food

Brotherly Love…of Sandwiches

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

I’ve blogged before about my second son’s penchant for strange sandwich combinations, as well as my youngest son’s unprompted disdain for his older brother. This morning over breakfast, the two experienced something of a breakthrough in their relationship.

I was seated at the kitchen table, munching a peanut butter toast sandwich. Trevor (our youngest) walked by and saw me. “Dad,” he asked, grinning and staring, “what are you eating?”

“Toast and peanut butter.”

“Oh,” he said. “It looked like a sandwich I made before. It had toast and cinnamon and sugar, and I put cheese on it.”

Gabe popped up like prairie dog: “Did you butter the toast?”

“Yup,” said Trevor.

“Cinnamon toast with cheese?” I said. “That’s different!”

“Cool,” said Gabe, nodding his approval.

Trevor beamed. “Gabe,” he said, “we should like each other more!”

The Man Who Fed the World

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Norman who? How is that an American wins the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal (a feat only accomplished by four other people in history: Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, and Nelson Mandela) and throws a National Medal of Science in to boot, and most people don’t know who he is?

How is it that an Iowa farm boy and wrestler comes to the University of Minnesota, almost isn’t admitted, and accomplishes these things? How is it that this man is credited with saving as many as a billion lives and is a household name in certain developing countries, and people here are talking about Brett Favre?

I wouldn’t know him either, except that I work at the University and wrote about him once, so I read his biography. Check out this story, then this great commentary from a few years back, then consider picking up the book, The Man Who Fed the World.

Borlaug not only worked to develop strains of food crops that would grow in areas of the world facing famine, but he taught the people to raise those crops and to continue his scientific work on their own. Not only did he bring new technologies and fertilizers to these areas to boost production, but he advocated for laws and public policies that helped farmers and the hungry.

And when people criticized him for advocating inorganic methods of increasing yields, his response was to invite them to join him in working among the world’s hungry, and then talk. He didn’t oppose organic farming; he simply knew these regions couldn’t grow enough food quickly enough that way to feed those who needed it and was unwilling to choose who would starve.

He didn’t give fish; he taught fishing. He may be the most remarkable man you’ve never heard of.

Gourmet or Gross-Out?

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Sometimes in the hustle of the day-care day, Jodi lets the older kids help out by making their own lunches. So a few weeks back, she told Gabe he could make a sandwich, and he did.

After he cleared his dishes, she asked how the sandwich was. “Pretty good,” he said, “except for one thing. I’m not sure if it was the grape jelly, the mustard, or the Cheezits.”

My money was on the jelly, but the more culinarily adventurous among my co-workers said they could imagine jelly and mustard being complementary. I asked Gabe what he thought, and his best guess was the Cheezits. I asked what else was on it: turkey, spinach, and colby-jack cheese.

The Cheezits, I gathered, were for texture …

Feel the Burn

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

I had kind of an involved, downer of a post for tonight, about the lengths we’ll go to as a nation to avoid sacrifice or discomfort. There is virtue to be found in a some self-sacrifice, a little pain, and I may yet write that post — but as a light-hearted lead-in perhaps, tonight I share these:

There is a chance tonight (however slight) for frost, and a chance tomorrow (however slight) that I may do some fall cleaning around the yard, deck and shed. So I went out to the pepper pots tonight and plucked countless ripe (pictured) and ripening chiles.

Smoky yellow habaneros, plump green jalapenos, cayennes like lean red flames and serranos like green firecrackers, some turning red. Beautiful aren’t they?

I’ve done a little digging online to find a way, better than freezing and short of canning, to preserve them more or less intact. I’ve seen some interesting ideas involving vinegar and olive oil — but if you have suggestions, do share! (I also have a recipe for jalapeno chili vodka that I may have to try.)

The kids were amazed that the jalapenos are the mildest of the bunch — and that the habs are as much as 60 times hotter, chemically speaking. Why grow ’em? The sweet, smoky taste they impart is critical to a good batch of Old Lamplighter.*

See what I mean? Good things come from a little pain and suffering.

* * * * *

*Old Lamplighter is my best hot chili recipe. Permission to brag: It actually won a chili contest at my old job: took Best Overall and tied for Best Heat. (Of course, there was some controversy because the contest was my idea — but the ballots were cast secretly and verified independently.) I make thick, mild stuff for the little kids — Good Dog Chili-Dog Chili. Bren and Jodi mix ’em to get the temp just right for them …

Chance Encounters

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Used to be a standing joke with Jodi and I any time we visited a city of any size that she would meet someone she knew. Her home state, South Dakota, isn’t big, population-wise — but the combination of relatively few people and genuine need (in the rural parts of the state, especially) to get on well with your neighbors seem to add up to everyone in South Dakota knowing every else. Plus, the county-specific license plate numbering helps. So wherever we were, Jodi would pick up on some faint South Dakota signal, track at to a particular person, and immediate begin chatting like long-lost cousins.

I’m from Michigan. This doesn’t happen to me. However, one of the unexpected joys of visiting New Haven with Bren and Gabe last week was a series of three unexpected encounters, one of which brought back fond memories of a fourth.

First: I had stopped by the Yale School of Music offices to say hello to a friend and former colleague, S, from my college days. She was not in. The next day, while visiting the souvenir vendors outside the Yale Bowl ahead of the football game, I ran into her — almost literally. This isn’t hugely unexpected — Yale’s not that big of a university — but she and her husband were seated at the opposite end of the stadium. So that was cool.

Second: We sitting in the stands when a vendor stops nearby and chides the man in front of us for wearing a Philadelphia Eagles hat. I look up, and see that the vendor is a black man wearing a Minnesota Vikings cap. As he passes, I tell him we’re visiting from Minnesota. He says his family’s originally from South Dakota, “so you know they were Vikings fans, too!” Then he says he needs to get back to the Twin Cities, especially for the Winter Carnival in St. Paul. Now, the strangeness of seeing a Vikings fan in Connecticut could only be rivaled two things: finding a black man from South Dakota in Connecticut (the African-American population of the entire state of South Dakota is less than 1 percent, out of a total population of less than 800,000) and finding anyone outside of Minnesota who wants to visit during the winter. (My native Minnesota friends all want to leave that time of year!)

Finally: After the game, we went to Mass at Church of St. Mary on Hillhouse Avenue — the church I used to visit sometimes when I was in college and Jodi was attempting to convert me. The homily was given by a guest speaker, Deacon George of the St. Cloud, Minnesota, Diocese — just up the road from us. As we left the church, I told him where we from — Albertville/St. Michael area. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I know just where that is — just to the north of St. Cloud.”

Well, he tried.

The latter two encounters, at the time, seemed like significant hints of home after a week away. The first — running into S outside the stadium — called to mind the queen mother of chance encounters from the last time I was in New Haven. I was working for a marketing agency and was sent to Connecticut to visit a client. I stayed an extra night with a friend to visit Yale — but that night, he had agreed to stay with S’s grandmother while S and her husband went out. “It’s fine,” he said. “We’ll have dinner with Babci.”

My ears perked up: babci (BOB-chee) is Polish for grandmother.

I arrived at the house, and there was Babci — and immaculate, tiny little Polish woman in her late 80s, who introduced herself as Stella. “Dzien dobry!” I said. “My late busia’s name was Stella, too.” Busia (BOO-sha) is how my family learned to say it — “like a small child would say,” this new Stella explained.

We talked about all sorts of stuff — in particular, about my family. She asked me about my busia’s golubki, or stuffed cabbage, and told me that the trick was to use Savoy cabbage, because the leaves hold up better for stuffing and your guests are less gassy. She asked me about my kids, and offered to knit them mittens and stockings. She was instantly dear to me, like a my own busia’s warm, paper-light kiss, and I think of her often.

She’s in her 90s now, no longer living with S, though she visits multiple times times a week. Na dzrowie, Babci! Sto lat, niech zyje nam! To your health, Babci — may you live 100 years for us all!