Jen's Library: In The Devil's Garden

In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food
by Stewart Lee Allen

Oh, how I love these "history of this or that" books. If there is a book on display at the library, and the cover declares it to be a history of some random object, process, or concept, I will pick it up. I've rarely been disappointed.

In The Devil's Garden covers the history of foods that have been forbidden at one time or another to certain people. Let them eat cake! The author has playfully split the book up into seven parts, for the seven deadly sins, because, after all, if something is forbidden it's generally because someone has decided it's bad for you. The distinctions don't always hold up, because there's a lot of overlap between the sins. Depending who you are, eating a "Trojan Pig", a whole roast pig stuffed with other meats and sausages, can be both gluttony and blasphemy. Incidentally, I am adding "successfully constructing a turducken" to my list of things to do before I die.

The book covers everything from the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden (which, by the way, was not likely an apple - the Christians threw an apple into the story to discredit the sacred fruit of the Celts), to the cultural and religious taboos against eating pork, cows, and dogs. Roman feasts, Aztec human sacrifice, and absinthe - the book is a little disjointed because there's no clear beginning or end, and he jumps from one food to another, sometimes bringing up the same food twice in different places, making it hard to keep track of everything, but it's definitely entertaining and I'd recommend it if you're looking for a lighter non-fiction book. Splitting it up into sections like he did makes it easy to put down and pick up again later. My only major complaint is the lack of references. There's a bibliography but no foot- or end-notes, so you can't easily track down where he got all his information. I'm a stickler for knowing where the facts are coming from.

Shift of Perspective

I enjoy stability. I like routine. A schedule. A plan. I like knowing what is expected of me, where I'm supposed to be at what time, and what I'll be doing there. I don't go so far as to declare Tuesday night meatloaf night for all eternity, but I like knowing I will come home on Tuesdays, check email, and then cook dinner while watching bad TV.

Things are changing at work, and it's forcing me to reset my comfy routines. For over two years, I was working a split shift, where I came in at noon and covered the day shift during their lunch breaks, and left at 8:30 pm after covering half of the evening shift. I loved it because I never had to wake up before the sun did, and I had time in the evening to cook meals more involved than frozen pizzas. But things change, and that position no longer exists.

In December, the decision was made to split the blood bank off from the core lab and staff it separately with two dedicated blood bankers on the evening shift, because the workload was getting to be unmanageable for just one tech. At the time, the evening shift techs, who are generalists trained in all areas of the lab including the blood bank, would rotate stations in the lab and find themselves in blood bank, helping me, one week a month. Unfortunately, because of staffing problems, the reality was that I was often completely alone in the blood bank, trying to do too many things at once, and having difficulty getting anyone to come back and help me because they were also busy and usually short a tech or two thanks to people quitting or calling out sick. I don't hold it against them - everyone was trying to do too much with too little and that's why this big decision was made, for the good of the lab and for better patient care.

We used to have a handful of specimens for the blood bank each night, but as the hospital grew, so did the workload. The emergency room is incredibly busy, labor and delivery is churning out 3 or 4 babies a day, and surgeries are happening later and later into the evening, so having two people in the blood bank all evening makes a lot of sense, and will be better for the hospital and for the poor techs staffing it!

When the change was announced, they asked me if I would go to evening shift, but it wasn't really a choice. My split shift was going to disappear, and the only spot open for me was the new full-time evening shift (created by yanking my shift over by three hours). I considered other jobs, and even applied for a couple, but in the end I decided I am comfy where I am. I like the work, I like the location, and I like most of the people I work with. A day shift position became available and I could have applied for that, but with those hours, there would have been an even bigger adjustment to make. So for better or for worse, I moved to my new shift this week, dreading it because of the disruption of my daily routines. How will I come home and cook at midnight? Will I ever see my husband? I will work all that out in time. I've got plans to use the crockpot more often, or leave casseroles in the fridge with instructions for my man to stuff them into the oven before I get home. Maybe I'll get more housework done in the mornings now. I just need a little time and it will all smooth out.

Yesterday was my first shift, and I am now sure that I made the right decision. It may be rocky for a while as I figure out what to do with myself all day, but the evening shift techs hired to work by my side are excellent techs with more experience than me, and they're also great women I can get along with when we're not busting our butts trying to keep people alive. Also, I had forgotten how much fun the other evening shift people are. This will all work out.

What's for Dinner - One Pot Mac and Cheese

It has happened. I have found the perfect mac & cheese recipe. I thought for sure it would take me several years of recipe testing before I finally stumbled on the cheesy holy grail, but this recipe fell into my lap (well, my Gmail chat window) recently and I am happy enough to end my search right here.

Like the caramelized onions, this recipe comes from someone's blog. This is One Pot, Stove Top, Creamy Mac and Cheese from White On Rice Couple, and they completely nailed mac & cheese. I'm talking out-of-the-park, 110% deliciousness here. I could decide to never try another mac and cheese recipe in my whole life and would likely not have any deathbed regrets.


The magic? Cooking the noodles in the milk. Genius! It keeps things super creamy, and it also keeps cleanup easy since you're only using one pot. They warn you to stay nearby and stir constantly, and I will back that up. I let it sit for 30 seconds while I grated cheese, and got a layer of scorched milk - it happens quickly and you need to stay around and watch. My only change to the recipe was my noodle choice - I went with mini spirals because they were adorable. I needed to add more milk near the end, because the pasta soaked a lot up, but that may happen with any noodle type, I'm not sure. I love their recipe, because it's so flexible. Need more milk? Dump it in. Cheese? Whatever you've got, nobody's here to judge you. I used a mix of one part asiago to three parts monterey jack, and it was perfect. I'm actually nervous about changing up the cheeses, because this combination worked so well!

Making it superperfect, though, was a simple matter of adding caramelized onions to the bowl. I suspect bacon would have a similar effect.

Four Leaf Clover

I have never had a difficult time finding four-leafed clovers. I don't understand why they're considered to be so rare and mysterious. I just look down into the grass, and there they are, waving at me with their supernumerary leaves. It's truly a gift. One summer, while I sat in a soccer field with a book trying to avoid the lame activities of the day camp I was coerced into attending, I found dozens of them, and pressed them all flat in a big poetry book so I could keep them forever. I had plans to try and preserve them somehow but never got around to it, and as time passed they got brittle and started to crumble. There's a moral in there somewhere.

I found a perfect specimen in the lawn of our new house before we moved in.

I'm not sure whether the little guy brought us good luck - with all the crises and issues we've had here so far, I could accuse it of being a bad luck charm, but the fact is we've been happy in this house despite all the work and frustration, so I can't say we've had a horrible time of it. Maybe the clover didn't bring us good luck so much as dilute the bad.

I found a fresh one today, and I gave it to a friend who needs it more than I do. I hope that passing it on will help retain more of its lucky properties, and she'll get the full benefit of the clovery magic.

Caramelized Onions, Crockpot-Style

Caramelized onions are incredibly delicious. All sweet and squishy and tasting nothing like the crunchy raw onions they come from. Food chemistry in action, people! But they take a while to cook properly. And a lot of stirring. I am too lazy to bother with that process most of the time, so I rarely eat caramelized onions.

This is where my crockpot saves the day.

I found this great recipe on a blog called Island Vittles, and I am never going back. To the old way of making caramelized onions, I mean, not to Island Vittles. I'll probably go back, it was a nice blog. :)

The idea is to dump approximately a ton of sliced onions into a crockpot, add some butter and olive oil and maybe some thyme and pepper if you're so inclined, and let it go until the onions are soft and brown and perfect.

I ended up needing about 6 hours on high, with a stir break every few hours. The liquid buildup from the sweating onions was significant, so somewhere around the five hour mark, I took off the lid, tipped the crockpot a little, and spooned out some of the juice so I didn't end up with onion soup.

I mixed some of the finished product into some mac and cheese (awesome), and froze the rest for later.

Instinct in a crisis

When faced with people who are grieving, bewildered, or upset, my instincts go straight to food. I must feed these people in their time of need. Maybe it's a learned behavior, but it's so ingrained that it's almost completely automatic. You are crying. I will make you banana bread.

A good friend is going through some very bad things including a terrifying surgery, and some of her family is staying at my house because I couldn't let them all pay for a hotel when I live so close to the hospital and can offer them a comfy bed, free internet and TV, and three purring cats. When I learned that they were coming, I went to the grocery store. Yes, I also cleaned the bathrooms and got the extra blankets out, but the food was so important. Unfortunately, they are the type of people who have no appetite when they're under stress, so I'm at a loss. I'm becoming a pushy European grandmother, offering them food every hour or two, trying to get them to eat. Maybe just a smoothie? Nothing? Well at least let me show you where all the food is in case you change your mind later... and of course if I hear you rustling in the fridge I will come running and assemble that sandwich for you. The words "you need to keep up your strength" actually found their way out of my mouth. I am 30 years old and I have evolved into a bad cliché.

Food is comfort. Food is love. I'm not sure how else to be helpful.

Tomato update

My tomato plants are enormous.

Also, I desperately need to weed that garden and get the Gaillardia staked up, but that will be a task for next weekend.

I wasn't expecting these tomato plants to get so big, and the cages I bought are much too small to properly support and restrain them! They're also much too close together, which means that finding and picking the ripe tomatoes is a bit of an adventure. I've had some stinkbug issues, but they seem to only go after the leaves and the ripe tomatoes, so picking the tomatoes just as they're starting to blush has been working well for me. I go tomato picking with a paintbrush to flick away the stinkbugs, because it still completely freaks me out to touch a bug.

Here's my current tomato supply:

My husband has claimed these particular tomatoes in the name of salsa, which he will make tonight.

I've been counting and weighing my tomato harvest since the very first cherry tomato came off the vine, because I'm a dork like that and I want to see how much money I'm saving by growing my own veggies. I grew these from seeds, not from starter plants, but I suspect that once I factor in the cost of the special seed-starting soil and the little pots, it would have been just as economical to buy little seedlings and start from there. But I did this for the challenge of growing something edible from a seed, and I succeeded and I'm proud of myself.

What's for Dinner - Chicken a la Provencal

This is a slightly modified recipe from a cookbook lent to me by a good work friend. The cookbook is Super Suppers Cookbook by Judie Byrd and it's supposed to be full of recipes to be made ahead and prepared later when time is short. While the recipes were tasty-looking, most of them didn't have any instructions for freezing or reheating, and they didn't give you an easy guide to scaling up the recipe to make a bigger batch for freezing. I did copy out a few recipes from it that I want to try, but if you're looking for a big-batch cook-and-freeze cookbook, skip this one. I'll be posting a giant cookbook review soon to go over the 5 cookbooks I've recently read.

So. On to the recipe. I figured it was a good one for dinner and I'd try freezing the leftovers for fun and see how it turned out. Stay tuned for that in a week or two. They call it "Chicken a la Provencal" but I'd call it balsamic chicken and peppers with oregano. Or something else equally descriptive and unpretentious. Don't you like knowing exactly what you're getting in a recipe? I had more chicken to use up than the recipe called for, so I scaled everything up a little bit and ended up with:

5 chicken breasts pounded flat
1 red and one green pepper, cut into thin strips
1 onion, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt and pepper

I salted and peppered the chicken, then dropped the flattened pieces into a pan (in two batches, because I didn't have room) with some olive oil and cooked them until they stopped running pink juices. About 5 minutes per side, but it will depend on how flat you smashed them. When the chicken is done, remove to a plate and then cook the cut veggies and spices with some more olive oil until the onions soften and brown a little. At that point, stir in the balsamic vinegar, then put the chicken and any juices back into the pan and mix everything up a little to cover the chicken. Put a lid or cover on the pan, and let it simmer on a lower heat for a couple of minutes.


This was fabulous. I didn't have high expectations when I started, but the oregano and garlic and balsamic vinegar made the veggies incredible, and the chicken picked up just enough flavor from the balsamic dunk at the end. I served it with roasted potatoes, but I think I'll do mashed next time.

Delicious Smoothies

Since I don't yet have any canning skills, I need an alternative use for squishy fruit. I've started buying the big yogurt container instead of the little four-packs, because it ends up being cheaper and produces less waste. A week ago, when I was spooning out some yogurt into a little plastic container for my lunch, I spotted a smoothie recipe printed on the foil lid of the yogurt. It was pretty generic, along the lines of:

Pick a fruit juice.
Pick a fruit.

1 cup Dannon Light & Fit Vanilla Yogurt
1/2 cup whatever juice
1/2 cup whatever fruit (fresh or canned)
1/2 cup ice cubes

Pulverize it in a blender and enjoy a smoothie!



I did so for dessert later that night, using strawberries the first time because we managed to get almost all the way through the Costco package before they got squishy and unappetizing, and I really didn't want to waste them. My juice was a cranberry-raspberry blend. It turned out great!

Next time I tried blueberries and peaches, with plain yogurt instead of vanilla, and the same juice. I should have stuck to vanilla yogurt, or at least added honey, because it was too tart. Also, the blueberry skins stayed very visible and stringy, and I didn't like that. Next time I use blueberries I'll try blending them first, before adding the rest.

I've been serving up the smoothies in coffee mugs for sipping, because I don't have straws around. It would be neat and fancy if I had big milkshake glasses for these, but they taste just as delicious in a mug, trust me.


My latest concoction was banana and cherry, and at this point I'm not bothering with a recipe any more. I dumped in a few ice cubes, a banana, a dozen or so pitted cherries, a teaspoon of honey, a big dollop of plain yogurt, a drop of vanilla extract, and a splash of milk at the end to thin it out a little. Yummy.

I'm told that if you use frozen fruit, you can skip the ice cubes, so I'll be experimenting with that soon. I have a bag of blueberries in the freezer that were too soft to snack on - I was going to dump them into muffins, but I'm sure they would be happy in a smoothie too. I'll also buy some frozen orange juice so I can add it to my smoothies by the spoonful when I want a citrus kick.

I'm a smoothie addict now!

Jen's Library - The Book Of Awesome

The Book of Awesome
by Neil Pasricha

I read a lot of odd blogs. Some of them are nerdy and full of graphs, some of them are about disastrous cakes, cats with poor English skills, or people questionably dressed at WalMart.

I'm not sure when or how I stumbled onto 1000awesomethings.com, but I did, and my life is better for it. This guy uses his online existence to celebrate all the little things that make life awseome. It's so easy to pick out all the irritating things in your day, and so easy to overlook the small moments of awesome, so I'm glad this guy has decided to remind us about just how many things out there can make you smile if you take the time to notice them.

This book is pretty much the blog in print form - dozens of one-or-two-page mini-essays about individual awesome things.

Like being home sick from school (or work) and watching The Price is Right. Peeling an orange in one long strip. Hitting all the green lights in a row. Finding there's just enough milk left for your cereal. All little, silly things, but they're like little presents and they can really make you feel awesome.

I was reading it at work, and as usual, my nosy coworkers asked what I was reading. Usually my answer leaves them shaking their heads and thinking I'm a dork, but this book got them all interested. "What kind of awesome things?" they asked. And so we talked about our own little moments of awesome, which in itself made for a moment of awesome. Very meta.