Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Food
Upon Readin’ th’best-seller, ‘Guacamole Sunrise’, While Tryin’ t’Keep A.J. From Demandin’ Sex For th’Sixth Time Tonight Long Enough t’Finish Writin’ th’Latest Chapter in My Continued Adventures Before We Go See ‘V for Vendetta’
No, that not be th’real title. However, this is…
Cap’n Dyke and Th’Frog Combine Psychic Forces t’Bring Ye, Direct from th’Past…
[Note: Clitatia Vaginus was a contemporary of Sappho, the first ‘lesbian’ noted in the historical record. While we don’t know Clitatia’s sexual orientation, we do know she knew about what to eat to prime the heat.]
‘The ancient Greeks and Romans were a randy little lot. Wanting to swell their armies—as well as their libidos, they searched the world far and wide for foods that would enhance sexual performance and pleasure.
According to these past powerhouses of history, one of the most powerful sexual potions was ‘made from the pith taken from the branch of the pomegranate which was then ground together with the testicles of bulls and rams.’ Pliny the Elder remarked, however, that as much as this mixture might have been popular “it was good neither for the heart or the kidneys”. Well, Clitatia is here to tell you that Pliny the E. is right!
The Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialis favored more ordinary foods as aphrodisiacs. He suggested that sexual appetite could be stimulated in old men if they dined on spring onions and shallots. For “young men suffering from impotency and not-so-young women suffering from lack of desire”, he said that pepper, cabbage, asparagus, eggs, pineapples and snails (eaten uncooked and without sauce) would be effective stimulators.
Between the forth and first centuries B.C.E. many medical doctors, including Galen and Hippocrates, agreed that chomping garlic would contribute to one’s sexual potency and, at the same time it kept vampires away, so it had did double-duty as a desirable plant.
Get yourself a recipe for mussels cooked with onions, garlic and saffron cooked in a buttery, white wine sauce and this former vestal virgin promises that if it doesn’t kill you, it will stoke those fires hotter than Rome when it was burnt by the Huns. Your guide, Clitatia Vaginus, found out that butter and garlic can cause your sweat — and other secretions — extra slick.
Lettuce was considered a boost for sexual potency by the Greeks, the Romans and the Egyptians (a sexual romping trifecta if I’ve ever seen one).
Other foods to fuel your fire include: Aniseed, artichokes, skink flesh (it’s a lizard, small, unpalatable), carrots, rabbits, sweet peas, parsnips and—that all time favorites of favorites—sparrow’s brains. There was some squabbling about what member of the animal kingdom was the sexiest. Romans found the rabbit to be particularly lustful, while the Greeks felt sparrows were the real ‘beasts’ in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. Skinks (those little lizards) are slim and long…well, you take the connotation from there, darlings. Ergo, you ate them to transfer their power to yourself.
As a tribute to our illustrious host, the proprietor of ‘Balls and Walnuts’, our Dear Douglas, let’s discuss walnuts. Walnuts have been cultivated for at least 2,000 years and they have been linked to love and fertility throughout history. According to an ancient myth, Jupiter, the king of the gods who was also known as Jove, lived on walnuts when he lived on earth. Therefore Romans called walnuts Jovis glans, meaning “the glans of Jupiter.†(Glans is the rounded tip of the penis or the erectile tissue of the clitoris.) Romans also called the walnut nux Gallica, meaning “the French nut.†Juglans regia, the botanical name of the Persian walnut (also called the English walnut), translates as the “regal nut of Jupiter.â€
A recipe for your pleasure (hopefully):
Roasted Beet, Goat Feta and Walnut Salad on Radicchio Leaves
3 medium-size beets
1/3 cup goat feta, diced into small pieces
1/2 cup walnut pieces, dry-roasted in a cast iron pan
2 tsps walnut oil
1 tsp (5 ml) balsamic vinegar
1 tsp (5 ml) orange juice
2 tsps (10 ml) oregano, tarragon or other fresh herbs, finely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Radicchio leaves (or Belgian endive leaves), washed and dried.Preheat the oven to 425 degree F. Place a baking sheet or a sheet of aluminum foil on the lower oven rack to catch beet drippings. Place whole beets on the upper oven rack and bake for 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Remove from oven and allow them to cool. Peel off the beet skins and discard. Dice the beets into small pieces and place in a bowl. Add the walnuts and goat feta. Combine the walnut oil, vinegar, orange juice, chopped herbs and black pepper. Pour over the salad mixture and toss to combine. Spoon a tablespoon of the mixture onto each radicchio or endive leaf and arrange decoratively on a large platter and enjoy your hot n’ steamy evening.
Note that the Roman physician Galen wrote that foods worked as aphrodisiacs if they were “warm and moist”. However, remember, my lusty students, that the Roman poet Ovid wrote in The Art of Love, after giving a litany of aphrodisiacs, “Prescribe no more my muse, nor medicines give / Beauty and youth need no provocative.â€
Alas and alack! What a nothing is man! We all shall be bones at the end of life’s span, so let us be jolly for as long as we can.–Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio
Well, you want to know what Clitacia Vaginus thinks about fusty Ovid? Pah! Hera’s handmaidens, bring on the skink flesh and the sparrow’s brains with a side order of buttered saffron and garlic flavoured mussels and DON’T FORGET THE WALNUTS FOR DESSERT!’
Flan Wars
So, Kate’s flan recipe? Big hit with me and Karen. Don’t know about Jake yet, since the boy is odd when it comes to sweets. Loves Nilla wafers and orange Tic Tacs (though not together), dislikes most chocolatey desserts. Usually, he doesn’t even want dessert, which might explain why at ten years old he still only weighs about 50 pounds.
I don’t understand Beth’s animosity towards flan. Count on Beth not to be vague in her opinions:
Oh please, you have to be willfully blind to the gelatinous, slimy, jiggly, sloppy-wet texture of flan to NOT see how very snot-like it is. All you flan-lovers are kidding yourselves. You’re eating snot-like food. It’s okay, you’re ALLOWED to like snot-like food. You probably are okay with steamed okra, too.
Beth, you do NOT know booger foods until you eat fish stomach. Or some damned thing. I have this dim memory of my high school girlfriend’s mom feeding me something protoplasmic that tried mightily to climb back out of my esophagus. I think the Chinese word for it sounded like “jook,” and I was told it was fish stomach, although this may have been merely another of that woman’s many hazing rituals for me. May, you’re Chinese, aren’t you? Care to figure this one out?
I’m waiting for someone to say, “Oh, jook! That’s delicious!!! But you wouldn’t understand — it’s comfort food.”
It’s true. No one can understand comfort food except for the comforted. Like Jim yesterday with matzoh brei. How can anyone not like matzoh brei? But then I remember how much my wife likes mochi. If flan is snot, mochi is snot allowed to dessicate a few days under the desert sun.
Two questions. One I’ve asked before, but it was ages ago and I have new readers. The second is self-explanatory.
1. What is your comfort food?
2. Flan: snot or not?
D.
Thirteen easy pieces
It’s Thursday on the East Coast, and that’s good enough for me, especially since my only other ideas for tonight were
- I am a Warcraft Widower (or, How My Son Used a PC Game to Win the Oedipal Challenge)
- I’m average! Praise the Lord, I won’t have to get my suspensory ligament severed after all! (Been reading about average erect penis lengths in Redbook lately.)
Yeah, that’s it. Slim pickens, my friends. The muse has been working her hiney off on my romance novel, so she tends to kvetch around blog-writing time.
Below the cut: thirteen simple and delicious recipes to get you through the day.
B’stila, bstila, pastilla, bisteeya . . . aw, whatever
Karen and I tasted our first b’stila at a Moroccan restaurant in Palo Alto. Know what I remember from that meal?
- The bellydancer
- B’stila
- The funky way they pour coffee at Moroccan restaurants
- Stuffing dollar bills into the bellydancer’s skirt
- The bellydancer
As you can plainly see, the b’stila made a powerful impression. What an amazing blend of sensations: crispy fillo, savory chicken, sweet almonds, satiny egg. If I could have eaten it off the bellydancer’s belly, my life would have been complete.
It took me a few years to try this on my own. Is it difficult? Naw. Is it time-consuming? Oh hell yeah. Anything involving fillo is time-consuming. Is it worth it? I think so.
For tonight’s b’stila, bisteeya, pastilla, whatever, I adapted this recipe from The Traveler’s Lunchbox (thanks, May!) Melissa gives her sources, and my God, does that woman have one ass-whomping cookbook library. Makes my cookbook library want to run off into the broom closet, tail between it’s imaginary legs.
Here’s the result. Notes below the cut.
Ultimate leftover roast chicken
I made saltwater chicken tonight, which means that since we’re small eaters, we now have half a leftover roast chicken in the refrigerator. What do you do with leftover roast chicken?
I love chicken pot pie, but no one else in my family feels the same way. They don’t even rave when I elevate the dish to ludicrous extremes — dry roasting the vegetables, making a sauce from homemade chicken stock, and so forth. Oh, well. I shouldn’t be eating all those empty carbs anyway.
Sandwiches? Leftover saltwater chicken makes awesome sandwiches, but sandwiches lack creativity. Unless I make panini. There’s a thought.
But I know what will score me the most points with the wife: b’stila. (The hardest thing about b’stila is remembering how to spell the damnable thing.) B’stila is a Middle Eastern chicken pie with layers of crispy, buttery filo, chicken seasoned with saffron, parsley, and cinnamon (and sometimes ginger), roasted blanched almonds coarsely ground and combined with sugar and cinnamon, and scrambled eggs. Bake until golden brown, top with powdered sugar and cinnamon.
I can’t think of any better treatment of leftover roast chicken than b’stila, but I’m open to suggestions.
D.
Note: A moment ago, I did a Google image search for bstila and b’stila. No one has uploaded any pictures of this beautiful dish. Now I have to make b’stila, take pictures, and blog about it.
Second Note: Ooooh, now I know what Brad is gonna fix for Lori (in my work-in-progress, for those of you who are wondering WTF I’m talking about). Nothing says love like b’stila. Except perhaps challah. Or perhaps a crown roast of lamb.
Potato Fry
Bear with me. I have a fast, easy, delicious potato recipe for you. But first, Vulcan camel toe:
Here’s me and the wife:
Me: Karen! My ‘male camel toe’ search pulled up Spock and Kirk!
Karen: Which one has the camel toe?
Me: Spock.
Karen: I knew it. Nimoy has no shame.
Me: Of course he has no shame. He’s half Vulcan. Except for some occasional bouts of horniness, he’s emotion-free.
Bread pudding, take two
Fans of my last bread pudding recipe, please note: this is a much different animal. That bread pudding’s charm derives from its surface-crunch and delicate souffle-textured center. This one, on the other hand, lives somewhere on the spectrum between flan and cheesecake. Serve it at a party, and I’ll bet no one guesses it’s bread pudding.
Boys and grills
About a month ago, I foolishly offered to give recipes on demand (but only for that day!) I’ve satisfied most requests, but not all of them. This one is for Leslie, who asked me for simple grill recipes.
By the way: this guy knows how to grill.
Recipes below the cut.
Let’s talk consummation
For Smart Bitches Day, I’ve decided to cede the stage to Bare Rump. For her last SBD, my lovely Tromatopelman gal introduced you to her favorite author, Bronwyn Webweaver. I wonder what she’ll write about today?
Just in case you don’t remember the salient details of Bare Rump’s appearance, here’s a picture of her at a cast party for All My Children. She’s a big, BIG fan.
***
You know what I find most puzzling about your President Bush? He’s so old. On my world, males rarely live more than three years past their sexual maturity. At first, I assumed he had to be a virgin, but then I learned he has two daughters! How mysterious is that?
At first, I thought: Laura, you devil!
Of course, when I met President Bush’s lovely wife, it all became clear. Of course! He’s had the old girl defanged.
House of Pancakes
A while ago, I had the bright idea of drafting the Cooks Illustrated buttermilk biscuit recipe into the service of a better pancake. (If you like biscuits and haven’t tried that recipe yet, try it.) Here is the successful result:
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
0.5 teaspoon salt
0.5 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for frying
1.25 to 1.5 cups buttermilk
Combine the dry ingredients with the melted butter and mix well. Pour maple syrup onto a microwave-safe plate and microwave about 30 seconds to heat it up — or heat the syrup separately in a bowl. Point is, DON’T pour cold syrup on hot pancakes. Such a buzz kill.
Melt butter in a frying pan over medium high heat. While the butter is melting, mix the buttermilk into the dry ingredients. Mix quickly and don’t overdo it.
Ladle or spoon out batter to form four or five 2-inch-diameter pancakes. Fry until crispy and dark brown on the bottom, then plate them out onto the hot syrup. Serve ASAP.
I used 1 cup of buttermilk today, but the batter looked too thick, so I added more buttermilk. Hence the “1.25 to 1.5 cups of buttermilk”.
Oy, these are diet-killers.
D.
PS: Remember — tomorrow, Bare Rump holds forth on Smart Bitches Day in a post entitled, “Let’s Talk Consummation,” and no one knows consummation better than she does, nosirree.