Art Heisting + Libraries? LOVE.

GUYS.  I love a good shady Boston art heist, but this just jumped up a notch.  A library art heist?  Be still, heart.  

Two etchings whose estimated worth is $600, 000 was reported missing from the Boston Public Library.  Three weeks after they were noted as missing.  They are "hoping it has been misfiled." SHADY.

But serious party foul, BPL.  Three weeks? That seems questionable.  I'm hoping it's been misfiled in the same crawl space in my basement where I store my Vermeer.  What?? Kidding.  Or am I? 

(I mean, clearly I'm exaggerating and want the art found. I didn't know we had a Durer at the BPL!  I want to see it now!).  

Case of the Terribles: Yoga Distractions

It's been a while since I've stumbled across something that merits the distinguished diagnosis of a case of the terribles.  But I found a doozy today while casually doing some day off online window shopping.  Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the City One Piece, courtesy of LuluLemon.  


It is designed to remove distractions on the mat. 

Lululemon.com

Lululemon.com

Lululemon.com

Their claim, not mine.  I'll let you be the judge.  

It's a steal at $44, marked down from $88.  In case it sells out before you can get it, I'll make you extra jealous thinking of this pro tip in the comment section for wearing this versatile outfit: 

"What I really love about this piece is you can wear it not only practicing yoga, running under your pants, and even for crossfit, etc., It can be coupled as a beautiful addition to your favorite jeans and heels for a night out. Or under a power suit for your workdays."

Recipe: Mulligatawny Soup

Mulligatawny Soup

This is the soup I tried to make unsuccessfully for years.  I don't know what went wrong or why I wouldn't just admit what I was craving when I wanted warming spices, vegetables, tender raisins, coconut hints, and lentils was just straight up mulligatawny, but I went off course a few times before sorting myself out enough to make a straight mulligatawny that was delicious, warming, full to bursting of flavor, and just plain self high-five worthy.  It was so tasty that when my coworker was out under the weather, I knew it was just the thing to bring in the dead of four feet of Boston winter to warm her up.  


But before I do tell you about the recipe, let me tell you a little story.  

All zero of you reading this may recall that I spent roughly five years working to realize a one year New Years resolution.  You know, that time I made 52 recipes in my Le Creuset.  Well, roughly three days after posting my reflections on the completion of said resolution, the.worst.thing.ever.happened.

My Le Creuset broke.

Key Lime Flan

Key Lime Flan ingredients

Guess what?  It's snowing again in Boston!  But you probably guessed that, as it's just so passe at this point.  As a region, we've given up on school, public transit, non-creaky backs, and sunshine.  It's working out for us about as well as you'd predict (though if you were the weatherman, you'd add a foot more snow to your prediction to get it right).  Anyways, I think it's high time you think of warm places, and simultaneously fatten up, because cold plus shoveling?  It's an appetite stimulant, that's for sure.  Ergo, I present you with a recipe from my mother that I have tweaked (and therefore RUINED).  

My momster grew up in Miami and made flan for grownup parties for years, as did her Mexican mother before her.  As a kid, it hugely grossed me out.  Too sweet, too putty colored, and too much but not enough jiggling and squish.   Recently, she made it again, and I found myself surprised that I enjoyed it.  Dead old person tastebuds or something? For an even more recent potuck, I decided to see if I could hybridize it with another Miami fav: key lime pie.  I love everything about key lime pie, except the crust.  Something about the repurposed graham and butter...meh, it just ain't my jam!  But the filling and flan are almost the same recipe, so I thought it was worth a try.  My mother's helpful feedback when I requested the recipe involved sending me six different recipes and telling me it wouldn't work, before sending me the real recipe, two weeks later, but still in the nick of time!  It also included the guidance that spilling hot caramel on oneself was inadvisable. Her recipe didn't provide ounce measurements for the cans, so I've got with the most standard seeming size.    What resulted had great flavor - but my flan flipping technique leave a bit of room for improvement...
Enjoy!

Key Lime Flan

Adapted from my mother’s recipe for regular flan (who said “That’ll never work!”)

Key Lime Flan

Ingredients

1 can evaporated milk (14 oz)

1 can condensed milk (12 oz)

½ cup key lime juice

4 eggs

¾ cup sugar (granulated or turbinado)

zest of 1-2 limes

hot water

Graham crackers, whole or crushed as a garnish

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  
2. In a saucepan over low, caramelize sugar.  Quickly zest in half to a whole lime, and carefully pour into your mold.  Let cool entirely.  
3. Whisk remaining ingredients, including more zest, into a large bowl very well (3-4 minutes).  Pour into the mold over the caramel.
4. Place the mold into a larger dish, and pour in a bath of hot water, leaving plenty of room (roughly an inch) below the lip of your mold.  
5. Carefully place the container into the oven and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour until the flan sets.
6. Carefully remove from the water bath and let rest at least two hours on a wire rack.  Chill and serve - this means summon your courage, run a sharp knife around the edges of the flan, and flip with great confidence onto a serving platter.  You may need to get a little violent…

Flan, taking a bath in the oven

Key Lime Flan

Notes:
- This made considerably more than I thought.  Make sure your dish is big enough, but it does taste good served scooped with a spoon.
-  Ditto to this in terms of making sure there is a bit of room remaining in the dish - it'll be a million times less likely to splash, get splashed into, and get out of the water bath.
- Not sure if greasing the pan would make a difference in terms of getting this out cleaning...but at least use a sharp knife instead of a regular dinner one!  

Ruminations on a Le Creuset challenge completed

Remember that time at New Years 2010 that I resolved to cook 52 recipes in my brand new Le Creuset in one year?  I do, fondly.  That me was about 5 years younger, still in grad school, living in the loveliest pseudo-commune in our dumpy castle on a hill with the loveliest roommates, who were more than happy to try my recipes at the weekly potluck we hosted for our friends on Thursday nights.  That me was (not surprisingly) 10 pounds heavier, could barely carry my Le Creuset, and had curiously less “white-blonde” highlights in her short, short hair.  In the span of a few weeks, it started become clear that I may have been a little overzealous with my goal making.  As you well know by know, my pot makes Strega Nona volumes of food, and when I finished grad school, got a for real career new job, and moved to a smaller apartment in short order, I realized I had to rework the time frame.  I figured as long as I did it and finished by some point, I’d still get the benefits of learning to cook many things in one pot.  And boy howdy, did I ever, and I certainly got more than I bargained for.  I’ve made things sweet, things savory, things that turned out way better than expected, things that didn’t even a few make the cut to get on here, and some things that I hope to make and make and make again.

Then:
Only slightly off, this is from New Years eve 2009,
aka 11 months before the challenge was hatched under my Christmas tree.

Five years is a long time, and I like to think I’ve grown quite a bit, in part because of this challenge.  I’m older.  Obviously.  I have a job I love as a library director, a major career goal I’m so proud and lucky to have achieved by 30.  Except...I’m still a terrible photographer, but hey, I can admit it!  This blog is about the phood, not the photograpy, right?  I’m a lot healthier in 2015 than I was in 2010, something I like to think you can see developing in the recipes over the history of this project (ie. cheese is no longer my base ingredient…).  I’m stronger, probably because I actually work out regularly (curious how that works), but also because I’ve lifted and moved and cleaned and lifted my Le Creuset so very often over the years.  

I’m stronger in other ways too; my confidence has grown considerably since I started this project (I mean, I was crazy enough to try making a souffle in one of these iron maidens…).  Obviously, that goes hand in hand with like...life, but I’m less reliant on the advice, recipes, and direction of others, both in life and as a chef.  I’m daring in ways and about things I was frightened by (remember that time I went to Egypt like ten minutes after a revolution?), and consequently have been influenced to cook things I never thought to try, both in and out of my giant blue pot.  I've broken bread with so many wonderful people over the course of the challenge, and I'm so grateful for the time I've spent with anyone who dared to eat my food, who shared a recipe with me, or who taught me some valuable culinary lesson! Most important though?  Even when I did not succeed, even when I failed, I learned.  There are so many recipes I still want to try but just have run out of challenge time (like wings, beer can chicken but with soda, pot pie, sausage and grapes, goulash, some kind of soup with dumpings, Thanksgiving in a pot, etc.).  I’m so very glad I did this, and so thankful Santa my Mom gave me the best gift ever back in 2009. (Thanks Mom, even though you won't read this!).

Now:
Director to Director: the key hand off in August, 2014

Well, there it is.  I knew these pots were heavy.  I just didn’t realize how heavy they’d be, in the best possible way.  Thanks for a great five years of food and friendship, Le Creuset, and for a good 50 more!  

I'll end this post with a picture (and the top ten list). In December had a once in a (my) lifetime opportunity to participate in a gallery show (at work, don't get too excited) on crafts. Yes. Let that sink in. As you know, I have zero to negative one million artistic abilities, outside of occasionally throwing some food in my giant pot and hoping for the best. But participate I did, thanks to the encouragement of a very open minded artist/superstar art teacher, and my lovely coworkers. I think the photographic evidence of my Le Creuset on display in an art gallery with some of my terrible food photographs as the background is a great way to end this challenge!

My top 10 favorite recipes in from the Le Creuset challenge: