‘Springster’ celebrations

SPRINGSTER MENU

Lamb Shoulder with Honey, Herbs and Lemon-Caper relish – by Diana Henry, posted by the Telegraph but also available from her book From Oven to Table

Baby Kale Salad – from the Sweet Home Cafe cookbook

Ingredients:

for the croutons:

• 1 cup cubed corn bread, in 1/2 inch cubes

for the buttermilk dressing:

• 3/4 cup buttermilk, preferably full fat
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise (Duke’s is recommended)
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 scallion, white and green parts, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup snipped fresh chives
• 1 small garlic clove, chopped into a paste
• 1/2 kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper

for the salad:

• 1 cup toasted corn kernels
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pound baby kale
• 1/2 cup cooked black eye peas, preferably from fresh or frozen, not canned
• 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

To make the croutons:

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Spread the corn bread on a baking sheet and bake until lightly golden and crisp, about 20 minutes. Let cool completely.

To make the buttermilk dressing:

Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until well blended. If not using immediately, transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

to make the salad:

Heat a medium cast-iron skillet over high heat. Add the olive oil and corn and cook, stirring, until the kernels are fragrant and begin to char, about 2 minutes, Transfer to a plate to cool.

Combine the kale, cooled corn, black-eyed peas, and tomatoes in a large bowl. Add enough dressing to lightly coat the kale and other vegetables and toss to coat evenly. Transfer to a serving bowl, garnish with croutons, and serve

Old Fashioned Strawberry pie from The Norske Nook Book of Pies

Makes one 11-inch pie

Ingredients:

• 1 double crust (There’s lots of recipes for pie crust but I just get store-bought)
• 10 cups strawberries, quartered
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 7 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons salted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup sanding sugar (coarsely ground white sugar) for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 375 degress.

Place the bottom layer of crust over your pie pan.

Place the strawberries in a bowl and add the sugar and cornstarch. mix well and place the mixture in the crust.

Cover the pie with the remaining crust, crimp around the rim, and cut slits in the top. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

bake until a knife comes out clear, and not sugary, about 2 hours.

VEGETARIAN/VEGAN OPTION:

Vegetarian Mushroom Wellington: from NYT cooking, easy vegan substitutes in the recipe.

THOUGHTS AND REASONINGS

Chicago is deep in the Great Hunkering, right on top of the time that I normally indulge in a cobbled set of traditions around Lent and Easter. All of that has been cancelled, with some mixed feelings.

Springtime is usually very hectic for me – there’s a yearly early music conference, a new annual tradition of a cover rock band fundraiser, and preparations for series of masses with music in English, Spanish, and Tagalog. The music for the masses rarely changes, but the choirs still meet to review and practice, along with violins, guitars, and sometimes a harp or a trombone.

While this is going on, people are decorating the church. Lent inspires minimalist, hardy decor – my personal favorite from past years featured cacti and succulents. As we get closer to the big reveal a group of people come in to build a small wooden room within the church and use paper-mache to make it resemble a stone tomb, which gets filled with statues of a woman who looks devout and and a reclined man who looks, well, terminally inconvenienced.

This is the time of year that many Catholics practice what I like to call ‘religion-oriented selective meat abstinence’ because it’s only on Friday, and we’re only supposed to eat animals that are considered ‘aquatic’ – this definition is based on ancient categories of animals that hung out in water. By this logic, chicken is out, duck is in, confusion abounds.

Since I try to complete all my food prepping on Sunday, to make things easy during Lent, I make vegetarian meals. I love the concept of vegetarian diet but I’m challenged by the commitment – but I think this is the point of Lent. We’re meant to be reminded that for most of the course of human history, there was no meandering over to the grocery store to lazily pick up a cooked-and-ready rotisserie chicken just because we craved it, and for most people in this world today, these kinds of luxuries are still unreachable. In this time of year, for a subsistence farmer, everything would depend on stretching out the stored vegetables and grains until the weather was warm enough for wild plants and animals to return.

It all culminates in one crazy weekend that starts with “The foot-washing mass” on Thursday night, then two services on Friday night (I would usually sneak a light beer in between the masses if I’m singing in the Spanish mass). The Friday night service involves specific prayers for Christians of other denominations, atheists, and followers of Jewish faith. The prayers are specific but can all be summed up as “mutual success, excellence, and spiritual wellbeing.” Often the Friday night service coincides with Passover celebrations, and when the prayers come up I think of a dear friend of mine who moved away a few years ago, so I reach out and we text back and forth after the mass to catch up.

But we’re not done yet! Easter Vigil on Saturday night is a lengthy mass incorporating three languages, confirmation and baptism ceremonies, and lots of music. At some point the statue of the man is removed from the little stone tomb and everyone rejoices. People go out and celebrate late into the night, and then come back to the church for an Easter Sunday mass with full-on flowers, upbeat music, and parents dress up their kids in the cutest dresses and suits, AND WE’RE FINALLY DONE. No more special rehearsals, no more dietary restrictions – just back to ordinary life and putting away all the heavy sweaters and scarves.

I like to top off the day with a small dinner party to celebrate. I always make lamb, a leafy green side, and a pie. Mom comes over and we break out the fancy china and the colorful tablecloth.

A lot of this is not happening this year. The Vatican has wisely declared that we are banned from gathering physically until further notice. Services are streamed over the internet, and the things we used to do – decorations, building, music rehearsals are all now health hazards, and will be until longer after Easter is over. In other obligations the early music conference is cancelled, the rock band fundraiser is postponed, spring travel plans are now in wait-and-see mode.

This time of year, I’m usually making choices – rehearsals, masses and performances overlap, and sometimes run long, making demands on my voice and my patience. I get sick of lentils. I have to practice all the time. I don’t love every song I perform. When I have down time I get reflective. This year I have nothing but time – time to check the news, time to try to use up leftover cake flour, time to worry about the future, time to review past choices, time to grieve people who have been lost, time to pet the cat.

The cat is no longer interested in my attempts to pet her.

But it’s also time to think about what I’m going to make when Lent ends and I can once again consider the butcher. I won’t be singing the Easter mass but I’m sticking to the original recipe plan I made up a few months ago.

Since I can’t have Mom over, I decided to write up the recipes I chose so that she can either copy them or make something similar, and we’ll try to coordinate some face-time. I’m posting here for anyone else who’s looking for a celebratory meal idea, and I’m going to call it “Springster” because it’s more inclusive, better reflects how I think about Easter, and implies that perhaps by April 12th we’ll know the “Spring” date – the date the epidemiologists spring us from shelter-in-place orders.

Reach out to me if you want to connect – I’d love to get a big call going so we can share what we’ve made and how we’ve brought a little bit of renewal and growth into our bunkers.