Mindfulness

Another foodless post in my food blog, I should stop calling myself a foodblogger, also because my foodless posts (sadly?) are read much more than my recipes :)

I have been cooking a lot lately, but I failed in taking any decent picture. Hence, tonight let me talk about one of my personal hot topics of 2014, which is mental health and specifically the effect of meditation and physical exercise on it. Wow, I am a real radical-chic, I wear a Burberry trench coat and talk about vegan shit and meditation, unbelievable! (the 10-years-back myself would have killed me)

I (in my spare time, as many friends would say) work as a researched in the field of neuroscience, and thus I hear quite often words related to brain conditions such as disease, plasticity, degeneration, and so on, but I guess I always saw such things as legends in my plots, factors in my anova, and nothing more.

But more recently, I joined the anxiety club, a very prestigious gathering of people that is not as exclusive as one might think, but instead rather welcoming with new members from all over the world :)  Googling my symptoms (and throwing years of medical research out of the window), amongst a lot of shit I also found something interesting: a paper showing that the effects of meditation in anxiety/depression are comparable to those of mild antidepressants. Ok, let's do it.

For the first week or so, I only learned to mind the weight of my ass on the chair. But I didn't quit, because at the time the thought of my ass pressing on the chair was better than anything else that was crossing my mind. I did it for a while and I still do it when I feel like. What I liked most was the idea of letting thoughts and feeling flow, without fighting the negative and chasing the positive ones. I am not sure I learned how to do it, perhaps not, but I liked this idea so much that I kept trying. But every now and then, the 10-years-back myself popped up in my mind, saying with a teasing voice: what are you becoming, a freaking hippie? Will you start dancing in the moonlight and talking with flowers? The brain is working as any other organs, full stop.

Well, after a while I made my mind on it. Yes, the brain is like any other organs, ok, a bit more sophisticated, but that's what it is. Abnormal mental states are symptoms that something is not working properly, as muscle pain is the symptom of too much exercise. But perhaps meditation is a way of training the brain to engage healthy circles of thoughts, just like controlled physical exercise is a way of training the body. BTW, training the body too has a positive effect on mental states, and this is one of the reasons why I run my ass off during the week :)

So, I still think lighting incense sticks and orienting the bed towards east (or west? or south?) is not helpful for mental health. Eventually, it is a misbalance of neurotransmitters. But meditation yes, perhaps it helps. Along with a deep search of what has gone wrong. And someone that every day reminds you that perfection is boring, just loving you the way you are.

The 10-years-from-now myself is looking at me with a gentle gaze and the smile of who thinks that a lot of water has to pass under the bridge (perhaps too much of a literal translation from the italian, but you know what I mean ;) )

Italy 0 - 2 Spain

Can't believe what I am about to say (considering that food is perhaps the only theme about which I feel some kind of patriotism, along with that sport in which we recently might not have done really great), but my Italian-style vegetable soup scored really poorly against the salmorejo in both taste and presentation :(

To give some background, a Spanish vs an Italian, throath infection vs wisdom tooth infection, unclear who was supposed to look after who, but love sometimes means also sharing antibiotics :)

Anyway, I thought about doing a vegetable soup as both could not really swallow, so I started with the usual base of celery-onion-carrot chopped in big pieces and I added courgettes and fennels, plus enough water to cover the vegetables. I cooked it for a good hour, then blended it leaving the texture quite coarse. In the meantime, I sliced one courgette and pan-fried it with two spoons of oil EVO. I added toasted Tuscany white bread, fresh chopped parsley, dill and some good oil EVO. 

Well, it was decent, especially the courgettes on top where making it less boring than what it was in fact. But.... oh-my-god how better the salmorejo was! Tastier and more suitable to the specific occasion, as it is served cold. On my defense I can say it is not vegan, so it is way easier to have something tasty when you add jamon and egg, but on the other hand I am sure it would have been delicious and refreshing also without them. I was defeated, but given the circumstances I don't mind too much :) 

Asparagus night

Here in the Netherlands they are all about asparaguses, and in my endless journeys back and forth from Frankfurt I always see tiny temporary asparagus stands, giving the road a very romantic touch. Thus, every monday morning I thank the asparaguses because for a little while I am distracted by the thought that I am waisting hours of life in the dutch countryside :)

To make a concrete effort and please the god of asparaguses, I decided to throw an asparagus dinner party for two. The god of asparaguses didn't like it too much though, as my guest was delayed by about three hours and I ended up eating spoonfuls of strawberry jam while watching breaking bad :(

RED AND YELLOW PEPPER ROSES

I roasted the peppers in the oven and peeled them carefully. I cut them into stripes and made tiny roses, stuffing the pepper stripes with pieces of anchovies. Lastly, curly parsley to decorate. (Sort of taken from www.giallozafferano.com)

ASPARAGUS CANDIES

These were my winners and helped a lot during the journey to Eurodisney of the day after :) I boiled the big white asparaguses and then round a slice of ham around them, then a strip of puff pastry. A beaten egg on top and sesame seeds, 15 minutes in the oven and that's it :) (Sort of taken from www.giallozafferano.com)

ASPARAGUS INVOLTINI

That were supposed to be shaped like involtini (rolls), but I forgot to buy the toothpick to secure them :D

I boiled the green asparagus tips for a couple of minutes. In the meantime, I rolled in flour the beef escalopes and cooked them in a pan with a spoon of oil and some lemon. I made the involtini with the escalope, a slice of gouda cheese and 5-ish asparagus tips. I baked the involtini in the oven for a few minutes. (Sort of taken from www.giallozafferano.com…. yes I was not that original after all :D )

Vegan/vegetarian/fish-etarian: how I see food and nutrition after 30 years of eating

Shame on me, I am not cooking anything worth writing, but my fingers are hitching, so let me write down some recent thoughts of mine about food and everyday nutrition :)

I always liked meat, while my relationship with cheese is problematic. I could not eat it as a child, so I basically started tasting cheese from my late 20ies onwards (and funnily enough, still I can hardly pronounce the word, it makes me think about something dirty and wrong :D)

Anyway, I have always been very critical with vegetarians, first because meat is yummy, second because if we just go back a couple of generations, eating meat was a privilege so still nowadays the choice of not eating it seems really posh to me. In addition to that, the fake meaty thingies for vegans looks soooooo sad in the shelf of the supermarket, sadder than going for a 5-minutes civil wedding and still wear a princess white dress :)

But more recently I got more and more involved in reading opinions and facts about healthy life style on one side, and about the impact of the massive meat consumption on the planet, hence I started changing my mind.

I still think eating meat is ok for kids, but we eat WAY too much meat and this is not only unnecessary and bad for the planet, it is also not healthy for ourselves on the long run (even though as a scientist I still need to see a peer-reviewed unbiased longitudinal study about the effect of meat on health)

I do not approve myself radical choices, as I think that balancing nutrition is enough to lower significantly the impact on the earth without giving up the pleasure of enjoying jamon along with aceitunas manzanillas and perhaps a mini of mahou :)

So here we go: I try to be fish-eterian during the week and perhaps even vegan mot of the times, so that I allow myself some meat and diary products only when truly there is a good reason. So you'll see a lot of bean soups in my place mon-thurs. Also I try to eat very light meals and avoid too many carbohydrates in the evening. The reason is basically the same: when I am in a nice social environment, I want to enjoy food without limitations. So, to keep a reasonable weight I try and stay light when it is just me, my hello kitty pyjama and a new girl episode :)

Crêpes de noantri

Something else that was buried into my photo folder and that my mum remembers as a great success is this very simple recipe that I made in Roma during my transition period between Tel Aviv and Maastricht. It was inspired by the cicoria (chicory), a bitter vegetable that I used to hate as a kid and now I like it so much I would eat it daily, just to compensate all the times I said "no!" to my mum with that sharp bitchy voice that only annoying kids can have.

CHICKPEAS CREPES WITH CHICORY AND BACON

I prepared the crepes dough with chickpeas flour, one egg and milk (not sure about the exact amount, but it has to be quite fluid). I fried the crepes one by one in a small pan with some butter (just a tiny bit, and then the first crepes is generally trashed). I filled the crepes with chicory boiled in water and then fried for a few minutes with one garlic clove and chilli, and bacon roasted in a pan. Parmigiano on top and 3 minutes in the oven, et voila'.

Pasta, pasta, pasta

According to the title, I am supposed to talk about pasta, but to do so I need to remember first what these pictures are about, as I created the draft of the post one month ago and forgot by now :) 

So, well, what is sure is that many things have changes since I cooked that pasta, starting from my spatial coordinates: I am writing from my new desk in Maastricht, a cute town where I will be spending at least 10 months in the near future, cute town that offered me a brand new kitchen made of bright steel that I already love with all my hearth, amen. And I will be spending my weekends between here and Frankfurt, that is only a quick train ride and a ridiculously slow bus ride in-the-middle-of-dutch-nowhere from Maastricht, so slow I get bored already writing about it. But Love puts wings on your mind and on your suitcase, babe. Anyway, to quote the balkan beat box, let's skip further bullshit and go to the point of:

THE RAVIOLI

It's all about the filling, and I think I found my perfect balance with this mix: minced beef (~250 gr), minced pork (~250 gr), minced mortadella, minced gambuccio (prosciutto), 2 eggs, a lot of parmigiano. The meat is cooked in a pan with onion and oil EVO, and perhaps some wine at some point? No idea, but if I were to make it again, I would probably add a bit ;)

Then the pasta is, as usual, made with 100 gr of four per egg (less than one egg per person), and I generally mix regular flour with semola to have a more coarse sheet. Mmmhhh, now I want some, it would help in defeating the waffle dependency that I developed since I landed in this country :)

ORECCHIETTE CON CIME DI RAPA

And coming back to the original theme, in one of my numerous back and forth to Frankfurt I carried with me some cime di rapa (no idea how to translate, it is a kind of green vegetable that tastes like broccoli with a bitter twist) to cook a super quick pasta, just boiling them along with the orecchiette (that made the same journey Roma->Frankfurt) and, when cooked, frying everything in a pan with oil EVO, chilli and one anchovy. The Chianti was waiting for me in Frankfurt, but I have the feeling it was not exactly german :)

Oriental chicken

While the Guinness chicken is frying in the kitchen, the last treat for my brother before I come back to the holy land, I want to talk about another possible and equally respectful death for the chicken, but with an exotic twist :)

I generally avoid cooking ethnic food at all. Sometimes, just for myself, I make an okoyomiyaki (my fav japanese dish), I eat it and then I feel like an american in front of fettuccine alfredo ;)

But a few days ago I was watching a cooking show on the telly and they were making a recipe with chicken, pear, couscous: looked yummy, maybe too far from the boundaries set by the glorious italian tradition but I was feeling adventurous enough :)

CHICKEN WITH PEARS AND COUSCOUS

I sliced a whole onion and gently fried it in the pan with a spoon of EVO oil, then I added the chicken cut into pieces. I had some beef stock ready in the fridge, so I melted the saffron into a glass of stock and added it to the chicken and let the pan go. In a different pan, I cooked two pears sliced with butter and honey until tender, and added it to the chicken only when the latter was ready.
Separately, I prepared the couscous following the instruction on the package and using the beef stock. I sliced a boiled carrot that was left when I prepared the beef stock and added it to the couscous.
I served the chicken on a couscous bed and the pear slices all around, to give my brother the opportunity to ignore the fruit and just go for the chicken, but he surprised me and shyly placed into his plate a slice of pear, moaning - he really loves me!