Spinach Dip Quotes

What were numbers other than abstract concepts we used to describe reality? I felt that using numbers to describe people was as silly as using technical language to describe spinach dip. Humans, I imagined, were not meant to be predictable, and if they were, nothing new or innovative would ever be accomplished.

Flaking florentine rounds,' he whispered. 'Peaches in snow-cream.' 'No,' she murmured. 'No more.' 'Meat pies. Mutton balls topped with spinach and walnuts and cumin ground fine...' 'You have no cumin. Mister Fanshawe told me this morning.' 'We have no mutton either,' he said. 'Nor walnuts until next autumn.' The larders were less than half full, he knew. As Christmas drew near the stores sank lower. They would serve spiced cider in place of wine, John told the kitchen. Cold sallets of of sorrel, tarragon and thyme would follow hot ones of skirrets, beets and onions. They would dress lettuce leaves with cider vinegar, salt and oil and dip the endives in oil, mustard and beaten yolks.

So, when I read of a recent study that found that children are significantly more inclined to eat “difficult” foods like liver, spinach, broccoli—and other such hard-to-sell “but-it’s-good-for-you” classics—when they are wrapped in comfortingly bright packages from McDonald’s, I was at first appalled, and then … inspired. Rather than trying to co-opt Ronald’s all-too-effective credibility among children to short-term positive ends, like getting my daughter to eat the occasional serving of spinach, I could reverse-engineer this! Use the strange and terrible powers of the Golden Arches for good—not evil! I plan to dip something decidedly unpleasant in an enticing chocolate coating and then wrap it carefully in McDonald’s wrapping paper. Nothing dangerous, mind you, but something that a two-and-a-half-year-old will find “yucky!”—even upsetting—in the extreme. Maybe a sponge soaked with vinegar. A tuft of hair. A Barbie head. I will then place it inside the familiar cardboard box and leave it—as if forgotten—somewhere for my daughter to find. I might even warn her, “If you see any of that nasty McDonald’s … make sure you don’t eat it!” I’ll say, before leaving her to it. “Daddy was stupid and got some chocolate … and now he’s lost it…” I might mutter audibly to myself before taking a long stroll to the laundry room. An early, traumatic, Ronald-related experience can only be good for her.

We start with a next-generation miso soup: Kyoto's famous sweet white miso whisked with dashi made from lobster shells, with large chunks of tender claw meat and wilted spinach bobbing on the soup's surface. The son takes a cube of topflight Wagyu off the grill, charred on the outside, rare in the center, and swaddles it with green onions and a scoop of melting sea urchin- a surf-and-turf to end all others. The father lays down a gorgeous ceramic plate with a poem painted on its surface. "From the sixteenth century," he tells us, then goes about constructing the dish with his son, piece by piece: First, a chunk of tilefish wrapped around a grilled matsutake mushroom stem. Then a thick triangle of grilled mushroom cap, plus another grilled stem the size of a D-sized battery, topped with mushroom miso. A pickled ginger shoot, a few tender soybeans, and the crowning touch, the tilefish skin, separated from its body and fried into a ripple wave of crunch. The rice course arrives in a small bamboo steamer. The young chef works quickly. He slices curtains of tuna belly from a massive, fat-streaked block, dips it briefly in house-made soy sauce, then lays it on the rice. Over the top he spoons a sauce of seaweed and crushed sesame seeds just as the tuna fat begins to melt into the grains below. A round of tempura comes next: a harvest moon of creamy pumpkin, a gold nugget of blowfish capped with a translucent daikon sauce, and finally a soft, custardy chunk of salmon liver, intensely fatty with a bitter edge, a flavor that I've never tasted before. The last savory course comes in a large ice block carved into the shape of a bowl. Inside, a nest of soba noodles tinted green with powdered matcha floating in a dashi charged with citrus and topped with a false quail egg, the white fashioned from grated daikon.

POTATO CHEESE PANCAKES Coarsely grate onions and potatoes, drain and squeeze out absolutely all moisture. Add shredded Gruyère, flour, and puréed garlic to beaten eggs, then incorporate potatoes and onions to create a thick batter. Fry three-inch rounds of batter in oil until golden brown, then flip and finish. Serve with dip of seasoned spinach poached in heavy cream and mixed with sour cream.

The teenager brought us a small white plate with a square slab of white cheese doused in a clear liquor. He used a lighter and after several tries flames leapt up, surely singeing the hair on his fingers, then died down to a cool, stovetop blue before going out, leaving the cheese prettily browned and crisp. I wrote, Saganaki---scary but fun. "Oh!" I said. "I forgot about the booze, Charlotte. That was insensitive of me." "It's all burned off," she said. "Besides, if I'm going to blow thirty-two years of sobriety and get drunk, it won't be on flaming Greek cheese!" We scooped it onto warm, puffy pita bread. "If I closed my eyes, I could be in Patmos right now," said Belinda. A bowl of cunning little meatballs appeared with its snow-white yogurt and fish-egg dip. Another plate held three plump, golden triangular spinach pies.

CHRISTMAS EVE MENU Foie gras with Caramelized Apples Salmon with lemon, Cucumber, and Dill, served on Small Rounds of Toasted Bread Escargots de Bourgogne Oysters Three Ways Oysters with a Mignonette Sauce Oysters with Pimento Peppers and Apple Cider Vinegar Oysters Rockefeller, deglazed with Pernod, served with Spinach, Pimento Pepper, and Lardons Sophie's Spiced Langoustes (Spiny Lobster) à l'Armoricaine AND Crayfish and Shrimp with a Saffron-infused Aioli Dipping Sauce AND Moules à la Plancha with Chorizo

Cruciferous vegetables Examples: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower Servings: 1 Size: ½ cup Greens Examples: kale, spinach Swiss chard Servings: 2 Size: 1 cup raw, ½ cup cooked Other vegetables Examples: beets, peppers, carrots Servings: 2 Size: 1 cup leafy, ½ cup non-leafy, ½ cup juice Beans Examples: black beans, kidney beans, lentils Servings: 3 Size: ¼ cup dip, ½ cup cooked, 1 cup fresh Berries Examples: grapes, raisins, cherries Servings: 1 Size: ¼ dried, ½ cup fresh or frozen Other fruit Examples: apples, avocados, bananas Servings: 3 Size: 1 cup fruit, 1 medium, ¼ cup dried Flaxseeds Servings: 1 Size: 1 tbsp Nuts and seeds Examples: peanut butter, whole almonds, sunflower seeds Servings: 1 Size: ¼ cup or 2 tbsp butter Spices Examples: turmeric Servings: 1 Size: ¼ tsp Whole grains Examples: rice, quinoa, bread Servings: 3 Size: ½ cup cooked, 1 slice of bread Water Servings: 5 Size: 12 oz. Daily

Day 5 BREAKFAST Banana Cashew Lettuce Wrap* LUNCH Huge salad with assorted vegetables and bottled low-sodium/ no-oil dressing, flavored vinegar, or Orange Sesame Dressing* Leftover White Bean and Kale Soup* or low-sodium purchased vegetable bean soup One fresh or frozen fruit. Try apples or peaches dipped in Ceylon cinnamon. Ceylon cinnamon doesn’t have the high levels of potentially liver-damaging coumarin that cassia cinnamon has. DINNER Raw vegetables with Super Simple Hummus* or bottled low-sodium/ no-oil dressing Portobellos and Beans* Fresh or frozen cooked spinach or other vegetable One fresh or frozen fruit. Try semi-defrosted frozen mango. It’s fantastic!

and refrigerate. Tip: Serve this with veggies, crackers, or rice cakes, or try on Sunny Day Flatbread (here) for lunch. Nottingham Sandwich Spread By Jane Esselstyn Say the word “Nottingham” slowly three times. The sound should be reminiscent of “Not-Eating-Ham.” This recipe is by no means a ham spread, but it sure does have the consistency and texture of one! Try this on none other than the Nottingham Flatbread (here) for lunch. Prep time: 10 minutes • Makes 1½ cups spread 1 cup chickpeas, mashed with fork ¼ cup chopped onion ¼ cup chopped pickles or pickle relish 1 celery stalk, finely chopped 1½ tablespoons mustard 1½ tablespoons applesauce ½ teaspoon fresh dill, chopped Pinch of salt Pinch of freshly ground black pepper Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl using a fork—make sure to smash the chickpeas. Spread on sandwiches, or serve as a dip. Spinach-Artichoke Dip and Spread By Kimetha Wurster Kimetha used to make her patented spinach-artichoke dip every February for a friend’s birthday party. True to her new, dairy-free E2 lifestyle, she was determined to make the recipe dairy-free, too. The guests had no idea it wasn’t the traditional one and gobbled it up. And there’s no baking necessary. Try this on the St. Nick Pizza (here) for lunch or dinner. Prep time: 10 minutes • Makes around 4 cups dip 14 ounces artichoke hearts, packed in water 2 to 6 garlic cloves 9 ounces fresh spinach, or 1½ cups frozen spinach 1 ripe avocado 1 cup nutritional yeast 6 shakes hot sauce Pinch of freshly ground black pepper (optional) Pinch of salt (optional) In a food processor or blender, pulse the drained artichokes with garlic until chopped. Add the raw spinach (or drained frozen), avocado, and nutritional yeast and pulse until well mixed. Shake in the hot sauce and season with salt and pepper as desired, and pulse again. Transfer to a bowl and serve with 100 percent whole wheat crackers or veggies,

POTATO CHEESE PANCAKES Coarsely grate onions and potatoes, drain and squeeze out absolutely all moisture. Add shredded Gruyère, flour, and puréed garlic to beaten eggs, then incorporate potatoes and onions to create a thick batter. Fry three-inch rounds of batter in oil until golden brown, then flip and finish. Serve with dip of seasoned spinach poached in heavy cream and mixed with sour cream. 23 MARBLE was too sensitive an asset to involve the Station in New York. ROD

She dipped a clean pinkie into the hollandaise in the bowl. It coated her finger like a sheath of yellow velvet. Despite her nerves, she plated swiftly and surely. She lifted the poached eggs clear from the shimmering, hot water with a safecracker's touch, laying each one with infinite care in place on top of its foundation of English muffin and Canadian bacon. Silky drizzle of hollandaise, sprinkle of fresh parsley, grind of black pepper, framed with creamed spinach, dusted with paprika. Done.

The feast is family-style, of course. Every six-person section of the table has its own set of identical dishes: garlicky roasted chicken with potatoes, a platter of fat sausages and peppers, rigatoni with a spicy meat sauce, linguine al olio, braised broccoli rabe, and shrimp scampi. This is on top of the endless parade of appetizers that everyone has been wolfing down all afternoon: antipasto platters piled with cheeses and charcuterie, fried arancini, hot spinach and artichoke dip, meatball sliders. I can't begin to know how anyone will touch the insane dessert buffet... I counted twelve different types of cookies, freshly stuffed cannoli, zeppole, pizzelles, a huge vat of tiramisu, and my favorite, Teresa's mom's lobster tails, sort of a crispy, zillion-layered pastry cone filled with chocolate custard and whipped cream.

while unwrapping a giant plate covered in a sampling of the yummiest dishes: spinach dip and homemade pumpernickel bread, veggies and smoked salmon dip, fancy cheeses and artisan sea salt crackers, sausage pie, coleslaw, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans with bacon and onions, and collard greens (also with bacon).

CHRISTMAS EVE MENU Foie Gras with Caramelized Apples Salmon with Lemon, Cucumber, and Dill, served on Small Rounds of Toasted Bread Escargots de Bourgogne Oysters with a Mignonette Sauce Oysters with Pimento Peppers and Apple Cider Vinegar Oysters Rockefeller, deglazed with Pernod, served with Spinach, Pimento Peppers, and Lardons Sophie's Spiced Langouste (Spiny Lobster) à l'Armoricaine Crayfish, Crab, and Shrimp with a Saffron-Infused Aioli Dipping Sauce Moules à la Plancha with Chorizo Selection of the Château's Cheeses Three Varieties of Bûche de Noël The kitchen staff walked in as I threw the chalk on the counter. Phillipa snuck up behind me. "Oh my God. That menu looks wicked incredible. I'm already drooling." Clothilde nodded her head in approval. "It's perfect. You've made your grandmother proud." "How many bûches do you think we'll need?" asked Gustave, referring to the celebrated and traditional log cakes served in every French restaurant and household sometime during the holiday season. "Twenty?" I answered. "Good thing I started on them a few days ago," he said. "Pineapple and mango, chocolate and praline, and vanilla and chestnut." "No alcohol?" I asked. "Maybe just a pinch of Armagnac." He held up his forefinger and thumb. Looked like more than a pinch.

SPINACH-ARTICHOKE HUMMUS Creamy texture, pretty green color, and assertive taste—this dip has it all! SERVES 8 | ¼ cup per serving 2 ounces spinach (about 2 cups) 1 cup canned no-salt-added chickpeas, rinsed and drained 4 medium canned artichoke hearts, rinsed, squeezed dry, and quartered ¼ cup Chicken Broth or commercial fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth 2 tablespoons shredded or grated Parmesan cheese ½ teaspoon grated lemon zest 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 2 tablespoons tahini 1 to 2 medium garlic cloves, minced ¼ teaspoon pepper In a food processor or blender, process all the ingredients until the desired consistency. Serve at room temperature or cover and refrigerate until needed. COOK’S TIP ON TAHINI Tahini is a thick paste made from ground sesame seeds. Add small amounts to enhance salad dressings, marinades, soups, stuffings, and other dips and spreads. Look for tahini in the condiment or ethnic sections in the grocery store. PER SERVING calories 101 total fat 3.5 g saturated 0.5 g trans 0.0 g polyunsaturated 1.5 g monounsaturated 1.5 g cholesterol 1 mg sodium 89 mg carbohydrates 13 g fiber 4 g sugars 2 g protein 5 g calcium 40 mg potassium 188 mg dietary exchanges 1 starch ½ lean meat