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Days,
 she prowls the house in bra and
panties, chewing ice cubes, holding a cigarette in
one hand. It
calms her to see it burn. The bra holds a prosthesis that
replaces her left breast. She unclasps the bra and sets
it out on the dresser. A wide pink scar curls around
her chest. He studies the second pink scar, the one
in the dresser mirror. "This is our secret,"
she tells him.
Chopped Chicken Liver
You either love liver or hate
it. If
you love it, chances are you can appreciate it any
form, whether as fried liver and onions, dirty rice,
pate de foie gras, or ankimo (monkfish liver
sushi).
Chopped chicken liver is a relatively easy way to get
your liver fix (well, it doesn’t get much
simpler than fried liver and onions, does it?) This recipe is
a little nontraditional, but very tasty.
1 pound of chicken livers,
rinsed and dried on paper towels
1 large yellow onion,
finely diced
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup butter
2 tbsp tawny port (or red
wine, or brandy)
salt and pepper
Heat the butter and olive oil
over moderate heat and add the diced onion. Saute the
onion, stirring occasionally, until it is golden
brown. Add
the livers and saute the livers until they are fully
cooked (when cut in half, you should see little or no
pink color). Add the port, and continue to saute until
the alcohol has boiled off, about 3 minutes. Add about 1
teaspoon salt and about 1 teaspoon freshly ground
black pepper. Pour the entire contents of the frying pan
into a bowl, and allow it to cool.
Coarsely chop the livers in a
food processor. Add water, about 2 tablespoons at a time,
stirring or processing between additions in order to
incorporate the water. Once the livers have been
chopped to a small dice (still some texture, not
mush), transfer to a bowl and continue mixing by hand
only. Continue
to add water until the mixture is the consistency of
mashed potatoes. Taste the chopped livers and add salt and
pepper to taste. Refrigerate and serve cold.
Dressing it up: how do you
garnish something that looks like, um, refried beans?
Most
people mould chopped chicken liver into a clever
shape and place crackers or toast points around the
perimeter. Thinly-sliced onion should also be
provided for people who like a bit of raw onion with
their liver.
Years later,
Angstwolf is driving home from
medical school for the holidays accompanied by his
parents. His
mother sits in the passenger seat, his father
pretends to sleep in the back. Angstwolf, armed with the
wealth of knowledge that only six months of medical
school can bestow, patiently draws her out:
She remembers waking from
surgery to find Sargent looking at her with a very
serious expression. There was something in his expression
which she found distasteful, something perhaps she
interpreted as a judgment on herself, or in any case,
something that implied an absence of love. How would she
have liked him to appear?
She was an essentially
friendless person who, even at that time, must have
had an impoverished relationship with her brother and
parents; thus with one misinterpreted glance she
distanced herself from the only person who may have
been able to support her. But distrust was one of the
fundamentals of her personality. Angstwolf
cannot imagine events playing out any differently.
Hummus
For people seeking to live by
the Mediterranean diet, hummus is a near-perfect
food. Writing
a recipe for hummus is a bit challenging, since a
great deal of flavor adjustment occurs during the
preparation. As long as you do not make any drastic
moves, you will be pleased with the final result.
1 cup dry garbanzo beans
(chickpeas)
tahini
olive oil
lemon juice
salt
garlic
garnishes: chopped parsley,
harissa, sumac (see below)
Soak the beans overnight. Boil them in a
large volume of water until they are tender (check
periodically).Strain the beans and allow them to cool.
Once the beans are cool enough
to handle, gently squeeze them, bean by bean, to
remove the skins. (No, really! You can certainly omit this
step, since it is really time-consuming. But you will
notice the skins, if not when you eat the hummus,
then later on, since the skins produce flatulence.)
Combine the beans, 1/4 cup
tahini, the juice from one lemon, 1/4 cup olive oil,
1 teaspoon salt, and one crushed clove of garlic in
the mixing bowl of a food processor. Process until
well mixed. Taste the hummus and add more garlic,
lemon juice, olive oil or salt until you are
satisfied with the result. The hummus will still have the
wrong texture: it will be much too thick.The final step
is to gradually add cold water, mixing after each
addition, until the hummus has the correct
consistency. Refrigerate and serve chilled.
To serve, mound the hummus at
the center of a large serving dish. Using a
moistened spoon, make a depression in the center of
the mound. Pour a bit of olive oil into the
depression. Sprinkle the hummus with sumac and chopped
parsley. Put
the harissa into a small bowl and place it to one
side of the hummus. Around the perimeter of the hummus place
pita bread, wedges of onion, celery, carrots—
whatever you want.
About
the ingredients. Tahini is a
sesame seed paste; it is used in hummus and as a
sauce for falafel. Tahini is marketed by Joyva. Harissa is a
relish made of roasted red peppers. As red pepper
relishes go, harissa is high on flavor and low on
heat. It
is marketed by Indo-European Foods as "red
pepper salsa." Sumac is a purple spice that has a mildly
sour flavor. It is very good on rice or kebabs. Sumac is
marketed by Sadaf International Gourmet Foods.
He continues the
questioning, and she responds:
It became plain to her after
two events. She was taking a shower when she felt an
electrical jolt travel from her tail bone to her
scalp. This
was not one of those stray sensations, the body
providing phantom responses to phantom stimuli; the
agent for this sensation was external, and as such
was a mystery to be explained.
Soon afterwards, she awoke one
night to find Sargent absent from the bed. He was not in
the bedroom, not in the bathroom. Terrified, she
staggered through the house searching for him. Staggered
because something unnatural gripped her legs. She left the
house and made it as far as the driveway before she
collapsed and lost consciousness.
She awoke again the next
morning, in her own bed, Sargent asleep beside her. When
questioned, he denied ever having left the bed. He became
angry when she persisted in her inquiries.
And
then I understood.
Guacamole
The challenge is not in making
guacamole... any dufus can make guacamole. No, the real
challenge is in making a guacamole that will cause
your guests to perk up and say, "Hey! What the
hell is this?" Here it is both ways, dull and
interesting:
Dull
Guacamole
This is very acceptable
guacamole, assuming your avocadoes are ripe. Taste each
avocado before using it! Underripe avocado is very
unpleasant and cannot be disguised by any amount of
spice.
3 to 4 ripe avocadoes
2 to 3 limes
salt, pepper to taste
Halve an avocado and squeeze
some lime juice on the flesh before removing the
seed. Remove
the seed and scoop the flesh into a bowl. Taste the
avocado to make sure it is ripe. Squeeze a bit
more lime juice on the flesh. Repeat with the remaining
avocadoes, one at a time.
Coarsely mash the avocadoes
with a large wooden spoon (not a fork, which will
tend to create a guacamole that looks like green
mashed potatoes). Add salt and pepper and additional lime
juice to taste.
Interesting
Guacamole
Dull guacamole (see above)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons harissa
(described above, in the hummus section)
1 tablespoon freshly
crushed garlic
½ medium yellow onion,
finely diced
cilantro (AKA Chinese
parsley), finely diced, about 1/4 cup
1 or 2 tomatoes, coarsely
diced
Combine the ingredients. Mix most of
the cilantro into the guacamole, but reserve a bit of
it to sprinkle on top as a garnish. You may
substitute any red pepper salsa for harissa, but you
will miss out on the intense roasted chili pepper
flavor of the harissa. Try to use the most flavorful
tomatoes possible (e.g. vine-ripened).
Eat with tortilla chips, or as
a side dish with almost any Mexican main course. Important:store guacamole by placing plastic wrap directly
over the dip, such that little or no air contacts it.
Refrigerate,
and eat it as soon as possible. Guacamole does not keep for
long...
His skin prickles
when he realizes that she took
her dream as a true experience, that she felt
compelled to explain these remarkable phenomena, and
that in the act of explanation she arrived at a world
view which would grip her for years.
The electric shock;
Sargent’s absence from bed; the force that
gripped her legs and ultimately dragged her down into
oblivion; Sargent’s amnesia for the preceding
night’s excursion. From these elements she
assembled a universe of rays that could monitor
everything from vital signs to conversations, beams
to induce amnesia or sleep. Manipulating these rays and
beams were the doctors and medical researchers who
had caused her cancer and who would continue to study
her, waiting for her demise.
As the months and years passed,
she came to realize that she was not going to die;
realized, in fact, that she represented a cure for
cancer.
Salsa Verde con Ajo de Shewolf
Like many of Angstwolf's and
Shewolf’s recipes, this one was inspired by
something they devoured at a restaurant, enjoyed, but
thought could stand improvement. As with
anything green (except Jello), Boy does not regard
this as food and will not even sample it.
½ cup cilantro
1 cup parsley (Italian
parsley, if available)
1 heaping tbsp freshly
crushed garlic
½ cup olive oil
½ tsp coarsely ground
black pepper
1 tsp capers (optional) or
lime juice
1 tbsp harissa
salt to taste
1 cherry pepper
Combine the cilantro, parsley,
garlic, olive oil and black pepper in the container
of the food processor. (You will want to include a few
of the cilantro and parsley stems, as this will add
texture.) Process
carefully; you want the salsa to be coarsely but
evenly chopped.
Remove the seeds from the
cherry pepper and coarsely dice the pepper. Cherry peppers
are very flavorful red peppers that look a bit like
cherry tomatoes. They are not very hot.
As usual, you may substitute
another red pepper salsa for harissa (e.g.
sambal oelek— now ain’t that helpful?)
Add the harissa, cherry
peppers, salt and capers (or lime juice). Taste and
correct the seasoning by adding additional salt,
pepper, lime juice or harissa. Keep in mind your particular
"garlic tolerance" when you decide how much
garlic to use in this recipe— it is raw garlic,
after all.
This salsa is delicious with
just about any meat or fish. It can also be used as a
topping for toasted French bread slices (a jazzy
garlic bread, essentially), or it can be eaten with
raw vegetables. If you really want to shovel it down, eat
with chips... or a spoon.
The trace of guilt he feels
in revealing their secret
disperses when he realizes that
Sargent shows no sign of surprise. Indeed, when
he sees the lack of reaction on Sargent’s face,
he wonders if he misunderstood the concept of
"secret." Brother and Sister know, too. Eyes Pinned
Open is in the room and must have heard him blab
their secret, and yet she is not upset.
Eventually he realizes that it
is a family secret.
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