Novel Eats

I have always enjoyed dinner rolls. They are light, fluffy, and taste delicious – especially when warm and slathered with butter. I don’t have them very often, though. They are usually high in calories, and not terribly healthy if made solely with white flour. I indulged this Christmas, however, and tried a vegan recipe for dinner rolls that I found on VegWeb.

I have meant to share this and other recipes with you for the last several days, but we have all been sick for almost a week. Even our cat, Pixel, is sneezing while looking cutely pathetic or pathetically cute. Now we’re on the mend, which is probably a good thing since it’s back to work tomorrow.

Weekend before last we went to the year-round farmers market in Union Square. Since we are now in the winter months farmers are mainly selling root vegetables. There are other goods to be had – fresh meats and eggs, wines, cheeses, and assorted odds and ends. My mission was to obtain some fingerling potatoes, which I have never had before, and prepare them for our Christmas meal. It was a success – although I had a hard time figuring out which varieties to buy. I settled on three, but I’ll admit that I forgot which ones they were.

I am still in the midst of reading The Shark God by Charles Montgomery, so I decided to share the results of this weekend’s baking: vegan banana bread. This is a recipe that I make every couple of months or so, and have found it to be easy to make, delicious, and perfectly moist. For those of you who are vegan or who are trying to lay off of eggs, this is a great replacement for standard banana bread that uses eggs.

See how easy it is to make your own homemade tofu jerky!

At home, Ushman makes rice and lentils. As he and Farak did when they had many people for dinner, he sits on the rug in the living room, with his bowl in his lap. There is a soccer match on TV. The game keeps him company. He accepts his loneliness with resolve. It is familiar to him. There are no surprises in it.

-The Rug Merchant by Meg Mullins

Aside from living vicariously through other people’s sadness, it has been a while since I have experienced my own permeating melancholy. So when I sit here wondering what food it is that I prefer to have when I am swimming in the blues, I come up empty-handed. There was a time when I’d go out and buy myself chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, and a good amount of string cheese – but these days I’d like to think that I’d choose a healthier fare like Ushman did.