Feeding the Hungry Ghost (28 page)

Punch down gently to let a bit of the air out. Do not pummel. Plop the dough into the prepared loaf pan or shape into a round and place in the pie pan.

Cover with the kitchen towel again and let the dough rise in a warm spot for 1 hour more. It should impress you by doubling again in size.

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and crusty and the bread sounds hollow when tapped.

Well wrapped and refrigerated, it keeps several days. Warm up in the oven for a few minutes for maximum enjoyment.

So there, you have sensuality and a lovely loaf of home-baked bread, too.

From preparing it to eating it, food is like foreplay, a pleasure in and of itself, one you don’t want to rush. Allow yourself to get in the mood. Then sit down and enjoy your dinner. Enjoy yourself. You’re a great date. Have fun. You owe it to yourself and to the planet to be happy.

That loaf of bread will be all the more delicious when paired with soup, particularly Tuscan White Beans and Winter Greens Soup.

Tuscan White Beans and Winter Greens Soup

Beans and greens again, but the flavor and body are very different than with the red lentil soup. And you make it with water — not vegetable broth, not stone soup. Water. I owe it — and much gratitude — to Italian culinary goddess Lidia Bastianich, from whom this recipe is adapted. It gets its goodness and oomph from the beans’ own cooking liquid. Half a dozen sage leaves impart an amazing amount of flavor. It’s just the thing for cool weather, costs a few bucks all told, and feeds six. And you’ll have done it yourself. Beans may be cooked a day ahead, if that reduces your anxiety. Plan your life accordingly. Sit down and eat. Slowly.

Serves 6

1 pound dried white beans (cannellini, great Northern — whatever moves you)

4 tablespoons olive oil

5 cloves garlic

6 fresh sage leaves

2 dried red peppers

1 bay leaf

1 small head escarole or kale, finely chopped

1 cup white wine

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Place the beans in a large soup pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add enough water to cover the beans by 1 inch. Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, 4 garlic cloves, the sage, 1 dried red pepper, and the bay leaf. Bring to a boil over high heat.

Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer unattended for 90 minutes. Check your e-mail, have a quickie, watch
Mad Men,
whatever.

Check the beans; they should be soft, tender, and rich with flavor from the sage and garlic. Fish out the sage, the bay leaf, and the dried red pepper. (The beans can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a day; reheat the beans in a soup pot over medium-high heat before proceeding with the recipe.)

In a large skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Mince the remaining garlic clove. Add the minced garlic, the remaining dried red pepper, and the escarole, a handful at a time, to the skillet. Cook until the escarole just wilts but is still a pretty celadon green, about 3 minutes.

Pour ½ cup of the wine into your pot of beans. Using a wooden spoon or an immersion blender, smash the beans until they turn creamy. Go as smooth as you like — I like to leave some beans whole for a nice rustic feel. Heat over medium-high heat until heated through, stirring occasionally

Stir in the wilted greens and the remaining ½ cup wine. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and continue cooking until the flavors mellow and blend, about 15 minutes. If the mixture seems too thick, add an additional ½ cup water. Season generously, because you’re generous of heart, with salt and pepper.

SWEETNESS
and
LIGHT

In the West, when we think of the winter holidays, we think of Christmas, with houses and fir trees bedecked with strands of pretty, winky lights. We think of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, when we light candles in a menorah, a candelabra of sorts. But you know, the Judeo-Christian holidays of winter don’t have a lock on light.

Kwanzaa has its own menorah, only it’s called a kinara. It’s lit with seven candles —
mishumaa saba
— representing the holiday’s seven core values, which include purpose and faith. Beginning the day after Christmas, this weeklong holiday marks a still point in the midst of winter’s gift-giving frenzy. It’s a new holiday — created only in the 1960s — paying tribute to who we are and where we came from. Like Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa is secular, a centering celebration of culture, a handing down of ethnic principles and customs and foods, the things that shape society.

I wish there were a whole holiday dedicated to broccoli. Kwanzaa, at least, comes close. It means “first fruits of the harvest,” and one of the holiday’s symbols is
mazao
— crops.

African American Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew

This stew contains peanuts, sweet potatoes, and black-eyed peas, a nutrient-dense triumvirate to warm you in winter. Serve over brown rice or millet, an ancient whole grain gift from Africa.

Serves 4 to 6

2 tablespoons canola or coconut oil

1 onion, chopped

1
jalapeño chili, minced, or a generous pinch of red pepper flakes

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 sweet potato, chopped

1 pound green beans, trimmed and halved

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 cinnamon stick

2 cups cooked black-eyed peas (see Hopping John recipe,
page 16
) or one 15-ounce can black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained

One 15-ounce can diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons peanut butter

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped

In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and jalapeño and cook for 1 minute. Add the celery, sweet potato, green beans, and red bell pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften, a few minutes. Add the cinnamon, the black-eyed peas, and the tomatoes and their juice. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the stew thickens and the flavors develop, about 30 minutes.

Gently stir in the peanut butter until it dissolves and becomes one with the stew. Season with salt and pepper. Gently stir in the cilantro.

Lyon’s Fête des Lumières — Festival of Lights — dates back to 1643, when the plague hit. Doesn’t sound like fun. The townspeople agreed every home would light a candle for the Virgin Mary and set it in the window, in hopes the plague would spare their
town. It worked. The city erected the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière in 1872 to honor the Virgin Mary and now marks December 8 as a day of gratitude, remembrance, and light. The whole town is set aglow, with high-tech light shows dressing up public spaces and candles lighting up every home.

Elsewhere in Europe, they celebrate St. Lucia’s Day, named for a fourth-century Sicilian martyr who was said to consort with Satan. But that was probably a smear campaign to defame her. St. Lucia got in trouble for feeding persecuted Christians. She smuggled food to them at night, and so she could find her way hands-free, she designed the prototype of the helmet light. She wore a candelabra on her head.
Lucia
comes from the Latin word
lux,
meaning “light.”

They still love her in Sicily, where they observe her feast day with bonfires, but she’s really big in Sweden. On her feast day, December 13, which coincides with the winter solstice, young girls dress in white robes with red sashes and wear wreaths with candles on their heads. As a child, I was entranced by this. I also wondered, how do you not set your hair on fire?

In India, Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, is observed by lighting candles and oil lamps and ends in a show of dazzling fireworks. The holiday has several backstories, but they all involve the destruction of some demon or other. It celebrates the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness. Like Kwanzaa, Diwali is about connection. It’s a time when Indians contemplate and honor their relationship to others — friends, family — but also their relationship to the world and all the creatures in it.

At Diwali, Hindus rededicate themselves to living one of Hinduism’s key precepts —
ahimsa.
We often translate it as “nonviolence” or “doing no harm.” But it’s not a negative; it’s a positive — it’s recognizing the sacredness in all of us. It’s an ancient
concept; the word itself comes from the Sanskrit. If we do it right, we get
samadhi
— divine, universal love.

No, really. Yoga began as a Hindu philosophy. It has eight limbs, all of which take you toward a higher state of being. Each of the limbs has its own components. Great idea, but way too many limbs. I was getting tangled up in the names and steps and legs and arms. It felt like playing a spiritual game of Twister against some hydra-headed creature, and I was going down.

Don’t worry, a Hindu friend explained. It all starts with ahimsa. When you predicate everything you do on love, from the way you look at people to the way you eat, the other limbs seem to radiate out from there. He calls what we practice here Western yoga (and he’s not quite ahimsa in the way he says it). What he means is, we learn a nifty crow pose, we learn
pranayama,
breathing control, where we snort through alternate nostrils. It seems pretty fab to us, but that’s just the beginner level. Oh. So maybe that’s why I’ve been practicing yoga for years now and have yet to find that whole surrender/serenity thing. The snorty business doesn’t do much for me, either.

I’m more in tune with the Hindus when it comes to food and spirituality. They believe the two are intertwined. Food is sacred. Often it is first offered to the gods before we can eat it. This is called
prasadam
— God’s mercy. That’s why we must treat food with love and respect and humility, from growing the rice to cooking it. Remember chi? It’s life force, it’s energy. The chi we put into food infuses the food itself.

“If you bake bread
with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger. / And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.” That’s not Mario Batali talking; it’s Kahlil Gibran. Just how talented the
poet was in the kitchen is unknown, but I can vouch for what he wrote.

When I’m troubled, my spirit, apparently believing misery loves company, sabotages anything I attempt in the kitchen. My vinaigrette will erode the tender skin of your upper palate, nor will it do much for the salad greens. The quinoa will clump, and the muffins will be mush. You might want to pick up dinner somewhere else.

Love, on the other hand, transforms even the simplest dish. It makes our inner light shine, as with your basic yogic greeting
— namaste,
which means “I honor the light in you; you honor the light in me.”

Diwali is based on the Hindu calendar and falls somewhere between late October and mid-December. It honors the harvest. At least on paper. Say “Diwali” to my Hindu friend, and he breaks into a megawatt grin suitable for the festival of lights. He isn’t thinking of ahimsa; he’s hungry for Diwali mithai, jewellike Indian sweets of semolina, nuts, fruit, warming spices, and sugar. And more sugar. Sitting in sugar syrup.