Going Bananas at Holiday Cookie Exchange

On Wednesday, December 9, in a private meeting room, our outreach group from the Washington English Center, from China, France, Brazil, Costa Rica, Spain, Lithuania, and the USA celebrated our last meeting of 2014 with an American tradition: an exchange of mostly homemade cookies, crêpes and treats from our homelands.  Food facilitated conversation about holiday traditions.  Among the represented countries, only in China, where red string bracelets ward off evil spirits,  are sweets not traditional for the new year.   In the USA and in Russia, the new year may begin with a polar bear plunge in icy water, not so special for Russian men who dunk whenever the air is colder than the water, and, when available, take a sauna before and after.  Gentle switching of the body with leaf brooms can enhance the sauna experience by promoting good circulation.  Saunas are de trop in Brazil where the new year brings warm weather.  There, swimming and surfing may be even more universal.  

As we talked about how to make our cookies,  we also looked at printed recipes.  Everyone but the North American teachers uses metric measurements,  although sets of measuring cups and spoons for dry ingredients such as flour, sugar, salt, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda, are cheaply and widely available.  With American dry-measuring cups,  which are less accurate than their metric equivalents, it is necessary to take a knife to smooth the top to get the correct amount.  The Internet provides a cornucopia of variants for these deservedly popular recipes using American measurements: Jewish rugelach, chocolate and vanilla pinwheels, Mexican wedding cookies, raspberry thumbprint cookies  made with almond paste, peanut butter blossoms, hot cocoa cookies, and ginger bars.

This post is incomplete, featuring recipes only from the three American facilitators!  I welcome students' recipes, comments about their holiday traditions, and ideas for another recipe exchange.  The Monday and Wednesday, 10-noon conversation group will resume January 21, after the Martin Luther King holiday. -- Susan Joseph, instructor for Washington English Center with photo by the multi-talented Olga Lynova 

Here is the first participant recipe with an explanation and good directions, from Inês Lima, who is from Brasilia.  I can almost hear Inês talking.

Brazilian Cheese-rolls - “Pão-de-queijo” - also translated “cheese bread

"It’s is not difficult to find the frozen version of Brazilian “pão-de-queijo” at the foreign food shops in Virginia or Maryland. [I usually get mine from the European Foods Store @ 2700 N Pershing Dr, in Arlington, VA.] 

The best brand is "Forno de Minas". Minas, in this case, refers to the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, famous for its cheese and cuisine. [Trying to translate “Forno de Minas”. “Forno” is the same as oven, “de” is the preposition - “Minas Bakery” would do.]

However, back to the recipe... it is possible to prepare a similar dough, using ingredients found at your nearby Whole Foods market. And that’s what I did before I learned about the specialty food stores that carry the so convenient Forno de Minas brand. 

Let’s try. Cheese-rolls Brazilian style (makes about 20)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 cup of shredded mild Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
• 3 cups of tapioca starch, also known as tapioca flour (Bob’s Red Mill is the best brand)
• 1 cup of melted unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs (or 3 small ones)
• salt to taste
• a little extra tapioca starch (for balancing the dough)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 385F degrees.

Lightly coat a large cookie tin with butter.

In a large bowl combine starch, salt, and shredded cheese.

Slowly add melted butter, mixing by hand. 

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well. When using 3 eggs, if dough gets nice and firm after the addition of the second egg, use only the yolk of the third egg to get a soft and easy “texture”.

If, after adding the eggs, you find the mixture “too wet” use some of the extra starch to “correct” the dough. A play-dough like texture is fine.

Now, make the rolls using about a tablespoon of the mixture for each roll, rolling it by hand. Leave room between the rolls, because they may spread a little, before they get puffy.

It takes about 25 minutes in the oven. Check the oven when you start to smell the melting cheese. Sometimes they get golden and ready in less time... sometimes it takes a little longer.

Enjoy!"  --Inês

Salads, Salsa, and Schooling

Last week, at our first conversation club of the summer, we agreed that this blog would be a good place to post recipes.  Inspired by Fatima's photos of gnocchi made at a recent cooking and cinema session,  I volunteered to provide recipes for two salads using fresh crabmeat, a DC specialty available at local fish markets and seafood counters.

I have fond memories of Craig Claiborne's 1961 recipe for cold rice ravigote but our tastes call for a lighter, brighter, fresher version.  For green peppers and canned pimentos, substitute diced red, yellow and orange peppers, and instead of curry powder, use chopped fresh dill or basil.  Use 1/2 cup of mayonnaise cut with 1/2 cup of 2% or whole-milk yogurt.

From the 1970 edition of her Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook, Gloria Bley Miller's crabmeat and cucumbers needs no adjustments.  While you are whipping up your salad, why not listen to some appropriate music?

Basic Tips, Weekend Suggestions, and Rehashing

Basic tips  Nathan Pyle's blog "NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette" should be of help not just for newcomers to New York, but also for people from abroad.  Nathan's cartoons provide just the dose of humor needed to learn to navigate through crowded subways or contraptions like revolving doors.  You can also sample Nathan's gifs on his Facebook page.  Because his beguiling  gifs are unreproducible, I have just ordered Nathan's book as a paperback, I confess, so I can xerox his cartoons for conversation classes.  In the meantime, please take a peek at Nathan's blog or Facebook page, and choose a favorite to discuss at Conversation Club.

What to do?  On the even lighter side, this Saturday, 10 am-4 pm, you may enjoy the EU Embassy Open House.  It's between that and the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure.  Either way, at least for me, a lot of walking will be involved.

Looking back  On Monday, Fatima, whom I had emailed my teacher's blog when she was absent a few weeks ago, suggested that I post some of our recent conversations so that you could practice new vocabulary.  If you, like Fatima and Julia, especially admired Li Po's poem, perhaps you want to recite it in Chinese!  Seriously, below is a newer translation than the one we used that may give you a slightly different impression of the poem.  For me, Tsai's translation is less elegant, more clunky, although perhaps more specific and easy to understand.  In my own anthology, 100 Poems from Tang and Song Dynasties,  translator (and mystery novelist par excellence)  Qiu Xiaolong illustrates Changgan Song with a painting of a melancholy young woman whose curving posture is echoed in a delicate frame of budding branches surrounding the pagoda where she sits, gazing out, ignoring her tea and her book.

A Poem of Changgan (Changgan xing) 

When my bangs hung about my forehead

I played by the gates, bending off flowers;
Circling the well in play, infant plums in hand:
Living in the lands of the boatsmen.
My shy cheeks widened for laughter not once.
Beckoned a thousand times, I answered not once.
I would follow you as ashes mix with dust.
I won't climb the look-out for you.
Where the Horse-Head Rocks pile high.
The apes call of sorrow, the heavens wail.
Grew of green moss,
By autumn wind. Early this year.
Flying over the grass in the Western Garden.
She frets on a chair for her cheeks growing old.
When you will come down from Sanba.
Even on the Sands of Lasting Wind.

Riding on a horse of bamboo, you come

Two children without dislike or suspicion,

At fourteen I became your wife.

I lowered my head to a dark wall;

Only at fifteen my eyebrows opened to you:

I gave you my antique promise.

At sixteen you traveled far beyond the Gorge,

Beware the month of May- there

Your footsteps at the gates

Moss deeper than broom sweepings. Leaves fell--

In August butterflies turn yellow, pair by pair,

They hurt your wife, pair by pair.

Tell me in a letter

I will meet you-- nowhere is far---

Translated by S-C Kevin Tsai, a doctoral student in the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. His poetry has appeared in Salamander and Del Sol Review.

Just to expand, here's the first stanza of a much more recent poem about yearning, love without physical contact.  Does looking at a crowd of people instead of one lonely little wife make the newer poem less poignant? Take a look and let me know if we should discuss the heartache blues on Monday.

Everybody Has a Heartache: A Blues        BY JOY HARJO
In the United terminal in Chicago at five on a Friday afternoon
The sky is breaking with rain and wind and all the flights
Are delayed forever. We will never get to where we are going
And there’s no way back to where we’ve been.
The sun and the moon have disappeared to an island far from 
anywhere.

As always, your comments are invited.

A promise is a promise, even if it does not seem to be a promise of spring

Believe it or not, the Cherry Blossom Festival starts this Thursday!  Dr Gridlock alerts you about traffic delays and other sources of discomfort and pleasure that will be caused by this 3 1/2 week extravaganza that began with a gift from the Japanese ambassador in 1912.

In the meantime, tonight Fado's, 808 7th Street NW,  and Murphy’s Irish Pub 2609 24th Street NW both  promise liquid St Patrick's Day cheer and music.

On this snowy day, I send you Irish blessings!

• Leprechauns, castles, good luck and laughter; Lullabies, dreams and love ever after. Poems and songs with pipes and drums; A thousand welcomes when anyone comes.
• May St. Patrick guard you wherever you go and guide you in whatever you do -- and may his loving protection be a blessing to you always.
• May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields and, Until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

If you just want to stay cozy, try this promised recipe for spiced pecans, from my 1967 Pecan Cookbook, still delicious after all these years.

For 1 lb of pecans
Preheat the oven to 325 F.
Melt 2 Tblsp of butter in a skillet.
Add 1 lb of pecans and sauté until hot and buttery.
Mix in 2 tsp Worcestershire (or soy sauce), a few dashes of Tabasco (or your favorite source of heat), 1/2 tsp salt and a few grindings of pepper.
Place in a shallow baking pan (lined with parchment paper) and bake at 325 F for 20 minutes.
Serve warm or cold.

Illuminating tour of Smithsonian's Our America at Museum of American Art

Luis Jiménez, Man on Fire (1969)

"He's a new Icarus," commented Mihaela, a Latin teacher from Romania, when she saw Luis Jiménez's splendid sculpture Man on Fire, which opens the Smithsonian Museum's exhibit Our America. Docent LeeAnn Lawch explained to our group of eleven  from the Washington English Center and its outreach at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library that for his new Icarus, which reframes history, Jiménez had learned techniques for molding and painting plexiglass in his father's auto body shop.  Mrs. Lawch led our group through artworks illustrating themes of re-framing the past and the present (Western movies literally cut up with a tomahawk and then spliced together, sometimes upside down), the turning point (posters and paintings from the civil rights era), graphics, signs of the popular, street life, and pieces defying categorization.

Emanuel Martinez, Farmworkers' Altar (1967)

A colorful turning point was the self-taught artist Emanuel Martinez's Farmworkers' Altar (1967) where César Chávez ended his 25-day fast in support of migrant workers in 1968.  The artworks embraced a variety of media and styles including pop, digitally printed photographs, conceptualism, graphic art, expressionism, and comic book art -- free standing works made from nails, limestone, and even a chandelier.  Many were provocative.  What for example could Miguel Luciano's platinum plantain mean?  While our docent offered ideas, it was up to us as individuals to decide what the artworks meant.  Still, the universal reaction to our tour was that we were very happy to have guidance!  --Susan Joseph

Miguel Luciano's platinum plantain (2006)

Conversation students to have a private tour of Our America at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art

Death of Rubén Salazar by Frank Romero

Salazar's painting commemorating the death of activist Chicano journalist Rubén Salazar, killed by a tear-gas canister hurled by police into the Silver Dollar Bar in Los Angeles during an anti-war rally in August, 1970, is a colorful example of politically motivated art by American artists of Latino heritage featured in the Smithsonian's current exhibit Our America.  Romero's painting packs an emotional punch with its humorous style providing an ironic comment for its tragic content.  Students from the Washington English Center, which sponsors conversation classes both at 2200 California Street NW, and at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library, will have a private tour of the exhibit Our America at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, 8th and F Streets, NW, Friday, February 28, starting in the lobby of the museum at 11:30 am.

Welcome to Georgetown Library's Conversation Blog!

For Fatima, from Brazil, and Meng, from China, the English Conversation Club at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library, at Wisconsin Avenue and R Street, NW, Washington, DC, is "a nice place where people from various countries can enjoy and share their experiences."  Fatima and Meng, who have been coming on Monday and Wednesday mornings, from 10 am until noon, for several months, are practicing and improving their English skills, as they become "part of the life of the city," and "on top of the news." Just last Monday the group was diverse, from Sri Lanka, China, Cambodia, Brazil, Romania, Bolivia, and Mexico, but everyone could agree that the conversation club helped them develop connections and friendships while discussing such topics as doctors' visits, creating viable online passwords, and the Washington theater scene.  The conversation club, which is staffed by trained facilitators from the Washington English Center, is free and ongoing, and no reservations are required.  Just come to the second floor of the library and meet new friends.  --Susan Joseph 

           

Sunny second floor of Georgetown Library

Going Out Guide for the Week of February 11, 2014

Discounted tickets for many events are available at Goldstar.com

Moliere’s Scapin at Constellation Theatre, 14^th Street Between R & Swann NW

Ella, First Lady of Song, at MetroStage in Alexandria, VA

Mother Courage at Arena Stage, Maine Avenue SW, DC