In a Vermont state of Mind—maple walnut/ginger ice cream sandwiches

It’s incredible how one can be the same person and yet be so different.  Returning from my five-year college reunion last weekend has really given me a lot to think about.  It was truly an incredible weekend; people are the same fun they were before, but calmer and more self-assured.

It was amazing to re-encounter people who have continued life with equal passion to how they had approached school.  They still love books, ideas and the world.  They continue to write and travel, and continue to make me feel like a whole person, complimenting my scientific life.  I miss days when my less scientifically inclined friends would turn to me and say “oh Liz would know, she’s in science,” whether the discussion was about physics, genetics, or something I probably had no real data about.  For whatever fraction of evidence I could muster, they broadened my horizons about much more—literature, history, art, politics and music.  

I returned to a venerable Utopia, a liberal arts college trapped in the hills and cornfields of Vermont, where professors share their beers, their offices and their families, the food in the dining hall is better than many restaurants, the mountains sing each time you walk outside, and there is endless amount of stimulus and encouragement for self-expression and personal cultivation.  I was reminded of what my dreams and hopes were by many that remember a snapshot of my former self from five years ago. 

I was also reminded by many how consumed I was with music—many were sad to hear that I was playing piano at an extreme fraction to my previous dedication, and composing really not at all.  As hard as it is to leave my musical passions hibernating, I am really proud of who I am and what I’ve done in the past five years.  I feel centered, balanced, and in love.  Medicine, for as abusive as it is, has made me a more whole person.  I have found writing and cooking, which are much more pleasurable companions than the tormenting angst of composing.  I feel safe in my friendships, and family life has stabilized just a little bit.

As much as I’d like to give in and go back, I need all the friends I’ve made in the five years since graduation.  Because in the end, as fun as it is to talk about books, ideas, and the New Yorker, I also have the compulsive need to talk about diarrhea, pus, blood and amniotic fluid freely, which only perverts such as med students and doctors can tolerate.  Alas, life keeps going, but it is fun to reflect—and dance, drink and sing, together.

To celebrate Middlebury College, I recreated my favorite cookies back in the day—maple walnut.  Even though when I brought them up to my friends, none of them remembered them.  Well I do, and those devilish cookies stole my slender figure!  I paired the cookies, which are brown and buttery with a cool ginger ice cream and piled them into luscious ice cream sandwiches.  I learned after I bought an ice cream maker (which is documented here) that frozen treats are great bribes for boyfriend’s roommates to let you hang out at their house and they are really just plain good.  The great thing about homemade ice cream sandwiches is that the ice cream is very soft when coming out of the ice cream maker which makes it very easy to stuff the sandwiches. 

Maple Walnut Cookies with Ginger Vanilla Ice Cream

2 sticks softened butter (unsalted)

½ cup maple syrup

¾ cup brown sugar packed

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 ¼ tsp salt

1 ½ cups chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375.  Beat sugar, butter and syrup until fluffy.  In separate bowl, combine flour, soda and salt.  Add egg to butter mixture, stir to combine, and add flour mixture.  Add walnuts, drop spoonful sized cookies and bake 8-10 minutes or until set and golden brown.  Allow to cool on sheet and transfer to cooling rack.

Ginger Ice cream

Scant cup sugar

1 cup milk

3 cups heavy whipping cream

2 tbsp grated ginger (grates very easily frozen—freeze the night before with ice cream maker)

1 tsp vanilla

Combine sugar, milk, vanilla and ginger and whisk until sugar dissolved.  Add cream.  Add to ice cream maker and follow directions. 

To assemble cookies add soft ice cream (if it is too melt-y then freeze for one to two hours before applying), freeze on cookie sheet until ice cream is firm and wrap individually in foil.

Oda a la papa/Ode to the potato

Chile was devastated last week.  The trembling earth ripped through towns large and small, tearing down buildings, separating roads, and crumbling bridges.  Many lives were taken, and infrastructure was destroyed.

I lived in Santiago, Chile for a year.  I originally went for a semester in college and then returned for six months on my own before I started medical school.   My friends tease me for obsessing over my experiences there, but there is a reason that I am in love. 

When I went for the first time, I made a pact to myself to meet Chilean people and assimilate.  I decided to take music classes. There, in the facultad de artes at the University of Chile, did I meet some of the most energetic, spontaneous, creative, life-loving people I have ever known. 

We would go to the beach and sing Chilean, Cuban, Argentine, and Brazilian folk music with a band of accordions, flutes, guitars, charangas, drums and voices until the sun came up.  We went to soccer games together, where I employed the most vulgar and colloquial of Chilean Spanish vocabularies taught only by the best of friends, swearing my head off, avoiding the riot control police that paced the area with batons, and screaming for the U to win.  I even learned how to make sushi there from my crazy, 80s loving, left-handed, mullet embracing, sweaty, guitar swinging, rockstar pal Alvaro, who was also a culinary buff in his own right.

When I woke up last Saturday to find that this place that had been my home, my playground, and my safety net had been shook up so significantly, I felt panicked.  I spent all day trying to call my best friend to make sure she was safe.  I finally reached her and my other friends; they are fine.  They said though that when the quake hit, it felt as though the ground was a ship in a storm, rocking and jerking heavily.  It was terrifying.

I think the best way for me to cope with this tragedy is to honor what is truly Chilean.  There is nothing more Chilean than the potato.  This nourishing, simple, rudimentary vegetable has supported the world’s hunger for hundreds of years.  The origin of the European potato, however, has been a widely disputed topic, especially between rival countries Peru and Chile. 

The two major potato strains originate from the Andean regions of Peru and Bolivia, and from southern Chile, from the island of Chiloe.  The potato was discovered by Europeans in these regions in the 1550s and was exported widely.  Genetic analysis of potatoes on the Canary Islands, which were some of the original export sites of potatoes from South America, gives some clues [1].  This research suggests that potatoes were exported from both the Andes and Chile, however, the Chilean potato was better adapted to the climate of Europe and became the dominant species, long before the potato blight of the 1800s.  (I am unbiased in this research, as it is highly contended.  I like Peru and Chile; they can both be the birthplace of the potato!)

The recipe today is for a pastel de papa, or a potato pie.  Pastel de papa is the ultimate Chilean comfort food, made of pino topped with mashed potatoes and baked.  Pino is a staple of many Chilean dishes made of ground beef, olives, raisins, onions and hard-boiled eggs.  Although pino might seem a bit strange, it is complex and rewarding to the tongue.  To me this dish tastes like home.  And, in this recipe, you only need ONE pot and ONE pan to make the whole thing!

Pastel de Papa

5 medium potatoes
3 eggs
¾ cups half and half
1 ¼ lbs ground beef
1 medium onion chopped
½ cup raisins soaked in ½ cup white wine
½ cup kalamata or nicoise olives rinsed and roughly chopped
½ tbsp oregano
½ tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp salt (plus more to taste)
Sprinkle red pepper flakes

For topping
¼ cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter melted
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Pinch of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375.  Combine topping ingredients.  Peel and quarter potatoes.  Boil until fork tender about 15-20 minutes.  When potatoes have about 7 minutes left, add eggs to pot to boil.  In cast iron skillet or other oven safe pan, over medium-high heat, heat a splash of olive oil and brown ground beef.  Drain beef on paper towels, leaving a bit of fat to sauté onions.  Saute onions until soft, add oregano, cumin, red pepper.  Add raisins and wine, add olives, add beef, stir together.  Remove eggs and peel, they should be soft-boiled.  Cut into wedges and place on top of beef mixture.  In pot with potatoes, mash potatoes and add half and half.  Salt to taste.  Gently cover beef mixture with mashed potatoes.

On top of beef mixture, add butter/paprika mixture.  Bake pastel until golden brown and bubbly, about 30 minutes.  

Rios D et al.  2007.  What is the origin of the European Potato? Crop Science.  47.  May-June.  1271-1280