Banana Oat Cookies

Kate is known affectionately among her friends as "Grandma." Her indulgences include English Breakfast tea, afternoon naps and quiet evenings at home. This all coming after a first year of serious fun at Cornell University, followed by three more years of rigorous pre-med studies. Now Kate is on her way to Yale Medical School, and she is taking the summer off to re-charge at home in Connecticut. Kate has been one of my very best friends since high school, and I am extremely proud of her medical school achievement; I want her to be my doctor someday.

So what happens when you mix part-Grandma with part-MD? Comfort food that's also good for you. Kate sent me this delicious recipe for Banana Oat Cookies that uses all very healthy ingredients and promises a satisfying crunch for your sweet tooth as well as your health.


BANANA OAT COOKIES

1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil or apple sauce
3 ripe bananas
2 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/3 cup wheat germ
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional for some extra sweet!)

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

Whisk cinnamon and vanilla with egg and oil/applesauce in a large bowl. Add ripe bananas, creating a soft mush with a fork. Mix to incorporate. Add rolled oats and wheat germ, and fold in raisins, almonds and chocolate chips until mixture resembles a dough.

Let sit for 15 minutes.

Since the cookies are dense, they don't shape when they cook. Shape the dough into small, flat round circles to cook the inside thoroughly. Bake at 325 degrees for 15-20 minutes, watching them often as these cookies can burn easily.

Enjoy warm, with a cup of English breakfast tea, of course.


Bon appétit!

On Being Green

Tomorrow on July 18th, there will be a whole new reason to line up at Whole Foods. As if the lines at Whole Foods weren't long enough, the debut of the market's new "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" tote by accessories designer Anya Hindmarch might just draw the line out all around my favorite Columbus Circle haunt. Since Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio came out of the environmentalist closet (yoohoo -- Ralph Nader, anyone?), it's now hip to be green. And it seems even hipper to cash out on this trend. I will admit -- I've been eyeing the advert for the Whole Foods tote for the past two weeks, and I am indeed making plans to get up early just to buy some unnecessary groceries so that I might be able to have the tote, too. Why not? WF is limiting the bags to 3 per customer (and $15 each), and this anticipation of customers rushing the registers must mean that the bags are going to be trendy, right?

Grocery shopping is one of my favorite pastimes, and I have a small collection of non-disposable grocery bags that I take with me every time I shop. I use these totes partly for environmental reasons, but I have them mostly because they afford much more room to pack in groceries than do the plastic bags, and I can sling them over my shoulders. This last bit is important for pedestrian New Yorkers on a budget like me who have to take the subway or bus with a week's worth of groceries, and then cart said groceries up five flights of stairs without help. So with neither an elevator nor a grocery-toting-Knight-in-shining-armour to help me up the stairs, the "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" tote (which appears to be much larger than the ones I have now) is something that I will get up early for tomorrow morning. It's practical and -- apparently -- stylish.

The funny thing about carrying groceries around in New York is that people rarely offer any help. This past Sunday afternoon, I was making the trek from Whole Foods to my front door when one of my lazy, stoop-sitting neighbors looked up at me and said: "Someone must loooove you!" I couldn't really decipher what he meant; wasn't I the one carrying the groceries on my shoulders like a Sahara Desert camel? Did he think that there was someone awaiting my return home who would cook me a meal from these environmentally-friendly grocery bags? And if there were -- wouldn't he have been carrying them with me?

And why didn't the stoop-man offer to help me around the corner?

The way people respond to a grocery-carrier on the New York subway is rather peculiar to me: rather than move around or offer a seat or (heaven forbid) a bit of help, people become nervous and irritated at the sight of someone taking up excessive space. I sometimes get looks that read aggravation, pity, amusement, or even: "Why didn't you just take a cab?"

It is in moments like that when I feel very green myself. I'm carrying environmentally-friendly bags, pounds of organic produce, I'm navigating my quarter-life-crisis in "the real world" and I'm jealous of those who do take cabs without taxi-guilt, or better yet -- of those who get their groceries delivered for an extra charge, no delivery time guaranteed (but that's okay because they live in a doorman building).

I love the subway in general, and there are moments that make the grocery run through the subway worthwhile. Much in the spirit of In the Metro by French anthropologist Marc Augé, I tend to look at my subway ventures to Whole Foods and back as an ethnological adventure. Or -- with a less academic tone -- a chance to look at human psychology. The subway has a code of conduct: don't look anyone in the eye; observe people through your peripheral vision; give up your seat for the elderly, the pregnant ladies, or for pretty young women; warn tourists that the 2/3 express train does not stop at Columbia University (but rather, at Mamma's Fried Chicken); hold on to the pole and pretend that you won't get germs. One would think that helping with groceries might be included in this list, but it isn't for good reason: why trust a stranger with your organic produce?

With all of these rules and regulations (some suggested by the MTA, most just simply understood) comes another kind of code that I can hardly decipher myself. The glance across the car, the lingering bump on a crowded subway, looking up from a newspaper or a book, moving down the car to share a pole, an accidental slip of the hand, the taking out of iPod headphones; these are all the little indicators of Subway Romance, the most enigmatic, ephemeral and exhausting type of romance I have yet encountered in New York City.

I found my solemate on the subway. And then I lost him at 66th street, probably to a rehearsal at Juilliard, or worse yet, to a date at the Metropolitan Opera. And then I am resigned to continue on to 59th Street Whole Foods, and on the way home I'll run into yet another solemate who inevitably gets lost somewhere between the stops on the Upper West Side.

Sometimes this understanding of togetherness-but-for-another-stop is often just a figment of my imagination, but sometimes it is reciprocated. And then the game begins -- glance, read, glance, move down the car, bump, oh I'm sorry, smile, it's okay (bump me again), take out the iPod, makes his way to the door, look back and make eye contact through the glass, and as the subway slows we realize that no, we're not getting off at the same stop, and we don't even say goodbye.

Last week I was making a grocery run home in the evening after work, trying to read "On Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan and balance two overflowing Whole Foods bags between my ankles. At 72nd street, the train filled up with suit-clad men and women transferring from the express train from Downtown and Midtown Manhattan. I maintained my turf in the middle of the train, and people miraculously gave me space to harbor my groceries. As we pulled into 79th street station, I felt a hand just at the small of my back where I had been leaning against the pole. I turned to find a tall, dark, handsome creature of the subway, tie askew, just coming home from work, spying down into my grocery bags. He shot a quick and timid smile, then turned back to his Stephen King mass market paperback. And then he turned back again to look at the book I was reading as I spied at his. Again catching eyes, we acknowleged the mutual curiosity. Our mutual curiosity.

But what to do? I'd never read a word of Stephen King, I don't know the horror genre, I've never even seen a screen adaptation of a King book, so I couldn't ask about the book. Should I ask him if he lives on the Upper West Side? Too lame. Ask where he's coming from? Work, clearly. Ask for help with groceries? No, the bags were my conversation piece, and an easy one for him to latch on to: "That's a lot of bags you have there, where are you getting off, want some help?" This would be the easy way for him to start conversation. But no, he was the shy-and-curious type, and I though I consider myself a seasoned subway rider, I'm still green when it comes to the art of the subway pickup.

And he only stayed on for one stop. As he made his way to the door, he stepped around and too close to me, and then shot a wide-eyed look and a hint of a smile through the dark, mirror-like window of the subway door. The subway slowed in the station, and I contemplated getting out too and walking the extra blocks home. I knew that this would accomplish nothing, especially with the groceries. Our romance was limited to thirty seconds and seven blocks. When the subway finally stopped, he gave me an extra moment to reconsider as he paused at the open doorway, discreetly twisting his neck to look behind him. But this wasn't my stop; it was his. He stepped off the subway and disappeared, and I stood clear of the closing doors.

While most just slip away, some Subway Romeos actually do succeed in breaking the barrier of space and silence: What are you reading/listening to? Where are you headed? Here, have my seat. You go to Columbia? And my personal favorite (in the dead of winter when I was wrapped up in scarves): You look like you're going to hijack the train -- can I have your number?

No way, my arms are full of groceries in environmentally-friendly tote bags, can't you see?


Author's Note: I didn't end up getting one of the bags. I woke up the morning of July 18 to a thunderstorm and an email from Naomi urging me to get down to Whole Foods immediately: "my mum just said that a supermarket here had been selling those bags
for ages, and people were queueing up at 4am!!" I ran to 59th street, splashing through puddles and jumping across subway cars, only to find a big sign at the Whole Foods entrance that read: "BAGS SOLD OUT!!" Apparently the bags had sold out in one hour (which meant that when I left my house at 9am, they were already sold out). Whether naïvely inexperienced, jealous, or environmentally-friendly -- I guess this proves that it really isn't easy being green.

Viennese Vegetable Waltz

Emily is one of my favorite Epicureans. She is the epitome of classic taste: ballerina flats, little black dress, pink lipstick and sweet southern ways. But she's also a spicy little thing, and after her five months in Madrid, I am all too certain that her cooking has spiced up a notch too. Now Emily is living in Vienna with her Viennese boyfriend, but lucky for me, she'll be back in our apartment in September. When she does return, we'll revert to our favorite pastime (shopping at Whole Foods) and we'll do a reprise of our greatest creation: paella sans riz. But for now, here is a "compromised vegetarian" meal made by Emily in Vienna to appease her carnivorous European man.



Amanda -- I thought of you today when I had a eurika moment in the kitchen. Well, not exactly a "eurika" moment, perhaps more of a "finally!" moment. I have been spending the past week and a half getting settled here in Vienna. It has been a dream. The first week was a bit tough, in terms of coping with the language barrier and getting around a new city. Most of all, I was looking forward to cooking and claiming my domain in the kitchen. But the first week flew by without so much as my frying an egg in a pan. Even grocery shopping started becoming chore. Even though I can perfectly well distinguish between foods--let's say cream cheese from butter--not being able to read the label in German made my grocery runs far too overwhelming. So, Thomas, being the kind and understanding man he is, assembled the first week's cuisine: lunch, dinner and even afternoon tea. But being the bachelor he is, most everything was pre-prepared. So -- what happens when a tofu-and-fish-loving-girl moves in with a bratwurst-and-potatoes-loving-boy... We learn to compromise!

A few weeks have passed, and I've now conquered the grocery stores and I am cooking more and more. Today I finally came accross a wonderful recipe perfect for both me (appealing to my health-freak side) and Thomas (not so much on the health-freak). This recipe for Eggplant and Spinach Lasagne Spirals turned out to be so delicious and hearty enough to satiate Thomas. To save time (and to appease Thomas' meat craving), I used a store bought bolognese sauce added to a simply sauteed small yellow onion with a garnish of fresh basil to make the sauce taste a little more homemade. For a side dish I made Carmelized Cauliflower with Pancetta and Spinach. Both dishes were so tasty and enjoyed equally by both me and Thomas! And now I share both of these recipes with you (originally from Food + Wine magazine)...


EGGPLANT AND SPINACH LASAGNA SPIRALS

Serves 4

For tomato sauce
3 lb plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise
5 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

For Lasagna
2 lb Asian or baby Italian eggplants (4 to 6), halved crosswise, then cut lengthwise into slices slightly less than 1/4 inch thick
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
10 oz baby spinach
1 lb ricotta (preferably fresh)
1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
1/2 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1 oz)
8 dried lasagna noodles (not no-boil; 8 oz)


Roast tomatoes for sauce:

Preheat oven to 450°F.
Toss tomatoes with 3 tablespoons oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and arrange, cut sides up, in 1 layer in 2 oiled glass or ceramic shallow baking dishes. Roast tomatoes in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of dishes halfway through baking, until skins are wrinkled and beginning to brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool slightly in baking dishes on racks.

Roast eggplant for lasagna:

Toss eggplant slices with oil, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and arrange in 1 layer on 2 oiled baking sheets. Bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of sheets halfway through baking and turning slices over once, until tender, 12 to 14 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 350°F.


Finish tomato sauce:
When tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel off skin and discard. Purée tomatoes with their juices in a blender, pulsing until almost smooth. Cook onion and garlic in 2 tablespoons oil in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring, until golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in tomato purée, water, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened and reduced to about 4 cups, about 15 minutes. Stir in basil.

Make filling and assemble lasagne:
While sauce is simmering, cook spinach in a 3- to 4-quart pot of boiling salted water, uncovered, 1 minute, then drain in a colander. When cool enough to handle, squeeze any excess water from spinach and coarsely chop. Stir together ricotta, yolk, spinach, parmesan, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until combined well.

Cook lasagne noodles in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until tender. Drain noodles in a colander and rinse under cold running water.

Spoon 2 cups tomato sauce into a 13- by 9-inch glass baking dish (or other 3-quart shallow baking dish). Lay out 4 lasagne noodles on a work surface, then spread 1/3 cup filling evenly over each noodle and cover with eggplant slices in 1 layer. Roll up each and arrange spirals, seam sides down and without touching, over sauce in dish, then make 4 more rolls and arrange in dish. Brush noodles with water, then spoon some sauce down middle of rolls and cover dish tightly with foil. Bake in middle of oven until heated through, about 20 minutes. Heat remaining tomato sauce and serve on the side.




CARMELIZED CAULIFLOWER WITH PANCETTA AND SPINACH

Serves 4

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 pound thinly sliced pancetta, finely chopped
1 small cauliflower (1 1/4 pounds), cored and cut into small florets
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped dill
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper
5 ounces baby spinach


In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the pancetta and cook over moderate heat until the fat has been rendered, about 4 minutes. Stir in the cauliflower, onion, dill and bay leaf. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cauliflower is tender and browned, about 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix the lemon juice with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cauliflower and spinach, toss and serve.


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