I know you do it like a Greek and you're hung like a Christmas tree

[sovay]

The sandwich I made for dinner tonight was probably not a Reuben by any canonical definition, but it was delicious: I toasted Wensleydale with cranberries on two pieces of challah, filled the intervening space with corned beef and a lot of red coleslaw, sliced the whole thing in half and ate it while reading more Alexander Mackendrick. The cranberries picked up on the orange and the tart cherries in the slaw and the Wensleydale combined very savorily with the corned beef. The sole drawback is that it will be almost impossible to repeat unless I feel like making this particular coleslaw again, which was something of an adventure—I had been aware for years that red cabbage can be used, like beets and onion skins, to dye Easter eggs, but somehow this failed to translate into a practical understanding that slicing enough red cabbage for eight people's worth of coleslaw turns your kitchen into a Tyrian dye-works and your fingernails cyanotic for the rest of the week. Everything I touched was going porphyry. (I took some photographs; I may post them. At the point where I gave up and dumped everything into the Cuisinart, it actually became quite attractive.) If I could get the red slaw Reuben at a local sandwich shop, I'd be a regular, but I'm not sure how reasonable it is to go around marking red-letter days on all the dishcloths every time I feel like a hot sandwich.

I discovered Schmekel last month in an article in the Jewish Daily Forward and then never posted about them or Berel-Beyle of Krizover. This weekend I saw they'd gotten a writeup in the New York Times. Today I actually bothered to figure out Bandcamp so I could download their last year's Hanukkah single. It's pretty awesome. Brooklyn's only 100% Transgender, 100% Jewish schtick-rock band. I should probably just preorder their first album: they have songs called "I'm Sorry, It's Yom Kippur," "Pharaoh/Moses Slash," and "You're Not the Only Bear I Fisted."

It feels infinitely more natural for me to be awake at three in the morning having stayed up translating Yiddish songs, as I've been doing since around one o'clock, than for me to fall asleep around three in the morning having gone to bed around midnight, as I did last night when I felt abysmal. By now there are years of evidence that it's worse for me. I find this very frustrating.

Comments

[sovay]

I've never thought of making coleslaw with red cabbage, although I'm very fond of braising it with cinnamon and maybe some chopped apple.

Slaw: one red cabbage, sliced as thinly as humanly possible; three carrots and three scallions, ditto; the cut-up segments of two clementines; one cup dried tart cherries; and some pine nuts, toasted until fragrant in a small skillet. Toss.

Dressing: two tablespoons brown sugar; one tablespoon orange juice; salt and pepper to taste; and one clove of very finely chopped garlic. Whisk together, then whisk in a quarter-cup canola oil.

Pour dressing over slaw. Toss. It will try to get everywhere. You will also be covered in red cabbage juice if it hasn't happened already.

It will be delicious, however, and even more delicious—like many stews and things of a marinating nature—on the second day.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! This sounds wonderful. I'd never have thought of putting clementines in slaw.