A long overdue post: Vegetarians in San Francisco

Back on April 6th, 2010, communion hosted its last dinner in San Francisco. Yes, it has taken me a very long time to discuss this, and I am very sorry for that. I realize now that that dinner was more loaded than I wanted to admit at the time or than I wanted to address. I can appreciate now a bigger picture of its complexities and nuances.

It was a vegetarian feast for vegetarians. The only two omnivores were Jacob B. and I, who cooked the meal. I wanted to have a vegetarian meal that was delicious and filling, but also one that went beyond the basic pasta primavera. In that way, it was a challenge for us doing the cooking. But furthermore, I wanted to converse about the personal journeys the vegetarians at our table had travelled. I wanted to know how did vegetarians become so and what sort of memories informed their decision then and sustains it now. But though I did not want to frontally admit this, my curiosity was hidden in a veneer of judgement, where vegetarians are a breed of the self-righteous and inflexible, and who exercise an incredible amount of privilege. It has taken me a while to contest my judgements and finally feel ready to recount our findings here, without any tongue-in-cheek bullshit.

Our first course was a purée of spinach soup, along with stories of how they first decided to be vegetarian. One of our guests recounted having to work in a meat processing facility as a teenager, not even with direct slaughtering, but packaging and shipping beef outside Berlin. Though he told his story with cool composure, it was clear how impressed and disgusted he was handling meat. He told of unhygienic premises, an assembly line layout, and a basic emotional detachment working with flesh; the impact was so big and long-lasting, he had been a vegetarian for over two decades.

The second course was one I was very happy with, especially considering my reluctance to making a savory dairy-free meal: a warm quinoa pilaf with asparagus and three-way peas. We used english peas, with their shoots and leaves, blanched baby carrots and asparagus, with walnuts and a sprinkle of minced carrot tops. We asked diners to share a moment of frustration when having to defend their diet, and most stories were of recent vegetarian converts having to stand firmly in their decisions especially with family members and loved ones. Other stories were of traveling, especially alongside carnivores and the conflicts that come up when restaurants don't offer a vegetarian option.

The third course, a leek soufflé, was a major flop. I had been practicing my soufflé techniques for weeks with pretty good results. But this time, the leeks exited the oven high and puffy, but in traveling ten feet from the kitchen to the dining room they deflated to a sad-looking blob. At least, the conversation was good: how do you manage integrity with practicality and hunger? I think this is an especially important question because in the moments where hunger pangs are the most intense, we can make the worst eating choices. A diner told us of a time he ordered a vegetarian burrito on his way home from a long day at work. As he got home and unwrapped

his dinner, he saw a huge chunk of carne asada staring at him. What to do----either get up and return it (and wait and additional fifteen minutes more) or turn a blind eye to the meat in front of him fueled by growling hunger. Not only did he spit out the food in his mouth, but he returned to the taquería for a remake.

The fourth course, grapefruit granitas with créme fraîche ice cream with questions of whether their commitment has ever wavered. It has. One diner told us of traveling to Mexico, where after starving for days, she finally succumbed to eating a turkey sandwich on a plane. The funny tidbit here is that she was on the plane alone, given she would have never done it within the gaze of her fellow vegetarian travelling partner. She broke her rule when she knew no one could see her.

Our fifth and last course, a milk and caramel tart with toasted hazelnuts. This is a dish that would convert vegans, I think, because the crust is ever so-flaky and wonderfully buttery that whoever denies themselves that gift is just plainly an extreme ascetic. But instead of asking where diners stand on the scale of vegetarianism, we asked what vegetables would they like to be. A beet: good for you and aggressive; a mushroom, which can grow overnight, and a wild mushroom, tasty or poisonous?; a carrot, unassuming and rewarding; rainbow chard, pretty and good for you; a dandelion, surprising; an eggplant, 'cause you gotta know how to treat it.

It was a fantastic dinner. Delicious, yes, but also difficult. It was one of those moments in which I, a food scholar and a proud omnivore, had my beliefs and my pride tested. And, like a note scribbled on our tablecloth said, I do always end up with picky eater friends. Thanks everyone for sharing.

communion is BACK!

Sorry for the very very very long absence. A combination of factors ---a new city, a masters program, procrastination, insecurities and blah blah blah have kept me from moving this project forward. With a new set of goals, renewed stamina and enthusiasm and commitment, I return to communion.

There are new plans, among them a communion dinner in new york city for venezuelans living here. But first, a long overdue post from our last San Francisco dinner especially made for vegetarians.

Read on.

about new city, a new kitchen and styrofoam dishes

I have not written a word in a really long time. This time, I do not blame my procrastinating lazy self so much, but instead logistics: I have been working my butt off since March, when I got accepted into a Masters program in Culinary Anthropology at NYU. That's right, I decided to move across the country and deal with all that comes with moving. I had to edit my belongings to what I wanted/needed to keep, give notice at the most fantastic job I've had so far, Range, leave my beloved rent controlled Victorian home with awesome housemates, say goodbye to longtime friends and break up with my boyfriend so that I could move to the east coast. Yeah.

I have been living in Brooklyn for a week and a day. And frankly, it's been the hardest week of my life. I miss the Bay everyday and I even wonder whether I just made a huge mistake. New York is busier, angrier, dirtier. I also don't really know my way around it. But I also don't have my stuff yet.

Cooking is one of the things in life that grounds me the most and brings me peace and calm. And since I moved to this new apartment north of Prospect Park, I have felt so challenged it has threatened my sanity. First, I had to deep clean the ENTIRE kitchen, since there were inch thick lines of mice droppings around and in the stove. YUCK. Second, no gas for five days. No bueno. And then, despite the fact my movers had promised to deliver my stuff within the week, it has been no such thing. I had prepared to live minimally for a few days until my things arrived, but since eating out adds up, I have had to purchase surrogate cookware, a $5 knife, plastic silverware and styrofoam dishes so that I can use my new kitchen.

This sucks.

I know it's all a matter of perspective. I know that once my homebase looks and feels the way I want it to, the rest of the world will be seen through the same set of lenses. I know NYC will rock my socks off, but until I have proper dishware and cutlery, I will only resent the city for keeping from me the things that give me sanity. I want my blender, my baking stone, my fucking favorite coffee cup, my fruit baskets. And though I am trying to practice the Buddhist principle of non-attachment, this time I think I am warranted an exception: I just moved cross-country, left my loved ones and my comfort zone---could my kitchen be the way I want it?!

Yet tonight, I made risotto. Comfort food at its best; direct access to carbohydrates, or happiness. I went to the Park Slope farmer's market last week and bought an assortment of king trumpet, pioppini and crimini mushrooms. A little white vino, a little parmesan. Done. Yum. Happy. Drunk. Sloppy blog.

I am starting to feel different about my kitchen.

Superbowl or Sushi Bowl?

I love it when business owners admit that sometimes staying open is a waste of everyone's time and money. so I loved it when my bosses decided to close the restaurant for superbowl sunday. It is a rare opportunity when all of my co-worker friends and I coincide having the same day off. We had to celebrate it. The question: what do a bunch of women who care next to nothing about football do on the most glorified football day of the year? How do we rebel and have the most anti-football day celebration?

Thanks to Jiwon Park, sous chef at Range, pan-Asian food lover, and come to find out, ex-sushi cook, we got everyone at my house for a sushi making party. I did not have the slightest idea on how to go about making sushi, but I guess that's why one follows the suggestions of such an immensely talented woman.

I joined Jiwon on a shopping trip to a supermarket in Japantown, where I felt so alien and illiterate and she navigated the aisles with graceful ease. We purchased dehydrated shrimp shells for soup stock, glazed unagi, fresh dungeness crab, raw yellowtail, nori, red miso paste and Kiri Ichiban (on sale!) along with assorted veggies. Back in the kitchen, I could only help in the neutral tasks: cutting avocado and cucumber, or handling Jiwon stuff from pantry (rice vinegar, sriracha) or random tasting for too much heat.

Once we had everyone gathered and all the food prepped, we got to rolling. And though it looks easy enough, it isn't. I have never been good at rolling a burrito, or a joint, for that matter. I always overestimate how much filling they can hold before the wrapping falls apart under pressure. I wanted to learn how to do it right. I wanted the bonding experience of friends assembling their food over a table. But I could also see how much more effective (read: how sooner could we get to eat) if we just let Jiwon do the rolling. So we did. We still gathered over the table while we oohed and ahhed over Jiwon's food.

I loved this rare opportunity to dine with my co-workers; they are wonderful, intelligent, solid women who love food as much as I do. Move over Tsunami!

A note on picky eaters

Those who know me are aware that I have a distinct aversion towards picky eaters, though I do forgive those who justify their dislikes with a strong argument. A good friend of mine explained that she did not like olives because when she was a child she chewed on a pitted olive hidden in a dish and chipped a tooth. She was traumatized and now is weary of olives. It is not that she dislikes their inherent saltiness but that there is a disagreeable emotional component to the way she sees olives.
A few nights ago at work, a diner asked me if we could remove the bones in the chicken dish, because she "did not want to touch it." She said our menu was short and limited because she didn't eat pasta, she didn't eat fish; steaks are too fatty and the soup sounded weird. When her date, who seemed to ignore her fastidious behavior, asked what exactly was escarole and then ordered the escarole soup, she ordered one too.
I struggled with this table, not only because I dislike fussy people but because I am uncomfortable seeing people's awkward incompatibilities over the table. Especially while on a date, I think it a serious shame when a couple rules out the flirtatious element of sharing food: "my fish is decadent, would you like a bite?" Though he ordered three courses, and she a soup and a salad sanz dressing or cheese, I proposed an off-beat pacing of their food so that both were eating at the same time.
I wondered why this woman was such a picky eater: did she ever chip a tooth on a bone, or once choked with her lunch that she is now a reluctant eater? Or is this bigger, the product of a damaging self image wherein food is just a necessity, not a pleasure? I then wondered about the man, and how important could food be to him that he seemed not to notice or care when his date proved to be such a picky eater?
Either way, I know I'm getting too wrapped up in someone else's issues, but it got me to thinking about the choices we make when we decide to eat or not eat a certain food. About the restraint and discipline it takes to avoid and decline a food we have decided we a) don't know, b) don't like, c) can't eat, or d) won't eat. I think whoever picks option A is lacking the human gift of curiosity, but I'm open to hearing the arguments behind why people don't like, can't or won't eat certain foods.



Sure, my nephew and DW, the Picky Eater, are allowed up to a certain point to be picky eaters because they are children: their palates are simple and like MFK Fisher said, kids "can taste bland delight in dishes that would sicken [read: bore] older men." But grown adults better have an articulated sophisticated argument to why we eat the way we eat. There is nothing wrong with saying "I'm on a diet" or "I don't like the mushy texture of oysters" or "I will not eat a previously living being," but since we made such a choice we are responsible for defending it and for doing a little research before we take ourselves out to eat. More importantly, we are required not to make our waitress feel responsible for our choices.

That said, I'm thinking of another Communion, one where guests have made a choice of diet and lifestyle they must uphold everyday of their lives. I would love to get some vegans around the table, but I think I would be an utter failure as a vegan cook, since I can't live without butter, cream and cheese. But a vegetarian Communion sounds like a true possibility. Now, where are the self-professed vegetarians?!

i want cookies!!!

Everyone in my family is a cookie monster. Isa, my sister, is the cookie making instigator in my family. If I could use one adjective to describe her, it would be 'ambitious'; she woke me up today in a cookie frenzy, ecstatic about all the goodies she wanted to make, despite their difficulties. She wants to make the old-school candied fruit and pecans 'slice & bake' cookies we used to make when we were children, taken from a November 1985 edition of Woman's Day; the more traditional chocolate chip cookies, to which my sister always thinks the more chocolate chunks, the better; oatmeal and cranberry cookies, my favorite; sugar cookies with sparkly sprinkles; and the fastidious marmalade trenches, which though they are good and like shortbread, they crumble a bit too much for my liking. She even wants to make these peanut butter surprises, chunky sugar cookie sandwiches with a peanut butter center, ALL IN ONE DAY, but I will try to convince her not to.
So then, Isa wants to make cookies, and because we all want to eat them, we let her go nuts. My mom and I sit around the kitchen, handling eggs, and sifting flour, giving advice, reminiscing on what went wrong last time we made these or those cookies, or like me, mostly sitting on the side acting like the supreme cookie judge. What happens is that like me, Isa is a scattered, distracted, too-ambitious baker/cook that once she starts and sees how much work she really has to do, and how high the pile of dirty dishes will be, she wavers. We all try to pull it together, watching the oven when she takes off to talk on the phone or to attend her laundry, or chiming in when the sugar cookie dough isn't as elastic as she'd like it to be or when she thinks she didn't put it enough chocolate chips.
The conversation is pretty hilarious. Gossip. Bitching. Plans. Cooking related chit chat. Gossip. Bitching. Sometimes all at once. We are often interrupted by my father, raiding the recently stocked cookie jar, or my brother-in-law being an affectionate husband, or a ringing phone.
But eventually we all get back to baking, with Isa's ambitious plans seen through by the collective whole.



I can't say it any better than the Cookie Monster:

November's Communion: Thanksgiving with a twist

This month's communion was very very different. First of all, a very special diner and guest cook flew out here all the way from Venezuela and owned the execution of two of our courses. She not only provided in-depth chocolate knowledge but also spoiled me rotten, which makes me assert once again that my momma is seriously the best. She came to spend Thanksgiving dinner with me, and since she has been wondering what these Communion dinners are all about, I decided the best would be to host Communion a few days before turkey day so she could see for herself. Second, our rule about having strangers at the table didn't really pan out this time: we were joined by another amazing mother-daughter duo, a significant other, two good friends and a housemate.

The theme was 'thanks' in honor of the coming holiday, but I reckoned no one wanted to eat thanksgiving dinner twice in one week any more than I wanted to cook it. Instead, our menu was comprised of things I love so much I thank God they exist: bread, cheese, broth, pork, fried dough, ice cream, chocolate. Devising the menu was a pretty hard task, not only because I love many things, but also because deciding how to present them and in what order could have easily been overkill.

Our first course was a plate of bread and charcuterie: lightly toasted New York Rye bread with slivers of jamón serrano and picnic ham and slices of a sharp Pecorino Romano and Murcia Drunken Goat. We served them with some wild arugula tossed in olive oil and lemon juice and a couple of meaty Gordal olives. We shared glasses of an Alfonso Jerez Oloroso and tossed around ideas about the word 'thanks': gratitude, graciousness, gracias; appreciation, value, recognition.



Our second course: a brothty soup for the soul and a glass of Vigneto Tsasco Vermentino and some tales of when our soul was thankful. I don't think there is anything better than a cup of warm broth on a cold day, when sick or when indigo blue. (I believe a good hearty broth may just be the cure for almost everything.) Here, my dear friend and diner revealed that her recent precarious health condition has been cleared and that she is 100% healthy. Our glasses raised to celebrate her health and the topic moved to our failing and flailing health care system, our experiences and frustrations and what alternatives can we come up with. If only those in congress could have heard us... But from here on, the prompts on the menu no longer guided our conversation. It was purely organic.



Our third course was an apple cider braised pork shoulder with root vegetables and a glass of Beaujolais. This course proved to be the trickiest of all because though I knew I wanted pork on the menu, I was unsure of how to present it: an herb crusted tenderloin, a braised short ribs ragú, fennel and coriander seed sausages, or bacon?



Our fourth course: donut holes, milk ice cream and a coffee caramel sauce with a glass of Suri Gramella Moscato d'Asti. And this is where my mom shines. When I was in elementary school, every Friday afternoon a grade would hold a sale to gather funds for upcoming trips or projects. The main school hall would be filled with sale stands of lemonade, brownies, cookies, empanadas, and, whenever me or my siblings were involved, doughnuts. They were sure winners not only because fried dough is just irresistible, but because my mom's donuts are simply the best.
So in this course were five of my most favorite things: fried sweet dough coated in sugar, ice cream, coffee and caramel and my mother orchestrating how they all came together. Below is a picture of her hands at work.



Our fifth and final course were bittersweet chocolate truffles made mostly by mom. I had an basic acquaintance with the makings of chocolate, so it was truly enlightening to see her at work. Here we are trying to make the little round balls of heaven.



And here are other things else I am thankful for: Help. Advice. Unconditional love. Sometimes it is really hard to ask for them, even to accept them, but there is something truly heartwarming when someone, especially if it's your own mother, intuitively knows what you need and just steps up to the plate, whether we want it or not. I have to say I was so happy to have her in my home for the holiday and to have shared the intimacy of the kitchen and of the dinner table. ¡Gracias, mami! Here are a happy mom and daughter duo, exhausted after days of cooking, indulging on a dinner out.



I don't know when the next Communion will be. It has proven to be a time and money consuming endeavor that I don't know whether I will be able to continue. It needs to be seriously re-considered and re-designed to be a feasible long-term project. I welcome any suggestions you may have. As I write this, I am in Venezuela, sitting on my mother's kitchen table while the rest of the house sleeps. I am officially on vacation. But, since all the women in my family will gather in the kitchen this holiday season, know I will come back with more stories to share.

¡Felices Pascuas!