California congee

Bai zhou topped with a sliced half avocado, gojujang, and and a lovely fried egg fresh out of the backyard. 

Gojujang, my favorite farmer's market, and call for HALP

When Tara Goodman (of Adafina Culinary and, of course, Goodman's Jewish Deli) brings you over some house-made gojujang, you do not waste any time in putting that fermenty hotness on your congee. And on everything else.  We made some Korean fried chicken with it, too, using this delicious recipe, and I smelled like the garlic capital of the world for DAYS, and it was totally worth it. The gojujang is really different from Adam's sriracha--much, much funkier and more umami. They're definitely not interchangeable, but they're both fabulous examples of their class.

And speaking of things that are fabulous examples of their class, my favorite farmer's market is opening for the season today. Today! Right now, even! We are beyond lucky to have tons of fantastic farmer's markets to choose from here in Sonoma County, but this one is dear to my heart, in part because it's almost in my backyard, and in part because it's just a fantastic mix of vendors and open space.

You guys, if you're reading this and in Sonoma County, you need to go to the opening day of the West End Farmer's Market. Goodman's Jewish Deli is there, serving house-made fresh rye bread and pastrami and the best Reuben I have ever had in my life, as well as other delicious things--check out the menu on their Facebook page.  Handlebar Farm will be there, with beautiful greens and crisp, sweet carrots that look like they came right off the pages of a vintage Beatrix Potter book. And the Jellyrolls, featuring the lovely voice of the lovely Dawn Zaft, owner of my favorite place to take a morning meeting (aka the Criminal Baking Company and Undercover Noshery), will be performing! And there's a lovely green space, right outside of the historic DeTurk Round Barn, for kiddos to run around and play and all of us to sit and picnic. I. Can't. Wait. 

So I'm gonna hustle and get me and Kamal ready to go shop, eat, play and dance. I hope I see you there!

Oh, and here's my quick call for help: I love writing this blog, but am feeling really challenged finding the time to do it, as a mother and business owner and person with lots of interests. (Just writing this post, I stopped about ten times to kiss booboos, clean up spills, fish urgently-needed toys out from behind the couch...and on other days, I see patients, too!) I'd love to hear tips from you on how you make time to do the things you love. Thanks!

Adam's (fermented) Sriracha recipe

Every year Adam plants a whole bunch of hard-neck garlic, originally sent to him by his dad in Pennsylvania, who's selected his favorite varieties over years of growing garlic. In another section of the garden, he plants lots and lots of peppers, all kinds of peppers, mostly hot but some sweet: cayennes, jalapenos, chilepenos, habaneros, Thai bird chiles, paprika peppers, Ho Chi Minh peppers, black Hungarian peppers and more. The list is different every year.

In this photo: Leeks, lettuces, radishes, ready-to-harvest garlic and teeny baby pepper plants (below the trellis)

By the time we harvest the peppers, the garlic has been hanging and drying in the garage for months. The peppers and garlic come together in Adam's fiery Sriracha, which I put on my congee every morning.

Towards the end of 2011--just a couple of months before we found out we were expecting Kamal--Adam and I went on a three-week road trip, in which we visited lots of good people, toured ten national parks, and cooked in a wide range of settings, from the well-equipped kitchens of our friends to campstoves set on bear lockers. On our very first day, driving up the coast on twisty Route 1, Adam suddenly gasped, then cried out, "Oh, God! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Of course I thought something terrible had happened--that we were about to veer off a cliff, for example, or crash into a giant redwood. "What?" I squeaked. "What, what is it?"

"I forgot to pack the Sriracha!" wailed Adam. "What are you going to do for breakfast?" 

We debated getting some store-bought, but it really isn't anywhere near as good--I haven't actually touched the stuff since Adam started making his own. In the end, we called our housesitter and had some overnighted to us. It was totally worth it.

Sometimes Adam will draw me a Sriracha happy face.

Here's the link to the fermented Sriracha recipe Adam uses, as well as, in his own words, the adjustments he makes to it. (He's made the fresh version as well, but we've agreed--as does the author of the linked recipe--that we like the fermented better.)

Folks, here's my terrific Adam:

I started making this a couple of years ago to find a way to use up all our hot pepper. Now, it is the reason we grow so many hot peppers. I use a mix of peppers (typically 6-10 varieties), mostly hot, but will throw in a few sweet to provide balance.

I use the fermented version on Andrea Nguyen's blog found here. 

I add approximately 1 1/2 teaspoons of fish sauce to it also.

Last year I ran the finished sauce through a food mill as it was super seedy (I used a lot of thai and cayenne peppers last year).

We just freeze it in 1/2 pint jars, but I'm sure you could can it also. IF YOU DECIDE TO CAN IT, PLEASE FOLLOW SAFE PRACTICES (such as from the Ball Book of Home Preserving).

Salt and pepper are important, but this Sriracha has my heart. 

Ending and beginning

So my Year of Congee ended on December 31st, and I've been thinking about where to take this blog. Because the thing is, even though we're in the second month of 2015, I'm still eating congee for breakfast, and I still think you should, too.

Bai zhou, kale sauteed with spicy Italian sausage, perfect medium-boiled egg

What did I learn from my year of eating congee for breakfast every day? Well, mainly that I feel a lot clearer, stronger and more effective when my body doesn't have to work really hard to digest its first meal of the day. Also that even though there are an infinite number of ways to prepare congee, I don't get sick of what's become my standby: bai zhou topped with an egg,sauteed kale and Adam's homemade sriracha. Also, I like white rice a lot better than brown rice in congee, and I'm okay with that.

To take along for a long day at the clinic: a jar of bai zhou with egg and greens, and two jars of farro and lentil salad

And also, perhaps most importantly, I've loved, loved, loved writing about something that speaks to health, to food as medicine for the body and soul, to traditional Chinese nutritional therapy, and to the Asian kitchen culture in which I grew up. I've felt so much joy in seeing all of your responses to this blog, and in seeing your responses to the congee you made for yourself.  Championing this humble, healthy, nourishing, elemental food has meant far more to me than I expected when this project began.

So I'm going to keep writing here. I'm going to write mostly about congee, and I'm also going to write about food as medicine in general; about my own approaches to health and the recommendations I make to my patients; and about the food industry, how it fails us and where it helps us. I'm going to write about the food we grow in our backyard and the food we cook in our kitchen. I'm going to tell you about how I manage things like colds and flu and body image and insomnia and being a working mother with a totally rad toddler and a busy little clinic.

Rad toddler dancing on 50 pounds of rice

And I'm going to talk about my parents, whose memory infuses every grain of rice I eat. There's no connection, for me, to food without both of them. For better or for worse, each coriander seed pressed between a mortar and pestle, each delicate sliced ring of scallion, keeps them close to me.

But mostly I'm going to write about congee, because, after all, that's where it all starts. Every morning.

How to be not scared of kale

It was maybe two years ago. I was standing in line at the grocery store, Kamal in his little infant carseat stashed in my cart. The lady at the front of the line was buying at least eight bunches of kale. After she'd paid and left, the guy right behind her and ahead of me asked the cashier, in tones full of trepidation, "Was all of that kale?"

"Yes," the cashier told him. "Lots of kale. Maybe she's a juicer."

"I don't know," said the guy. "I don't know about that kale. I know everyone says it's so good for you, but I had it once and it was disgusting."

I hate unsolicited advice, and I try not to give it, but man was it hard to bite my tongue. I wanted to write down a million recipes for the guy. I wanted to feed him caldo verde. I wanted to stand on the conveyor belt, waving curly, verdant bouquets of kale and shout: "THIS STUFF IS DELICIOUS! GIVE IT A CHANCE! GIVE THE KALE A CHANCE!"



Like I said, though, I hate unsolicited advice, and I let the poor man go back off to his kale-deprived, tragically misinformed life. You, however, don't have to live like him. If you already love kale, awesome. I'm preaching to the choir! But if you don't, please let me show you some easy ways to prepare it, and how delicious it can be. Let's not even talk about how good it is for you. You already know that, and there are plenty of other places for you to read about it. Let's talk about its general yumminess and convenience.

First of all, I think the biggest reason people don't like kale is because they've had incorrectly-prepared kale. When I was visiting my dad several years ago in Florida, I wanted to make this super-healthful vegetable for him. Unfortunately, I couldn't find kale in his local grocery store or at any farm stands. (Here in Northern California, I realize I'm in a bubble where easy access to kale is taken for granted.) I finally found some pre-bagged kale in a giant supermarket. When I got it home, I was dismayed to realize it was clearly older kale that had been pre-cut without being stemmed first.

Kale tends to be a pretty sturdy, tough vegetable. Older kale is tougher kale, and the stems are the toughest part of the kale. There are times when I eat the kale stems, especially if the kale is on the younger side, but I cook them separately and for much longer than the leaves. Cooking them together--which was pretty much the only thing to do with the unstemmed, pre-cut kale I had purchased--results in a very unpleasantly fibrous eating experience. Or rather, alternately fibrous and mushy, as there's no way to sufficiently cook the stems without way overcooking the leaves. Blech.This experience, unfortunately, left my dad thinking he did not like kale, and I couldn't blame him. I wonder if the kale-hater in the grocery store had had a similar experience. To save the world from a gross misunderstanding of kale, here is a step-by-step of proper kale prep.

Step 1: Get a big, sharp knife. Run the blade along each side of the stem, as close to the stem as possible, to separate the stem from the leafy part.

Step 2: Make two big piles. One pile is leafy. One pile is stemmy. You can compost the stems, save them for making vegetable stock, pickle them, or feed them to your chickens.



Step 3: Stack, roll and chop. Stack leaves one on top of the other, roll the stacks up, and slice away to make wide ribbons of kale.



Step 4: Scrubba scrubba. I find the best way to clean my kale ribbons is by using a salad spinner, but you can also just use a colander. Or if you don't have a colander, rinse a few times in a large bowl and then spread out the kale ribbons on dishtowels to dry. 



Step 5: Stash. Put your cleaned, dry kale ribbons in ziploc bags, with as much air sucked or squeezed out as possible. 



Now you have kale ready to go for a simple sauté that's perfect for topping your congee or serving as a side dish: just heat coconut oil (or olive oil, or whatever your favorite cooking oil is) in a pan, add some slices of garlic and sauté those till they're golden and fragrant, then add your kale and sauté that till it's tender--depending on how old your kale is and how soft you like it, anywhere from two to ten minutes.  (If you've saved your stems and want to cook those too, just chop them up into inch-size pieces and get them started sauteeing well in advance of the garlic.)

Kale saute as congee topping...

and as side dish.

Oooh, or scrambled with eggs and a little parmesan--so good.

Other ways to enjoy your beautifully prepared kale:

Make a kale salad. Adam and I love this recipe, from the Northern Spy restaurant in New York City's East Village. It's wonderfully flexible and forgiving: we've subbed apples and nectarines for the butternut squash, and walnuts and pecans for the almonds, depending on what we have in the house and what's seasonal. Also, we find using a good-quality cheddar--our favorite by far is Cougar Gold--makes a huge difference.

Make kale chips. Use your hands to toss your prepped kale ribbons with olive oil and a little salt and whatever seasonings you like. Spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to brown. Let cool. Crunch happily. 

Make caldo verde: Literally translating to "green broth" caldo verde is a hearty, traditional Portuguese soup made with lots of kale, potatoes and linguiça or chorizo. Emeril's recipe looks delicious; you could also sub in different types of sausage (I'm kind of dying to try it with chicken-apple sausage). 

Now you're prepared in case you ever run into a kale-hater. Don't tell him off--he's not a bad person, he's just a little scared of the unknown. Awww. And don't tell him what he's missing; he probably isn't ready to hear it. Just smile politely while you feel smug about the giant bags of prepped kale in your fridge and all the delicious things you know you can do with them.

How do you like to eat your kale?

Adam's loco moco congee

I told you in my last post about how Adam had the phenomenal idea of combining congee with loco moco, that beloved, decadent breakfast local to Hawai'i.

Here's how you can make loco moco congee, too.

First, make bai zhou, plain white rice congee: bring to a boil a cup of white rice with five to eight cups of water, depending on how thick you like your congee. Once it's boiled, reduce the heat to a simmer, and allow to simmer until the grains have begun to lose their borders and the bai zhou is porridgey in consistency.

Here's what my bai zhou looks like after about 25 or 30 minutes of simmering. The rice grains are still more or less distinct, but you can't quite tell where one grain ends and another begins. 

Here's what longer-cooked (one hour or more) congee looks like (along with some hei zhi ma  for a garnish and some greens mixed in)--no distinction whatsoever between the rice grains. Neither way is more right--it's really about your preference. 

Lightly salt and pepper about one quarter of a pound of ground beef--Adam used grass-fed ground chuck, 80% lean.  Gently form a patty with your hands.

Preheat a cast-iron skillet on high heat. Put your patty in the skillet and cook it for about 3-4 minutes a side. There's no need to oil your pan first. Don't touch it at all for at least the first couple of minutes on each side; Adam insists: "It'll let go of the pan when it's ready." During those first couple of minutes, you're building a nice crust on the outside of the burger and also building up the fond, the nice crusty bits that are left stuck in the pan that will be the basis for your flavorful gravy.

Take burger out and set it aside, or just set it on top of a bowl of bai zhou.

Take the pan off the heat, let it cool a bit. There will be some fat in the pan that has come off of the ground beef. If it's more than a couple of tablespoons, remove some fat. If it's less, add some butter to make up a couple tablespoons of fat total. Then return the pan to medium heat and whisk in two or so tablespoons of flour; whisk (or stir with a wooden spoon) for two to three minutes till the flour starts to brown a little bit. Gradually whisk in beef or chicken stock (we used chicken stock)* very slowly--make sure each bit of stock is smoothly incorporated before adding more. Continue adding stock, more or less a cup in total until you have your gravy at the consistency you like it.

*It's worth noting that if you're not making your stock at home, storebought chicken stock is generally far superior to storebought beef stock.

In another pan, cook an egg over-easy.

Assemble your loco moco congee: bai zhou in a wide bowl, then hamburger patty, then egg; top it all with gravy. Season with salt and pepper to taste, plus hei zhi ma if you like. Enjoy.

OMG, you guys. 

This morning, Adam made me a healthier version of loco moco congee--bai zhou topped with an egg over-easy; a turkey patty he formed with salt, pepper and smoked paprika; sauteed kale; and his homemade sriracha. It hit the same heartwarming, nostalgic spot for me as a "real" loco moco, and kept me going through a busy morning with a fussy, fevered toddler (who is, thankfully, all better now).

Okay, so it was my idea to call this "a healthier version of a loco moco." Adam insists that he was not trying to imitate a loco moco, and that without gravy, this is not a proper loco moco at all, and that I shouldn't even call it that because I am bound to disappoint the masses. But I really, really liked it. 

If you've never had a loco moco, please try it. I mean, once, at least. There are all sorts of versions of it, but I'm a purist: steamed white rice, beef patty, gravy and an egg over easy. A runny egg yolk is critical, because it needs to mix with the gravy and that mixture has to sort of saturate the rice. (I remember one time, years ago, Jenjen called me from a visit home to Honolulu all outraged; she'd gotten a loco moco somewhere, but they'd cooked the egg all the way through. "Then it's not a loco moco!" I shouted, instantly beside myself on her behalf. "I KNOW!" wailed Jenjen. "Do it right, or like, what's the POINT?")

I love that Jenjen knew that she'd get a sympathetic ear, calling me about an improperly executed loco moco.I'm not saying you can't mess around with your loco moco--I mean, I'm messing around with it just having it over congee, or suggesting you have it with turkey and kale and no gravy. But all that being said, no matter what I do to your loco moco, I promise, gravely and sincerely, that I will never, ever, ever serve it to you with an overcooked egg.

Congee all day

To reap all the remarkable health benefits of congee, you really only need to eat it for your first meal of the day. You don't have to eat it for multiple meals of the day.

I just like to.

Here's what I packed in my bag for a full day at work: A jar full of coffee. Three persimmons. A jar of bai zhou topped with coconut-oil-sauteed kale, a lovely fresh egg, and a little bit of the roasted pork shoulder left over from the awesome tacos Adam made the other day. Two more jars exactly like that first one.

Here is where I 'fess up to having broken my vow of eating congee every day for a whole year. The truth? I've eaten it most days. But in June, Adam and Kamal and I went to Hawaii for a week, which is where I grew up, and I ate loco moco for breakfast every day: steamed white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg, and epic amounts of brown gravy. Ohhhh, so amazing. It's the island answer to a bacon cheeseburger. I love bacon cheeseburgers, but I'd pick a bowl of loco moco over a bacon cheeseburger any day.

Hawai'i was pretty awesome, you guys.


Here is the one family photo we managed on our trip. How amazing is that tree?

And, ok, even when we've not been traveling, there have been days, here and there, where I've been out of rice and/or out of time and grabbed a healthy breakfast somewhere, or eaten something like toast and a spinach omelette.

I expect to feel a little more sluggish when I eat a rich, heavy breakfast like a loco moco, or something high in sugar and low in fiber and protein, like a muffin. What I find interesting is how different I feel when I eat congee versus eating what most people would consider a healthy breakfast. Root veggies with baked eggs and greens? That's pretty healthful, and it's not like I feel bad when I eat them, but I don't feel as awesome--as energized, as ready for the day, as, I don't know, spry--as when I put down my spoon after that last bite of congee. Oatmeal with fresh berries and coconut milk? So delicious and warming, but nope, not the same kick as my savory, light-but-satisfying, comforting-but-not-cloying daily congee bowl.

On the left: K-small demonstrates how I feel after eating congee for breakfast. On the right: K-small demonstrates how I feel after eating anything else for breakfast. Cute either way, but a lot brighter and floatier with congee in my belly. 

From a Western nutritional standpoint, it's a little far-fetched that a bowl of congee and the baked-egg breakfast I described make me feel so different. The components are largely the same: starchy carbohydrates, fats and proteins in the egg, and leafy greens. If anything, because the root vegetables are not refined carbohydrates, as is the white rice in my congee, I ought to feel less good after slurping up my bai zhou than eating the other breakfast.

But from a traditional Chinese medical perspective, it's totally logical: the congee is easier to digest. White rice nourishes the Spleen, which does take a little while to wake up. (Root vegetables do too, but not as gently.) The fact that the rice is technically way overcooked means it all goes down a lot more easily, and even more importantly, is converted into usable nutrition more efficiently. The coconut oil's very healthy fat, the egg's fat and protein, and the fiber from the leafy greens keep the white rice from causing a quick blood-sugar spike.

So: I have erred. I have slipped up on my yearlong congee commitment. But I keep coming back to congee, and I know I will continue to do that year after year--and not just because I said I would, but because I notice how much better, stronger, sharper I feel when it's part of my early morning. And frankly, when it's part of my late morning, too, and early afternoon? I feel even better. Why wouldn't I eat it more than once a day?  

It helps that it's delicious and infinitely variable. What also helps is that I have a brilliant husband who decided I don't have to choose between loco moco and congee when we're at home--he made me loco moco congee. CHECK THIS OUT, you guys: 

Without gravy.

With gravy! Is there anything that is not better with gravy? That's a rhetorical question. Don't answer it.

This isn't healthy. BUT IT WAS AWESOME. Sprinkled with toasted hei zhi ma and fresh scallions for prettiness and extra deliciousness, it was an unusually rich bowl of congee--but still didn't make me feel weighed down and gunky the way a proper loco moco typically does.

Holler if you want the recipe for Adam's loco moco congee!