart of food

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Only the pure in heart can make a good soup.

– Ludwig van Beethoven

Food and love. For me the two go hand in hand. And, no, this isn’t a post about romantic moonlit dinners.

With many of my close friendships and family members, I have a clear memory of a dish, a drink, a meal or a restaurant that comes to mind whenever I think of them. There’s my friend Alice and Thanksgiving (oh that mouth-watering turkey), my college housemates and artichokes (what a big deal they made about me being “an artichoke virgin”), my Aunt Sue and her amazing paella (the woodsy Cape Cod backdrop didn’t hurt either), my father with his pickles and kraut, Big Papa and Shepherd’s Pie (looking forward to setting off the smoke alarm for the eighth year running). And then there’s Dee and Moosewood’s Mushroom Barley Soup.

There is so much wrapped up in that savory bowl of soup. Memories from my college days and my first taste of independence, a time in food history when being a “vegetarian” was still considered trendy, even revolutionary (Moosewood Cookbook really broke new ground), and how the loss of those most close to us remains deeply embedded in our hearts (the last time Dee cooked Mushroom Barley Soup for Big Papa and me was the last time I saw her).

Holidays hold especially keen food memories for most of us: the almond-spritz cookies we made with our mom at Christmas, Easter egg chocolates hiding under backyard bushes, a recipe for eggnog or crown roast that distinguishes your family from any other. We are indeed what we eat…and who we eat it with.

So this Friday, December 20, I’ll be filling my belly with Mushroom Barley Soup. And filling my heart with love for my friend, who passed away five years ago on that day.

Mushroom Barley Soup

Mushroom Barley Soup from the Moosewood Cookbook

Serves 8

Ingredients

1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
3 tablespoons butter
1/2-1 teaspoon salt
3-4 tablespoons tamari  or soy sauce
4 tablespoons dry sherry
6-1/2 cups stock or water
1 medium onion, chopped
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced
fresh ground black pepper

Preparation
Cook barley in 1-1/2 cups of the stock or water in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until barley is tender (20-30 minutes). Add remaining stock or water, tamari and sherry.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a skillet. Add the onions and garlic. Sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Add mushrooms, and salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is very tender (about 10-12 minutes).

Add the sauté with all its liquid to the cooked barley. Add fresh ground black pepper to taste and simmer, partially covered, for another 20 minutes. Serve with a slice of hearty bread.

Take the road less traveled, Beth

Warm your heart with more foodie posts. Check out Wanderfood Wednesday!

Memories of Thanksgiving feasts gone by

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This past weekend, I made a recipe that got me to reminiscing about Thanksgiving dinners from years gone by. As a single gal for many years who lived 3,000 miles from her family, I got invited to a number of (as I liked to call them) “orphan feasts.” These were dinners where a family took me in or where a group of friends, who were without (or who were avoiding) their own families, joined forces to create a feast and celebrate the holiday.

One of my favorite potluck Thanksgivings revolved around a “Kentucky” themed meal. Let’s just say that bourbon figured prominently in most of the recipes (and on its own). The turkey was brined and smoked on a grill with cherry wood chips and then the skin was glazed with maple syrup. I told people it was the best darn turkey I ever had and I fantasized about it for many years until finally, one Thanksgiving when both our moms came to visit, Big Papa and I made it. Big Papa, who was never a turkey aficionado, said: That was the best darn turkey I ever had.

Then there was an out –of-state Thanksgiving with a boyfriend who was filming a movie. The family of his friend, lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and that meal fulfilled every stereotype you might have of a “hippie” holiday. Everyone was smoking pot around the table, including grandma, who told me quirky stories about the days when she owned two Wallabies that she paraded around the streets just to get a rise out of her neighbors. Forget about having to decide whether you wanted apple or pumpkin pie. They didn’t serve either. Brownies were the sole dessert option and given the pot-filled haze in the air, I wasn’t sure what “special spices” might be in them, so I said: Uh, thanks, I’ll pass.

The recipe I made was one that predates these celebrations, because it is a recipe from college days. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was a vegetarian for roughly seven years. Although my food “lifestyle,” was not unheard of, it wasn’t as universally accepted as it is some thirty years later. These days, I can easily name five or six vegetarian restaurants in Seattle, and one or two vegan spots. But back in the day, Moosewood Restaurant was one of the first and one of the only.

I started making this recipe for stuffed squash, from the Moosewood Cookbook, when I came home to visit my family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Skipping the main event, turkey, was disconcerting for my mother, that I’m sure. The fact that she still makes this recipe (and likes it!) is a testament to how good it is. It’s a Thanksgiving classic, in its own way.

Since Big Papa and I are celebrating one of our (now nearly annual) traditions of painting a room this holiday weekend, my cookbooks are tucked away in a spot where I can’t get to them and, amazingly, I couldn’t find this recipe online. So, I made it from memory. I can say with complete confidence, it’s still as tasty as I remember.

Stuffed Squash (as I remember it from the Moosewood Cookbook)

Ingredients:

  • 1 Squash (acorn, butternut or your fav)
  • Cottage cheese, roughly ½-1 cup
  • Cheddar (or other sharp cheese – I used Gouda this time), roughly ½-1 cup
  • ½ Yellow onion, chopped
  • Crimini or button mushrooms, 5-10 sliced
  • 1 Apple (I used a Honey Crisp, but any variety will work), cored and chopped
  • Cinnamon, 1 teaspoon
  • Canola or olive oil

How to:

  1. Split an acorn (or butternut) squash lengthwise down the middle.
  2. Remove seeds and bake (face down on a baking sheet with a little oil) at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
  3. Saute onions in oil and then add apple and mushrooms. Saute until a tad soft but not fully cooked.
  4. Combine the onions, mushrooms and apples with the cottage cheese and cheddar cheese and add about a teaspoon of cinnamon (or a bit of nutmeg, or both – I also added some fresh thyme)
  5. Take the squash halves out of the oven, flip them over and fill the cavity with the cheese filling.
  6. Bake for another 30 minutes at 350-375 or until the squash is tender and pulls away from the skin.

Want to find more food to be thankful for? Check out Wanderfood Wednesday!

Mushroom Barley Soup for the Soul

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The last time I saw my friend Dee, she made Mushroom Barley Soup for Big Papa and me. I could smell its delicious aroma the minute I stepped into her home.

Mushroom Barley SoupWe’d traveled across the country, from Seattle to a town outside Boston, to visit Dee and her husband Gaylen. She had been hospitalized for several weeks due to complications from Stage IV breast cancer. I think she’d only been home for a couple days.

I wanted to see Dee like nobody’s business. Big Papa and I had gotten married just a few months earlier. Dee had hoped to be at our wedding. In fact, I’d asked if she would speak and offer a few words on what it takes to create a happy long-lasting marriage. I knew she would have done anything to be there and her absence told me how ill she really was.

It had been years, too long, since I’d seen her. Living on opposite sides of the country was a challenge, but we managed to keep our friendship going through cards and phone calls. No matter how much distance or time separated us, as soon as we started talking, I’d feel comforted by the familiar sound of her voice.

On this day, I wish I could have been the one making soup for Dee. When I wrapped my arms around her to give her a hug, I could feel her ribs. We stood there for awhile, just hugging, both of us with tears in our eyes. Then she ushered us over to sit at their table, trade stories and enjoy a bowl of Mushroom Barley Soup.

College AveMy memories of Mushroom Barley Soup and Dee go back thirty years to our days sharing a house on College Avenue while we were students at Cornell University. We both loved to cook something together in the kitchen of our little white rental house.

Recipes from Moosewood Cookbook were favorites of ours and, on the rare occasions when we could afford it, we’d go to the restaurant for a meal. Mushroom Barley Soup, in particular, was something we made frequently. You could almost say it was “our soup.” I know that I could never make that soup and not think about Dee.

Dee died on Saturday, December 20th last year. I got the news on Sunday morning. Seattle was knee deep in snow. The city was at a standstill. Buses weren’t running and driving was impossible.

I spent most of Sunday grief-stricken. I felt empty knowing Dee was no longer in the world. On Monday, I put on my boots and walked through the snow a mile or so to Essential Baking Company. I figured I’d treat myself to a cup of steamy Chai and spend the day being easy with myself.

Opening the door, I was greeted by a blackboard with the specials for the day written in chalk. Soup: Mushroom Barley. I walked up to the front counter and ordered my Chai. As I waited for the barista, the kitchen called out an order that was ready, “Sandwich for Dee.” I practically fainted from amazement and disbelief. A young girl came to the counter and picked up her order. I smiled at her, tears brimming in my eyes.

I’m not one to trust my belief in serendipity, though I should. It happens to me often enough. I know in that moment, Dee was smiling down on me to let me know that while she might be gone from this earth, she would never leave my heart.

It’s hard to write this story about a recipe I love, particularly when the memory reminds me of loss. Most times thinking about food and cooking is tremendously joyful for me. There is nothing finer than preparing and sharing a meal with those I love. But food is a source of comfort, in both good times and in times of sorrow.

So as soon as my kitchen is in working order, Mushroom Barley Soup will be one of the first things I make. While I stir the pot, I’m sure I’ll up the salt quotient with a few tears, and I’ll also remember Dee with love. Our friendship was strengthened over many a good bowl of soup. There’s nothing quite like Mushroom Barley Soup from the Moosewood Cookbook to soothe my soul.

Mushroom Barley Soup from the Moosewood Cookbook

Moosewood CookbookServes 8

Ingredients

1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
3 tablespoons butter
1/2-1 teaspoon salt
3-4 tablespoons tamari  or soy sauce
4 tablespoons dry sherry
6-1/2 cups stock or water
1 medium onion, chopped
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced
fresh ground black pepper

Preparation
Cook barley in 1-1/2 cups of the stock or water in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until barley is tender (20-30 minutes). Add remaining stock or water, tamari and sherry.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a skillet. Add the onions and garlic. Sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Add mushrooms, and salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is very tender (about 10-12 minutes).

Add the sauté with all its liquid to the cooked barley. Add fresh ground black pepper to taste and simmer, partially covered, for another 20 minutes. Serve with a slice of hearty bread. Add love.

Check out the WanderFood Wednesday series for more great food postings!