Okay, before you start calling up suggesting evacuation routes, it's not actually that dire. I mean, the fire is terrible and enormous - 122,000+ acres as of this morning and no hope of containing it before Labor Day - but what I mean to say is that Josh, the boys and I are in no particular danger of bursting into flame. Basically, thousands (millions?) of dense, citified homes would have to burn before the fire got to us, and that is not going to happen, so house-burning-down wise we're okay.
Air-quality wise, however, it's another story. It's sucky in a whole variety of ways depending on the wind conditions. This weekend there was this terrifying, well-defined, giant cumulus cloud of smoke that we could see that just stopped up against the rest of the blue sky. At other times you go outside and it smells like a giant camp fire. Right now the entire sky is gray and hazy as though it's overcast and about to rain. And if you know anything about LA, you know that that doesn't happen this time of year. In short, the sky is covered in smoke.
After several days of this, it is finally getting to me and I have a semi-permanent, albeit minor, sniffy nose and sore throat. The pool I swim in is outdoors, so my sorely-needed exercise routine is on hiatus (when isn't it?). And since the fires are in the hills, you can see the flames from our front yard at night.
I can't decide if I feel more like I'm in Pompeii watching Vesuvius erupt or more like the guy from The Road and the world coated in gray ash. Neither experience would be one I had hoped to have in person. Maybe a coal town worker in Industrial Revolution England?
Oh, and my dog walker just called to cancel Big's hike today because you can actually see ash floating around in the air. I guess The Road wins.
Regardless, life must go on and even if we can't breathe we still have to eat. And what better way to celebrate the evidently impending apocalypse than with a full Swedish meal of Meatballs & Potato Salad? None, I say.
The Swedish Meatballs & Swedish Potato Salad recipe(s) came to us from Josh's surrogate grandmother, Viola, who is actually Josh's uncle's mother. Viola is a pretty cool cat. She lives in Hyde Park down by the University of Chicago and is (was?) a minister. I remember running into her in the bathroom at our wedding and somehow discovering during a brief conversation that she may have grown up/gone to high school in the same town as my grandmother and parents and aunt and entire family. That is to say, if I recall correctly, Viola either grew up in or lived in Malden, MA and may have gone to Malden High. Crazy.
I am guessing Viola's maiden name/background is Swedish what with the meatball & potato salad recipe, but I honestly have no clue. There certainly weren't a lot of Swedes in Malden. At least that I knew of.
Regardless, the Meatball & Potato Salad recipe are an interesting twist on my family's versions for the same things. The meatballs are very similar to my mother's Sweet & Sour Meatball recipe that opened this whole project. The proportions are slightly different, they're turkey & pork in lieu of beef, and it calls for the meatballs to be baked in lieu of fried, but the sauce itself is the same fundamental grape jelly-chili sauce mixture. Which is funny, since I expected something entirely different from 'Swedish' meatballs--if the ones you get from Ikea are anything to go by, that is. But I guess in Malden, Swedish and Jewish meatballs are the same?
Unfortunately for Viola, the vote in the Huntington household came down 2-0 in favor of my mother's meatball variation. You will recall that Josh accused me of putting crack in my mother's meatballs. Viola's, while good, were lacking in that addictive element. I am going to deduce this is because my mother's meatballs were just browned on the outside and then pitched into the sauce pot to simmer with the chili-jelly gravy goodness, so they are very moist and infused and, evidently, crack-like. Viola's baked for an hour on their own, which kind of dried them out. And then the warmed-up sauce was just put over them, so they didn't have a chance to soak it up properly. That said, the leftovers have been marinating in the fridge overnight, so they might play a good game of catch up when we reheat them for lunch.
As for the Potato Salad, I was delightfully surprised. I am not going to say it beats out my mother's - my mom's potato salad is one of my favorite things that she makes and I require it almost every time I see her. However, few others come close and this one did, which is extra exciting being that it included items such as cilantro and pickled beets. I know I'm not a big fan of cilantro (small doses, small doses), and I perpetually think I don't like beets, even though I am perpetually reminded that I do (borscht! it's like sweet-tart soup!).
I'd say the most exciting thing about this potato salad is that I didn't screw up the potatoes, which is a pretty fundamental thing. Whenever I make my mom's, somehow I always seem to get them too starchy. I didn't do anything markedly different. However, I did have enough time to let them cool down properly in the fridge, which I might have concluded is the key? I have no idea. Whatever the reason, the potato salad was good enough for Josh to finish his serving (he doesn't even like potato salad) and for me to have seconds of mine. This is a seriously high compliment. Three cheers for Viola, the Potato Salad Whiz!
Swedish food - red and gooey. Who knew?Viola's Malden-esque Swedish Meatballs & Potato Salad
MEATBALLS
1/2 lb ground pork
1/2 lb ground turkey
small onion, chopped*
1 tsp nutmeg
black pepper
1 cup stale bread or cake soaked in red wine
2 eggs
3 cloves garlic, crushed (or two because you misread)
1/2 tsp cumin
NO SALT!
Decipher handwritten directions. Presume that since it says 'Meatballs @ 325, Bake - DO NOT FRY - for 1 hour' you are supposed to preheat the oven to 325, roll all the aforementioned stuff into meatballs and then bake them. Which, it turns out, is kind of gross because maybe you went a little heavy on the red wine and it was quite juicy and liquid-y all over the place, so when you were patting the meatballs into ball shape you were essentially just squeezing out tons of salmonella liquid all over your hands.
Sauce - mix liquid from baking dish with 1 jar grape jelly and 1/2 bottle of chili sauce. Look at baking dish and discern that since not only is there zero liquid left, but that you had to pry the meatballs off with a spatula, this mysterious ingredient #1 will not be happening. Put jelly & chili sauce into pot, heat, and pour over balls just before serving. The meat ones, not Josh's. Red wine can be added to this sauce, but was not.
POTATO SALAD
4 lg white potatoes boiled and cubed
1 jar sliced pickled beets
1 red onion, chopped*
1 small bunch cilantro, crushed
3/4 tsp black fresh pepper
low fat mayonnaise - enough to cover, but not soupy (or, ignore that, and use the delightful full-fat Trader Joe's mayo, because 1. lo-fat mayo sucks and 2. TJ's brand tastes pretty damn good)
Deduce because it says boiled and cubed you must cube and then boil the potatoes. Be thankful that because you do your mother's potato salad, you know this means to fill a pot with water, peel and cut the potatoes, and then boil them for 1/2 hour.
Drain potatoes and put them in a large bowl in the fridge under tinfoil while you make the meatballs. Later discover these potatoes were neither overcooked nor too starchy. Think this might be the conflation of potato type and fridge cooling, which would for sure be repeated for all future potato salad efforts if you knew what type of potato it was. Which you don't because Josh picked them out at the farmer's market. More round, Yukon gold looking than Idaho, russet looking, but I have no clue. Josh!?
Make bunch of cilantro very small to aid the prospect you will like this potato salad. Pour juice off pickled beets and add as much needed for flavor. Have no idea what this means and just drain the pickled beets and then dump the jar in.
Serve each bowl surrounded with parsley, or just dump some dried parsley on top because it is night and it's too dark/smoky to go into the garden. Find it amusing that once again Viola says, NO SALT! Boy, she has serious feelings about salt.
One tsp of mustard may be added to sharpen the taste. Ignore this because you prefer it mustard-less. Serve with pickled herring and Swedish rye bread. Or not because blech.
*Onion chopping method: Mike Milch's weird technique + Squeakykitty's tip to cover the cutting board & knife with lemon. Verdict: It worked! I made it through two onions with the burning held at bay! Thank you Squeakykitty, whoever you are!
You're welcome!
ReplyDeleteLove the blog, btw.