And then, he said, “You said you didn’t like it.” And I had to stop and think. What did I say? Often times, my mouth runs independently of my brain. I might think one word and an entirely different one tumbles out. It is very disquieting. So, when someone tells me I said something that I didn’t think I said, I tend to go along with it and chalk it up to my miswired brain. But this time, my daughter was there to back me up. “No, she didn’t say that, dad,” she attested. “Mom said she liked it.” My husband just shrugged it off.

But for me, this was a revelation. My husband does this all the time. He tells me that he heard me say this or that when, in fact, I did not say it. As I began to take better notice of our conversational exchanges, I realized that I am not wrong in what I say. He does not listen accurately and then blames me for the errors. And I believe him and think that I am dissolving into madness.

When wives say their husbands drive them crazy, it is a figure of speech. But in my case, it is reality. Okay, so I often have an altered sense of reality but I have witnesses here! It would be all too easy for my husband to drive me into an asylum. It is a good thing that he actually loves me. And a better thing that I am not wealthy.

But I do honor and appreciate the sun’s contribution to our sustenance. Furthermore, I like to use the sun’s energy for cooking. Living in Southern California means year ’round sunshine, save for a few days of heavy fog, smog and rain during the winter. I love to use the sun to dry clothes naturally and cook some solar recipes.

Using some directions I found on the Internet  for constructing an easy solar cooker made out of cardboard and aluminum foil, I cooked solar rice and beans. I was too nervous to cook raw meat, too impatient to cook solar biscuits. It took some tweaking in order to be sure the cooker got optimum sun rays. The results were exciting! The white rice came out fluffy, not dry or sticky. The beans were tender and steaming hot. They got cooked separated and mixed together before serving. I wanted to try some chopped chicken or ground beef but was afraid of attracting critters.

My homemade solar cooker was cheap and weak. It didn’t survive more than a single cooking. I’m thinking of building a stronger, more permanent solar cooker to use this summer. I’d love to be able to bake without heating up the house.

In Nepal, world charity organizations are teaching natives how to build cheap solar cookers to boil water using the sun’s heat. I love that. My husband asks why I spend so much time building a solar cooker when it takes only 60 seconds in the microwave to boil a mug of water. I don’t have an answer for that. It just feels good to use a natural resource. I think I will look into installing solar panels for the house. See what a small act like constructing a cardboard and foil solar cooker led to?

Here is a solar cooker recipe:

Golden Cornbread

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2/3 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg

1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat solar cooker to 300 degrees. In a mixing bowl, sift together dry ingredients. In another bowl, beat together the egg, milk and vegetable oil. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Pour into a greased 9″ round baking pan. Place into solar cooker, close lid and cook until bread is golden brown around edges (about 40 minutes).

So, when you get hungry, stand in the sun…and watch your solar food cook!

I, on the other hand, adore all flavors. Even the unexpected blends that result when the salad dressing spills onto the fish or the pickled beets discolor the potatoes. My palate can distinguish between the flavors still. Other times, it simply experiences the new and unusual. I don’t make a big deal out of it. I don’t scrape my plate in a panic, trying in vain to fend off the intruding foods the way they do.

Someone in my family once scoffed that only dogs eat food all mashed together. I don’t intentionally mix all of my food together. I enjoy eating the separate creations they are. But, I’m open to new things.

My husband literally has a fit whenever I so much as put ketchup on a hot dog. Yes, I know the culinary guidelines about frankfurters and mustard only. Who the heck made up that rule? Should food come with rules? Should flavors be restricted? I love ketchup. I put it on my hot dogs, fried eggs, potato chips and even pancakes.

Do I point out how it is the mark of a foreigner to pour soy sauce on steamed white rice? Or worse, to pour milk over it? No, I don’t. So let me be to enjoy what may seem strange and bizarre combinations to you, like lettuce and peanut butter sandwiches, soy sauce on spaghetti, tortilla chips and French dressing.

The Japanese traditionally aimed to uphold the integrity of an ingredient of a dish. Recipes were simple. Flavors pure. Foreigners thought the cuisine to be bland but they missed the point of the delicate tones of the lotus root or kelp or kabocha. In Hawaii where I was raised, cuisines of many peoples blended together. For example, the popular Loco Moco breakfast dish consists of steamed white rice (from Japan), fried eggs (from the American style breakfast), fried hamburger patty and gravy (Portuguese), topped with ketchup, soy sauce and hot sauce. If you’ve ever seen a plate or bowl of Loco Moco, it looks like something you feed your dog. Everything gets mashed together for a forkful of all the flavors. And it is good.

I appreciate the traditional Japanese philosophy of cooking and appreciating food purity. But it doesn’t tax my mind or palate when flavors collide.

Rigidity, to me, is a sign of mental problems. Don’t you agree? Here is a recipe that intentionally mixes all flavors onto one plate with savory results. It’s a common way to eat breakfast eggs in Hawaii, actually.

Aki-boy’s Best Breakfast: Spam, rice and eggs

2 Tbsp. butter

2 whole eggs

black pepper, to taste

2 large slices of Spam

1-1/2 cups white rice, cooked (leftover from the night before)

generous squirts of ketchup

generous sprinkling of soy sauce

In a small frying pan, melt butter. Crack whole eggs into butter and fry them sunny-side up until whites are cooked, but yolks are still runny. Sprinkle with ground black pepper. Transfer to a serving plate. In the same pan, fry the slices of Spam until slightly browned around edges.

To serve, top eggs with white rice, Spam and generous amounts of ketchup and soy sauce. Mash it all together and enjoy.

*Sometimes, the Spam is replaced with fried bologna, bacon, ham or Portuguese sausage. It’s all good.

He told me to clean and I would feel calm and clear. Since then, I do my very best to keep my home, including my kitchen, clean. There are days when it is perfectly in order. Other days when I should toss out the dried out leftovers and stale milk but don’t. The man was right. It has helped my mind immensely to keep my environment clean and orderly.

Today, my kitchen could be cleaner. My son didn’t take out the trash. There’s a used pot on the stove. Some empty ice cream dishes in the sink. It could be worse. Do you ever have days when you don’t feel like cooking because you don’t want to clean your messy kitchen? Or because you don’t want to mess up your clean kitchen? So, instead you grab some fast food and throw the trash onto your already full trashbin?

Those are what I call Toast Days. Far from haute cuisine, toast nonetheless is one of the world’s most sublime culinary creations. What would be simpler? The best toast is made from fresh, thick-sliced bread (your choice, but I love egg bread, sourdough and rye best.) Just plunk into a toaster and butter generously and immediately upon pop up. Crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Hot buttered toast is one of life’s simple pleasures.

Top with cinnamon and sugar or fruit preserves for dessert. Serve sliced mushrooms sauteed with garlic, butter and Worchestershire sauce on the slices for a hearty vegetarian main dish. In England, an old pub staple called Welsh Rarebit,  melted cheese sauce on toast, was the poor man’s substitution for a rabbit dish. Chipped Beef on Toast was served up to many a serviceman. Even the wealthy relied upon toast points upon which to serve their pricey caviar. The Chinese make a delicious appetizer called Shrimp Toast, with ground shrimp paste smeared on bread pieces and deep-fried until toasty. A club sandwich isn’t quite the same if it isn’t toasted.

When I’m having a bad day, hot buttered toast makes me feel better. It doesn’t call for a lot of cooking, dirtying pots and pans or cleaning up. Eating complicated foods only adds to the din in my frazzled brain. Hot buttered toast is perfect.  If I’m not completely catatonic, I’ll enjoy the following on my toast:

Salsa

Caponata

Olive tapanade

Hummus

Melted cheeses

Herbed butters

Parmesan cheese sprinkles

Cheese spreads

Herbed cream cheeses

Fresh tomatoes

Lox, capers and red onion

Roasted garlic

Chicken salad

You get the picture. It might seem crazy to go on about toast but it’s an underrated culinary staple. Here are some new ways to toast toast.

Pan Toast

Thick sliced, fresh bread (any type)

real butter

Heat a amall frying pan over medium high flame. Add a tablespoon or two of butter and coat the bottom of the frying pan as the butter melts. Place one or two slices of bread on the melted butter and cook until it is golden brown. Add more butter and flip the bread to toast the other side. You can butter the bread slices before adding to the pan as an alternative method; just be sure to butter the entire slice all the way to over the edge and be generous!

Toast for a Crowd

If you have breakfast guests, it can take a long time to toast enough bread for a crowd. Usually, the first slices go cold before the last batch is done. This is a way to make toast for everyone at the same time.

Thick sliced, fresh bread

real butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Generously butter both sides of bread slices. Place on a cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown on each side, turning if necessary.

If you want to know if a chef is crazy, check out how many kitchen tools and appliances he has. I know. I have a million and I still only use my knife! How crazy is that?!? Those appliances that I purchased throughout the years, in three easy payments, sit in my garage, were garage saled, got freecycled or were donated to charity. Sure, they were nifty. They did their little job pretty well. But they took up space. They needed to be stored, retrieved, cleaned usually by arduous methods and then stored again until the next time called for its chore-specific use.

On the other hand, my knife is convenient. Stores nearby in a tiny space. Cleans easily. And performs a variety of tasks. By relying on it, my knife skills have improved vastly. I could perform open heart, brain or plastic surgery if not for that little nuisance of anesthesia. Oh, and that bleeding part. And the sewing up part. Ah, I guess I should keep my knife skills within the kitchen.

If you ever feel the need to wield your knife, here is a good recipe that calls for a lot of chopping. And no bleeding.

Chopped Avocado Salad

Haas avocados, ripe but not overripe

Roma tomatoes

red onion

hearts of Romaine lettuce

bacon, fried crisp

fresh lemons

salt and pepper, to taste

Peel and dice red onion and place in a mixing bowl. Peel, seed and chop the tomatoes and add to bowl. Peel, seed and chop the avocados. Be sure they are not over- or underripe. Place the avocados in with the onion and tomatoes. Squeeze fresh juice from lemons and pour over the vegetables. Salt and pepper to taste. Gently toss. Chop lettuce and place onto serving dishes. Top with generous portions of chopped avocado salad. Garnish with fried bacon slices or, if you can’t resist using your knife more, chop the bacon, too.

How much of each ingredient? Do I need to tell you everything?!? Use what ratio you prefer. It’s all about what tastes good to you.

 ——-Confession

I’ve only done two crazy and stupid things with my kitchen knife: once, I nearly hacked my middle finger off when I tried to imitate the fast-chopping Chinese chefs on television. The other time, I tried to dig out a brown spot on my palm only to learn much later about skin pigmentation.

I feel sorry for those who feel cooking is beneath their social stature. Cooking is creative expression. Cooking is to imbue your own spirit energy into the dishes you make. To cook and offer food is to impart your own life force to the blessed ones who partake.  Cooking is nurture; cooking is love. Those who don’t cook deny themselves and others of spiritual and temporal goodness.

Some people may say that cooking is unnatural…that humans have bastardized the purity of whole foods…that the good earth already brings forth our sustenance with highest nutritional values for our bodies. That cooking destroys the nutrients and diverts our attention to unnecessary activities. Men should eat to live and not live to eat. I have pondered over this thought often because there is some merit to it.

There are extremes we should avoid. Saving all of our energy to cook and eat and indulge in gastronomic pleasure keeps us from other life-enhancing activities. Yet, eating austerely for pure sustenance and no pleasure at all denies us of one of life’s important experiences. A former co-worker decided to go vegan and, not knowing how to cook, he stuffed a brown paper bag with his lunch: an unpeeled carrot, a raw potato and a stalk of celery. Nourishing our bodies should not be done haphazardly or without any care. That is to deny the importance of our bodies as well as our human connections. Preparing food, eating food and breaking bread together are significant acts with mental, emotional, spiritual repercussions.  I taught him that there were many delicious ways to enjoy being a vegan without carrying around a feed bag like a horse.

While I can’t help but revel in some of the masterpieces created by great chefs, I still believe that the best meals come from simply prepared, fresh ingredients. This is not only to retain nutrients but to honor the earth’s bounty. Fresh salads are the  finest examples of partaking of the earth’s natural goodness. In the past, a mere sprinkling of sea salt was the only dressing a salad received. After eating an undressed salad, I’ve learned to taste the real flavor of each individual green and vegetable. But fresh greens are exalted by a light, natural dressing. I rarely buy a bottled dressing anymore. This is a base dressing that you can play with by adding different herbs and spices. But I like to keep it simple. If you don’t like to cook, try this and evolve a little. If apes could read a recipe, I dare say they would elevate their cuisine and evolve a little faster, too.

Lemon Citrus Dressing

1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice (can replace half with other citrus juices like lime and orange)

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2  tsp. sea salt

1 Tbsp. honey or sugar

1 tsp. mustard (dijon or brown)

pepper to taste

Blend all ingredients together and chill before serving over fresh greens. Adjust sweet and tartness to taste. Add fresh herbs like basil, thyme and ginger for variety. You need very little of this to dress a salad. Keep it light.

Try this on any combination of fresh greens. We love green pea sprouts with their tender, young, vibrantly green leaves. And arugula and dandelion greens. The greener, the better. But always fresh!

——-

Speaking of higher functions, did you know that being able to purse your lips to kiss is a higher brain function? My developmentally handicapped son could not purse his lips. He still learned to give “open-mouthed” kisses.   Think about it: which animals can purse their lips into a kiss besides primates? I mean real puckers, not just touching snouts or anything.

Is it any wonder that my family became expert savers and frugal cooks? But as our generation grew accustomed to abundance, we clashed with our formally penurious folks. Waste was a cardinal sin. Wasting food meant a next life of starvation. Every grain of rice came into this world to be of use to humans. Washing it down the drain meant keeping it from its divine purpose.

Once my cousin was horrified to find some weevils had gotten into the bag of white, short-grain rice. Her mother acted as if there was nothing wrong as she measured out cup after cup then washed away the starch and the uninvited guests down the sink. “Ma, you have to throw out the rice!” she exclaimed. “There are bugs in the rice!”

Her mother simply shrugged. “They no eat much.” My cousin protested to her father who said with equal indifference, “In some countries, those are delicacies! Good protein.”

My cousin did not eat rice that night or any other night while she stayed at her mother’s. But in a sense, her father was correct. Bugs are good food in some cultures. My son wrote a college paper on entomophagy, the practice of eating bugs. In the past, people once considered eating lobsters and shellfish to be disgusting. After all, they are ocean bugs.

A girl I knew back in college was well-traveled and told me that she had eaten fried grasshoppers in Africa. I asked what they tasted like and she just shrugged. “They were crunchy,” she said. “And their legs got stuck between my teeth.”

Some people go to great lengths – and expense – to dine on chef-created bug dishes at annual soirees that serve exotic foods. For them, eating bugs is a novel, one-time experience. For others, bugs are a part of their staple diets. Readily available, bugs are cheap and protein-packed. Some say that entomophagy could end world hunger. Would you make bugs a part of your regular diet to save on your food budget? Here are some ways people do.

Cazu Marsu is a larvae-infested cheese traditionally made from Sardinian sheep milk. Cheese is eaten by the cheese fly larvae that defecates a soft, cheesy product that is then spread onto crackers and eaten. Sometimes, the larvae themselves are consumed with the cheese because people find them delicious.

Chapulines are toasted grasshoppers often eaten in Central and South America. They are toasted on a flat cooking surface and spiced with garlic, lemon juice, salt and chili peppers. Chapulines are a favorite street food and often eaten at ballgames.

Tarantulas are said to taste like lobster or crab when cooked. An Australian survivalist says to stick one on a skewer and roast it over an open flame to singe off the hairs. The belly should burst, exposing the white cooked flesh. When you think of it, a crab looks very much like a spider.

Before you catch a bug and pop it in your mouth, do a little research about the insect species to learn how to properly prepare them. Some need to be fully cooked to avoid nematodes.

I, myself, may never eat insects on purpose. But here is a recipe for making your own chapulines at home:

1 lb. grasshoppers or chapulines

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 chile, seeded and chopped

salt to taste

3 fresh limes

Buy your grasshoppers from a good source. Although they frequently come from Oaxaca, Mexico, there have been reports of high lead content in their water and chapulines. Carefully rinse the grasshoppers. Pluck off the wings and legs of each one. In a large frying pan, heat oil. Add garlic and pepper and stir to flavor the oil Add the grasshoppers, being careful not to break them up. Fry until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Place in serving dish. Sprinkle with salt and squeeze on fresh lime juice.

Some of these sound unpalatable, but the flavors are there. Just think of the blender as doing all your chewing for you. People usually prefer this approach to wired jaw eating because they still can enjoy full flavors of regular meals. They don’t have to prepare a different meal from the one everyone else is having.  These recipes are good for anyone who has dental problems and swallowing or choking issues.  As for me, I prefer chewing. I adore crunchy textures and tire quickly of liquid diets but these “Wired Jaw” recipes can help those who can’t chew for whatever reason.

Blender Lasagna

One cup of a  fully cooked lasagna (homemade or frozen), cooled to room temp

2 cups V-8 or tomato juice

Pour  one cup of the vegetable juice into a blender or food processor. Add the cooled, single serving of lasagna. Be sure the lasagna is not hot or pressure will build up during blending. Cover and pulse until smooth. Add additional juice to achieve desired consistency. More for a thin liquid; less for thicker.

How to blend entrees

You can puree other fully prepared and cooked entrees to be able to drink them through a straw. Just be sure to blend while the foods are somewhat cooled (you can microwave or reheat the liquid meal later) and blend with a liquid that enhances the flavor of the foods. Use a ratio of two cups liquid to one cup of solid food, adding more liquid to achieve the desired consistency. Here are some examples:

beef entrees (hamburgers, pot roast): Use beef broth as liquid.

chicken or pork  entrees (chicken pot pie, chicken casseroles): Use chicken broth

vegetable or pasta entrees (spaghetti, ravioli, lasagna): Use V-8 or tomato juice. If it’s a cream-based dish, use milk as the liquid.

fish entrees: Use fish stock or vegetable stock.

If you don’t mind the mixed flavors, go ahead and blend the starch and vegetable side dishes with the main entrees.  Rice should be blended separately and then added to the rest of the foods. Note: puree the salads as a separate meal to drink. You wouldn’t chew a bite of salad with the entree in your mouth at the same time, would you?

But do as you wish. There are no rules as long as you’ll drink it.

My second taste experience was of poi. Poi is a sticky paste made from the wetland taro plant. It is steamed then pounded much like a mashed potato. It has a reputation for being highly nutritious as well as easy to digest, so my mother made her famous “poi cocktail” by blending a little thinned poi with milk for my bottle.

I knew how this was done because she’d perch me on her hip while using her free hand to create her concoction. Pouring the two simple ingredients into my Playtex plastic bottle, she would screw on the cap and shake, shake, shake it until it was blended into a nice, tan-colored, milky-poi drink. Thicker and more substantial than milk, it satisfied my tummy until the next mealtime.

Once in a while, a clump of poi got clogged in the criss-cross cut of the rubber nipple, and I whined and held it up for my mother to squeeze it out. I remember that she was the answer to all of my problems whether it was a stuck milk bottle, a wet diaper, a broken toy or a bruised knee. How nice it was to be a baby with a mother you can rely upon.

She did not wean me from the bottle at an early age. I still drank from a milk bottle when I was two years old. Now, I could toddle around and I learned that if I squeezed my bottle, milk would squirt on people and they would leap a few inches from the ground and yelp—and it made me laugh. I hid under tables to squirt them until my mother smacked me and took away the bottle. I stopped because I did not like to get smacked or my bottle to be taken away.

My mother still extols the virtues of poi. She considers it “nature’s most perfect food.” Taro root does contain vitamins, minerals and fiber. Plenty of natural fluoride, too. When skeletons of native Hawaiians were dug up, archeologists were surprised to see that there were full sets of white teeth still attached to their jaws. My teeth benefited from eating a lot of poi, too.

How to make Poi Milk Cocktail for Babies

First of all, finding poi is difficult today because the island plots once used to cultivate the taro are worth more as commercial real estate than agricultural farms. Plus, growing taro – the wetland variety used to make poi – isn’t easy. It calls for continuously running water while fighting off a host of plagues. Some Hawaiians grow only enough for their own needs in backyard set-ups. The rest of us have to pay around $25 for a five-pound bag of prepared poi, when we can find it. My mother picked up some freeze-dried poi in small containers when she came back from Hawaii. Reconstituting some with water and heating it in the microwave, I found it to be lacking in flavor. But it’s better than no poi.

When making poi milk cocktail for your baby, it is vital to use fresh, not sour, poi. Do NOT give poi cocktail to infants younger than six months.

Poi Milk Cocktail for Babies

2 Tbsp. fresh poi, thin

6 oz. breast milk or fresh, pasteurized cow’s milk

Poi consistency varies. For this recipe, use thin poi (three-finger poi). Add the poi to a milk bottle then pour in the milk. Cover and shake well until the poi is completely blended. Squeeze some milk cocktail out of the nipple to be sure it runs out. If you do not blend well, a lump may clog the nipple. Lumps can choke infants so do not give them poi milk cocktail or use nipples for infants with small holes to prevent lumps from passing. Just blend it well!

I have acquired a taste for poi. It is lovely and nutritious!

Yet, it is true. As a very small baby, I knew that there was a place in our home where everyone seemed more alive than any other room of the house. Our small wood house in the outskirts of Honolulu had a small, bright kitchen with a swinging door that was usually propped open by a brown rubber doorstop that got tucked underneath the bottom. As an infant, I wasn’t brought into the kitchen often. My mother, white cloth diaper as a burp cloth draped over one shoulder, nursed me while she sat on the sofa in the living room and watched the black-and-white television set. I suppose an infant is only concerned with the source of her milk as I was, but my young watchful eyes and ears also observed that something was up behind that swinging door.

A lot of clanging and sizzling. Water rushing and sloshing. Chopping and the occasional whacking. I was too young to connect these sounds with the sumptuous smelling foods that emerged from behind the swinging door. But there always seemed to be noisy activities behind it just before the pleasant aromas began. Now and then the telephone rang, and my mother’s muffled voice carried on a one-side conversation. Once in a while, a bunch of women folk drank coffee and ate and critiqued banana bread at the kitchen table while I lay in a playpen nearby. Their hushed gossiping gave way to bursts of cackling laughter, making me jump.

I recall being bathed in the kitchen sink and how nice it felt to be in the cool water during those hot and sticky Honolulu summers. Later, I learned that colorful, icy juices came on sticks from the freezer. Fresh green mangoes got peeled, sliced and dunked into a mixture of soy sauce and black pepper. Sticky fish scales flew about and stuck everywhere – walls, ceilings, faces and mother’s tank top – making my older sisters squeal. Large boiling pots hissed as fresh crabs or Chinese pork hash steamed, making the house hotter.

Oh, those suffocating, humid island days. There always seemed to be a small sputtering fan whirring damp air around the house. I spent my infancy nearly naked, wearing an uncomfortable cotton diaper with safety pins and a white tank undershirt. For special occasions, they’d slip on colorful baby-sized muumuus. When I was able to sit in a highchair, my thighs clung to the clear plastic seat. My mother would toss a few ice cubes into the tray to keep me amused. I’ve come up with a better ice toy for tots. But if you choose to use them for children younger than the age of two, keep a watch for 1) shrinking ice cubes that can choke a child and 2) painfully cold (frostbite even!) fingers because sometimes, babies won’t let go of ice even though it is freezing their hands. That’s why this recipe is better for children two years and up.

Another great way to keep kids cool in the summer is to make fruit cubes. Puree fresh fruit and freeze in ice cube trays. Pop them out and place them in the highchair tray. Cool and naturally sweet.

 Summer Baby Ice Toy

 a colorful, safe toy smaller than 4” wide

a small freezer-safe container

water

 Wash and disinfect the toy. Rinse well. Place the toy in the small container and fill with water. Freeze. Pop it out of the container and let your child play with the ice cube.

 *By the way, this works great for keeping pets cool, too. Freeze a dog toy or treat (one that won’t get soggy) in a large pan of water. Toss it outside to keep your pet happily occupied.  This reminds me of a girl I knew who loved to eat MilkBone dog treats. She munched on them as though they were the best cookies she ever tasted. Gosh, I’m starting to think that it’s not me who is nuts, just my friends. I seem so sane compared to them. I’ve never eaten anything not intended for human consumption, except for fingernails…a bit of paper when a kid in school dared me to…a gnat that flew into my mouth when I was talking…which was delicious. (JJ!)