Vegan Kibbeh Pie

Kibbeh is a wonderful dish of Lebanese origin that is popular throughout the Arab world. It combines bulgar, lamb or other meat with spices, and a luscious tahini dipping sauce or spread. Kibbeh pie is a non-traditional variation of this classic which combines the main ingredients in layers, a bit like a cake. According to my-secret-Jerusalemi-lover-man Yottam Ottolenghi, this is his spin on a popular dish on his hometown.

As I'm still working my way through the wonderful (*though not vegan) cookbook Jerusalem, this dish caught my eye as something that could be easily veganized- crumbled meat is one of the easiest things to approximate in vegetarian cooking, either through crumbled tempeh, soy curls, lentils, or vegan sausages. I used a sub from my local bio markt, some kind of tiny soy nugget that is often used for vegan bolognese sauce.

I haven't made this totally perfect yet- I think next time I'll use a mixture of faux meat and mushrooms to add a bit more flavor to the middle layer. When I have it totally perfected I'll post the full recipe, but for now let me give you a walk-through that could be easily replicated at home:

Layer 1: Circa 1 c. of prepared bulgar, mixed with a drizzle of olive oil, and a tablespoon or so of flour. You press this mixture into the bottom of a pan as if you were making a crust.

Layer 2: Your faux meat of choice browned on the stovetop with onions, garlic, and pine nuts, seasoned with a few pinches cinnamon, allspice, cumin and salt+pepper.

Layer 3: A thick, creamy tahini sauce that's merely tahini plus some lemon and a bit of water to make it pourable.

You cook the first two layers in the oven at around 375F until good and browned, then add the tahini sauce on top and cook again for another 10 minutes, until its starting to brown in some places. Top with parsley, sumac, and more pine nuts if ya got 'em. Serve with lemon slices.

This casserole would be a perfect thing to set out at a potluck or casual dinner party with a big fattoush salad on the side. As it is, it makes an easy and hearty dinner dish that is exotic yet homey.

Conveniently, you can watch Yottam Ottolenghi make his version in a video here.

Song of the Day: Shostakovitch- Waltz No. 2

Hot Knives Mac and Cheese

Oh man, US Elections are so much more fun from the US! I was totally excited to try to stay up until 6 last week and watch how a close race played out in my home state of Virginia. I went to a local bar where they were broadcasting US news and serving pancakes all night long. However, by 3am I was pretty drunk and tired of standing around with Berlin's entire American and British population in a bar the size of my kitchen, straining for a peek at CNN. So instead I passed out "early" (ie, before any swing state came in) and the next morning while passing me the coffee my husband commented casually, "oh by the way, did you see Obama won?"

Aaaargh. Its a total drag trying to translate American pleasures to a foreign context.

But its ok. I'm already looking forward to coming home over the holidays and partaking in the most American, female, East Coast possible activity- going to see Les Mis in the theaters the day after Christmas (of COURSE.) And until then, I have vegan mac and cheese. Did you guys see that Hot Knives posted a to-die-for new mac and cheese recipe with BEER? This may just replace my standard Vegan Yum Yum version. With leeks and carrots on the side its comfort food for the absentee voter.

Hot Knives: Perfecting Vegan Mac and Cheese

Song of the Day: Bombay Bicycle Club- Shuffle

Cold Comfort

Winter time, and the living is easy.

The weather is extremely mild (for Berlin), I've got a little money for once, and I have lots of fun parties and meet-ups to attend before heading back to the USA for the holidays. With all of this good luck, I've been cooking up a storm of comfort food.

Above are potato and spinach enchiladas with a side of avocado. Enchiladas are really just the greatest. Once you've got a standard recipe, you can substitute whatever you have on hand to make a simple dinner. I used my normal recipe for Chipotle Plantain enchiladas, but subbed the filling out for a simple mash of boiled potatoes and spinach (with a bit of salt and pepper and soymilk) With frozen spinach anbd potatoes it doesn't get much cheaper than this recipe. I also subbed out the chipotle in the sauce, getting the heat instead from a tablespoon of cayenne pepper. Spicy and delicious.

Next I made the Mac and Cheeze from the archives of the mysteriously disappeared Veganyumyum. Its a great recipe because if you have a decently stocked vegan cupboard, you likely have most of the ingredients on hand. (Tahini, miso, soy sauce, nooch, lemon juice, ect.) The dish itself is extremely satisfying and even somewhat cheeselike. Hmmm, maybe I should whip up another batch today...

Last but not least, we have a boring (read: easy and delicious) curry with potatoes, carrots, zucchini, tofu, and tons of garlic and ginger. The curry is coconut based with tomatoes thrown in too. Topped with a little sriracha, its the kind of thing I like to make a big batch of then eat all week for lunch.

Ah, winter... if you keep behaving, you can stay a little longer.

Song of the day: Spandau Ballet- True

Vegan Mofo: Skills III: Vegan Lasagna

S-Y, enjoying the latest Vegan Mofo skill

Hey guys, isn't Vegan Mofo great? I'm loving the chance to find so many cool blogs I never heard of before, all cooking up gorgeous treats on the reg. My blogroll is going to be out of control by the time this month is over.

Any old ways, today I return to my mini-theme, Vegan Skillz. (With a "z", to appeal to the kidz.) That is, the stuff that all old-school vegans know how to do, and everybody else should learn. Today's skill is: Make a kick-ass lasagna.

Vegan Skill 3: Make a Kick-Ass Lasagna!

When asked, 99% of people would agree with the following statement: "Lasagna is my favorite food. It is the thing I like to eat on my birthday." Why? The answer is simple: layers of carbs draped in toothy tomato sauce with your choice of fillings in between. Its like eating several pizzas in every bite. (And who doesn't like that?)

However, when you go vegan you quickly realize that your favorite food is kinda gross. All that ricotta (with eggs in it? Why?) and greasy meat juice soaking it, and not enough sauce and too much mozzerella... it can go very wrong. That is why it is incumbent on you, my little friend, to create your own no-fail lasagna. It should be the ideal thing to bring to potlucks, to pull out of the oven on a rainy day,  to serve to your in-laws when your girlfriend comes out of the closet. (Happy National Coming Out Day, btw!)

So here's my favorite recipe, layers of crunchy baked eggplant with a fruity sauce, but look around the blogosphere for you favorite ideas- some have pinenut-cream stuffed inside, others are layered with spinach or artichoke, still others have faux sausage crumbles inside. Just make sure you have one recipe down, so you can always be sure to have in your repertoire something that pleases all of the people all of the time.
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T's Famous Eggplant-Parma-sagna!

Sauce
-Glug of olive oil
-1 large white onion, diced
-4 cloves garlic, diced
-T. balsamic vinegar
-2 14 oz. cans diced tomatoes
-2 tsp. brown sugar
-1/2 tsp each marjoram and oregano
-crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

The Rest
-2 large eggplants, cut into 1/2" round slices
-1 cup bread crumbs
-olive oil or other oil
-1 package no-bake (eggless) lasagna noodles
-Nutritional Yeast or shredded vegan cheese

1.) First, get your eggplant station set up. Take your eggplant rounds and layer them, sprinkled with salt, in a large colander. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (200 C) and layer two cookie sheets with baking paper. Beside them on work-space, place a bowl or dish filled with bread crumbs, and a small glass with olive oil  and a basting brush.

2.) Next make the sauce. In a pot on the stove, heat some olive oil over medium low. When oil is hot add in onions and a pinch of salt. After 2-3 minutes, add in garlic and cook together until soft and starting to brown. The add in balsamic vinegar to de-glaze. Cook for 1-2 minutes more, then add in rest of ingredients and raise heat to a boil. Cover, and lower to a simmer and let cook while you prepare the eggplants.

3.) Rinse the salt off eggplants and take them over to the bread crumbs. For each slice, pat dry with a kitchen towel, brush with oil, and dip both sides in bread crumbs.  Layer on cookie sheet and when they are all dipped, place both in oven and cook until golden brown and crispy.  While they cook (about 15-20 minutes), turn off heat under sauce, and if desired, blend with an immersion blender. Taste and adjust spices, then set aside for later use.

4.) Now we put it all together! In an oiled casserole dish, layer lasagna noodles, sauce, and baked eggplant rounds. When you get to the last of your eggplant rounds, put a layer of noodles and the rest of the sauce. On top of that, put a sprinkling of nutritional yeast and dried herbs, if desired, OR a layer of shredded vegan cheese. Cover with a tented piece of aluminum foil and cook 45 minutes at 400 degrees, then an additional 10 minutes with the tent off (you can even broil the top if desired.)

Serves 3-4
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Serve with a side salad w/ creamy faux-caesar dressing and a glass of strong red wine. I really just ate this and I'm dying its so good, seriously.  I have got this skill down.

Song of the Day: Bright Eyes- Four Winds

Shivering in the Kitchen

Ah, my first real winter in Berlin. So far I've been torn between thinking, "Bah, I hate this weather, these gray skies, the fact that I can't understand Celsius enough to figure out what to wear, I hate this continent! winter!" and thinking, "SNOW! Pretty." But I suppose so long as I can reconcile myself to a lot of time spent indoors wearing German military grade long-underwear, I will eventually make it through to the other side. (I guess you can only imagine how I look sitting around all day in men's long underwear, swearing at the cold and applying to an ever broadening selection of jobs. Its pretty damn attractive, let me tell you.)

In the meantime, I'm trying to bring in sunshine via baking! What you see above is yet another batch of bagels (although that one has no hole, interesting) topped with peanut butter, bananas, and a drizzle of maple syrup, the very best thing about winter. I also attempted to make pumpkin cinnamon rolls the other day, as promised, but oddly the dough never rose! I tested the yeast so it should have, and I'll have to chalk this one up to the mysterious different flours in this country and their vastly different rising properties. Oh well.

Another delicious recent meal was the potato-mushroom enchiladas (rather than kale) from Veganomicon complimented, just for fun, with Venezuelan black beans and Orange rice from Viva Vegan. This wasn't exactly the kind of meal that you whip together in a few minutes, but I had some hungry friends coming over and suspected that Enchiladas alone would not do. (I usually make two batches and its still not enough for a small group.) I may have used every pot and pan in the kitchen, but everything turned out delicious- spicy, savory and sweet. And let's face it, as an unemployed and freezing cold American I have lots of time to spend in a nice toasty kitchen.
Song of the Day: The National- Conversation 16

From the Archives:
More Bagels!
More Enchiladas!
More Viva Vegan!

Chipotle Plantain Enchiladas

When my mother came to visit me in Brussels back in November, I asked her to bring some hard-to-find American treats with her, and she graciously complied. At the top of my list were maple syrup and chipotles in adobo sauce, the one being outrageously expensive, and the latter being very hard to track down in Brussels. And although I whipped through that maple syrup, the chipotles have been sitting in my cupboard, taunting me. No recipe seemed special enough to use them up, the precious things. They waited so long, I even packed them along with me to bring to Berlin. Then, just in time for Cinco de Mayo, inspiration struck.

I wanted to make enchiladas for S., figuring that they were the perfect thing to introduce him to the wonders of chipotles while providing me with little breaks from paper writing throughout the day- make the sauce, wait an hour, make the filling, wait an hour, bake, wait an hour, etc. I originally intended to make sweet potato and black bean enchiladas, but a local "Afro-Asian-Spanish" market was lacking on the "Süßkartoffels" but had plenty of tempting, perfectly blackened plantains. So instead I envisioned my dream chipotle-tomato sauce blanketing flour tortillas with starchy black beans, garlicky mushrooms, and meaty, slightly sweet roasted plantains. And wouldn't you know, these things turned out amazing. S. wants me to make them once a week. (We'll see.) Finally, a dish deserving my well-loved and well-traveled can of chipotles.

So here's the recipe, and although there are several different steps, they are all pretty easy. And the results are worth the effort. Give them a try the next time you have an afternoon and some ripe plantains on your hands.

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Chipotle Plantain Enchiladas
Serves 4

Roasted Plantains
-vegetable oil
-2 large plantains, sliced into about 3/4" rounds
-cinnamon
-agave nectar (or sub maple syrup)
-salt

Chipotle Enchilada Sauce
-Oil
-1 medium red onion, diced
-1 tsp. marjoram
-1/2 tsp. cumin
-1 large can whole plum tomatoes in their sauce
-2-3 chipotles, chopped + 3 tbs. adobo sauce* (see directions)
-1 heaping tsp. brown sugar
-salt, pepper

Mushroom Black Bean and Plantain Filling
-Oil
-3 cloves garlic, diced
-1 can black beans, drained
-3 large or 10 medium mushrooms, sliced
-salt
-roasted plantains, quartered

Extras and optionals
-8 Flour Tortillas
-soy sour cream (or cashew sour cream, yum)
-guac or mangos
-soy cheese

1.) First roast the plantains. Take 2 large, nearly blackened plantains and remove the skin by hand or with a paring knife. Cut into small rounds of about 3/4". In a bowl, combine rounds with a decent drizzle of oil and a little drizzle of agave nectar, then sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and salt. Toss with your hands. Place apart on a greased cookie sheet (or parchment paper) and bake on 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes, flipping once halfway through. (This time will vary- I'm using a weird euro-oven.) Keep an eye on them and remove from the oven when they are browned and caramelized. Set aside. (At NYAM there is a nice detailed explanation of the process, with tips and photos for plantain-phobics.)

2.) Next make the sauce. Cook onions in a good dollop of oil over medium heat. Add in cumin, majoram, and a healthy pinch of salt. Cook until fragrant, then add in remaining ingredients, mashing the whole tomatoes as you go. (Be careful with chipotle if you aren't a spicy foods person- your best bet is to start off smaller than my recipe calls for and add in more to taste.) Raise heat to high then remove from heat when sauce starts to bubble. When cool enough, taste and adjust spices if necessary. When cooled, blend with an immersion blender and set aside.

3.) Now make the filling. Heat garlic in oil over medium heat, then add in diced mushrooms when garlic is fragrant. While sauteeing mushrooms, cut cooled, roasted plantain slices into fourths (little triangles) with a sharp knife. When mushrooms are browned, add in black beans and plantain pieces and cook for 2-3 more minutes, until mixed and heated, then remove from heat. Preheat oven to 350.

4.) Now make the enchiladas! Preheat oven to 350 (175 celcius). Spread some sauce onto a large casserole dish (or two small ones) and plop a tortilla in the middle, then flip it over so it gets nice and saucy. Then, add a ladleful of filling mixture, and carefully wrap up. Continue, placing each filled enchilada snugly next to the others for support, until you are finished with all of the tortillas and filling. Ladle some more sauce on top, then cover with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes, plus 10 more without the tin foil. (But watch them- some ovens are hotter than others.)

5.) Serve with leftover enchilada sauce, plenty of sour cream and a side of mango or avocado if desired. (My Mango Avacado Salsa is always a good cool down as well.) Leftovers are also delish. :)


Song of the Day: Bamboleo- Gypsy Kings

More Plantains: BBQ Tofu and Plantain Tacos w/ Avocado Cream
More Mexican: Vegan Mole Power
More Casseroles: Beet, Mushroom and Potato Casserole

Raising the bar

Oh dear. I promised myself I wouldn't stop blogging just because I was studying for the bar exam. But like most promises to myself (I will make it to the gym 3 times this week, I will never watch "The Shining" again, no more white wine at weddings...) it seems I only had to make it because I knew I would break it.

At any rate, I'd love to say I was off gallivanting around Europe this whole time (only a little of the time, more on that later) but I instead have mostly been sitting inside a quiet room, staring intently at an outline book, and listening to the gratingly-nasal-yet-soporific sound of bar exam lecturers droning on about equitable servitudes and hearsay exceptions. For those of you that are, happily, non-legal people, the Bar Exam is a two day exam one takes after graduating from law school that takes about two months to study for. Despite the fact that everyone has to do it before practicing law, its still insanely stressful. I think its safe to say this has not been my favorite summer ever. (And weirdly, my hair has been falling out because of stress... soooo, um.... that's not good.)

And yet, there are still some things to be happy about. First of all, I am almost 100% moving to Brussels, Belgium in September to begin a masters program. WOOO! Pommes frites, sexy Eurocrats, and amazing chocolate here I come!

Second, no matter what else is going on in my life, food can always cheer me up. And I've pretty sure that vegan food makes you smarter, so I've got that on my side too.

Today for instance, I started off with some of B's magic oat-nut pancakes, spruced up with extra flax seeds for brilliance and some bright cheerful cherries for soul power. These are so good and the recipe is really flexible if you don't have all the ingredients.

For "lunch", aka, cramming food in the general direction of my face while taking furious notes on Contracts, I had a quick saute of faux-beef (the kind they sell in little packages at the groceria) with some broccoli, onions, and plum sauce in a wrap. I've been eating a lot of these kind of wraps lately, since its so fast to throw leftover salad, guac, or tofu together and come up with something marvelous and moderately hands-free. So good.

For dinner, my Mom and I got a little adventurous and decided to try the Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with pine-nut cream from V'Con. This recipe is slightly labor intensive but its all really easy steps and everything came together beautifully. Seriously, it was such a hit. The best part is, its a traditional moussaka with a rich cinnamon-spiked tomato sauce, layers of roasted veggies, and thick, rich pine-nut cream on top... but it tastes really light, not at all the way a regular moussaka or lasagna tastes. And the labor intensiveness got me out of a few hours of studying! We served it with a quickie salad of vidalia onions and cucumbers tossed in Italian dressing.

Anyways, I imagine everyone else's summer is involving a lot more, like...., going outside... at least I hope so! I'll be catching up on everyone's blogs in the next few days in between scarfing down more wraps and contracts. :)


Song of the Day: Belle and Sebastian- A Summer Wasting

Next year in Jerusalem!

Hope everyone is in the midst of a good Pesach or a happy Easter, or like me, both! I tried out a couple new recipes this year and was very pleased with the result, so this is a recipe heavy entry, at least where my blog is concerned.

Passover is a very special holiday to me, because its the first Jewish holiday I celebrated when I started to get in touch with my spiritual side (if you will) a few years back. That year, I actually went out and bought the materials for my own seder and had a little solo dinner- with a beet root subbing for the lamb shank and a parsnip for the egg. :) I knew that if I found it meaningful and exciting on my own, that I would really like it once I had some others, be it family or friends, to celebrate with.

Since that year I've hosted my own seder for 13 people, and had other years where, for whatever reason, I found myself pretty much on my own. But luckily this year I had no need to celebrate solo! My friend Karen had a seder at her house along with her fabulous roommates. I offered to make the charoset (an apple-nut mixture which is used on the Seder plate) and to bring a few vegan options. I decided to make the Cauliflower-Leek Kugel from VWAV and also to try to veganize some coconut macaroons, one of my fave desserts from years past. 

                       Vegan Macaroons alongside other goodies

I thought they turned out pretty decently, so here's the recipe.

*******************************************************************************

Passover Macaroons

1 Bag coconut (in the baking aisle)

6 T sugar

1  T arrowroot flour

2-3 egg replacer eggs (Ener-G brand works for me)

1 tsp. almond extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, mix together coconut and sugar. Toss together w/ arrowroot.

2. Add in wet ingredients and mix well with your hands. 

3. Drop by the tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet and bake until slightly browned, about 10-12 minutes. Let them sit for a few minutes before carefully putting them to cool on a cookie sheet. (This is the part where they tend to fall apart, so use caution!)

************

At any rate, Karen's Seder went off, relatively, without a hitch. One of the cool things about Passover is that its a holiday that doesn't merely venerate the past, but rather asks participants to think about the present. In what forms does slavery still exist in the modern world, and what have we done in the past year to eradicate it? For me, in addition to being a sobering reminder about human trafficking and child soldiers, this always brings animals to mind. To look at our actions, it would appear that we consider animals objects who only exist to serve our needs and have no other purpose in life. Vegetarianism is a great way to reverse this treatment, but around Passover I always try to think about other ways to help the fight for animal liberation.  

But aside from philosophical considerations, its always nice to eat a big dinner with friends. And my charoset, a mixture of apples, walnuts, kosher wine, and figs (my secret ingredient!) went over great as well. So what if Karen and I kept the drinking going far past the proscribed 4 glasses with dinner...

I got to have a second holiday supper today, since part of my family celebrates Easter and part celebrates Passover. So tonight we had a sort-of Passover-friendly Easter dinner, and I took the opportunity to jazz up the kugel I served on wednesday and try out another dish I've been gunning for lately (with, you guessed it, beets.)

You see, I felt the cauliflower leek kugel, as is, is a bit bland for my tastes. I think its because I'm not so keen on dill, which is the main flavoring. So I changed it up a bit, and here's my new version, with mad props to both Isa and Bon Appetit (the source of the non vegan recipe.)
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Cauliflower-Leek-Mushroom Kugel with Herb Crust

2 small heads cauliflower, cut into smallish pieces

3 (egg-free) matzohs

2 leeks, white parts only, well-rinsed

1 small onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, diced

3/4 C. mushrooms, sliced

1 container silken tofu

1/2 C. almonds

1 tsp. agave nectar

Parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 375. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil, cook cauliflower about 10 minutes, or until soft. When done, drain and put in a large bowl- mash it up!

2. While cauliflower is cooking, crumble up two of the matzohs into the food processor and grind into bread crumb consistency. Set aside. Then empty the silken tofu into the food processor and liquefy until creamy. Once the cauliflower is mashed, add the tofu and bread crumbs, using your hands to combine.

3. In a large saute pan, heat some olive oil over medium low heat. Add in garlic, sliced leeks, and onions. Cook until onions are transparent. Next, add in mushrooms, and cook 3-5 minutes more. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and thyme. 

4. Add leek-mushroom mixture into cauliflower mixture, combining with your hands. (You could put a little more salt and pepper in at this point if you wish.) Pour the whole thing into a lightly oiled casserole dish.

5. Now, for the topping: chop almonds coarsely and put into a bowl. Crumble the third matzoh in there with them. Then, chop a good amount of parsley (maybe a third a cup) and add that in there as well. Drizzle with olive oil and 1 tsp. agave nectar, and mix it up with your hands. Sprinkle this mixture over the casserole until it is covered.

6. Cook for about 40 minutes and let stand a few minutes before serving. :)

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This last dish has no symbolic meaning for Pesach or Easter, but I saw some delicious looking golden beets at the grocery store the other day and I.... I just couldn't help myself. I was inspired to try a walnut dressing from Mark Bittman's preparation in the Times last month, and this turned out just great. Basically, roasted beets are coated in a simple dressing of walnuts, roasted garlic and olive oil, to which I added a little bit of lemon juice and agave nectar. It turned out fabulous.

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Roasted Beets with Walnut-Garlic Dressing

1/4 C. Olive Oil

5-6 cloves garlic, peeled

1/2 C. walnuts

Juice from one lemon

1 T. Agave nectar, or 1 T brown sugar

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add in whole garlic cloves, and let them roast until browned on all sides.

2. Add in walnuts and cook a few minutes longer, until lightly browned.

3. Remove from heat and wait a few minutes before adding to a small food processor. Add in lemon juice, agave or brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Grind until no large pieces remain.

4. Toss with chopped beats and serve at room temp. YUM! (This is also nice over mixed greens for the leftovers.)

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I hope everybody's holiday was as fun and full of leftovers as mine was! 

Song of the Day: Metric- Gimme Sympathy

Ich will curry essen!

Oh boy, its been a busy few weeks and its set to only get busier! I have been cooking occasionally, sure, but more often I've been gorging on lentils with celery root and pomengranate syrup alongside beets in walnut/ garlic dressing with blood oranges from this local pizza place across the street. Under $4, full of good health stuff (iron! potassium! vitamin c!) AND it allows me to continue reading the Emma Goldman autobiography that's been commanding my every spare moment. (Read it, it's amazing!)

However, there are a few recent creations worth note. First, my Mom and I attempted to recreate the Candle Cafe's awesome 'paradise pie' on a less time consuming scale. To the left is my brother consuming the result of our plotting. Rather than millet, we used quinoa (much quicker!) as a base, spread into an oiled casserole dish. Next, we put a layer of beans: black bean soup and a can of black beans, both drained, mixed with a little cumin and spread on top of the quinoa. Finally, some boiled sweet potatoes were mashed with a tablespoon of miso and generous sprinkling of cinnamon, and spread on top. The "pie" was baked at 350 for about 30 minutes, and topped with some good old mushroom gravy. Not quite as good as what you can get at that dear little vegan restaurant in NYC, but stlll quite delicious.


Adding to the generalized mayhem, my darling S. was in town from Berlin last week, prompting me to bake up a storm of cupcakes, breads and other sweets. Of course, being S., he ignored them all in favor of coffee and cigarettes. And of course, being T, I gobbled them all up. However, I was able to tempt him into eating one luscious gingerbread cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing. (From VCTOTW, naturally.) He was duly impressed, although I wasn't quite sure he understood what I meant by "wee-gan".

However, he proved me wrong! On Wednesday, after a ridiculously packed day including 3 classes and an intense mock-deposition, in which I had to convince some skeptical mock- lawyers that I was sexually harassed by an imaginary employer, I returned home to find an extremely relaxing scene: S. had cleaned up the apartment and cooked a home-made peanut curry, complete with carrots, mushrooms, green beans, and (gasp!) mock-chicken strips! From what I could ascertain, he liberally used peanut butter, soy-sauce, red pepper flakes, curry powder, and soy creamer. At any rate, it was delicious, all the more so because I didn't have to cook it. And soon my imaginary sexual harassment ordeal was just an imaginary memory...

So now S. is back in Berlin and I'm back into the thick of things... but he did leave behind a specially requested gift: Karl Marx's Das Kapital, in the original German, which I intend to translate into English, page by page. By the time I visit Berlin again in May I should be able to bore people with the important features of the commodity... in German! And maybe one of these days I'll attempt some good old German cooking as well... Although I think, for the moment, I'll be preoccupied with the upcoming passover feast.

Song of the Day: Of Montreal- The Autobiographical Grandpa