“I dreamed that Birdy was sick,” I said to Michael last
month, waking, and waking him, in a sweaty fright in the night in our little
Wellfleet rental. He murmured something soothingly, sleepingly, and I went back
to sleep only to wake again with a start an hour later. Birdy was standing by
our bed with the pinky cheeks and the glassy eyes. “I don’t feel so good,” she
said. And she had a 101.1 fever, and then a 103.3 fever. There was a visit to
the Cape Cod clinic and a strep diagnosis and a not even wanting to eat warm
buttered orzo, which is her number-one favorite food on the planet. It was all
very sad and strange and, thankfully, brief.
She was a lot better by the next day, and a lot more better by the day after
that, and then fine. Plus, we had cable TV, and I’d be lying if I said I minded
cozying on the couch with her to watch back-to-back-to-back episodes of House
Hunters. Beach shmeach.
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| The daily miracle of wellness. |
Oh, but the dream. Michael imagines that there was some
tiny butterfly-wing shift in the air that I registered unconsciously: a few
stray strep molecules, a nano-degree of raised heat, a way Birdy's skin felt when I touched my good-night kiss to it. Something. It puts me in awe of
my own parental psychic process. And of antibiotics, to which I bow humbly down.
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| For you, amoxicillin, for I know it was never your intention that Birdy barf you out into a bucket. |
Speaking of which: I wanted to make something for Birdy that
might offer a little pro- to counter the anti-, biotics-wise, and I so I
thought of kimchi. But I didn’t have napa cabbage, which is what I’ve always
used when I've followed my usual recipe from the
Momofuku Cookbook; I had a red cabbage. So I Googled “Red Cabbage Kimchi,” and found a whole
new recipe and method that I loved. I used fresh jalapenos instead of the Korean
chile powder that I usually use, that I insist on using even though it smells
kind of dusty in the package and I’m never sure I like how it tastes. I didn’t
use sugar, which I usually add, or fish sauce, which I am fanatical about, even
though sometimes the funk is a little funkier than my mood requires. And, most
differently, I followed the instructions on
Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried (a new-to-me blog providentially named after my number-one
favorite Maurice Sendak line of all time), where Naomi Devlin recommends using
two probiotic capsules to get the fermentation started.
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| Imagine a scallion into this photograph. |
I’m telling you. This is the best kimchi I’ve ever tasted,
even though what it really is is a cross between kimchi and sauerkraut. It’s
gorgeously pink and perfectly tinglingly tart, crisp and aromatic and just so utterly fresh-tasting. It is the brightest thing I’ve ever made, in all ways. Plus, I
can’t even begin to imagine how healthsome it is. Red cabbage! Fermented!
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| Ah, the lovely, lovely fermented foods. Also, artificially-flavored strawberry milk. |
I mean, please. I eat it pretty much every
day, either with a groovy frankfurter or on a rice cake that’s been slathered
with almond butter. Oh, and Birdy loved it never ended up mustering the
courage to try it. It does, I should mention "have a smell." [Catherine makes prissy, judgmental suit-yourself face.]
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| This is absurdly, tangily, addictively delicious, even though it smells and the hot-dog slices might give you a strange preschooly feeling. |
Red-Cabbage Kimchi
Adapted from
this recipe at Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried. I added the scallions and upped the ginger, garlic, and chile, but feel
free to omit/scale back as you prefer. I would describe this as fool-proof, but
then next week I’d end up screwing it all up somehow. Still, it’s very easy and
intuitive, and if you’re interested, it’s a great starter fermentation project
because the probiotic capsules control it all.
1 red cabbage (I used half of a quite large one), cored and finely sliced or shredded (I used
this)
2 carrots scrubbed or peeled and grated, shredded, or julienned (I
used
this)
1 tablespoon peeled and finely chopped or grated ginger
1 large scallion, white and some of the green, finely
slivered
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
½-1 hot pepper, seeded and slivered (make it however spicy
you like)
2 tablespoons kosher salt
The powder from 2 probiotic capsules dissolved in 1 cup of
spring/filtered/mineral water (I used water that I’d boiled for tea and left to
cool. The issue is that you don’t want the chlorine, which is designed to stop
bacterial growth, because you want to grow some bacteria! It boils off after a
minute, though.)
(I use
these probiotic capsules. I think as long as you get capsules (not tablets) it should be fine. Actually, you could probably dissolve tablets no problem, so that should be fine too! There.)
Put everything into a (strong) ceramic or stainless steel
bowl and pound with a meat mallet or pestle or wooden spoon until the juices
start to flow. (This is an inexact science. Just make sure to give it a
decent bashing or even a good squeezing with your strong fingers and all will
be well.)
Now pile the mixture into a very clean 1- or 2-quart jar (or
multiple smaller jars—just try to distribute the liquid evenly) and push it down
with your clean fingers until the juices rise to the top of the cabbage. Close with
a lid.
Set the jar aside at room temperature for 3-4 days until the
pickle tastes good and sour. (Unscrew the lid every day, if you think to, just to make sure no gasses are building up pressure in there.) You’ll see
it, though: once the cabbage starts to ferment, it will go from looking purple
and white to looking a uniform bright pink, the way it would if you added
vinegar to it. Bingo! Once it’s as sour as you like, keep it in the fridge,
where it seems to keep well. I mean, it’s already spoiled, so what more could
really happen to it?
