THE LADY OF SHALLOTS

Warning---more prose than usual. I'll try not to do that too often. ----- I've been trying to intentionally cook vegetarian meals at least twice a week. I like MOST vegetables, but the ones I don't like, I REALLY don't like (I'm looking at you, eggplant). I also have legume/bean issues.  This makes it hard to cook vegetarian as I also want to be low-carb and my hypoglycemic-self needs some protein. So understand that it is with some measure of pride that I substituted chickpeas for cannellini beans in the recipe below.  I actually LIKE cannellini beans (one of the few), but we had none in the cupboard. What we did have was a can of chickpeas, of which I'm not a fan. But it turns out I'm even less of a fan of walking to the store in 88% humidity for one can of cannellini beans. So, I opened the can of garbanzo beans/chickpeas to make sure they were still ok (that can was there for a looooooooooong time), and here's where the pride comes in: I ...

Cannellini and Lamb Soup from Jerusalem , p. 135, photo by RM This is probably one of the best soups I have ever made and was absolutely perfect for the snowy wintery weather we've been having. A few things. It calls for 20 cloves of garlic.   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KITCHEN GADGET ALERT: GARLIC EDITION! This is my favorite tool to peel garlic. It shouldn't cost more than 2 bucks. You don't need anything fancier. All you need is a clean, stable, and dry surface. The older the garlic, the easier it is to peel. This actually works, believe it or not, in removing garlic odors from your hands. Yes, I know, you can rub your hands all over your stainless steel kitchen faucet, but forgive me if I think this is more graceful. And a shout out here to Katie (over at Cook The Book Fridays ) who sent me my steel soap one year for Christmas! -----------------------------...

I will start this post with a pseudo-apology to the O hio C ollege of C linical P harmacy. Yes... in the unlikely event that my O ther C ultures C ooking P roject becomes more a more popular choice in Google algorithms, I apologize pre-emptively to anyone more interested in Zocor (TM) than za'atar. With that out of the way...welcome to the first official Other Cultures Cooking Project Post! I did spend ample time agonizing over the name--I hesitate to use "other" as I am "other" to other others, but setting aside academic navel-gazing, I think we understand that it is contextual: "other cultures foreign to me." And we can understand that I'm not even sure what constitutes my "culture" so there's that too. What started this is that I believe food is one of the most important (and enjoyable) ways to learn about people--culturally, socially, economically.  I like to learn. I like to cook. I like to eat. So, a no-brainer, in other wo...