Recently, Frank started learning Biblical Hebrew to write to a friend who’s in rabbinical school.
It’s been painful hearing Frank attempt to sound out words — he still needs a little practice before he can do the more guttural pronunciations — but he’s had a lot of fun with the language.
He says it nudges him into a different way of seeing the world. Rather than revealing when actions take place, Biblical Hebrew verb conjugations are rooted in stories — is something finished already, or not?
At times, that’s all you need to know. If it’s after five o’clock and dinner isn’t ready, it hardly matters whether Frank has begun to cook yet. I, Kirstin, will need to quiet our fussy kids with either a snack or a particularly dramatic reading of our latest chapter book.
New languages are easier when we’re young, but learning is a joy at any age. I feel deeply grateful to Lenny Newman, who taught me this just after I settled in Bloomington.
Frank and I were busking with a friend on Kirkwood — a trio of voices accompanied by guitar, mandolin and accordion — when Lenny sauntered over and, after our song, struck up a conversation with our friend about the wiring and whatnot used to convert an accordion into a MIDI-controller. I’d explain this better if I could, but their delighted conversation left me befuddled (and bemused).
Lenny was a passionate aficionado. In his retirement years, he’d set about studying the technical side of music. Gaining expertise in something like that involves learning a whole new vocabulary — for wiring diagrams, a whole new language. But Lenny set about his endeavor with unbridled gusto. We still miss him.
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And my colleague Vera recently demonstrated the incredible power of bringing a learner’s mindset to her work life. In one of our high school classes, Vera has been helping a few students who are quite new to their use of English as a second language. And so Vera began learning Spanish to better help them.
When these students caught a glimpse of Vera’s notes — in a beautiful little book with a print of Van Gogh’s blossoming tree on the cover, Vera had written out common phrases in Russian (her own first language) and the corresponding Spanish — they looked overwhelmed with gratitude. Even amid the stress and turmoil of teaching during the pandemic, Vera was ready to learn more if that’s what it took to help kids.
Often, that’s the thing about cooking, too. It would be easier to make the same foods every day. Easier still to order a ready-made meal, or to pick up something from the freezer section of the grocery store. But there’s a sense of accomplishment in learning. And if we’re lucky enough to be cooking for others, they’ll know that we tried to learn on their behalf.
Frank and I are always so happy to hear when people have used our recipes to cook for visiting children or guests who happen to be vegan. It can be really tricky at first, learning what to do differently! And it sounds like guests are often really pleased whenever somebody goes to that amount of effort.
This week, we’re sharing a recipe for a sort of food that we eat often — with some variations, Frank serves a dish like this at least once a week. Beans, vegetables and greens stewed together to make an easy, tasty, nutritious center of a meal.
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And, although we recently printed a recipe for homemade granola bars with nuts and seeds, Frank had to learn to make an alternate nut-free version now that our kids are back in school and need to be careful not to give anyone an allergic reaction!
These bars use a mix of white beans, tahini and maple syrup in place of peanut butter. At first Frank also tried to mimic the crunch of chopped nuts by stirring in toasted black beans, but that version was loathed by our children (although I thought they were tasty). The unforgivable sin of the black beans? They looked so much like chocolate chips, but weren’t.
Whether you’re teaching or parenting or caregiving or just trying to navigating the Target or Walmart this month as the IU students move in, we’re wishing you a happy start to the school year!
White Bean Tahini Bake
This flexible, adaptable recipe is a quick weekday dinner, perfect for those of us easing and/or crashing back into the school year.
14 ounces tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes
15 ounces canned great northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
2-4 kale leaves, chopped
2-4 medium to large tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
3 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons tahini
Begin heating the oven to 425 degrees.
In either a non-stick pan or, preferably, a large oven-safe pan like well-seasoned cast iron, heat the tofu for about five minutes on medium low to sweat out the liquid. In the last minute of heating, add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and the chopped garlic. Stir and allow to brown slightly.
If you used a pan that isn’t oven-safe, now’s the time to transfer the tofu and garlic to a large casserole dish. Then layer the vegetables, tahini, nutritional yeast, and olive oil on top, adding the nutritional yeast and tahini by about a tablespoon each time.
Cook your oven-safe dish or pan in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until the top layer of vegetables has begun to brown. Serve alongside rice or pasta.
Nut-Free Snack Bars
Frank’s updated recipe, now more allergy-friendly! These energy bar replacements are a little chocolatey, lightly sweet and hit the spot when our little car of humans is in transit between after-school pickup and the Y.
15 pitted dates
2 cups hot water
1 tablespoon sodium chloride salt
1 teaspoon potassium chloride salt
4 tablespoons chia seeds
2 tablespoons flaxseed meal
15 ounce can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup tahini
2 & ½ cups quick oats
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
½ cup sesame seeds
¼ cup hulled hemp seeds
½ cup chocolate chips
Begin by soaking the chia seeds, dates, salt and flax meal in the two cups of hot water for 10 minutes. Then blend until smooth. Add the great northern beans, maple syrup and tahini, then blend again.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the blended paste with the oats and cinnamon. Stir well to mix.
Use the blender to lightly chop the seeds and chocolate chips, then stir them into the mixing bowl. (You may want to wait 15 or 20 minutes before stirring these in — if the mixture is too hot, the chocolate chips will melt, and then you’ll wind up with chocolate flavored bars instead of discrete bursts of chocolate chips. Which might also be nice! But if it’s chocolate chips you want, try not to melt them while mixing.)
Transfer to a casserole dish — feel free to line it with parchment paper first to make cleaning easier — and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool before slicing into bars.