Food can be used to affect travel, but food also has a big affect on traveling. Perhaps you’ve had the experience — the best glass of white wine you ever had at a picnic in Cinque Terre, that amazing ceviche on the beach in Mexico, the ta’amiya sandwich you spent three hours hunting down through the tangled streets of Cairo. Food can make some of the most memorable experiences of a trip — how many “best-you-ever-tasteds” have occurred away from home?

But was that white wine really very good? Or were you lulled by the sun, the beautiful countryside, the freedom from work and daily responsibilities, your lover by your side? Anybody who has rapturously sprung for a case of such wine to ship home might be quite disappointed to see how that country white holds up against everyday life. Some things are just for the moment. That may be, I’m afraid, the case for terrine for me.

My first terrine ever — unless you count meatloaf — was in Paris. Martha and I were only there for a couple of days and I was determined that at least one of our otherwise frugally-provided meals would be at a fancy-ish, bistro-ish place. With the help of a Lonely Planet guide we found a maison suitable for tourists such as ourselves. And there on the carte, among the first courses, was a terrine of foies blondes. My French was (and still is) severely limited — in fact I believe we communicated with our waitress in Spanish — but I knew enough to realize foie is a good thing.

I was surprised by what came to the table: a rectangle of grayish-tan meats, bound into a mosaic with jelly. It was cool to the touch. Also brought to the table was a large earthenware crock full of zesty cornichons served with rustic wooden tongs and a venerable old well of mustard — the charming details that makes you feel good about spending 40 euro on a meal. Biting into this mystery-meat melange I was again surprised, but pleasantly: the flavor was clean, meaty, and smooth, with the mustard and pickles adding a zesty punch. I greedily finished my plate, hoping Martha wouldn’t be interested in sharing.

Since then, I’ve been in love with the idea of terrine and  have tried to recreate that magical meatloaf in my kitchen — largely without success. My quest kicked off when I obtained a suitable reference, Time-Life’s Terrines, Pâtés & Galantines. This book has been the source of inspiration for a number of attempted terrines, but most of them have been disappointing, especially when compared against that Parisian ideal. There are a lot of challenges: getting the texture right is difficult: you want to mix chunks of meat, coarsely ground meat, and smooth purees into a homogenous loaf that slices clean. And then there’s the flavor. It wouldn’t be much of a terrine without liver, but thus far I seem to have a knack for overdoing the liver: my terrines come out with mineral flavors and are overly rich. Nor does the appearance help: the culinary aesthetics of the early-eighties cookbook that I am using as a source differ markedly from what we would consider attractive today, but I’d be happy if I could even pull them off. Instead, I often end up with grey loaves wrapped in wan strands of undercooked bacon, exuding a strange gray crud; the kind of thing I have to convince Martha to eat.

If that all sounds discouraging, I have also learned a lot from these many failures. Working the meat mixture thoroughly seems to improve the cohesion of the loaf, as does omitting things like whole nuts whose sharp edges tend to break it up. The taste for adding liquor so present in Terrines, Pâtés and Galantines is something best moderated if not omitted all together. Wrapping meat mixtures in fatback or covering them in rendered lard is kind of gross; bacon is acceptable, but it helps if it gets a little crisp. Go easy on the liver. Always fry a portion of the mixture to taste for seasoning before committing the loaf to the oven. A terrine is a lot of meat for two people to eat in reasonable amount of time.

So terrines continue as a work in progress, each one teaching me something about the next, until, I suppose, I am making that Parisian terrine of a few years ago.

Venison Terrine

This is my most recent terrine, which I made in the midst of a snowstorm that had us stranded inside, using only ingredients we had on hand.

Meats:

• 1 ¾# ground venison (a mix of ground and whole venison, cut into cubes or strips, would be preferable, but we only had ground)
• 4 oz fatback
• 14 ¾ oz lamb liver (this is way too much liver, but I was trying to use it up. Lesson learned.)

Aromatics:

• 1 onion (93 g)
• 2 cloves of garlic (8.6 g)

Seasonings:

• 20 g salt
• 2 g pepper
• .7 g juniper berries (about seven)
• 1 bay leaf

Adjuncts, Binders, &c.

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 20 g bread crumbs
• 125 g milk (1½ Tbsp)
• 9 g whiskey (2 tsp)

Sautee the livers in a few tablespoons of butter until they darken. Place in bowl of a food processor. Sautee onions and garlic, adding more butter if necessary. Add to processor with liver. Process liver and aromatics with milk until smooth. Work the pureed mixture through a sieve into a large bowl.

Cut fatback into 1″ chunks and freezer 30 minutes. Chop in food processor until coarsely ground. Add to bowl with liver puree.

Grind the seasonings, except the salt, in a spice grinder until no large chunks of bay leaf remain. Add spices and salt to bowl with liver puree.

Add venison, eggs, bread crumbs and whiskey to bowl. Work vigorously until thoroughly combined (you could also beat it in a stand mixer). Fry a small portion of the mixture in a skillet to taste for and adjust seasoning.

Butter a terrine or loaf pan and line with buttered parchment. Add meat mixture to the terrine, smoothing the surface. Cover with foil. Bake at 300ºF until loaf reaches an internal temperature of 140ºF. Remove from oven and cool, draining juices from pan.

Wrap the terrine — still in the mold — in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Place something flat over the top and weight it. The terrine is ready to eat the next day, though some argue for aging it a few days before slicing and eating.

Serve with mustard, pickles, and crusty bread or crackers.

Everybody knows latkes are made out of potatoes. Heck, the Wikipedia page even redirects to “potato pancakes” — and if Wikipedia says it, it’s most certainly true. But consider this: Jews have been celebrating Hanukkah since the Maccabees successfully took back and rededicated the temple in the second century BCE, yet potatoes did not become available to them until well after Columbus’s voyage at the end of the 15th century CE, 1,700 years later. That’s a lot of latke-free Hanukkahs!

That would be a problem, if tradition specifically called for eating latkes, but that particular practice emerged relatively recently among the Jews of Europe. All that’s really needed is fried food — the oil it is fried in calls to mind the miracle of the days supply of ritual olive oil burning for eight days that Hanukkah commemorates. The fritters themselves have varied throughout the years according to local practice and availability.

Enter the turnip: this venerable old-world brassica would certainly have been available to Jews in the second century BCE, and it fries up to a mean little fritter. If you’ve got a couple of turnips kicking around the bottom of the crisper drawer you don’t even need to wait till Hanukkah (which is like a year away at this point) to enjoy these.

By the way, a religion with eight days dedicated to eating deep-fried foods? That’s something I could believe in — other than the whole giving up pork thing, of course.

Turnip Latkes

• 2 medium turnips
• 1 tsp salt, or to taste
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp flour
• Black pepper, from the mill, to taste
• Olive oil for frying

Peel the turnips and coarsely shred them. I use a food processor.

Toss the turnip shreds with the salt in a medium bowl and let sit for a half hour, allowing the salt to draw out some of the moisture. After thirty minutes have elapsed, squeeze the turnip shreds (in your hands or in a kitchen towel) to extract as much moisture as possible. Turnips hold a lot of water, so squeeze hard.

Mix the turnips with the eggs, flour and black pepper. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat (you’ll have to use your judgment on how much — it should be no more than what would come halfway up the sides of the latkes but I used substantially less). When the oil is hot, take golf ball-sized dollops of turnip mixture and place them in the pan, pushing them as you do to flatten them into rough disks. Repeat until the pan is full. Fry the latkes until they are golden brown on the first side, then flip and fry until golden brown on second side. Remove from oil, drain on paper towels, and season with additional salt.

You can serve the latkes with sour cream or apple sauce but they are also great au naturel.

At the end of November, Remodelista featured the Filigrantrae, a Danish wooden Christmas tree that can be used year after year. I was taken, but the marthaandtom production budget didn’t exactly have $275 floating around with which to fulfill all our Scandinavian holiday fantasies.

Almost immediately after seeing the images on Remodelista and then Design Public, a little idea floated into my head… I could make this myself. A typical I-could-make-that feeling turns into “I could make it, I just didn’t” …but not this time.

With the aid of a math problem made Facebook status, I developed a plan, helped along by Emma’s Designblogg‘s sharing of a series of photographs originally from Bolig Magazine of a Danish family’s home with one of these babies in every room (at $275, you bet they come in multiple colors: rødt, lime, sort, hvidt, and lilla). This was the final inspiration I needed.

With only hours left before snow would seal us in our apartment for the foreseeable future, we made a mad dash for Home Depot on Friday night. While everyone else was stocking up on snowblowers and shovels, Tom and I were shopping lumber. At $26.86 before tax — power-sawing included — we were off to a good start.

As of yesterday evening, we now have a fully-decorated tree that can be used again and again.

Before you head to your local lumberyard to buy out their dowel supply, I would share that this wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I have a renewed understanding of what it means to have the right tools for the job and a steadier hand with a drill. With all of the mistakes that went into this one, I was very tempted yesterday to throw out the central pole and begin again (I bought different drill bits midway through the project almost doubling the total cost. But at less than $50, I’m still not complaining).

While it’s not perfect, I’m taking the suggestion of my father (who I must thank for his willing participation in a video-chat planning session on Saturday) and living with all the character of this first attempt. With no further work in store, I finished just in time for my self-imposed deadline of December 15, the night before my family’s tradition of reading the Novena de Aguinaldo is to begin.

The Ingredients:

four  ½” round pine dowels, each 48″ in length cut into twelve sections in varying sizes (my plan called for 4″x1, 6″x3, 10″x2, 16″x2, 20″x3, 18″x1, 26″x1 but I was only estimating based on pictures of the original)

one 5′ pine closet pole (the original design has an angled cut at the top… I forgot to request this of the staff at Home Depot)

one tapped 1/4-20 wood insert and accompanying bolt to fit (mine was about 2.5″ long) these should cost about $.30/ea. at your local hardware store

one pine 1×4 cut to lengths of 16.5″ (2 pieces) and 4″ (two pieces)

Wood Glue (you’ll need screws and/or wood clamps to get a tight seal)

Sandpaper

Drill with the following drill bits: ½” wood specific* bit (for drilling into the center pole), a smaller but not too small bit for creating pilot holes before using the ½” bit, ¼” bit (to create holes in the base and central pole for the bolt, ⅜” bit (to create a hole in the central pole for the wood insert)

Don’t forget wood scraps for practice if you’re less-than-handy with your drill. I bought a 1′ section of a closet pole in addition to the 5′ central pole of the tree to practice making ½” holes and kept the extras from the 1×4 to prevent my drill from going through our living room floor.

All measurements included are approximations based on studying pictures and descriptions of the original Danish design. If you plan to make your own, don’t worry about sticking too carefully to the exact specifications listed here. Note also that the original design uses birch, which is no doubt much easier to obtain in northern Europe than in a big box wood retailer in the midwestern United States, where pine is widely available for a very low cost.

*Using drill bits not made specifically for wood working may result in much less than perfect drilling. For best results, DO NOT use a flat bit, even if it is specified for use on wood. I used this brand and was able to buy a single ½” bit at the hardware store. For help getting to know your drill, click over to Design*Sponge’s new feature on building your toolbox.

Eating local food when it is in season — elitist though it may be — is a good trend for food in America, one that I hope has more staying power than most foodie fads. To that end, I try my best to try to promote that style of eating, on this blog and in my life. Farmers markets, winter squash recipes, pickling — all are inspired by the desire to enjoy the unique fruits of Minnesota. But sometimes I worry that this parochial focus threatens to cut us off from one of the greatest joys of eating: food’s ability to transport us to a place far away from home — for a fraction of the cost of air-fare.

Yesterday in Minneapolis was one of those days when one might have wanted to be somewhere else. Seventeen inches of snow in the space of a day can make you question your choice of the latitude you inhabit. Actually, the snow was pretty enough to watch if you didn’t have to drive anywhere — a situation Martha and I thought we were in until we realized our car was parked on the wrong side of the street. An hour, many shovel-loads of snow, and several good samaritans later we had the car parked safely out of the way of plows and were back inside for the rest of the day, hanging our clothes up to dry and thinking about the joys and challenges of living in the Great White North.

But as we had breakfast in the morning, leisurely eating arepas individually buttered, salted, and topped with cheese, we might as well have been in Cali, Colombia, enjoying the morning hours before the day’s heat and afternoon rains arrived. Martha’s Aunt Stella would wake us each morning with these freshly-grilled corn cakes as well as orange juice and coffee. After taking our time over breakfast it was just a short walk to Uncle Joaquín’s café — attached to the house — for a tinto and conversation with the regulars. In Minnesota yesterday morning our orange juice didn’t taste quite as fresh, and the coffee could be better (we love our Peace Coffee but you can’t beat coffee right from the source) but the taste of lightly fried arepas made the snow seem remote, something we were reading about in El Tiempo rather than something rapidly burying our car in a small white mountain.

We make arepas with Masarepa blanca that we hand-imported from Colombia but that is also available in all the Hispanic grocery stores in Minneapolis and can be ordered online. I just follow the package instructions: mix a cup of masarepa with one and a quarter cups of water and salt to taste, let the mix rest a few minutes, and then form ping-pong ball-sized balls into flat patties with very wet hands to prevent sticking (I use a side bowl of water to keep my hands hydrated). Tradition calls for these to be cooked on a parilla, a device for cooking them directly over a gas flame, but I have better luck using a non-stick skillet instead — the arepas stay together, brown more evenly, and can be cooked more than one at a time.

After spending our morning in Cali and much of our afternoon in the harsh reality of Minnesota, by evening we were ready to take another trip. Black beans and white rice is a dish enjoyed throughout the world, especially in Latin America, but for me it’s something I associate most with Cuba. Since the snow shut down most of the grocery stores early we had to rely on the supplies already in the house. Delving deep into the freezer produced a ham hock, which when combined with dried black beans, a bay leaf, half an onion, salt and water and left to cook for a few hours before being spooned over white rice makes a satisfying meal whether you’re at 45 or 23 degrees north. It never snows in Havana, so how could it be snowing when you’re enjoying soupy black beans and rice?

Spending last weekend out of town was great fun for Martha and me, but it seriously interrupted our usual weekend meal planning and grocery shopping routine. When we returned home on Sunday night, I was scrambling for ideas for what to put on the table. Rather than spend a precious weeknight writing a menu and grocery shopping, I decided to wing it for the week and try to use up some of the food we already had in the house. Yeah, I know, cooking from the pantry, not really something to write home — or write blog — about, but a couple of these dishes came out well enough that I thought I’d post them here, just in case someone else out there finds themselves stuck with the exact same ingredients.

1990s Pasta

Forgive me if I’m mixing up decades here, but it seems like the 90s was the time when we everyone was eating sun-dried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, arugula and penne. Well, as it happens Martha and I keep all these things on hand. One thing I wish we kept on hand that we don’t is pine nuts, which would have been great in this and also very in keeping with that 90s theme. The vinegar was a last second edition when I saw how muddy the tomato liquid was going to make the pasta look; it brightened the flavors up nicely.

• ½ cup sun-dried tomatoes (the dry kind, not the kind packed in oil)
• 3 garlic cloves, shaved thin on a mandoline
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• About half a bag of baby arugula (4 or 5 cups, maybe)
• 1 14oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• ½ cup chicken stock
• Salt and pepper
• 1# penne
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese

Cover the tomatoes in 2 cups of boiling water and allow to soak 15 minutes, until slightly rehydrated and tender. Strain the tomato soaking liquid into a small saucepan and reserve tomatoes. Bring tomato liquid to a boil and allow to reduce by half. Set aside.

Bring enough water to cook the pasta to a boil in a large stockpot. Place garlic slices, pepper flakes and olive oil in a large, cold skillet and heat over medium heat until garlic cloves brown. Stir in arugula and allow to wilt. Add tomatoes, beans, reduced tomato soaking liquid and chicken stock to skillet and bring to simmer. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cook the penne al dente and drain. Return to stockpot and toss with sauce, vinegar and cheese. Serve, topping with additional cheese as desired.

Moroccan Parsnips

I’m not sure if they grow parsnips in Morocco, but we sure do grow them in Minnesota, and for some reason I’m always 1.) buying tons of them and 2.) putting them into bland, earthy concoctions. So I turned to a warmer, spicier place to help get through this lingering late farmers market staple.

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 small bunch parsnips, peeled and cut into 3″ long, thin pieces
• 1 small onion, sliced thin
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp cayenne
• ¼ tsp paprika
• ½ tsp cumin
• ½ tsp coriander
• 1 ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup chicken stock
• 1 14oz can chickpeas
• ½ tsp zest plus ¼ cup juice from one orange
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp harissa
• ¼ cup minced parsley

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add parsnips and allow to brown. Stir, browning on other sides. Transfer parsnips to a bowl and set aside.

Return skillet to medium heat. Add onions and cook until edges start to brown. Add garlic, spices and salt and cook until fragrant, just a few seconds. Add chicken stock, chickpeas, parsnips and orange zest along with enough water to half cover the parsnips. Partially cover the skillet and simmer until the parsnips are completely tender — about 15 minutes for me, but it depends on the age and toughness of the parsnips.

When parsnips are ready, turn off the heat and stir in the harissa, orange juice, vinegar and parsley. Taste for seasoning. Serve with cous cous.