Eat Like a Rock Star
So two Saturdays ago Eliza Rickman rolled into Cleveland late in the afternoon. I fed her a margherita pizza from Angelos. Thus fortified, she did two shows on Saturday night, the first at the Barking Spider and the second in my living room, which I intend to more fully review in a later post. In between shows Eliza drank a lot of chocolate milk, because that's how rock stars roll, yo. Everybody had ice cream novelties and my experimental dessert (a no-bake cherry cheesecake) and then went to bed.
The next morning I took Eliza to the Beachland Brunch, which was stellar as always. I had the sausage & gravy, which always make me feel like I should apologize to my sister the nutritionist. After that Eliza appeared live on Fantasy for Transmitter and Two Hosts, which included many songs from from her new album as well as stuff she picked out from other artists and a fantastic live performance of Ring of Fire on the accordion. We then got milkshakes at Tommys. At the risk of turning this into a tabloid, those concerned with celebrity gossip will note that Eliza had a black cherry milkshake and a spoonful of my peanut butter milkshake.
Eliza didn't have to be at her next stop until Monday, so she came back to the house for some rest & recuperation from the rigors of the road. This meant that I had to feed her dinner. I believe that I rose admirably to the task. This was confirmed the next day; I headed to work while Eliza was still asleep but she left me a very nice note that included the post-script "PS - I would not be mad if you sent me the recipe for that mushroom couscous - it was delish!"
The only problem is that I didn't actually have a recipe. I just sort of made it up, based on a meal my cousin Amy served up at her house a few Sundays previously. I didn't write it down at the time, but I think it went something like this:
Israelis Couscous Pilaf
Olive oil.
2-3 shallots, chopped
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced (regular ones, nothing special)
1/2 (roughly 3 full cups) pound Israeli Couscous (aka, the big couscous)
4 cups water
Vegetable bouillon cubes (or broth if you have it handy)
1. Boil the water/broth.
2. Saute the shallots in olive oil over medium high heat, stirring frequently.
3. Add the mushrooms and saute a few more moments.
4. Add the couscous. Stir to coat in oil.
5. Add water boiling water.
6. Cook, stirring frequently, until water is absorbed.
Basically, I treated this as couscous risotto. In fact, if I'd added the water in stages and thrown in some wine it would have been hard to distinguish the steps from an official risotto. It generated approximately eight servings and was a lot of fun.
Interestingly, when I was googling for the amount of water that I should be using per cup of couscous, I ran into two contradictory stories about the origin of Israeli Couscous. The more common answer appears to be that it was invented at the direction of David Ben-Gurion in the 1950s. However, I found a few sites that argued that Israeli Couscous is merely a marketing term for a well known Arab dish. I have no idea which one is more accurate, but the cynic in me says that the Israelis-Palestinian conflict is now pushing all the way down to the history of couscous. Fortunately, this doesn't make the dish any less tasty.
The next morning I took Eliza to the Beachland Brunch, which was stellar as always. I had the sausage & gravy, which always make me feel like I should apologize to my sister the nutritionist. After that Eliza appeared live on Fantasy for Transmitter and Two Hosts, which included many songs from from her new album as well as stuff she picked out from other artists and a fantastic live performance of Ring of Fire on the accordion. We then got milkshakes at Tommys. At the risk of turning this into a tabloid, those concerned with celebrity gossip will note that Eliza had a black cherry milkshake and a spoonful of my peanut butter milkshake.
Eliza didn't have to be at her next stop until Monday, so she came back to the house for some rest & recuperation from the rigors of the road. This meant that I had to feed her dinner. I believe that I rose admirably to the task. This was confirmed the next day; I headed to work while Eliza was still asleep but she left me a very nice note that included the post-script "PS - I would not be mad if you sent me the recipe for that mushroom couscous - it was delish!"
The only problem is that I didn't actually have a recipe. I just sort of made it up, based on a meal my cousin Amy served up at her house a few Sundays previously. I didn't write it down at the time, but I think it went something like this:
Israelis Couscous Pilaf
Olive oil.
2-3 shallots, chopped
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced (regular ones, nothing special)
1/2 (roughly 3 full cups) pound Israeli Couscous (aka, the big couscous)
4 cups water
Vegetable bouillon cubes (or broth if you have it handy)
1. Boil the water/broth.
2. Saute the shallots in olive oil over medium high heat, stirring frequently.
3. Add the mushrooms and saute a few more moments.
4. Add the couscous. Stir to coat in oil.
5. Add water boiling water.
6. Cook, stirring frequently, until water is absorbed.
Basically, I treated this as couscous risotto. In fact, if I'd added the water in stages and thrown in some wine it would have been hard to distinguish the steps from an official risotto. It generated approximately eight servings and was a lot of fun.
Interestingly, when I was googling for the amount of water that I should be using per cup of couscous, I ran into two contradictory stories about the origin of Israeli Couscous. The more common answer appears to be that it was invented at the direction of David Ben-Gurion in the 1950s. However, I found a few sites that argued that Israeli Couscous is merely a marketing term for a well known Arab dish. I have no idea which one is more accurate, but the cynic in me says that the Israelis-Palestinian conflict is now pushing all the way down to the history of couscous. Fortunately, this doesn't make the dish any less tasty.