food therapy

among the things i got at the Monterey market are a bunch of lemon thyme (i've missed it since my garden died), a quarter-pound of chanterelles ($8/lb.! i'd have bought more if i thought i could eat them before they spoiled), some lovely tender young sorrel, and a finger-sized bit of fresh turmeric root. yes! fresh turmeric!

it's a member of the ginger family. evidently one can use the fresh root much as one would use ginger -- crushed, minced, or sliced -- for both flavor and color. i've found a number of recipes online that call for it, but most of them call for ingredients i haven't got, but this looks rather nice, although i'm thinking 12 thai/indonesian chilies is a bit much even for me. six might be more than i could take - this recipe is seriously hardcore! it's also an excuse to use fresh galanga (here called galingale, also known as laos or ka), which i've also been wanting to do for some time. this looks like a variation on the same basic idea, only one grills the chicken rather than simmering it.

am v. excited about getting to cook with new ingredients. hopefully this will be sufficient motivation for me to get my kitchen cleaned up. am also looking forward to making sorrel and white bean soup, which i've been craving for a couple of weeks. hard to find sorrel around here, so i'm always happy when i get my hands on some.

for lunch, naomi_traveller made a fantastic spinach and cheese pie, with three kinds of cheese and lemon thyme and some of the most gorgeous pastry i've ever had. word to the wise: if she offers you anything involving pastry, say yes.

23rd page, 5th sentence

Beatrice and Maurice Bernstein, accompanied by Orson, were regular subscribers, as were the Moores, and it is possible that they were able to get Orson enlisted as a non-singing infant, of whom there are a number in the repertory favored by Ravinia, most notably the role of Trouble, Cio-Cio San's son in Madame Butterfly.