Dominoes

I have been noodling with different ideas for my end-of-the-year post for about a week or so now. I bandied about the idea of a 2011 ‘round-up’ and even started that one – I got two paragraphs in and everything. I guess I abandoned it when I realized 2011 has been a year I have been kind of ambivalent about. I mean, it has been quite a year. A year that feels like a minute. But, without trying to sound maudlin, a year I’m perfectly fine with passing into a new one.

Admittedly, I am tremendously excited about 2012. But I ought not get my panties in a bunch about a year that has not yet begun.

2011 has had a lot of beauty, don’t get me wrong. It has just been very Big. I have seen some friends go away and come back, seen some friendships become incredibly fueled and intense in both good and bad ways, seen some go away never to return again and I feel I have been strengthening my relationship with my mom. I have eaten a mountain of amazing food, drunk vats of delicious wine, added a beautifully intense Chihuahua to my family, danced in closed restaurants with random people until four o’clock in the morning, traveled through Europe with friends and family; at times cried myself to sleep on the couch but at times also wanted to spin around on top of a mountain singing with joy.

But I’ve wanted something that hasn’t been there. Something I have been missing for some time. Something I didn’t even realize I forgot what it felt like. Until I felt it. Again. And, as a result, right this minute, as 2011 is about to slide into 2012, I am so very full and warm and fuzzy and happy. But I did just eat a pile of carnitas/asparagus/bacon/potato hash with two fried eggs on top.

The past couple of days I have thinking a lot about dominoes. It clearly began on Christmas Eve. Fred and I made dinner. We roasted a turkey, stuffed with Meyer lemon, covered in a weave of bacon and served with a sherry-pan gravy, a burrata and beet salad, roasted parsnips and my Brussels sprouts with toasted hazelnuts in a sage-brown butter. We also riffed on a recipe I had seen in Bon Appetît a few months back called ‘domino potatoes’. I had been wanting to prepare it since I first saw it, so I was excited. It’s a beautiful dish.

But then I started thinking about dominoes and moreover, tesselation, in general. In the area of math, the word domino often refers to any rectangle formed from joining two congruent squares edge to edge. To go in a bit further, tessellation is the process of creating a two-dimensional plane using the repetition of a geometric shape with no overlaps and no gaps. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Think M. C. Escher.

One use of dominoes is standing them on end in long lines so that when the first tile is toppled, it topples the second, which topples the third, etc., resulting in all of the tiles falling. By analogy, the phenomenon of small events causing similar events leading to eventual catastrophe is called the domino effect.

Well, over the past month, I have been toppling and my walls have been falling. There have been moments where I have feared the possibility of eventual (or immediate) catastrophe. I guess is big part of me still harbors that fear. But I have simultaneously felt a form of tessellation has occurred – its as though a plane with no overlaps or gaps has been created. With two congruent squares, edge to edge, a rectangle has been formed and, as a result, higher dimensions are now possible.

And this, my friends, is one of the primary reasons I am so very much looking into that which the possibility of 2012 holds. Right now, it seems infinite.

I wish each and every one of you a beautiful and inspired 2012...

Roasted Domino Potatoes

Serves 8

Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, divided

3 1/2 pounds Idaho potatoes (4-6 large)

1 tablespoon chopped, fresh rosemary

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

24 (about) fresh or dried bay leaves

Kosher salt and fleur de sel

Fresh cracked pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425°. Brush a 13x9x2" baking dish or cast-iron griddle with 2 Tbsp. butter. Peel potatoes and trim ends (do not rinse). Trim all 4 sides of potatoes to form a rectangle. Using a mandoline, cut potatoes crosswise into 1/8" slices, keeping slices in stacks as best you can.

Re-form slices from each potato into a stack. Place in prepared dish, fanning apart slightly like a deck of cards. Insert bay leaves and garlic between potato slices at even intervals. Season with rosemary,salt and pepper and drizzle with remaining 4 Tbsp. butter.

Bake potatoes, rotating the dish halfway through cooking, until the edges are crisp and golden and the centers are tender, about 1 hour. Sprinkle with fleur de sel.

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One year ago: Vinegar-Braised Chicken with Garlic and Celery Leaves

To years ago: 2009: The Year of the Food Truck

Sliding Doors

I am at a new intersection presently. The landscape is changing. And soon I need to either turn right or I need to turn left. It’s hard when I’ve been going straight for so long.

This makes me think of the concept of Alternate History. Alternate History is a genre of fiction that was identified in the early 1950s that involves cross-time travel between alternate histories or psychic awareness of the existence of "our" universe by the people in another; or ordinary voyaging uptime (into the past) or downtime (into the future) that results in history splitting into two or more time-lines. Or, to put it simply, What If?

Remember Sliding Doors? I love that movie. I actually own it on DVD (but let’s not run around telling everyone that).

So, here I am. Left or right? I can’t keep going straight forever or I’ll run myself right into the ocean. I’ll float away. Last night I tried so hard to turn left. I really did. But I couldn’t. And, I fear, as a result that particular road may be too far behind me now to be able to reverse all the way back to. I should probably turn right, anyway. Hell, I know I should turn right.

Suddenly I realize the idiocy in Rush’s lyric, "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." Oh, Geddy, I still love you.

What if I just turn on my signal and imply I’m turning right? Does that mean I still have to turn? I wish there was a Sliding Doors-type of thing that I could watch in this trajectory. I would really like to see how both roads look. Where they lead.

But clearly that’s not an option.

In an oddly symbiotic fashion, I cannot commit to what on earth I want to make for dinner tonight. Michael Motorcycle is coming over and I don’t have a clue whether to go the route of tilapia or pork tenderloin. These options are as different as right or left and, now, at 6pm I, as yet, don’t have a clue.

So, I guess, for now,  I’ll keep going straight and make a soup. This is a beautiful and complex soup filled with the beauties Mr. Motorcycle and I picked up at the farmers’ market this past Sunday morning: parsnips, heirloom carrots, baby potatoes, garlic, an onion, raw cream, and bacon. 

As for which way I'll turn, in addition to the tilapia vs. pork tenderloin mystery - I'lll keep you posted. 

Until then, maybe I'll watch Back to the Future.

Creamy Roasted Parsnip-Carrot Soup with Crispy Bacon and Potatoes

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup chopped heirloom carrots
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon grated garlic
10 cups chicken stock
3 pounds parsnips, peeled and diced
1/4 to 1/2 cup raw cream
6 ounces raw bacon, chopped
1/2 pound baby, new potatoes, quartered, boiled in chicken stock and divided
Salt and pepper

 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Scatter the parsnips and carrots on a baking sheet with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast until semi-tender, approximately 15-20 minutes.

Melt the butter in a 6-quart stock pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion. Season with salt and pepper. Saute until the onion is soft, about 4 minutes. Add parsnips, carrots, half of the potatoes, bay leaf and garlic.

Add the stock and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer, uncovered, until everything is very soft, about 1 hour. Remove soup from heat and allow to cool a little. Discard bay leaf.

Using an immersion blender, carefully puree soup until smooth. Stir in cream. Season with salt and pepper.

In a small saute pan, over medium heat, render bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon and drain on paper towels. Sautee the remaining potatoes in bacon fat until crispy and brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer potatoes to paper towel lined plate when done. Season with salt.

To serve, ladle the soup into serving bowls. Garnish with the crispy potatoes and bacon. 

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