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I had Friday and today off, and spent a lot of it catching up on things I've let slide over the past few months, but I also loafed around the city and saw some friends. Among other things, I went to the farmer's market Saturday morning with D., the baby, the puppydog, and M.. Chatting with a couple of young mothers and their babies outside the Japanese deli in the ferry building, it finally occurred to me that the reason people keep giving me funny looks when I'm with D. and the baby is that they think I'm a horribly detached mother, since they assume I'm the mother when Mrs. D. isn't with us; I somehow doubt I'd be getting the funny looks if our genders were reversed. I bought a gorgeous bunch of basil and some lovely tender beets--red, golden, and chiogga--and fat, ripe nectarines, and since I like beets so much, I'm sharing a couple of my favorite beet salad recipes.
Beets, Bitter Greens, and Stilton with Walnut-Shallot Vinaigrette
This is an easy and elegant salad; I make it for dinner parties sometimes, since you get the components ready well ahead of time and put it all together at the last minute.
I like to use a mix of red and golden beets in this salad to add a variety of color.
- 3/4 pound beets
- 6 cups greens--arugula, baby spinach, mache, or mixed greens
- 1-2 ounces Stilton
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- 1 small shallot, finely diced
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons walnut oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 375F. Scrub the beets and slice off their tips and tops, then set them upright in a shallow baking dish. (If you're using different varieties of beets, cook them separately to keep the colors from bleeding together.) Add 1/4 inch of water, cover with foil, and roast in the oven until tender, about 45 minutes. Let the beets cool, then slip their skins off and cut them into 1/2-inch chunks.
Combine the vinegar, oils, shallot, and salt and pepper in a bowl and whisk to emulsify. Toss the greens with half the vinaigrette and arrange them on a platter or individual salad plates. Strew the beets over the greens and crumble the Stilton over both. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette.
Serves 4.
Beets, Apples, and Nuts with Curry Vinaigrette
The contrast of sweet, nutty, sour, and earthy flavors in this salad, and of soft and crunchy textures, is really wonderful. I adapted it from The Greens Cookbook. A mix of beet varieties adds interesting colors, but the contrast of red beets with the bright yellow vinaigrette and green apples and celery if very pretty if you don't want to go to the trouble.
- 3/4 pounds beets
- 2 scallions, white and one inch of green parts, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup currants, soaked in very hot water until soft and plump and gently squeezed dry
- Four cups salad greens--arugula, baby spinach, mache, or mixed greens
- 1 Granny Smith or other tart apple, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 2 stalks celery, sliced
- 1/2 cup walnut or pecan halves, toasted in a 200F oven until crunchy if not absolutely fresh and roughly chopped
- 1 clove garlic
- 3 quarter-sized slices of peeled fresh ginger
- 2 teaspoons curry powder
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 375F. Scrub the beets and slice off their tips and tops, then set them upright in a shallow baking dish. (If you're using different varieties of beets, cook them separately to keep the colors from bleeding together.) Add 1/4 inch of water, cover with foil, and roast in the oven until tender, about 45 minutes. Let the beets cool, then clip their skins off and cut them into 1/2-inch chunks.
Either finely mince the garlic and ginger and whisk together with the curry powder, vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper, or put all the ingredients in a food processer and pulse until they're emulsified. Let stand for at least 15 minutes before dressing the salad.
Combine the greens, apples, and celery in a bowl and toss with half the vinaigrette. Arrange them on a plattor or individual salad plates and mound the beets on top, then strew with the scallions, nuts, and currants. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette.
Serves 4.
This time, I've roasted them and am planning to eat them with lemon vinaigrette and chunks of salty ricotta salata, which I think will also be very good. We'll see!
* * * * *
I have finally caught up on Doctor Who, but posting that kind of backlog of episode reactions is beyond me, and probably not interesting to you, so, I will just say of the last two that they were fantastic and hopefully an indication that the show is really gelling with both the dynamic between Martha and Ten and the scope of their adventures. (I continue to wish they'd dial down Martha's infatuation, and to not be able to tell if it's my crotchety old Who perceptions coming through; on the one hand, it's quite realistic for a young woman like Martha (and Rose before her) to be powerfully attracted to the Doctor's mystery and experience, and on the other, this is going to get really old really fast if it's a component of each companion's relationship with him.)
But, "Blink" was excellent, excellent, excellent, cleverly structured and self-referential and scary as hell, and populated by sympathetic one-shot characters that snapped and sparkled. The writers established the potential the stone angels were feeding off of, the difference between the lives those who'd gotten pulled back had made for themselves and what should have been their bright futures, so artfully, and the outside POV--Martha and the Doctor as secondary characters--worked really well.
And Utopia, with the palpable sense of deterioration, the barbarians with their sharp teeth at the gates, the Doctor's affectionate glee at humanity's determination to survive, and Jack (JACK!) and his omnivorous charm, stuck between human and inhuman, was already going very well before I saw the watch and suspected that the scientist was actually the Master. And not only was I right, but the Master was John Simm! EEEE! I am especially pleased since, as the Doctor tried to tell him, they're the last time lords left. I'd been enjoying the rest of this series fairly well, with some quibbles, but it feels like the last two episodes really kicked things up a notch.
* * * * *
Dear SGA writers, please understand that when you are writing for a SciFi original series about space vampires, it's safe to assume that most of your audience has probably seen Alien AND Aliens (and also Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection, though some of us like to pretend Aliens 3 doesn't exist). It is therefore superfluous, when ripping off creating an homage to parts of the Alien franchise, to actually have the characters point out the similarity. It is an especially unnecessary and baffling choice when the character calls out the wrong movie; Sheppard said the scenario reminded him of Alien because the bugs could be moving through the airshafts, but with all of them pinned in a settlement whose inhabitants had suddenly disappeared, discoving a giant clutch of eggs, and monitoring the life signs detectors for approaching things moving in the walls, the obvious resemblance was to AlienS.
My post on Stargate 10.19 - "Dominion". Even though I've seen the series finale, this Friday really is the end. SOB. At this point, the two DVD movies are less something I'm looking forward to and more the foundation of some elaborate coping mechanisms.
Beets, Bitter Greens, and Stilton with Walnut-Shallot Vinaigrette
This is an easy and elegant salad; I make it for dinner parties sometimes, since you get the components ready well ahead of time and put it all together at the last minute.
I like to use a mix of red and golden beets in this salad to add a variety of color.
- 3/4 pound beets
- 6 cups greens--arugula, baby spinach, mache, or mixed greens
- 1-2 ounces Stilton
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- 1 small shallot, finely diced
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons walnut oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 375F. Scrub the beets and slice off their tips and tops, then set them upright in a shallow baking dish. (If you're using different varieties of beets, cook them separately to keep the colors from bleeding together.) Add 1/4 inch of water, cover with foil, and roast in the oven until tender, about 45 minutes. Let the beets cool, then slip their skins off and cut them into 1/2-inch chunks.
Combine the vinegar, oils, shallot, and salt and pepper in a bowl and whisk to emulsify. Toss the greens with half the vinaigrette and arrange them on a platter or individual salad plates. Strew the beets over the greens and crumble the Stilton over both. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette.
Serves 4.
Beets, Apples, and Nuts with Curry Vinaigrette
The contrast of sweet, nutty, sour, and earthy flavors in this salad, and of soft and crunchy textures, is really wonderful. I adapted it from The Greens Cookbook. A mix of beet varieties adds interesting colors, but the contrast of red beets with the bright yellow vinaigrette and green apples and celery if very pretty if you don't want to go to the trouble.
- 3/4 pounds beets
- 2 scallions, white and one inch of green parts, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup currants, soaked in very hot water until soft and plump and gently squeezed dry
- Four cups salad greens--arugula, baby spinach, mache, or mixed greens
- 1 Granny Smith or other tart apple, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 2 stalks celery, sliced
- 1/2 cup walnut or pecan halves, toasted in a 200F oven until crunchy if not absolutely fresh and roughly chopped
- 1 clove garlic
- 3 quarter-sized slices of peeled fresh ginger
- 2 teaspoons curry powder
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 375F. Scrub the beets and slice off their tips and tops, then set them upright in a shallow baking dish. (If you're using different varieties of beets, cook them separately to keep the colors from bleeding together.) Add 1/4 inch of water, cover with foil, and roast in the oven until tender, about 45 minutes. Let the beets cool, then clip their skins off and cut them into 1/2-inch chunks.
Either finely mince the garlic and ginger and whisk together with the curry powder, vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper, or put all the ingredients in a food processer and pulse until they're emulsified. Let stand for at least 15 minutes before dressing the salad.
Combine the greens, apples, and celery in a bowl and toss with half the vinaigrette. Arrange them on a plattor or individual salad plates and mound the beets on top, then strew with the scallions, nuts, and currants. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette.
Serves 4.
This time, I've roasted them and am planning to eat them with lemon vinaigrette and chunks of salty ricotta salata, which I think will also be very good. We'll see!
* * * * *
I have finally caught up on Doctor Who, but posting that kind of backlog of episode reactions is beyond me, and probably not interesting to you, so, I will just say of the last two that they were fantastic and hopefully an indication that the show is really gelling with both the dynamic between Martha and Ten and the scope of their adventures. (I continue to wish they'd dial down Martha's infatuation, and to not be able to tell if it's my crotchety old Who perceptions coming through; on the one hand, it's quite realistic for a young woman like Martha (and Rose before her) to be powerfully attracted to the Doctor's mystery and experience, and on the other, this is going to get really old really fast if it's a component of each companion's relationship with him.)
But, "Blink" was excellent, excellent, excellent, cleverly structured and self-referential and scary as hell, and populated by sympathetic one-shot characters that snapped and sparkled. The writers established the potential the stone angels were feeding off of, the difference between the lives those who'd gotten pulled back had made for themselves and what should have been their bright futures, so artfully, and the outside POV--Martha and the Doctor as secondary characters--worked really well.
And Utopia, with the palpable sense of deterioration, the barbarians with their sharp teeth at the gates, the Doctor's affectionate glee at humanity's determination to survive, and Jack (JACK!) and his omnivorous charm, stuck between human and inhuman, was already going very well before I saw the watch and suspected that the scientist was actually the Master. And not only was I right, but the Master was John Simm! EEEE! I am especially pleased since, as the Doctor tried to tell him, they're the last time lords left. I'd been enjoying the rest of this series fairly well, with some quibbles, but it feels like the last two episodes really kicked things up a notch.
* * * * *
Dear SGA writers, please understand that when you are writing for a SciFi original series about space vampires, it's safe to assume that most of your audience has probably seen Alien AND Aliens (and also Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection, though some of us like to pretend Aliens 3 doesn't exist). It is therefore superfluous, when ripping off creating an homage to parts of the Alien franchise, to actually have the characters point out the similarity. It is an especially unnecessary and baffling choice when the character calls out the wrong movie; Sheppard said the scenario reminded him of Alien because the bugs could be moving through the airshafts, but with all of them pinned in a settlement whose inhabitants had suddenly disappeared, discoving a giant clutch of eggs, and monitoring the life signs detectors for approaching things moving in the walls, the obvious resemblance was to AlienS.
My post on Stargate 10.19 - "Dominion". Even though I've seen the series finale, this Friday really is the end. SOB. At this point, the two DVD movies are less something I'm looking forward to and more the foundation of some elaborate coping mechanisms.