Link of the Day

Left Coast Rebel: Arizona Killer Fits Tea Party Profile Perfectly

Tuscan Butter Bean Soup

One of the many things I love about going to the Farmers' Market, is finding unusual vegetables you can't find in the supermarkets. I got this Cavolo Nero, a.k.a Tuscan Kale, a.k.a. Dinosaur Kale, a.k.a. Black Cabbage (I love the first name most; makes a vegetable sound posh.) With that, I decided to make a hearty bean soup for the winter nights. You can use any type of bean, or even a mix, it originally calls for canellini beans, which are the normal shaped/sized white beans you see, but I had butter beans. They're giant!

Compare: Red adzuki bean v.s. Black bean v.s. Butter bean

Tuscan bean soup is traditional Italian peasant fare, so even though I've seen many recipes adding a bit of bacon or pancetta here and there for more flavour, I've decided to keep this really cheap and simple and rustic.

Tuscan Butter Bean Soup

serves 3-4

2 large onions, chopped

2 sticks of celery, chopped

2 medium carrots, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped (original recipes call for canned but I didn't have any)

1 cup butter beans, soaked overnight and rinsed

1 large head of tuscan kale, chopped into bite-sized pieces

4 cups chicken stock

2 bay leaves

1 tsp of dried thyme (or 3 sprigs thyme)

1 tsp of dried oregano (or 1 sprig oregano)

2-3 tbspsextra virgin olive oil

salt, black pepper

parmesan (optional)

1. Place the beans in a pot, bring to a boil, and let it simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours till just soft, but not mushy.

2. In a large pot, over medium heat, saute the onions, carrot and celery until onions just turn translucent.

3. Add the garlic and the tomatoes, cook until tomatoes cook down.

4. Add the herbs, then the stock, then the beans and the bean cooking liquid if necessary.

5. Cook for another half an hour, before adding the kale, and cooking another 20 min or so until the beans and kale are both tender.

6. Serve with shavings of parmesan (opt) on top.

This soup keeps really well, in fact it gets better the day after. The peasants used to make enough to last 3 days, they reboil on day 2 with a bit of bread, and then on day 3, they reboil again with the stale bread which thickens the soup and gives a thick thick hearty stew called ribollita. I wish I left enough to try how that will work out.

A Thought on Political Violence

Barack Obama seems concerned about what the Arizona shootings portend for future political violence. I think he'd find out more about such matters if he sat down and interviewed his Chicago neighbors, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn. You know, the ones who hosted his first political event. The ones who are unapologetic about blowing things up in the name of politics. That might be more productive than talking to a paranoid schizophrenic.

(T)he available evidence dates Loughner's fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to at least 2007, when he attended a town hall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who had begun an article thus: "I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it."

Do you suppose the NYT or 60 Minutes has considered interviewing Bill Ayers about the Arizona shootings? Nahhhhhh.

Chinese Black Bean Soup

More pregnancy/confinement food haha. Beans this time(: They're just fantastic in soups and stews because they help thicken the soup up, and they add body and fullness. Chinese soups are not just about taste, they're more like tasty tonics.

For instance, in this soup, the black bean (a.k.a. black turtle bean. how cute is that! NOT black-eyed peas.) is known to be a rich source of protein, fibre and antioxidants, and in TCM terms, it tonifies the kidney, strengthens the yin, and nourishes the blood. The red jujube dates are very common in Chinese soups, they not only sweeten the soup (not in the sugary way), but helps to harmonize the effect of all the other ingredients or herbs in the soup to nourish the blood, spleen and stomach. And since this soup (like many Chinese soups) make use of pork bones to give it that body and flavour, is an excellent bone broth, full of calcium and more.

Chinese Black Bean Soup

serves 2-3

Ingredients

200g pork with bones (my mum prefers pork ribs. I just use any meaty bones that my butcher gives for free)

2/3 cup black beans, soaked and rinsed

6 red jujube dates, pitted

3-4 dried scallops

2l water

Method

1. Blanch pork bones in boiling water (you'll see some disgusting scum floating in the water). Drain and discard the water.

2. Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil for 5 min, then simmer for at least 2h. Or transfer to a slowcooker like I did, on low for 6h, or on high for 3h.

UPDATE: I left it on high for 6h by accident, and ended up getting a super flavourful and thick soup, and the..white bones? tendon? (someone enlighten me what this part is) became soft enough you could slurp it out. Usually my slow cooking already results in them being soft enough to chew on, but this was like..

I like (:

The Fate of the Mentally Ill

Here's something to think about: For every victim of a murderously violent schizoid there are hundreds of mentally ill people who die on the street. You see them every day, begging at street corners. At some point in time, they'll die in their pathetic, little encampments under a bridge or in a thicket down by the river.

At a time when diversity and rights and concern for the environment are spoken of endlessly, it's a testament to the impotence of our society that such poor creatures as these wander about uncared for while we talk and talk and talk about social justice.

Loughner wasn't a homeless beggar, but he was insane. Tim brought up the key conundrum in a comment elsewhere on this blog.

I like to think that all of us who haven't committed any crimes have the right not to be pulled off the street and incarcerated, not just the mentally ill. I seriously hope that she isn't proposing that government officials be given the authority to haul in anybody that they deem to be "insane" and therefore a "danger to the public". That's much too loose of a standard, they'd be able to pick up pretty much anybody that the government found annoying or inconvenient.

All of life being imperfect, there is no answer to this. There are trade offs to everything that we just have to accept. We've chosen to prevent the government from rounding up political dissidents by labeling them as mentally ill in the same way as we have chosen to allow citizens to protect themselves by allowing them to carry weapons. Sometimes the crazies get guns and shoot people. It's going to happen. Life is imperfect.

Meanwhile, congresswomen get the best of care and the mentally ill die under bridges.

For some time I've wanted to collect a gallery of photos of the San Diego homeless to share on this blog, but I just can't bring myself to do it, even from a distance with a telephoto lens. They are, after all, God's children, too, not animals to be filmed on safari. This post will just have to go photoless.