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Mediterranean Fish Stew
At some point during my childhood, fish stew became the dish that my father and I cooked together. This was always an extensive process: we’d buy or make fish stock, which was either bland or way too fishy; we’d cook bacon, chop up all the vegetables, add everything to the pot; and then we’d step back and wait. We’d taste it, realize it was all wrong (often too fishy), and separate the whole thing out into two pots and more or less start over. Somehow it always ended up tasting good in the end, although I still don’t understand how.
More recently, we’ve cooked various Mediterranean-style fish stews. This recipe is the most recent and, in my view, by far the best. I’ve simplified the original recipe so it can be made with household spices, added raisins to contrast with the saltiness from the anchovies, and chosen to use chicken stock instead of water, which some may see as sacrilegious. I don’t care; it’s my kind of fish stew. (I’ve also added shrimp, because what’s a fish stew without shrimp.)
Cod is the center of this stew. A bottom-dwelling fish, cod was once everywhere in the Atlantic; it’s said that you used to be able to walk across the ocean on the backs of cod. But after centuries of fishing, by the 1990s the stock on the North American side of the Atlantic had been drastically reduced – off Canada down to 1 percent of its former level, while on the US side down to around 3 or 4 percent.
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Avocado and Pea Dip
Two summers ago, I was living in Chicago for a couple of months when a friend came to visit. Through some hard-core restaurant searching, we ended up going to Ema, a California-inspired Middle-Eastern restaurant, for brunch. It was great – everything tasted fresh and it was the perfect combination of doughy breakfast foods and light hummus and labneh served with fresh pita. (Not sure how this turned into a restaurant review, but here we are – if you’re in Chicago, the brunch is worth it.)
This recipe comes from Ema. I have to admit that the first time I made it I was disappointed. Although the recipe I found online calls for 4 teaspoons of salt (which has to be an error), I added only one – and even with that reduction I thought it was so salty it was on the verge of being inedible. However, the next day I tried it again and it miraculously tasted great. Here’s a slightly revised version, to be eaten with vegetables or on toast.
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Chickpea and Spinach Shakshuka
Last summer I was studying for the bar and decided to stay in my law school apartment – with no air conditioning. It was fine for the first four weeks, but in the few days before I moved out the real New England summer hit. It was in the mid-90s and humid, and my apartment seemed to suck in all the heat from the street. I dripped with sweat just sitting in my kitchen, as I re-learned contract law and tried to understand what a secured transaction was. One night, desperate for decent food but too lazy to go buy any, I looked around my kitchen and found a jar of tomato sauce, a can of chickpeas, and frozen spinach. I went to my computer, googled “tomato sauce chickpeas spinach” and this recipe popped up. In that moment, I was hoping for a mediocre dinner and instead I got this.
This is a simple recipe. It’s made using a jar of tomato sauce (for my European friends, I’d suggest cooking down about two cans of tomatoes into a sauce with onions and basil), chickpeas, and spinach – the perfect pandemic dinner. But despite its simplicity, the milk provides a creaminess that makes the tomato sauce richer. And let’s be honest, yolky eggs in just about anything are delicious.
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Sweet and Spicy Chicken
I take no credit for this recipe – I straight up stole it from my father. He found it (in this blog, which really deserves all the credit), he made it, and he made it again (and again) when we kept asking for it. (Also: how did my father end up on a food blog??). It’s everything I want from a simple chicken dish: sweet and spicy, bright and tasty, with a little bit of sauce that tastes great on everything (rice, potatoes, the salad next to the chicken on the plate). To be fair, the sugar that goes into the sauce may have something to do with how good it is. It also helps that the chicken is tenderized by being beaten with a mallet (or an ice cream scoop or a rolling pin). In these pandemic times when we are all still stuck at home, pounding chicken breasts is also a great way to let out some pent-up frustration. (But be careful – I was a bit too enthusiastic and chipped a plate).
I wanted to use this recipe now because I think it’s important to talk about labor conditions in the meatpacking industry during this pandemic. The media has covered the issue pretty well, but it’s still worth emphasizing the risks inherent in working in these plants – both during the pandemic and before.
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Banana Bread
When I first moved to Berlin in 2011, a fellow American who lived down the hall gave me this recipe. Although that was almost a decade ago, it has remained my go-to banana bread. It’s what I made when I felt homesick in those first couple of years in Berlin and what I made to give my German friends a taste of “American” baking in my later years in the city. (My friends can attest to the number of times I showed up at parties – and soccer practice – with this very banana bread). It’s what I tried (and failed) to bake when I had a terrible day in law school during 1L and it’s what I still make when I need a quick and easy dessert for something.
But bananas, oh no. I love bananas and could eat them every day. And I’m not alone; bananas are Americans’ favorite fruit. Unfortunately, bananas have a deep and ugly history. (Apologies to my friend who, while I was considering starting this blog, said to me: “Please just don’t ruin bananas, it’s my pandemic staple.” Really, I’m sorry.) While Chiquita presents itself as a fun fruit company with its own little jingle, the truth is much darker. For decades, companies like Chiquita and Dole harmed communities, especially in Central and South America, in order to profit off of bananas.
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Challah
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Thai-Inspired Shrimp and Vegetable Soup
I stumbled across this soup during the early days of the pandemic and instantly fell in love with it. I was cooking it while on Zoom with friends one Saturday night when, from off screen, they heard a “yummmmm, wow!” as I stirred and tasted it. Still, even as I was tasting it, I realized it was missing something – vegetables. And so, the spinach and peas made their way into the soup, never to leave. Without these vegetables, it’s a good soup with a warm, rich broth – and shrimp! But with them, it’s a full and filling meal (plus it’s helped to convince my mother that I do, in fact, eat vegetables). Because I was cooking this during the pandemic with limited grocery shopping, I never did add the cilantro. I assume it tastes great here and would certainly add it if I had any.
While I could write about coconut milk or garlic or some other ingredient, for this first post I want to focus on the soup’s focal point: shrimp. I love shrimp. Shrimp with cocktail sauce, in linguine, in soup, really in and with anything and everything. And I’m not alone. On average, Americans eat 4.4 pounds of shrimp per year. Although canned tuna used to be the seafood most eaten by Americans, 2001 shrimp took the lead and has held that title ever since. We often think of shrimp as something fancy and upscale. In reality it has become a staple of the American diet, in large part based on cheap – and often sketchy – imports.
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Welcome!
This is a blog about the joys of cooking and eating and the stark reality of where our food comes from. It is, at its heart, a pandemic blog. It was born out of my restlessness during a stay-at-home order and a desire for something to do that was not Covid-related – initially cooking and eating, and then later cooking and eating and writing. But it was also born from the combination of my professional life and my hobbies: human rights and corporate accountability work + cooking and baking (and, of course, eating). (You may be asking: What is corporate accountability work? I’d define it as the fight to stop corporations from violating human rights and harming the environment.)
As a human rights lawyer focused on corporate accountability, I spend a lot of my time tracing and mapping supply chains. Within my family I’ve come to be known as a bit of a “killjoy” for occasionally dropping into conversation a key fact about child labor or environmental harm in the supply chain of the food my family was enjoying at that very moment. (For the record, I think I’m just providing information – not judgment – but there are differing views about that.)
