Family Dinner

It's Almost Lunch Time

2009-08-20T21:04:00.005-04:00

It’s the time of year that I start to get itchy about school lunches, and so far my anxiety and panic have not set in. In some ways I think I have the system down:

• I have some good fast stand-bys for quick lunches I could pack in my sleep (hummus, bagel, fruit, cheese sticks, chocolate milk).

• I’ve finally learned that I can actually put a lot of the lunch together the night before. That took years. Really.

• My girl started to pack her own lunch during camp this year. We shopped together to make sure we had foods were nutritious and that she enjoyed, and she packed what she wanted to eat from that selection.

One trick over the colder months is to make sure you have a small, wide-mouth thermos for hot soups and beans. Big pay off with the thermos.

Lots of people are talking about school lunches these days. I hate to give a shout out to Whole Foods these days because the CEO is just being a dimwit, but I found a nice flyer there with a great list of foods for lunch. It helped me think of using jicama, snap peas, and green beans and making wraps from whole grain tortillas. That made me think of the Levant sandwiches I used to get at La Mediteranee in Berkeley: basically cream cheese and cucumber with some herbs and lettuce rolled up in levan bread like pin wheels. Those would definitely go over big with my girl.

Our president is talking about school lunches too. I saw Obama interviewed by an 11 year old Damon Weaver, and he is ready to make a move about school lunch. He made similar points in a health care strategy meeting today.

So far, so good.

Thanks to Aubrey's Antiques (aubreysantiques.com) for the lunch box photo. That was the one I wanted when I was a kid.

Dinner (mostly) from the Farm

2009-08-07T10:40:00.005-04:00

Today is the My Girl’s last day at Farm Camp at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, and it’s been a good two weeks for both of us. She’s learned about organic foods and composting, gone on hikes, and even prepared a meal in the Blue Hill kitchen. I’ve been able to shop at their amazing Farm Market, drink my weight in iced coffee, and get the sense that all is not bad in a world that create this kind of farm heaven. We’ve been splurging on fresh eggs from the farm, making an amazing egg salad last week and then a frittata (we red and blue flesh potatoes from the farm). Dinner came from the farm last night too.

It was a strange thing to be looking at the little piggies at the Stone Barns farm, knowing we were going to be having ham from there for dinner. I don’t know if I’m good at compartmentalizing or rationalizing: I’m eating dinner that came from the likes of you, little piggy, but it’s not you on my plate. Plus, if I am going to have some pork, how much better to know that the little critters lived a life of trotting around in the woods and rolling in juicy mud.

Once the ham steaks were decided upon (and they’re so easy, you just basically just have to heat them up), I knew that I wanted some kind of apple thing with them. It’s summer and too hot for applesauce, so I decided upon a slaw. My girl and I did this part together: washing the cabbage, fennel, and apple—then slicing them all into thin strips. We made a dressing out of Bittman, which we cut down for our small group: 1/2 C mayonnaise, 2 teaspoons cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon maple syrup. We mixed it all together, making sure we had a nice ratio of veggies and dressing and then let it sit to wilt and mingle in the fridge for an hour.

Evan grilled some more of that delicious light green oval-shaped zucchini they’ve had at Stone Barns, and My Girl whisked up a vinaigrette for the purslane salad, a green I had never heard of until the other day. It’s labeled as both a weed and a “succulent herb” full of good things for the body. It makes a tender and satisfying salad, little bunches of greens like watercress. I got a beautiful bag at the farm market when I picked up my girl from camp, but I’m afraid it’s the same vigorous plant that I’ve trying to weed out of our raised flower bed.

When Summer (or the Upper West Side) Gives You Lemons...

2009-08-03T10:56:00.012-04:00

Summer in the city used to mean having an Iced Cappuccino with Chocolate Italian Ice at La Fortuna on West 71st Street. That a hardware store now occupies that site is very sad indeed, the only consulation being that it is a small business and not a big chain. I still mourn the loss of that place, and I’ve come to realize that the New York that you encounter when you first arrive becomes permanently etched as the way New York is supposed to be. So there shouldn’t be a Brooks Brothers on my old corner. That’s supposed to be a Chemical bank. But of course, if I had gotten there a few years earlier I would have longed for the space to be a car show room.

And Hadleigh’s is supposed to be a few blocks down on Broadway. That was the place to go to choose chocolate to sneak into the movies or Lincoln Center. It was the place to sit outside and have a paper cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll on Sunday morning. Hadleigh’s has been gone for a few years too, and it has been replaced by something more appropriate to the new neighborhood: Bar Boulud.

My friend Amy and I decided to stop there after a matinee the other day, and we indulged ourselves with a decadent cheese plate for lunch. Your first look at the platter makes you think that they might have made a mistake, no, we didn’t order the mouse meal (something they would have at Alice’s Tea Cup). But when you start in on the cheese you find you get nicely fed.

This is a long story to tell about their lemonade. They had two specials: basil and rosemary lemonade. They infused their simple syrup with the herb, then added the lemon juice. You poured in your own Pelligrino. It was like an herbal citron pressé, and perfect for a warm summer day.

I made some at home yesterday, just as described. I picked some rosemary, muddled it with a mortar and pestle, wrapped it up in cheesecloth and then let it simmer with the sugar and water.

The rest is just lemon juice and bubbly water to taste. Perhaps it will become a new summer tradition, she said with just a small amount of uncertainty.

Thanks to Jim in Times Square for the UWS photo from his flicker page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jim-in-times-square/2259528804/

So Far, So Good

2009-08-02T18:06:00.002-04:00

The cooking en famille experiment continues, and I’m cautiously optimistic about how things are going. Last night’s meal of roast chicken and an assortment of veggies worked well. My girl and I did the beets together, cutting off the greens, washing them well, and putting them in a pot of shallow water to braise (it was too hot to roast). Then we sorted through the greens and had a pot ready with those as well.

Evan was in charge of the chicken, and then had the idea of grilling the rest of the loaf of bread while the roasted chicken rested. I had an adorable pale green squash that would be easy to grill, so I sliced that up, doused it in oil, salt and pepper, and put that on with the bread. We put some goat cheese in with the cooked beets after they’d been skinned, then simmered down some balsamic vinegar for a sweet and tangy glaze.

Dinner came together like a waltz, except for when the bee flew into the kitchen. Huge distraction, a bee buzzing around your kitchen, so some of the bread was well done.

Dinner was wonderful, and I invented this little taste sensation: grilled bread, spread with fresh goat cheese, topped with a slice of grilled zucchini, and topped with a few sprigs of thyme. Oh my.

Headline News: Woman Revitalized after Family Dinner Slump

2009-07-28T10:55:00.011-04:00

I’ve been in a dinner slump. No joy in thinking about, preparing and putting dinner on the table. For the past few months dinner has been a job and an ordeal for me. I would have been happy to open a carton of yogurt for myself or have some cheese and crackers.

I’d been trying to figure out what was going on. I had lost my knack, my confidence and my desire. Was I slipping into a mild depression?

Time dragged on, meals were served (at home or in restaurants), and then a convergence of ideas emerged. It was like the clouds that have been coming together lately for our magnificent thunderstorms.

Here’s what happened:

1) Evan read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and became a convert.

2) My girl started Farm Camp for the third year.

3) I read Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Depression, by Mildred Armstrong Kalish.

4) I went on a quest for a coffee cup, which entailed driving for 5 hours, and we ended up listening to some of the podcasts on my ipod, including a TimesTalk with Alice Waters.

These four events happened within about a week and it suddenly dawned on me that the Family Dinner I was dedicated to putting forth needed to be re-worked. Family dinner had been a big effort on my part to put dinner on the table (set generally by My Girl) and then cleaned up by Evan. It had seemed like a fair distribution of effort, but not any more.

Evan’s interest in eating in a more responsible and healthy way made me realize that he had a bigger stake in the meal than before. He had always been appreciative of the meals I prepared and served. But one night I realized that he makes rice better than I do and that the work is easier when we share it—both preparation and clean up.

My Girl was excited about Farm Camp this year because it involves more cooking. She harvested zucchini yesterday. She prides herself on her ability to clean garlic.

I was drawn to Kalish’s book by the cover and the hope that her voice would be like that of my grandmother, telling stories about how to “make do” with less. She helped me get my shower door clean with baking soda (truly, make a paste and scrub lightly—all of the sick scum comes right off without the fumes or cost of the scrubbing bubbles) and reminded me about the green husk on walnuts and how you have to let them age.

And then My Girl and I listened to Alice Waters (who I both admire and find grating) talk about teaching children to appreciate good food by growing it and preparing it. My girl is already 9, ready and able to learn more about making meal plans and preparing food.

My vision of Family Dinner has shifted. It’s no longer just the three of us sitting down to dinner I prepared. A real family dinner has to involve all of us – in decisions, in preparation, in sharing and cleaning up. So last night we had lamb chops, mashed potatoes and cauliflower (My Girl’s choice of vegetable). We all worked together to get the meal on the table. My Girl picked and washed the rosemary for the rub, prepared the garlic and mashed everything up with the mortar and pestle (then made her lunch for camp when she was done). Evan put water on to boil, cleaned and chopped the cauliflower and made the mashed potatoes. I grilled the chops and prepared the cauliflower. We sat outside in the summer evening enjoying all of it, and I knew that I was on to something and that my delight in dinner was recaptured.

Fast and Easy Pasta Via Bittman

2009-04-13T19:40:00.003-04:00

Spaghetti with Broccoli Rabe, Toasted Garlic and Bread Crumbs

I made this pasta for dinner tonight, and oh my was it easy. Want dinner in about 20 minutes? Here it is.

My only change would be to give a little more olive oil at the finish. Oh, and I used fine linguini. It was gobbled up by everyone.

Everybody Loves Chocolate Pudding –or- Family Dessert

2009-04-01T17:32:00.005-04:00

My Girl’s pediatrician told me that you can count on homemade chocolate pudding as a good source of calcium, so what more excuse did I need to whip some up. I had seen some lovely looking puddings at the always cute Kitchenette restaurant. They serve them in canning jars, and that’s the kind of pudding I wanted to pull out of my fridge too.

I looked around for recipes and finally found one that didn’t rely on cornstarch and understood the benefits of good chocolate. Weeks went by. I tap tap tapped the ingredients into the little list app for my phone and carried it around with me for days. First I got the Valrhona chocolate chips at Fairway and stored them in my pantry for a couple of weeks. Then the day finally came (thank you, Spring Break!) when I had time to make the pudding. I purchased the remaining ingredients and some more canning jars and was ready to go.

Making the pudding itself was hardly any work. You could do it while talking on the phone and supervising children on a play date. I did! The bad news came when I realized that the pudding had to cook in the hot water bath for an hour, cool outside of the oven for an hour, and then chill in the fridge for another hour. I guess if you want instant you go the Bill Cosby route.

When the pudding was finally done we weren’t disappointed. It is rich and smooth. Thicker than a mousse, more complex and (dare I say?) more satisfying. In a few minutes all you could hear was the clink-clink-clink of our spoons trying to dig out the last bits of it from our jars.

The recipe made six - 1/2 jars, and we were generous enough to give two away. That meant we had some to spare, and it was even better on day 2, when it had set even more.

I was feeling guilty about the calories, but when I divided up the amounts of whole milk and heavy cream by six servings it really didn’t seem all that bad. Really. No really.

You don’t want to have the oven on for an hour in the summer, so you should really make this dessert soon, maybe tomorrow.

Valrhona Chocolate Pudding – adapted from Gourmet 9/04 and epicurious.com

yield: Makes 6 servings
active time: 30 min
total time: 3 1/2 hr

1/2 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
4 1/2 oz Valrhona bittersweet chocolate (61%), finely chopped, or chocolate chips
5 large egg yolks

Special equipment: 6 (4-oz) ramekins or 1/2 pint canning jars, it helps to have a kitchen scale

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 275°F.
Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan with tip of a paring knife, then add pod, milk, cream, and sugar and bring just to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add chocolate and cook over moderately high heat, stirring gently with a whisk, until chocolate is melted and mixture just boils. Remove from heat.
Pour mixture into a metal bowl. Set bowl in a larger bowl of ice and cold water and cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Whisk in yolks, then pour through a fine-mesh sieve into a 1-quart measure, discarding pod and any other solids.
Divide mixture among ramekins. Place pudding jars in a roasting pan and fill with water up to half of the jar. Bake until puddings are just set around edge but centers wobble when ramekins are gently shaken, about 1 hour.
Cool puddings in the water bath 1 hour, then remove from water and chill, uncovered, until cold, at least 1 hour.

If you’re using canning jars you can screw the caps on them to keep the pudding fresh or to transport to a really, really good friend.

Tamales - Epilogue

2009-03-28T14:05:00.002-04:00

I know I skipped some steps here, going straight to the epilogue, but the tamales were such an ordeal that I didn’t have the energy to tell the tale until days after.

Lesson 1, which needs to be learned and relearned, is read your recipe though – carefully. I think my confidence and exuberance make me skim a recipe, rather than pay close attention. Whatever the reason, I need to get better at this.

Lesson 2 is if your mind’s eye sees a bunch of women gathered together to do the work (think quilting, making preserves, making tamales), it’s usually because it’s a lot of work.

So I left you with the cornhusks soaking and the chicken roasted, on the first day. That was the easy work. I used Rick Bayless’ recipes, which you can find here.

Making the batter was pretty easy, so I started that at 10:00 pm, after My Girl had gone to bed and the kitchen was clean from dinner. It basically involved making dough in the mixer and letting it rest for an hour. I made the rest of the filling during that hour, getting the meat from the chicken, mixing up the salsa and masa (masa makes it thicker). I used Trader Joes jarred tomatillo salsa, but I added the drippings (fat scooped off).

Next thing I knew it was 11:00 pm, and I was determined to finish the job that night! I dried off the biggest and best cornhusks and cut kitchen string in about 9 inch lengths. Bad news: I only had enough for nine strings. My visions of 24 glorious tamales began to dash. Still I soldiered on, spreading a 4x4 inch square of the dough in the center of a big husk. I made a little dollop (1 heaping Tablespoon) of filling in the center and sprinkled a bit of queso fresco on top. Then I rolled one side of the husk onto the other side so the masa would meet as I rolled up the husk. I folded the top and bottom sides in and tied it up length-wise with the string. This took a long time.

I read more of the directions: Steam the tamales in batches, filling one layer of a steamer at a time. Steam for 1 1/2 hours.

Midnight. I have 8 tamales (one string was too small, so I had to tie two together) making one layer in the steamer. They cook for 1 1/2 hours. I call my girlfriend in California and talk to her for as long as it takes to steam the tamales. I do a bit of cleaning while I’m on the phone. I rationalized that I could go around the house looking for more kitchen string, but assembling more tamales would take hours. What if I spent all that time and they were horrible? As they say, eight is enough.

The tamales now have to sit for another hour and then you need to steam them again (for 15 minutes) before you serve them. I put them in fridge, cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, and crashed in bed at 2:00 am.

Jump to next night and absolute tamale bliss. I steamed them and then carefully peeled back the first bits of husk. Soft, smooth masa is revealed. I cut into it and have a taste. I swear, it is one of the best tamales I’ve ever had. It is magnificent, beyond my highest expectations.

Friends said I could have used the leftover masa dough to make a tamale pie, and I could have. The thing is, the steaming is what made them so incredibly soft and moist. You’d lose that with a baked tamale pie.

So I’ll be making these again, but next time it won’t be a solo affair. I’ll be doing it the way it’s supposed to be done, with some friendly helping hands.

The Tamale Experiment

2009-03-24T15:08:00.002-04:00

After having one too many dried out tamales, where the masa was like cardboard and the filling bland, I am embarking on an experiment: Making My Own Tamales.

Day 1 - Procure ingredients

Most everything is available at Fairway, though it was a search for the dried corn husks. I had bought some for Esme to make dolls with years ago, but I had to ask four employees where they were. Turns out they were in their usual place in the produce section, hiding behind some dried chilies.

I had to ask about the lard too. It was above the pork products in the cold room.

Day 2 - It's a start

I roasted a small chicken with salt, pepper, and coriander. I decided to stuff it with a lime, which seems to have worked well. When it was done, I cut it up and saved the juices, making stock from the bones.

I started soaking the corn husks in hot water, with a plate over them to keep them from floating up.

It suddenly occurred to me that some cheese would be good, so I googled "mexican market westchester" and found Mariachi Loco on Central Ave. (the ugly, busy street that every city seems to have). I got the cheese, some more limes, some warm tortillas, and some pre-made mole. On the way out I sampled a chicken taco at their restaurant next door. Muy bien.

Good For What Ails You

2008-12-26T17:04:00.007-05:00

We’ve had a pretty sickly household lately; both Evan and My Girl are chomping on antibiotics. I have been able to claim a number of honors: healthiest person in the house, person who uses the least Kleenex, and best cook. That means I’ve been doing double duty with the chicken soup front. I started off with a basic chicken soup (chicken breast, carrots, celery, onion), which was good for the onset of the afflictions, but by day three it was time to pick things up a bit. I dug out an old recipe for “Sopa de Tortilla.”

Back when I was young(er), I used to go plays at American Conservatory Theater (ACT) or The Curren in San Francisco. There was an affordable little soup place right across the street, and it became a regular part of the whole theater going experience (a mad dash for coconut macaroons at intermission was also a part of this, but—sadly—macaroons don’t make it into this meal).

Tortilla Soup, based on the one from Salmagundi’s Restaurant

3 pounds chicken pieces
4 quarts water
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 (1-pound) can whole peeled tomatoes(chopped up in the can a bit), undrained
1 onion, choped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced

1 (10-ounce) package frozen corn
4 green onions, coarsely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup cooked rice
1 Tablespoon chopped coriander

To Serve:
Corn tortillas
Corn oil

Grated cheese (Jack, Cheddar)

Combine chicken and water in stockpot. Make a bouquet garni of the peppercorns, coriander seeds, garlic, and any inner leaves from the celery. Cover and bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chicken is tender, about 45 minutes. Skim as necessary. Remove chicken from broth and let cool.

Toast cumin, coriander, and cayenne in small skillet. Be careful not to let it burn, but just to turn to a little shade darker. Add to stock.
Add tomatoes, onion, green pepper and minced garlic; cover and simmer 30 minutes.

Add corn and green onion and simmer 10 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, skin and bone chicken. Dice meat into 1-inch pieces. Add to broth with rice heat through.

Heat about 1 1/2 inches of corn oil in a skillet. Let oil get fairly hot. Cut corn tortillas into strips and fry a few at a time into tortilla chip strips. Let drain on paper towels.

TO SERVE:
Put cheese at the bottom of the bowl. Ladle into warm bowls and garnish with tortilla chips and fresh cilantro.

Everyone was happy eating the soup. Quiet cheers were heard as the two sniffled and coughed their way back to bed.

Do you know this place?

2008-12-03T06:46:00.002-05:00

You should! It's a fabulous cookbook store on Lexington Ave. in New York City. If you're not fortunate enough to be able to stop by, get on their e-mailing list. Every once in a while they send a list of interesting cookbooks, and most of the authors don't even have TV shows. That's something!

For example:

John Thorne. MOUTH WIDE OPEN.
The paperback edition of the latest collection of Thorne's thoughtful ruminations on cooking, ranging from marmalade and anchovies to improvised breakfasts. p. $15.00

Joan Santanach, editor; Robin Vogelzang, translator. THE BOOK OF SENT SOVÍ.
The first English rendition of an important, anonymous culinary text from 14th-century Catalonia. This is a glimpse at Spanish court food before the arrival of New World ingredients such as tomatoes, potatoes or peppers. The original Catalan text is included, rendered in contemporary spellings. p. $34.95

Amanda Hesser, editor. EAT, MEMORY.
This collection of food-related essays from The New York Times Magazine does not recycle old standards. Instead, it features a wide range of contributors, from the expected (Dan Barber, R.W. Apple) to the surprising (Tucker Carlson, Pico Iyer). Among the others: Dorothy Allison, John Burnham Schwartz, Gabrielle Hamilton, Jon Robin Baitz. cl. $24.95

Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris. HOMETOWN APPETITES.
In the 1950s and 60s Clementine Paddleford was a household name in America, writing on food-particularly American regional food-for the New York Herald Tribune. Alexander, a former editor at Saveur, and Harris, an archivist who oversees Paddleford's manuscripts, argue convincingly that this forgotten pioneer's adventurous, engaging prose and life story deserve renewed recognition. Serious fun. b-&-w photos. cl. $27.50

Dinner in the Morning

2008-11-28T18:59:00.003-05:00

-or- a recipe for Lyane's Crock Pot

I woke up bleary eyed at 5:00 am, but committed to the task at hand: get the dinner in the slow cooker. I had the forethought to do most of the heavy chopping last night, otherwise I might be short a few fingers typing this. That didn’t mean it was a piece of cake to even think through what I had to do to get everything in the slow cooker. There were all kinds of mistakes, just waiting to be made.

If I have any advice about how to get dinner on the table, it would be this little adage from Iron Chef Maurice: It gets easier with practice. It’s true. The more you get dinner ready the easier it is to get dinner ready. It was all that practice (and a cup of good coffee) that got me to the point where I could walk out the door at 7:00 am knowing that when I walked back in the house would smell as if Hazel had been working in Mr. B’s kitchen all afternoon.

And that’s exactly what happened. I nearly swooned from the fragrance of the pork roast, potatoes, carrots and onions simmering away.

You can do this.

Ingredients:
3 lb pork shoulder roast
Garlic slivers to stud the roast
1 C chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 carrots cut into 2-3” pieces
3/4 C chopped celery
4 red potatoes, quartered
2 C chicken stock
1 C red wine
Water
Salt and Pepper
Herbs

The night before…
It does help to do some prep work the night before, and you can combine it with preparing that night’s dinner. So make something where you have to chop an onion and just chop some more. Decide to serve some carrots and then chop more. I put the carrots in a Ziploc along with some chopped celery, so I was good to go in the morning.

Morning of the scrumptious dinner…
Heat a little olive oil in a pan large enough to hold the roast. Stud the roast with garlic by (very carefully) stabbing it with a knife then inserting garlic sliver inside. Brown the roast on all sides (about 2-3 minutes a side) and put in slow cooker.

Sauté the onion in the remaining oil, add some salt, and cook until transparent. Add the minced garlic and cook for a minute or so, don’t let it burn. Add the celery and carrot mixture, letting everything get nice and sautéed.

Scrub the potatoes and chop them into quarters.

Everything goes in the slow cooker. Start this soon enough so you can let it cook on high for an hour while you drink another cup of coffee, figure out what you’re going to wear and do with your hair that day, and slather on some make-up.

Set the pot to “low” and to cook for about 6 hours.

Leave the house, knowing that dinner is ready and you have nothing else to think about.

I’ve been reading the recent Alice Waters biography, so (even though she has a management style that makes me quiver) I was inspired to make a little salad to go with the stew: hearts of romaine, sliced pear, bucheron cheese, sunflower seeds and a couple of dried cherries. It was wonderful.

Food Trip

2008-10-01T12:49:00.009-04:00

With respect for the holiday and its celebrants, gratitude for school administrators who deemed to give us the day off, and absolute pity for those in our family who were forced to remain slave to their computer, My Girl and I ventured North yesterday in search of edible delights.

Our first stop was apple picking in Red Hook, in Dutchess County. We found a new place by browsing the Chowhound website, one that was not too big, not too commercial, and not too faraway: The Grieg Farm. We loaded up our bag with Empires, Macouns, and Macintoshes for eating; Jonagold’s for a pie. By the time we got our bag weighed and chose two small pumpkins from their patch (a real patch too, where the pumpkins were still connected to their actual vines—not just a patch of dirt where the cut pumpkins had been dumped), we were hungry.

We stumbled on Gigi Market by making a wrong turn. It’s the kind of place that wouldn’t have existed that far north five years ago. It specializes in local food from the Hudson River Valley (they list 34 farms that their restaurant supports on their menu), and does rather sumptuous things with what they get. We had a bowl of Minestrone that was delicious and filling. I had to work hard to persuade My Girl that we would be passing on the cookies and brownies there because another opportunity for dessert was yet to come.

We took a pit stop in Rhinebeck, which also seemed to be a bit more interesting than on previous visits. They have an old Five and Dime where I got a nice crochet hook, clasps to keep My Girl's mittens on her jacket sleeves, and old fashioned autumn leaf stickers. We spent far too much at the local independent bookstore (Oblong Books), but it’s hard to feel too bad about that. Plus, I found two new YA books for school: Hate That Cat (follow up to Creech’s lovely Love That Dog), and Gibson’s new Moxie Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank You Notes (a follow-up to the earlier Moxie Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little).

It was getting late, and since I always seem to end up getting lost on the way home from these parts, we hit the road. Our next stop, Hyde Park, wasn’t far at all. Dessert was to be had at the Apple Pie Bakery Café at the Culinary Institute of America.

I have wanted to go to this place for years, and it was, in fact, on my Summer To Do List, but since it was combined with going to a drive in movie (and the movie never showed anything the whole family could enjoy) it got passed up for The Amazing Tour of Miniature Golf Courses. What a mistake! This place warrants its own trip.

We had an impossible time deciding what to order. The mousse served in a little eggshell? An amazing tiramisu? Marzipan gelato?

My Girl finally chose the lemon meringue “pie,” a little tumbler with zingy lemon curd with some crust somewhere inside (it was eaten so quickly that I barely got a look at it) and a little browned meringue hat on top. I had a little tumbler with butternut squash (cooked way down with butter and some sugar into it’s most delectable essence), a round of gingerbread sponge cake, caramel/mascarpone custard, and then a little French macaroon as top. I had never tasted anything so surprising or scrumptious. I was sad when I had finished it but took delight in the strong coffee.

Our evening was bound to be a disappointment, as nothing could cap our day better than the meringue and macaroon. Still, we have today off too, and who can complain about that?

I took all those photos, so nobody can get mad at me.

Beer Can Chicken

2008-09-14T12:16:00.004-04:00

Have we talked about Beer Can Chicken? It’s my favorite way to cook a whole chicken on the grill. I’ve been known to ask the butcher to butterfly the bird and then grill the whole thing flat, but it’s easier to plop the thing on a can of Bud and let the heat do it’s thing.

Here’s how to do it:

Beer Can Chicken

Ingredients

1 can of beer
1 whole chicken
Salt and Pepper
Some kind of rub, if you want

1. Heat the grill up.

2. Open the can of beer, and pour out (or drink) about 1/3 of it.

3. Prop chicken snugly on beer can: legs pointing down like it's going to sit down.

4. Season the chicken w/ salt and pepper. [I sometimes add some ground coriander, and sometimes I use a rub.]

5. Carefully put the beer can on the grill. Make sure it is steady and that it won’t topple (mess).

6. Cook the chicken until a meat thermometer, stuck into the bird’s thigh, reads 170 degrees.

7. Carefully take the chicken and beer can off the grill with good pot holders and tongs.

8. Even more carefully, take chicken off of the beer can and let the chicken rest for a few minutes.

9. Carve and serve.

Note: A can of bud is fine for the chicken, but pour yourself one these for a good beer: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Blue Point's Hoptical Illusion, or Captain Lawrence Pale Ale

Did You Know This?

2008-08-16T11:49:00.003-04:00

“States now in the voluntary recall for ground beef purchased [from Whole Foods] between June 2 through August 6, 2008 include: Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington D. C. and Wisconsin.”

You can get more information from the Whole Foods website or from Beyond Blueberries blog.

According to Whole Foods, “the beef in question came from Coleman Natural Beef (now owned and operated by Meyer Beef), which used Nebraska Beef for processing.” I’m shocked, shocked that Whole Foods trades with factory farms. Makes that pricey chicken from the Hastings Farmer’s Market seem even more worth it.

The Time of the Season

2008-08-02T16:52:00.006-04:00

We usually visit family in California in the late summer, which means the amazing Sacramento Farmer’s Market is in full swing. One of my favorite parts of the trip is when Iron Chef Maurice and I make the short trek to the market under the underpass and weave our way through the maze of stalls looking for the best tomatoes, melons, and peaches. This being California and more specifically the Central Valley the place is truly a cornucopia of the freshest and most beautiful food imaginable.The heirloom tomatoes, of every possible color, are the big prizes, and they get prominently displayed on the kitchen counter as we unpack and plan the meal.

We all weren’t able to make the trip West this summer, so only Evan sat down to the traditional meal, pasta with fresh tomatoes. Maurice sent along the recipe, so I was able to do my best to replicate the summer ritual. It’s called Caprese with Penne, and it’s from Viana La Place & Evan Kleiman’s wonderful Pasta Fresca, which according to Maurice everyone should have a copy of on their cook book shelf.

The recipe itself is pretty easy; the secret is that you have to have incredible tomatoes. Maurice says “Never, ever try to make Caprese with store-bought tomatoes. They must be red all the way through.” That means that this is a summer recipe, more specifically a dish for August.

One basic rule of cooking is to completely read your recipe before you even think about starting. Dinner would have been earlier if I had read the part about having the tomatoes, garlic, and basil marinate in the olive oil for about 2 hours. Dinner was after eight, but believe me—it was worth the wait.

Here’s how to make it:

4 large and incredibly beautiful tomatoes, skinned and chopped into 1” pieces
2-3 T fresh basil, chopped (or torn or in a chiffonade)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
Olive oil (recipe calls for fruity) to cover
1 lb. penne rigate pasta
1 lb fresh mozzarella (recipe says to rate the mozzarella, but Maurice has a lot to say about this)*

So yes, mix the first 5 ingredients and let them all sit an incredibly long time while everyone gets hungry and you sip gin and tonics and eat salted nuts.

Then when it seems that everyone is getting cranky and starts giving you the eye, tell them to start boiling some water for the pasta. Cook the pasta in salted and oiled water until it is al dente (about 11 minutes) because if you let it go any longer, people like My Girl (who has inherited this from her grandfather) will start telling you that you don’t know how to cook pasta. Over-cooked pasta, according to Maurice will ruin the dish and everyone will scowl.

Invite anyone who looks really hungry to slice up the mozzarella with you. They can swipe bites of it, and that should keep them happy.

Put the tomato mixture in a serving bowl. When the pasta is done, drain it (reserving some of the cooking water in case things get a little dry) and add to the tomatoes in the serving dish. Stir it up and when everything is cooled down a bit, add what’s left of the fresh mozzarella.

Serve and sing praises to summer, give a clink of your glass to Iron Chef Maurice, and decide to get the Pasta Fresca cook book from your favorite independent bookseller.

*“ Fresh, made-in-California, mozzarella in a plastic container with some of the cheese water is far better than the shrink-wrapped, rubber ball kind that is usually found in supermarkets. Taylor’s Mkt on Freeport and 4th Ave has it and so does. Corti Bros. [both in Sacramento]. Both also have Italian Buffalo mozzarella. The rubber ball stuff will work in an emergency, but the best by far is the Mozzarella da Bufala from Italia I actually don’t grate the mozzarella, but cut it into little matchstick-sized pieces and add it after I have added the tomatoes to the pasta and it has had a chance to cool down a little. If you add it before then it tends to melt and clump together. Take your pick, a highly respected chef and author, or me.”

Image from Bountiful Garden: http://www.bountiful-garden.org/strains.html

Working on the Local Thing

2008-07-29T16:48:00.003-04:00

Farro Salad

I recently finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I have to say that I found it inspiring. Her mantra “Eat Locally” is like an earworm, making me read those obnoxious stickers on produce to see where its from and get up early on Saturday mornings to shop at the Hastings Farmer’s Market. And that’s not all bad. I’m not really complaining here. I’m just glad I’m reading it now instead of back in the ‘80’s. I’d be digging up the back yard to plant squash and looking into raising goats. I was highly impressionable and full of zeal.

Now I embrace Julia Child’s attitude about moderation, and that’s why I could prepare my favorite farro salad for dinner last night.

The salad is problematic for “localvores” unless you live in both Italy and Spain; you see I have only been able to find farro made in Italy and Manchego cheese made in Spain. But I compensated by getting the red peppers at the local farmer’s market and the basil even closer – my own backyard. I can live with that trade off for now.

Farro, by the way, is a nutty grain. The internet tells me that it was the staple of the Roman Legions. Wikipedia says that it’s also known as Emmer Wheat and that it was one of the first domesticated crops.

I adapted this recipe from one in the beautiful Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rogers.

Here’s how to make it:

1C farro
1 Red pepper, diced – a bit bigger than the farro*
2/3 C Manchego cheese, diced — a bit bigger than the farro
1/4 C fresh basil en chiffonade (shredded)**
3-4 T Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

Boil about 3 cups of water in a med. saucepan. Add a few pinches of salt.

Add I C farro to the boiling water. Cook for 10 – 15 minutes until somewhat tender, but not too firm.

Drain cooked farro, as you would pasta, and then spread it out on a baking sheet to cool.

When the grain is cool, combine red pepper, cheese, and basil in a large bowl. Add olive oil, a tablespoon at a time (while gently tossing the salad) until everything is thinly and evenly coated. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I will eat this salad anytime, even for breakfast! But now that I’ve read the Kingsolver I would feel badly to purchase basil in February. I’m not saying that I won’t ever, but I’d feel really badly.

*Rogers’ recipe calls for tomatoes. I’ve also used roasted red peppers when I’m not in a hurry.
** A chiffonade is done by stacking all of the basil leaves on top of each other, rolling them up like some kind of strange cigar, and then slicing thin thin horizontal cuttings (say, from the tip to the base).

In Case You Missed This - or - Food is Political

2008-07-27T12:55:00.005-04:00

Here's NY Times Reporter Nicolas Kristof's update on Beatrice Biira. For those of you who haven't teared up over the picture book Beatrice's Goat, I'll give you the back story. Beatrice and her Ugandan family received a goat from Heifer International. The goat was the leg up that her family needed to become more self-sufficient and enabled Beatrice to attend school. Kristof, who persists in telling the stories that aren't always on the 24/7 news radar,shows how individuals (like you, like me) can change the world. I'm not kidding.

Printed from the July 3, 2008 New York Times:

OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Luckiest Girl

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

This year’s college graduates owe their success to many factors, from hectoring parents to cherished remedies for hangovers. But one of the most remarkable of the new graduates, Beatrice Biira, credits something utterly improbable: a goat.

“I am one of the luckiest girls in the world,” Beatrice declared at her graduation party after earning her bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College. Indeed, and it’s appropriate that the goat that changed her life was named Luck.

Beatrice’s story helps address two of the most commonly asked questions about foreign assistance: “Does aid work?” and “What can I do?”

The tale begins in the rolling hills of western Uganda, where Beatrice was born and raised. As a girl, she desperately yearned for an education, but it seemed hopeless: Her parents were peasants who couldn’t afford to send her to school.

The years passed and Beatrice stayed home to help with the chores. She was on track to become one more illiterate African woman, another of the continent’s squandered human resources.

In the meantime, in Niantic, Conn., the children of the Niantic Community Church wanted to donate money for a good cause. They decided to buy goats for African villagers through Heifer International, a venerable aid group based in Arkansas that helps impoverished farming families.

A dairy goat in Heifer’s online gift catalog costs $120; a flock of chicks or ducklings costs just $20.

One of the goats bought by the Niantic church went to Beatrice’s parents and soon produced twins. When the kid goats were weaned, the children drank the goat’s milk for a nutritional boost and sold the surplus milk for extra money.

The cash from the milk accumulated, and Beatrice’s parents decided that they could now afford to send their daughter to school. She was much older than the other first graders, but she was so overjoyed that she studied diligently and rose to be the best student in the school.

An American visiting the school was impressed and wrote a children’s book, “Beatrice’s Goat,” about how the gift of a goat had enabled a bright girl to go to school. The book was published in 2000 and became a children’s best seller — but there is now room for a more remarkable sequel.

Beatrice was such an outstanding student that she won a scholarship, not only to Uganda’s best girls’ high school, but also to a prep school in Massachusetts and then to Connecticut College. A group of 20 donors to Heifer International — coordinated by a retired staff member named Rosalee Sinn, who fell in love with Beatrice when she saw her at age 10 — financed the girl’s living expenses.

A few years ago, Beatrice spoke at a Heifer event attended by Jeffrey Sachs, the economist. Mr. Sachs was impressed and devised what he jokingly called the “Beatrice Theorem” of development economics: small inputs can lead to large outcomes.

Granted, foreign assistance doesn’t always work and is much harder than it looks. “I won’t lie to you. Corruption is high in Uganda,” Beatrice acknowledges.

A crooked local official might have distributed the goats by demanding that girls sleep with him in exchange. Or Beatrice’s goat might have died or been stolen. Or unpasteurized milk might have sickened or killed Beatrice.

In short, millions of things could go wrong. But when there’s a good model in place, they often go right. That’s why villagers in western Uganda recently held a special Mass and a feast to celebrate the first local person to earn a college degree in America.

Moreover, Africa will soon have a new asset: a well-trained professional to improve governance. Beatrice plans to earn a master’s degree at the Clinton School of Public Service in Arkansas and then return to Africa to work for an aid group.

Beatrice dreams of working on projects to help women earn and manage money more effectively, partly because she has seen in her own village how cash is always controlled by men. Sometimes they spent it partying with buddies at a bar, rather than educating their children. Changing that culture won’t be easy, Beatrice says, but it can be done.

When people ask how they can help in the fight against poverty, there are a thousand good answers, from sponsoring a child to supporting a grass-roots organization through globalgiving.com. (I’ve listed specific suggestions on my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground, and on facebook.com/kristof).

The challenges of global poverty are vast and complex, far beyond anyone’s power to resolve, and buying a farm animal for a poor family won’t solve them. But Beatrice’s giddy happiness these days is still a reminder that each of us does have the power to make a difference — to transform a girl’s life with something as simple and cheap as a little goat.

[Kristof invites you to comment on this column on his blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof]

Iron Chef Maurice Delivers - or - Takin' It For Gratin

2008-07-26T22:47:00.004-04:00

A present-for-no-reason arrived at my door the other day. Iron Chef Maurice gave me a copy of one of his favorite cookbooks: Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells. It’s a beautiful book, and Maurice pointed out the gratin section, especially a gratin dauphinois with blue cheese.

I was in the mood for a gratin myself, but something a bit more summery. She had the perfect recipe: tomato and zucchini gratin. It reeks of summer, though it does take a bit to get the oven turned on to 400 degrees.

We ate it outside with some grilled chicken and some bread to mop up all of the juicy goodness. I thought it had a kind of pizza flavor, what with the tomatoes and cheese.

Here’s how I made it:

Ingredients
Zucchini, sliced very thinly into disks
Tomatoes, cored and also sliced thinly
Garlic
Fresh thyme
Olive Oil
Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (ouch!)

I lightly salted the zucchini disks and let them sit on some paper towels to keep them from being too watery. After about 20 minutes I turned them once and then about 15 minutes wiped the salt off.

Wells has you rub a cut clove of garlic in the au gratin pain, something I learned from the French to do in my salad bowl as well.

Then you place one layer of zucchini on the bottom. Follow that with a single layer of tomatoes. Repeat with zucchini and tomatoes until you run out or you reach the top of your dish.

I put a few breadcrumbs on the very top. I don’t know why. I just did.

Sprinkle the fresh thyme on the top along with about 2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil.

Bake for about 20 minutes. I knew mine was done with the veggies seemed a little soft and it was making lots of noise (think a soft hissing sound).

Grate a fair amount of Parmesan on top, and put the dish under the broiler (keeping a good eye on it) until it lightly browns.

Date Night

2008-07-11T11:33:00.008-04:00

National Date
Festival, Indio, California

Fairway had fresh dates yesterday, the kind still on the stick. They are so beautiful and have the appeal of the wild. Brussels sprouts on the stalk are like that, but only the cook gets to appreciate pulling the sprouts off the stem. These aren’t the shiny, sticky dates that look like insect exoskeletons (the fruitcake kind). These are smooth and the color of caramel—divine.

Evan is away visiting his parents, so I thought tonight’s dinner might be something plain and simple: prosciutto, figs, Machengo cheese, some quinoa salad, and fresh dates. But I think of Evan and a trip we took to Joshua Tree back in the early '90's. We were in date country and saw signs for date shakes . We were too chicken to try one then, but now that we are older and wiser I know we would have sprung for one.

Photo used with permission from
RoadsideAmerica.com

Time for More FotC - The Marvin Gaye Way

2008-07-09T23:46:00.000-04:00

Back on the Farm

2008-07-09T23:12:00.005-04:00

It’s time for Farm Camp again. My Girl, her best friend, and a gaggle of other local kids get the chance to frolic on the farm at Stone Barns (collecting eggs, herding sheep, picking berries, pulling weeds, harvesting veggies, making healthy snacks, and weaving lanyards). Yesterday was especially wonderful, according to My Girl, because they climbed up the compost heap and then slid down. She was the dirtiest she had ever been in her life, so beautiful I wanted to capture her grimy shins on film.

Stone Barns is exactly where she needs to be. Even though we moved to the suburbs three years ago, she’s a city girl at heart. Yes, she has come to love playing on the grass, can spot poison ivy from a good distance, and knows the names of most of the local songbirds. But what’s wonderful about Stone Barns is that just being there teaches us to consider where our food comes from. It’s different to see the chickens at Stone Barns than the ones in the Children’s Zoo in the Bronx Zoo. The chickens at the farm are just cute and funny as those at the zoo, but fact remains that they’re going to be food. This is an important lesson if you eat meat because it reminds us of our connection and perhaps makes us a bit more grateful for what we have.

Stone Barns grows wonderful fruits and vegetables, teaching about the patience and care it takes to sow, nurture, and harvest plants—that food is seasonal, and that fresh food is a joy. When the kids pick pea pods off the vine and pop them into their mouths it teaches them that the Earth provides for us and that we, in turn have a responsibility to it.

Yes, it’s terrific to have these lessons literally “farmed out” for my daughter, but I have to ask myself how well I am modeling these principals for her. We celebrate food, but until recently when prices began to go up noticeably, I took the full grocery cart for granted. Evan and I have a kind of running joke with some leftovers. We put them in the fridge almost ironically, and then a couple of days later we clean it out asking, “Is this done?” Tonight I threw out two slices of steak, a little bit of broccoli rabe, the remains of a delish strawberry tart, and some mozzarella cheese—and that was a low night.

Perhaps I need to go to farm camp for a couple of weeks too.

A Confluence of Summer and Nostalgia

2008-07-05T16:54:00.003-04:00

I had some strawberries from the neighborhood farmer’s market going begging in the fridge. That’s a phrase my grandma would use when something worthwhile was being ignored. These strawberries were definitely worthwhile (little bright red ones), but they had been sitting around for a couple of days. They were past their prime.

The night before I had found a thread about memories of Berkeley in ‘70’s and 80’s, and it was like going through an old scrapbook. They wrote about all of my favorite places (The U.C. Theater, Edy’s, Monterey Market, Café Roma and on and on) and helped me remember my first espresso (Caffe Med), buying my first album (Cat Stevens’ “Teaser and the Fire Cat”), my first job (selling bagels at The Bagel Works on Telegraph). Another memory crept in too, sitting in the sun on a surprisingly warm afternoon drinking a coffee frappé. I don’t remember the name of the café (except that it was in the same Northside complex as The Melting Pot and Top Dog), but I do remember being very happy with a book, the sun, and this icy drink.

The two came together: the strawberries and the memories of Berkeley; I made strawberry frappés.

I crushed some ice in the blender, added some milk to make it a liquid, then added the edible parts of the strawberries (it seemed many had gone begging too long). I poured them into tall glasses, and we sat in the sun sipping. We had to return to the kitchen for an adjustment, sugar. Even the red, red strawberries need a little boost.

I say "Frittata"

2008-07-02T14:14:00.005-04:00

If you plan on coming over to my house for brunch, odds are you’re going to be served a Frittata, quiche without the guilt or bother with the crust. I often serve it with asparagus and cheese, but last night’s had some of that leftover (pricey) Madrange ham and tiny-diced potatoes (and some sautéed onion). I grated some Parmesan cheese on top and sprinkled some torn basil for a festive look.

San Francisco Mom of One served me my first Frittata years ago. It was a hot summer day in the South Bay, and she whipped up this fine dish. Hers had some pasta inside, which even Alice Waters gives permission to do.

Here’s how I made mine last night:

Ingredients:

Some red onion, diced and sautéed

About 3/4 C boiled potatoes, diced small

About 3/4 C diced ham

6 eggs, well beaten

Salt and pepper

1-2 T Vegetable Oil (quantity depends if you’re using a non-stick pan or not. Sometimes I use oil and butter together)

Preheat oven to 350.
Heat a good size sauté pan (that can go in the oven) over medium flame and add the oil. Once oil is fairly hot pour in eggs. Briefly let eggs set, then add the onion, potatoes, ham, a few grinds of pepper, and some salt (depending on how salty your ham is). As the eggs set, push the edges in, letting runny parts move to the edge to cook more. This can take about 3-5 minutes, depending on the size of your pan, how many eggs you’ve used, how much filling you have.

Be sure to watch your flame because you don’t want the bottom to overcook.

When all is cooked but the top, put the pan in the oven for about 2-3 minutes more.

When it is cooked through (but not overly dry!), take it out of the oven and loosen the frittata from the pan. Invert it onto a large serving plate. Garnish and serve.

This can be good hot from the oven or at room temperature, and while I was eating ours last night I began to think of an artichoke frittata. Doesn’t that sound good?

French Dinner, Italian Style

2008-06-30T20:15:00.004-04:00

My Girl’s best friend is French, so when she had dinner at her house on a hectic day (and when is dinner w/ a play date not hectic) the mom often served a simple dinner. She would put together some plates of ham, cheese, and salad, some cornichons and mustard; that would be it. My Girl began to think of this as a French Dinner, and in many ways it is. Delicious food served thoughtfully and with ease, what’s more French than that?

Tonight was a perfect night for a French Dinner. The Girl and I were tired out from 19 holes of mini golf. It is too hot to have the oven on, and the thunderstorms are keeping me from the grill.

So we made a detour to Mamaroneck on our way home.

It has only been three years that we’ve been in Westchester, so as the face of Manhattan evolves into some unknown entity (goodbye La Fortuna, Hunan Park, Lenge, Le Gamin, The Gardenia Coffee Shop, Jerry’s. (The Old) Palm Court, Zen Palate, Café Gray, Le Madeleine, Diwan Curry House), I have tried to become more familiar with my new territory. I let myself get “lost” to discover what’s worth finding around here. That’s how I found Cosmo & Alex Pisano Brothers’ Italian market in Mamaroneck—just driving through on my very round about way to the Apple Store at the Westchester Mall. This little market has everything (even the I Rigoli cookies I crave) and is definitely worth a detour (don't miss the bakery a few doors up either).

Today I went there purposely, with a goal in mind: dinner! I got a few slices of Madrange Ham, a Fava bean salad, another salad of celery, ricotta, and escarole, some fresh mozzarella, and a small ciabatta. I combined this at home with some fresh basil leaves from our garden, some curls of Parmesan cheese, and some roasted red peppers from a jar. The three of sat outside and enjoyed our feast, early for a change because it was prepared with ease.

How Do You Feel About Croquettes?

2008-06-29T11:35:00.005-04:00

Dr. Freud's Couch

Croquettes creeped into my life slowly. Once, when I was whiling away my 45 minutes of psychoanalysis I asked out loud what I could prepare for dinner with leftover roast chicken. “Croquettes!” was the enthusiastic response from my analyst. This from the person who was so professionally restrained that nearly every question I asked in 10 years went unanswered. Croquettes? What in the world was she talking about?

Years went by and that cryptic and isolated response perplexed me. What are croquettes and why, of all the things she could possibly tell me, did she recommend them?

Then I picked My Girl up from a late afternoon play date (which marvelously included dinner). I could see some of the leftovers on the kitchen table, and the kind dad (who also happens to be a wonderful cook) offered me some. They were little potato pancakes full of chicken and peas. “What are these?” I asked with a mouth full of the light and savory morsel.

Croquettes!

They are indeed an excellent way to make use of leftover chicken, leftover mashed potatoes, and leftover peas. But I was so in the mood for them the other night that I made fresh mashed potatoes and fresh corn to accompany the leftover chicken and to appease my hunger.

They are most definitely comfort food, and perhaps that comfort was what the wise doctor was trying to relay.

Here’s how I made them:

Ingredients
Mashed potatoes—this is the main ingredient, and the amount you have will determine how many croquettes you will have. Remember, butter makes them better.

Roast Chicken – take the meat off the bone and chop into bite-sized pieces

Some sautéed onion, shallot and/or garlic will add more flavor. You won’t need a lot

Some vegetables – corn, peas. I used one ear of corn for about 10 croquettes

Egg—(beaten) Think of this as meatloaf, you want enough to bind everything together and add some lightness when it cooks, but don’t make it too wet.

Salt / Pepper

Bread Crumbs or Panko

Vegetable Oil

Mix the potatoes, chicken, onion, veggies, egg, and salt and pepper. Form them into balls and flatten them out into cakes (about the size of a hamburger patty). It’s not a bad idea to let them chill in the fridge if you have the time. I think this helps them set.

Lightly bread each side of each croquette with breadcrumbs

Heat a griddle and add some oil (don’t let it smoke), and cook the croquettes, letting them crisp up on each side. Let each one drain on some paper towels after you cook them, then keep them warm a low oven until they are all done.

Image: From Freud.uk.org

A Day with Frog and Toad

2008-06-26T11:05:00.008-04:00

I was feeling a lot like Toad yesterday, Frog’s rather glum and pessimistic friend. An iced coffee at about 4:00 finally shook it out of me, but I promised to have a brighter outlook today. So I started things off with a brisk walk and came home to stare down the three baskets of raspberries in the fridge.

The local A&P has raspberries on sale this week, three baskets for five dollars. It is actually a sweet deal when one considers that a half-gallon of organic milk is almost that. The thing with raspberries though, is you have to use ‘em or lose ‘em. So the pressure was on: what was I going to do with those berries?

I thought of a raspberry mousse, that is until I looked up the recipe and saw how many cups of heavy cream go into it, and it seems a shame to eat all those calories without the chocolate. I riffled through as many cookbooks as I could and came across this from my guru, Laurie Colwin: “God created raspberries in large part so that we would preserve them in glowing jars to stack smugly in our cupboard. Lord knows I love jam making—the ravishing color of the berries as they first combine with the sugar, the moment when the thickness is right, the satisfaction of ladling the wanton jam into the tidy jar.” See! Toad would not make jam; it is such a Frog activity.

I found some old jars and fresh lids and put them on to cook. Measured out equal parts berries to sugar and let my mind drift to other literary inspirations for the process. Suddenly I was Sal’s mom, in their kitchen, making blueberry jam. Yes, I am hopeless.

Feeling even more empowered I sliced up 9 lemons, sprinkled them with sugar, and began to mash them with a potato masher so we can have lemonade later too.

It’s 11:00 am. Maybe it’s time for a nap.

Frog and Toad illustration by Arnold Lobel
Sal and her Mom, inside cover from Blueberries for Sal, Robert McCloskey

Oh Yeah, I Forgot...

2008-06-25T21:33:00.006-04:00

A friend told me that she actually knew of a reader (thank you, thank you) who has been waiting for months (Such patience! Such loyalty!) to hear how that darn pork roast turned out. I remember it well, even though many meals have been plopped down on my table since.

It was horrible, like cardboard.

Michael Pollan’s latest actually sheds some light on the pork loin problem. With our “lipophobia” (fear of fats) that came out of the ’77 and ’82 dietary guidelines from the National Academy of Sciences, we began to breed for leaner pigs. They became “The Other White Meat.” But it seems my high school home ec. teacher had it right: the flavor is in the fat, and that’s why the Prime steaks at Fairway have gorgeous marbling and taste like heaven (if red meat is your thing). Note that three of us share one small steak, so as red meat consumers we’re not at the top of the charts.

Since the March Madness of the pork loin debacle, I have been a champion of the pork shoulder. It’s cheap, difficult to botch, and oh my does it taste good.

One time I put a whole boneless roast in the slow cooker along with some celery, carrots, cannelloni beans, and a big can of tomatoes. I think I made a sauce of some of the veggies and juices after it all cooked for 6 hours and the meat was all falling apart. We were happily heating that dish up for a couple of days.

When I was in Sacramento last summer and under the tutelage of Iron Chef Maurice, I raided his cookbooks, xeroxing every good thing I could find. Many of these were from Rick Bayless’ Mexican Everyday, a book Maurice swears by. This past Sunday I made Puerco y Papas al Gujillo, which translates into Guajillo Spiced Pork and Potatoes. It was a revelation.

The deceiving thing about slow cookers is that it’s easy to confuse them with the Ron Popeil philosophy of cooking: “Set It and Forget It.” You usually can’t just throw everything into the pot, set the timer and go to work. There is usually some kind of prep work (e.g., chopping, sautéing) to do before you can resume your leisure activities. This recipe is no exception. You have to toast the guajillo chilies, puree them with a bunch of ingredients, and strain them over the meat and potatoes. Don’t let me dissuade you, however. It’s about 30 minutes of prep—then you’re free to watch movies, read a book, do a load of laundry, and have a good long phone chat.

It’s a heavy dish; still it’s good for a summer night (like in Mexico). I served it with black beans, tortillas and corn one night, escarole salad on the next.

Puerco Y Papas al Guajillo (from Bayless’ Mexican Everyday)

Serves 6

1 1/2 pounds red skin or Yukon Gold potatoes, each cut into 6 wedges
1 1/2 – 2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cubed (I used 1 1/2” cubes)
2 oz (about 8) dried guajillo chilies (stemmed, seeded, and torn so they lie flat)
1 – 15oz can diced tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
2 tsp dried oregano
2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
salt
1/2 C (loosely packed) chopped cilantro for garnish
1/2 C diced white onion

1. Set the potatoes over bottom of slow cooker and top with pork.
2. Heat med. (8-inch) skillet over medium heat. When it is hot, toast the chilies – about 10 seconds per side. Any smoke means they are burning. Put in blender.
3. Add tomatoes w/ juice, garlic, oregano, Worcestershire, a generous 1 1/2 tsp. Salt, and 1 1/2 C water. Blend until as smooth as possible. Strain mixture through a medium-mesh sieve directly into slow cooker, over meat and potatoes. Stir to mix.
4. Put on lid and set to slow-cook on high for 6 hours. (It can keep on “warm” for 4 hours after cooked.)
5. Stir when done, add water if sauce seems too thick. Add salt if you think it needs it.
6. Serve in bowls with cilantro and onion on top.

Note: You can also do this in a Dutch oven at 300 degrees for 2 -1/2 to 3 hours.

Better Than Making Dinner

2008-06-22T18:22:00.002-04:00

I'm about to get up and make dinner...but first...The Tape of Love

Not For Dinner

2008-06-20T15:09:00.002-04:00

Some of my dinners have been pretty crappy lately, but I do have some handy tips for good things to serve.
First for the healthy: fruit kabobs. I had to bring something to The Girl’s school picnic, and I swear I lost sleep over this assignment. What will most kids eat that is good for them? What won’t spoil in the sun? What is easy to carry? Yes, delicious fruit-on-a-stick was the answer. I cubed up melons, blackberries, pineapple, and strawberries (having forgotten the organic grapes in the fridge), and they were pretty darn good. Color-wise, the pineapple blackberry combo looks best.

Now for the decadent! Our dear neighbors help us out in so many ways. I did two loads of laundry at their house yesterday because our machine is on the fritz; that’s how generous they are! They are so thoughtful that it isn’t unusual to get a phone call around dinner time announcing that “s’mores” will be available over their leftover coals. [They grill with charcoal, which is pretty much the only way to toast marshmallows.] They were out of chocolate on this particular night, but they did have Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Oh man! The gooey hot marshmallow with the graham cracker and chocolate were amazing, but with peanut butter it was overwhelmingly delicious. We named them “Nutter S’mores.” Try it for yourself.

Stay Tuned for Results

2008-03-09T18:02:00.004-04:00

It's the Sunday after setting our clocks ahead, and even though "people" say that it doesn't make a difference in our bodies and brains, I "feel" a difference. I am all out of whack, as if I didn't get enough sleep even after eight hours. To make myself feel better...I'm cooking.

I have Mark Bittman's Pork Roast with Potatoes in the oven, and even after 20 minutes the house smells like a place you want to be on a Sunday afternoon.

It's from his How to Cook Everything book (my copy is falling apart from use), and so far...so good.

Second Chance

2008-02-25T17:39:00.006-05:00

Sometimes I make life difficult for myself. Take the little brussels sprouts they sell at Citarella. Each little sprout is about the size of a "shooter" marble, and is a tight, tight bud of cruciferous goodness. They come in a little mesh bag, which you can absent-mindedly fling into your shopping basket, never noticing how much you're paying for those little gems.

I bought them once, and, thinking that I had to clean each stem and peel off any tarnished leaf, it truly wasn't worth the effort. I had a heap of stem ends and tiny leaves to discard, and not much solid sprout to show for my work. I would bet that I probably cursed.

If I'm anything I'm hopeful, so just this Saturday (years away from my first baby sprout encounter) I flung another mesh bag of them into my basket. This time I had a plan: wash them really well, dry them, drizzle with some olive oil, sprinkle w/ salt and pepper, roast at 325 for however long it takes. I decided to go with a slowish oven to make sure that they were nicely cooked through. When they were just done I cranked the oven up a bit to ensure a nice brown crisp.

Oh my. These were some of the best brussels sprouts I had ever made. They were tender inside and then caramel crisp on the outside. I thought about taking a picture for this post, but I swear...I couldn't stop eating them to go get the camera.

They are good hot, cold, room temperature, and if you feel like it— you can eat these like popcorn.

Not Really About Dinner

2008-02-22T19:53:00.007-05:00

Café La Fortuna is closing this Sunday. Lora sent me an e-mail with the news, and there it was in the Times. Café La Fortuna, home of the Iced Cappuccino with Chocolate Italian Ice, the place SFMomofOne showed me before she was a mom or lived in SF, home of so many great conversations and calories, a place so cool even John Lennon hung out there, a symbol of everything that the Upper Westside Side once stood for (before boutique cosmetic shops took over) is closing.

It feels like a really good friend who likes opera is leaving town.

I am devastated.

Morning Coffee

2008-02-20T21:06:00.008-05:00

Sometimes you can tell a good friend by how much they listen to you and remember. I got a surprise in the mail the other day. It was the kind of gift that only someone who really knows me would send:a can of Ricoré. For those of you who don't know, Ricoré is a French instant coffee, and I suppose I like it because it is French and because it helps me relive fond, fond memories of days in France. My friend who sent it to me thinks of it kind of like French Sanka, the kind of coffee kids drink when they are just starting to like coffee--kind of like what a Frappuccino is to our teenagers today. For me, though, it is very different.

I heat up some skim milk in my favorite little sauce pan. Add two Tablespoons of the fine, fine Ricoré powder to my special cafe au lait bowl along with one knobby sugar cube. Pour and stir in the hot milk. Then I read the New York Times on line or work the crossword puzzle as the coffee helps me wake up.

Ricoré, as far as I'm concerned, is only for the morning. And since you have to work really hard to get it in the U.S. (Nestle, who makes it, refuses to sell it here) it is a rare and beautiful thing.

Thanks, C., for sending it to me. I promise a more personal expression of gratitude très bientôt.

Lunch at Savoy - or - Behold the Parsnip

2008-02-16T22:29:00.006-05:00

Trust me, this will tie in to dinner.

I informed My Girl after dance class today that she was taking me out to lunch. It could be a Valentines Day lunch or a late B’day lunch, it didn’t matter. We had a free all day park spot on the Upper West Side, and I was long, long longing to go to one of my favorite restaurants: Savoy in SoHo. My Girl was kind of against the idea because it involved taking the subway (she’s much more of a bus girl), but she put on her game face, clutched my hand and trooped down the stairs to the downtown track.

We got a nice little table (with a view of the fire place and Salman Rushdie) and were quickly overcome with choices. The woman at the next table was digging into the duck confit on polenta, which looked awfully tempting. They had a pork loin special that sounded good too. One of the best things, though, about the Savoy menu is the “little plates.” I suppose they are kind of like tapas. We chose: caramelized brussels sprouts with lardons; a salad of dates, ginger and carrots; and roasted beets with grated horseradish and orange. When we saw parsnip soup on the menu (with gruyere croutons) we knew we had to get that too. I had white wine and My Girl had lemonade, and we savored every bit. For dessert we shared a Meyer lemon tart with elderflower sorbet. My Girl didn’t like the sorbet, and I was glad because it was amazing (like eating flowers in the snow).

During the lunch, I confess, to being awfully proud of My Girl. I know when I was her age I would have avoided anything parsnip-like at all costs. I think she's game because we recently had pureed parsnips at home—and you can too. And you should because they are unbelievably good and super easy to make.

Here’s how:
Steam some skinned parsnips and skinned carrots until tender. (Many more parsnips than carrots)
•Put the cooked pieces in a food processor (or if you have a good friend who has recently moved to Paris and gave you her immersion blending stick because of the different Euro electrical current use that.)
•Add some butter and process or blend.
•Add some salt and pepper.
•Serve to your friends and family to their utter amazement.

Get Comfortable

2008-01-11T16:35:00.000-05:00

I tend to think visually, and though I am not a fan of food jargon I do like the term “comfort food.” I think this is because when I hear it I see myself sitting in our orange chair, wrapped in a blanket, eating something like macaroni and cheese or rice pudding. I am a big fan of comfort food, and I have one dish that is the most comforting of all.

I first fell upon this dish when I was working near Union Square, and I was able to duck out to (the now defunct) Verbena’s take out café. Every once in a while they offered a bowl of polenta with a fresh tomato sauce. I never wanted to leave, and I wanted my bowl to magically refill like in Strega Nona.

I found a variation of this dish at Via Quadronno. More than once I have gone there and plunked down myself (and a bit of cash) for their Polenta del Cacciatore, which they describe as baked cornmeal, Bolognese with mushrooms and mozzarella. It’s served in a piping hot au gratin pan, and the cheesy top is all bubbling hot. The tomato sauce is rich, and the polenta is a firm and buttery contrast to it. This is the dish to mend all wounds: emotional, physical, but maybe not economical.

I’ve done my best to replicate this dish at home, and have found some success. My take on it is fast and cheap (at least cheaper). Here’s what I do:

I make up some fast-cooking polenta (the five minute kind). I don’t often have time for the regular stuff, plus last time I made it I burned my hand on the bubble and pop.

I’m not sure if the polenta box calls for butter, but I learned from the folks at Verbena that adding butter to your polenta is an excellent idea. Add enough to make it yummy but not too shiny.

When the polenta is the right thickness – like oatmeal, pour it out onto a a baking pan. You want it about 1/2 to 1 inch thick. Let it cool and become solid.

Now the hardest part is over.

Open up a container of good Bolognese sauce. I know Maurice makes his own, but I’m just not doing that when I’m making dinner and I want to feel comforted. Locally, Citarella makes a decent sauce, and it isn’t too expensive. Heat up the sauce.

When the polenta is solid, cut it into pieces to fit into an au gratin pan.

Top it with the Bolognese sauce.

Sprinkle with cheese. I’ve been using parmesan, but next time I’m going for the mozzarella.

Put the dish under the broiler for a few minutes, until a nice crust forms and the cheese is melted and a little brown.

Find your version of my orange chair. Find a blanket. Sit in the chair; wrap self in blanket. Begin to eat the polenta (preferably in a bowl)—then ask the one who takes care of you for a glass of red wine. You could have gotten it yourself, but you just made this amazing dish and deserve to be waited on.

The Time, Space, Family Dinner Conundrum

2008-01-07T21:38:00.000-05:00

We were sitting around the table this evening having dinner (linguine with a semi-spicy tomato/shrimp sauce and broccoli rabe) when I came upon this big idea. I was noticing that I really wanted to know if everyone was enjoying the dinner. Both Evan and My Girl said they liked it, and that’s when it hit me. For me to truly enjoy a meal I have cooked, the pleasure factor has to be greater than the preparation (e.g., time, effort, number of pots and pans used). The linguine dish was good, but it took a lot to put together (and that’s without making my own sauce or cleaning the shrimp). Evan admits that he would describe the left over mess (that he cleans up) as high, and I don’t think that’s just because I stacked a sauté pan on the stock pot.

The good news is that the people I’m cooking for (besides myself) don’t really have an inkling about the mess they are going to encounter while they sit around the table enjoying their meal.

Soup's On

2008-01-03T16:34:00.000-05:00

Well yes, we have been eating dinner. Case in point: yesterday it was freezing cold, and the weather just screamed soup. I had a hankering for something with vegetables, beans and pasta, so that’s what we had for dinner.

Here’s what I did:
Put about 2 T Olive Oil in a big pot. Sautéed 1/2 onion, chopped. Added 2 cloves of garlic, minced. Added 3-diced carrots and 3 stalks of celery – also diced. Let things begin to soften.

Add some chicken broth (about 1 C) and some water (about 2 C). Add 2 C fresh string beans, cut about to about 1 inch; 6 whole plum tomatoes from a can-chopped; two 14 oz cans of cannellini beans (drained); and the rind from some Parmesan cheese. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer for a good long time.

When you are about 10-15 minutes from serving cook some tubular pasta in a separate pot. I use a separate pot because I don’t want the pasta to take all my good broth. Cut up a zucchini into the same size as your pasta and add it to the soup. Add salt and pepper to taste. When your pasta is done, drain it and put some of it in a bowl. Add a ladle of soup (being careful not to serve the cheese rind). Garnish with some Parmesan cheese. Easy and good. Today is even colder (a high of 24 degrees), so we’re having leftovers.

"A" Was Once an Apple Pie

2007-09-29T22:26:00.000-04:00

As I was approaching the stop sign at the top of Warburton I saw the sign: “Apple Pie Contest” in bright inkjet red. There are very few things that I’m competitive about; I’m basically just in to play the game. But that’s not true when it comes to the on-flight trivia games, and it’s not true when it comes to cooking. That little sign was like the school yard kid egging on the fight. I was in, and I was in to win.

I checked out the Hastings Farmer’s Market website for the rules: It had to be from scratch (including the crust), you had to list the ingredients on an index card, and you had to get it to the market by 10:00.

I decided that the best apple pie I know is the one Sour-Cream Apple Walnut pie from the Little Pie Company in New York. I was frustrated when they published their first cookbook and the recipe wasn’t in there, but I began to suspect copyright issues when I saw a recipe for Sour-Cream Apple Pie in my old dog-eared Silver Palate Cookbook.

Ahh, let us take a moment and pay homage to those fine ladies who issued that first volume; the one that introduced me to basil and cilantro. The cookbook that taught me chicken liver paté, aioli, and calamari back when I first started cooking on my own. Okay...that’s enough.

I followed the SP pie crust recipe, using ice water instead of apple cider and using my Cuisinart as Julia Child taught me in From Julia Child's Kitchen. That was a breeze and in the fridge to chill while I had afterschool snack with My Girl and then took her to a playdate.

The apples were another matter. I had some big organic Granny Smiths from Fairway, and they were crisp, tart, and a bear to peel. Then, to make the pie like the Little Pie, I sliced the apples ever so thin, about a quarter inch. That was a real time gobbler.

Then you make a sauce of sour cream (I went for the full fat because, heck, I wasn’t going to be eating it!), an egg, sugar, and vanilla. Wouldn’t you know it, I was out of vanilla. But I did find a vanilla bean tucked into a jar, so I soaked that in some boiling water and scraped out the innards. I think it worked.

After the apples bathed in the fat and sugar goop., I carefully placed each little apple slice around pie crust. Each little tiny apple slice found it’s own little place and it was about this time that I began to think that this procedure was taking a heck of a lot of time. But I convinced myself that it was this kind of painstaking attention to detail that will make the difference to the judges.

Next came the topping: white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts (organic, and yes, they were chopped by hand).

And then came the lattice, which gave the whole pie a rather finished and professional look.

And then came the three little leaves, cut out of remaining pie dough, etched with a sharp knife to look like leaf veins, and placed in a falling leaf pattern around the center of the pie.

It baked and baked and baked, and when it was finally done, well we couldn’t do anything about it but let it cool and admire it. It wasn’t for us; it was for the glory of the contest. It was for the triumph of knowing I had done my best. It was for the win.

I got up early and carefully carried the pie to the market. I thought the two women who were running the contest were going to hug me; they were so happy to have a pie for their contest. I was feeling kind of confident, gave them my phone number so they could call when I won, and headed home to the regular Saturday errands and outings.

The sad, sad truth is that the call never came.
My pie was not the best.
I have convinced myself that it probably was the most stunning, but maybe people weren’t brave enough to go out for the sour cream thing.

I think My Girl said it best: "You went to all the trouble of making that beautiful pie, and you don’t win, and we don’t even get to eat it."

You said it, girl.

Foux De Fa Fa by Flight of the Conchords

2007-09-21T19:54:00.001-04:00

Same video, but through YouTube. I still love it.

Shocking, but True

2007-09-02T16:06:00.000-04:00

I’m dismayed to report this. The truth hurts. Most of the new people who come to this blog find it through a google search for “lunchables.” The evidence is overwhelming and disheartening.

For those few of you who don’t know, Lunchables are kind of like the Swanson TV dinner for the school lunch crowd, but in my opinion only worse. Like TV dinners they appeal to our sense of order, a kind of high sodium, high fat bento lunch box. Kraft says it was designed to be “gift-like.” According to their website, “Recognizing that the prepared lunch category was a relatively untapped market, Oscar Mayer set out to create a product that would revolutionize the industry, create a solution for busy moms and help to boost company sales.” I don’t like to think of my child as an “untapped market,” and I’m not so sure that helping busy moms (and dads?) really was a priority over company sales.

The people at Kraft work hard putting together combinations that kids will love. Take the combination of Pizza and Cracker Stackers: “Inside you’ll find a tasty new pizza-flavored cracker, cheese and pepperoni-flavored sausage along with a sweet treat for afterwards. With two different varieties available, with or without a Tropical Punch Kool-Aid Jammers for even more lunch yum.” Ick.

Yes, food can be “fun,” but that’s not the first word I think of when I’m putting together a meal. I don’t really need an action figure (or “brigade”) to entice me toward roast chicken. Do you?

David Kamp wrote a good piece about this in The New York Times back in May, complaining about how many restaurants and parents assume that unless kids have chicken fingers and French fries they won’t eat anything else. I don’t think the fear is that our kids will starve, but more that they will be a nuisance to our own dining experience. Kamp goes to nutritionist Marion Nestle (What to Eat) who criticizes the notion of “kids’ food.” You know the fun stuff, like lunchables. What are we teaching our kids about food when we fill our shopping carts and contort our menus with foods that entertain because of a shape or (worse) a cartoon character tie-in?

The Times recently reported on a study that showed that kids thought the food wrapped in the McDonalds brand packaging tasted better than the food that didn’t. According to the article: “Almost 77 percent, for example, thought that McDonald’s french fries served in a McDonald’s bag tasted better, compared with 13 percent who liked the fries in a plain white bag.” They go on to say that the same was true for carrots and milk; they tasted better to the kids when they came wrapped in the brand paper packaging.

So I’m with the guy who hates lunchables. I apologize to all of you who find this site and are discouraged, think me snob, or some no fun kinda gal. My mission this school year is to pack more hummus and make school lunch tables a safe place for plain carrot sticks and bean salads. And I promise to try to steer My Girl toward regular food and away from food marketed as fun for kids. I'll keep you posted.

Can't Help Myself

2007-08-28T23:45:00.000-04:00

This has little to do with dinner... unless you think about the grocery store scene. Still...

Holy Basil

2007-08-28T23:04:00.001-04:00

I was saved by basil tonight.

As I was driving us home from the airport at 6:30 pm, I realized that dinner had to be made as soon as I stepped foot in the house. All of us were starving not only for food but for the delight of sitting around our own table with a real meal made just for us. You see, we had been on vacation for just over two weeks, the last week or so visiting national parks in Wyoming.

We weren't roughing it by any means. We stayed in little cottages and a beautiful inn while traipsing through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. No little camp stove dehydrated meals. But we still had to reckon with cafeterias and the potential icky quality of food prepared for masses.

So the stakes were high as I cruised along the Van Wyck Expressway. I didn't want to take the time to stop at the store to buy ingredients, and I certainly did not want to eat out. And then I remembered that little planter box of basil that I planted in May.

The first graders at my school sold their little seedlings for 25 cents a pop, and I planted two of them along with some tarragon and some rosemary just outside my kitchen door. Would the basil still be okay?

Thanks to some incredibly conscientious neighbors the plants had grown about half a foot since we left. They were full of gorgeous dark green leaves just waiting to be picked. I found some pinenuts in the fridge (toasted them), chopped up in the cuisinart the last edible pieces of some parmesan, added the nuts, a bit of salt, a bit of garlic, and about 20 basil leaves. A few whirrs later with some olive oil streamed in and I had some pretty magnificent pesto.

Luckily I had a couple of half boxes of spaghetti that were all about the same size. Voilà! Pasta with Pesto.

Dinner was ready in about 20 minutes. Afterwards we watched a slideshow of our vacation photos from iphoto, and I think we were each a bit ambivilent about having left our hiking adventures behind. The memories of the cafeterias paled with the reminder of Old Faithful, the enormous moose grazing by the side of the road, and the mud pots boiling up from the earth.

Thank you basil, for being the most sublime herb of summer.
And thank you neighbors for tending after our garden while we were gone.

True Confessions

2007-07-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

"Homemaking" was a mandatory course for all girls when I was in high school. The walls came down a few years after my spin with sewing and cooking, and boys started to take a class called "Bachelor Living" and for some girls it was okay to take shop. I missed that wave and found myself in the full estrogen laced arena of Home Ec. I was so happy in the initial class that I went on for part two.

In that class we learned about jello molds, needlepoint, and the teacher introduced us to real cheese. I was enthralled to find that there was more than Cracker Barrell and American Singles. Brie, Camembert, and Port Salut where revelations. I also completely got into nutrition. This was back in the day when Adele Davis would turn up on The Merv Griffin Show, and her Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit found it's place on my shelf. It might have been a good idea for me to study a foriegn language in high school, but learning about all that cheese set me up for real success in French.

It was during this period that the teacher handed out applications for membership to the FHA or Future Homemakers of America. I didn't know much about it, but I signed up for it anyway. I carried my card at first with pride (not realizing the shoe box my thinking could be folding myself into) then with irony, and later I either lost it or it fell apart. Now it all just makes me curious.

The term "homemaking" is out of date now and could easily be confused with architecture. [Martha uses the word "homekeeping," which makes me think of housekeeping and house work] It makes me think about what does it take to "make" a home? What are the things that each of us in a family does to create a haven, a nest, something more than a place for our stuff? I believe that making and serving dinner is part of it, but my local diner does that too.

And here's an update: The FHA is now the much more politically correct and ambiguous FCCLA or The Family Career and Community Leaders of America, Inc. Among their purposes is "#3 to encourage democracy through cooperative action in the home and in the community." I can stand for that. Above that though is "to strengthen the function of family as the basic unit of society," which I can be down with depending on how you define family. Beyond the membership card though, I don't get it.

The Best Camp in the World

2007-07-14T16:38:00.000-04:00

Last summer my dear little one and I went scouting around Westchester looking for things to do that did not involve netflix or having tea. We fell upon a farm built by the Rockefeller's in 1930. We felt so far away from the noise and hustle of the city (and suburbs) and were transported to a bucolic wonderland of flowers, bunnies, trees, chickens, sheep, and a gorgeous barn complex made of stone. We could pretend that we were in another time, hiking in the shady hills, checking on the lambs, trying to name the flowers. "I want to go to camp here," my girl announced.

And so it is that we have been traveling to Stone Barns every day the past week. The girl is addicted to weaving lanyards, but she has also learned to make hummus, zucchini sticks, and artichoke/spinach dip! How cool is that? The campers feed pigs, collect eggs, dig for potatoes, play games, and (of course) make lanyards. I get to buy farm fresh eggs and vegetables when I go to pick her up—and have an iced coffee. Everybody's happy.

The camp is run by the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, and they hold workshops, have family work days (harvesting and braiding garlic!), cooking classes, and tours to promote their mission (raising public awareness about farm and food issues). They also have a highly rated restaurant (Blue Hill), which is supposed to be so popular that it's difficult to make a reservation. I haven't tried and have been happy with the iced coffee and egg salad at the cafe.

Who is This Man and Why Will I Read Anything He Writes?

2007-04-05T19:33:00.000-04:00

Adam Gopnik has a piece in this week’s New Yorker about cooking in literature and comes up with four ways that writers use food in their novels.

First, he says, there is the “food that is served by an author to characters who are not expected to taste it.” He says that this kind of food is a step out of the action, a little down time in the busy character’s life. What’s key, he says is that there isn’t any appraisal of the food (i.e., was it good, surprising, satisfying, disappointing). I have definitely had meals like that where the point is just to have a break. It doesn’t matter what or where it is, it is so forgettable; I just need to sit down. Gopnik writes that the food, in these instances, is “interchangeable,” and I couldn’t agree more.

The next kind of food in literature is food that the author conjures up and is “served by an author to characters in order to show who they are.” This is my dinner parry food, or why else would I have ever made (or made great effort to learn to pronounce) gougère (cheese puffs), wassail, and so on. Scrooge has his bowl of gruel before the fire, Salinger’s Esmé drinks tea, and once I served up Francis Moore Lappé’s Peanut Butter Balls at an A’s game.

Gopnik goes on to say that an author “cooks for characters in order to eat with them.” That sounds so hospitable to me. These writers are à table. We get to do everything but taste it. I feel like this when I wander through Whole Foods and they have all of those prepared meals on display. I never buy the Nut-Crusted Trout, the Roast Beef with Grilled Red Onions and Bleu Cheese or the Chili Lime Basil Tofu Salad, but it’s entertaining to glide past the perfect-looking dishes with their rosemary spear garnishes.

Last is the author that cooks something up and “actually serves the reader.” These writers, according to Gopnik, invite us into the kitchen and make us feel as if we’re with the characters in real time. Think of Ma Ingalls cooking with her spider on the prairie. My mind goes to film with Stanley Tucci whipping up some eggs in Big Night. Gopnik looks at Ian McEwan’s Saturday, where the protagonist cooks up a Bouillabaisse. That’s a memorable scene for me because I love to sit around in a kitchen and watch people cook. More than that, I love to actually cook with other people. Even though I write about my attempts at getting the dinner on the table, my joy in cooking comes from the joint effort. I like chopping while my father-in-law sautés. I like to grill while someone else makes the salad. I love being in the kitchen with The Husband as we pull a meal together. And one of my biggest thrills is cooking with The Girl, who cannot only crack an egg, but knows how to measure and sift.

I "heart" gingerbread

2007-03-16T18:20:00.000-04:00

In all modesty there are a couple things I'm good at: 1) I make The Girl call me Mrs. Parker when we're out in the car because I am so darn good at finding great parking spots. Even in Manhattan. I don't have to worry about alternate side of the street parking, but I know where the goods spaces are and when they're likely to be available. 2) I know how to use the web generally (and Google, specifically)really well. I do all kinds of crazy searches to satisfy my quest for mostly useless information.

It's the latter skill that has failed me today.

Once I had little heart-shaped baking dish: glazed inside, unglazed outside. It was just the right size for MFK Fisher's wonderful gingerbread recipe in How to Cook a Wolf. My memory is that it was made by a Marin County company called Amnion Ware, but when I google that I get all kinds of hits about amniotic fluid or pet medication.

I've looked at all kinds of heart-shaped baking dishes and none are the right size (about 6 inches tall and 2 1/2 inches deep). I'm beginning to think I made the whole thing up.

Still, it's a snow day, and what would be better after dinner than some spicy gingerbread?

Here's the recipe:

Edith's Gingerbread

1/4 C shortening
1/4 C sugar
1/2 C molasses
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. salt
3/4 C boiling water
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 C flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 beaten egg

Cream shortening and sugar. Sift in the spices and flour and baking powder together. Beat the 1/2 tsp. soda into the molasses until it is light and fluffy, and add to the shortening and sugar.

Add the 1/4 tsp soda to the boiling water, and then add it alternately with the sifted dry ingredients. Fold in the beaten egg when all is mixed well, pour into a greased and floured pan [preferably a heart-shaped pan bought in Berkeley over 20 years ago], and bake about 20 minutes at 325F. This mixture will seem much to thin to make a cake [she's absolutely right!], but do not increase the quantity of flour, as many doubting cooks have tried to do [Not I Mary Frances. I always take you at your word!]

Confessions of a Luddite

2007-03-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

Our neighbor’s son tells me a joke: What kind of wave does Plankton surf on?

I get the necessary background info. Plankton is a character on Sponge Bob, a teeny guy who owns a bad fast-food restaurant called The Chum Bucket. I confess my ignorance, “I don’t know. What kind of wave does Plankton surf on?”

“A Micro Wave!” Laughter ensues. Except with me. I don’t get it.

“What’s a Micro Wave?”

My neighbors try to save me from my ignorance. “A microwave. You know, you cook food in it.”

Ahh, yes. The appliance I don’t have and the one that SF Mom keeps prodding me about. “Why don’t you have a microwave, Deb?" I have put her off, knowing that it would probably take even more years of therapy to figure it out, but not getting the joke jars me. It’s time to give this some thought.

1. It’s not that I’m against appliances.
I do rely upon some electrical gadgets. As noted, I recently invested in a crock-pot. I also have a blender that we bought during a cold snap in 1987 so we could make margaritas, play salsa, eat homemade tortilla chips, and pretend that we weren’t living in New York in the winter. I have a hand-held electric mixer that dates back to the ‘70’s and was bought for $10.00 at Gemco. I have a Cuisinart that is even older than that. The shredding disk broke a decade or so ago. The rest of it still works, and I use it for mixing doughs, puréeing, and chopping. We have an electric waffle iron, but I think of that as Evan's since he uses it the most.

I guess I’m not real big on appliances though since I lack not only a microwave but also some other things that people rely upon and possibly couldn’t imagine being without (a toaster, a toaster oven, a sandwich press, a coffee maker, a juicer, and so on.) There is one appliance that I do use every day: my Russell Hobbs electric tea kettle. I could do a commercial for that one.

2. I’ve been unduly influenced by the French
That is, I’ve been unduly influenced by what I perceive to be French, which means it probably came from Jacques Pepin or someone else who writes in English about French cooking. I did have the great fortune of taking cooking lessons in a French woman’s French kitchen about 20 years ago, and that experience conjured up all kinds of fantasies of what it means to cook and serve meals. Fresh ingredients, wrapped in paper not plastic; the necessity of a big table in the kitchen to cook and serve on [I don’t have one]; and that all you need is a good, sharp knife and you’re all set. Madame Jacqueline did not have a microwave. She did, however, have a cute string bag that she took to market to carry home her provisions.

I’m not sure if my French friend, C., has a microwave or not. I know that she is a more imaginative and confident cook than I am. It wouldn’t be a matter of principal with her, probably more an issue of counter space. Which leads me to…

3. Counter Space
I like to have clear counter space. You may not believe that if you walked into my kitchen, but it's true. It’s a fairly constant crusade to keep space clear in my kitchen. There is always a stack of paper, recycling containers, a storage jar that has become empty or that thing for which you just can’t find a place hanging out and hogging my precious counter.

The teakettle has a prominent spot, but I have to figure out a convenient and out of the way place for the bulky crock-pot.

4. A sign of weakness
The microwave, in my sick mind, is interpreted as a sign of my weakness, a signal that I’m not really cooking. I’m heating up. I know, I know. I can hear you saying what’s the difference of a conventional oven and a microwave? Spend an hour waiting for the squash to cook in the oven or a fraction of that time with it in the microwave. Are you against convection ovens too? Nobody’s pretending this is a rational argument; surely you’ve figured that out.

When we lived in the apartment where we bought the blender we actually had a little microwave on top of the refrigerator. It came with the apartment. I used it for heating up coffee. Maybe once I melted some chocolate, but mostly my coffee cup got zapped over and over again, and that was about it. So I defend my irrationality with the logic that I’ll never use it.

Am I afraid of the microwaves themselves? Well, it does kind of get to me that people talk about cooking with their microwaves saying their going to “nuke” some zucchini. It just sounds creepy.

For now, I’m remaining a bit of a Luddite, happy to heat up my whole house for two baked potatoes.

It's not like we haven't been eating dinner...

2007-03-01T16:21:00.000-05:00

I'll be getting 66 essays from my students next week. You can bet I'll find time to write a blog post then.

Thanks for being patient.

The Other White Meat

2007-01-13T17:45:00.000-05:00

Usually dinner is all planned out in my head, if not on a shopping list, by the time I get to the grocery store. Sometimes, out of necessity and panic, I get to the market without even an idea of what to cook for dinner. The pressure of the hour and my expectant family can get the synapses firing, and I’ll come up with something. It may not be inspired (grilled chicken pieces, a steak), but it will be dinner.

Once in awhile something near magic happens when I’m suddenly hit with a flash, a combination of my personal cravings and what looks good in the market. That’s what happened the other day when I stepped into Whole Foods; suddenly I knew that I wanted to braise some pork shoulder for dinner.

Pork shoulder is succulent and satisfying. As they say in Babe, “Pork is a nice sweet meat,” and a braised pork shoulder doesn’t get a chance to dry out. The only problem with my situation was that I hadn’t ever braised a pork shoulder before. I needed a recipe, and quick. I was lucky because Whole Foods is one of those schmancy markets with a shelf of cook books for sale—and not all of them were by Mollie Katzen! One was from Chez Panisse, and Alice Waters offered a recipe for 3-4 lb pork shoulder braised with tomatoes, onions, garlic, fennel seeds, fresh thyme, and olives. I decided to go for it (except for the olives), and set about making a mnemonic device to help me remember the quantities and procedures.

Here’s how I made it:

1. Preheat oven to 325.

2. Sauté 1 medium onion in a large dutch oven. Add in 2 stalks of diced celery and 2 diced carrots. Add in 4 medium tomatoes. [Note: Waters called for fresh and wouldn’t make this recipe in winter because tomatoes aren’t in season. I used canned and would braise a pork shoulder two hours in August in New York.] Add in 1 teaspoon crushed fennel seeds and 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme.

3. Dry the roast and stud it with garlic slivers. Put it in the pot with all of the sautéed ingredients. Add more liquid to cover about 1/3 of the roast. Put the lid on the pot and put it in the oven.

4. Check it in about an hour. My automatic thermometer indicated that it was done at 145, and I will never tell you to cook your pork so low. USDA says to cook it to 160. That’s all I’m going to say about it.

5. Take the roast out of the now amazing broth and let it rest. In the meantime, pass the brothy mixture through a Mouli food mill (aka just about my favorite cooking tool). Cook the liquid down until it is pretty thick. Skim off any foam and as much fat as you can.

6. Slice the roast and serve with the sauce.

7. Wait for the next inspiration.

Fruitcake Weather

2006-12-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

Truman Capote and his cousin Sook

I got an e-mail from a friend gently inquiring about fruitcake. Some people think of fruitcake as holiday doorstops, but they haven’t tasted mine. I really can’t boast or really call the fruitcake “mine” because it’s truly Aunt Pearl’s Fruitcake. I never had the pleasure of meeting Pearl. She was the relative of a friend of mine, and every Christmas I would find myself sniffing around their house to see if the mysterious Aunt had forwarded a loaf of heaven their way. Eventually Aunt Pearl wrote down her recipe and my friend gave me a copy. The sad fact is that we are no longer in touch. In fact, we had a bad break, but I do think of Leesa and thank her every time I make a batch of fruitcakes.

Es and I read Truman Capote’s beautiful “A Christmas Memory,” which describes his elderly cousin declaring: "Oh my,....it's fruitcake weather!" I don’t think it was actually fruitcake weather yesterday, but that didn’t stop me from getting all Christmassy in the head. There was a pocket of free time and fruitcakes to be made. We assembled all of the ingredients, cracked a few eggs (The Girl's first on her own!) and at the end of the day had the great satisfaction of seeing the beautiful bumpy loaves lined up on the kitchen counter. Capote’s cousin, according to the story, sent one of hers to Eleanor Roosevelt. I can’t think of a politician today worthy of these cakes, but I suppose if Eleanor Roosevelt were around I’d offer her one.

For years I never shared the recipe, being faithful to Aunt Pearl and keeping the fruitcake as a special holiday gift. Then one year I acquiesced. I gave the recipe to a friend and then…a while later our friendship collapsed. Isn’t that interesting? Is the recipe jinxed? I’m not going to mess with it; I’m keeping it for myself, and if you’re lucky you’re on my list for a little fruitcake this year.

Pasta and Prose

2006-12-02T15:46:00.000-05:00

Here's a book recommendation for young readers and people who just like good books: Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, by Sharon Creech. It's a charming story about friendship, love, family, and food. I read it aloud to my 6th grade classes, and they were enthralled the by story and the complicated emotions. Our family listened to it on tape over a long car ride this summer, and there were parts that were so beautiful they made me cry. Granted, I cry easily, and no, I wasn't driving.

Most of the story takes place in the kitchen, and Creech lovingly describes Granny Torrelli making a chicken and pasta soup, homemade cavatelli, meatballs, and spareribs. I've never made homemade pasta, but this book got me as far as buying the semolina flour. It's still in my cupboard, but hey, that's the closest I've ever been to making homemade pasta. Pretty inspiring, hmmm? There's also a simple salad of oranges, olive oil, salt and pepper, and parsley. Doesn't that sound refreshing and easy?

Confessions of the Anonymous Dinner-Slave

2006-11-28T23:15:00.000-05:00

Oh that’s not true. Well, the title is not completely true. I have been overwhelmed and feeling like all working people (moms and dads and grandmas and everyone) who serve a family dinner nearly every night should get some kind of merit badge. It’s tough. And as I’ve written in here before, it’s not just the making and the serving. No, it’s the thinking about it, what used to be called “meal planning.” It’s the psychic energy extended to the whole idea of what to cook for dinner. Then there’s the shopping, and the actually lugging of groceries into the house. Then you have to put all that food away, and somehow it seems like it was much easier to put it in the cart and even organize it onto the conveyer belt at the checkout than to put it all away in the right cupboard or fridge shelf.

It’s not that my family hasn’t been having dinner (or that I haven’t been cooking it). I haven’t been writing on the blog because having a new job is just so taxing, so many transitions to make, and things to get used to, and on and on. Sure, we’ve had more dinners out than I care to admit, and our neighbors have had us over much more often than they’ve been to our house. It has seemed that it took every ounce of my creativity and energy to get the meal on the table; there wasn’t much let to spend on reflection and creative writing.

But tonight I made an old stand-by. I have grade reports to write (pages and pages about how my students are doing in my classes), so I needed something easy and quick. I call this dish pasta with broccoli rabe and sausage; that’s pretty much it.

You have to start off boiling a big pot of water for the broccoli rabe. Get that going first. In the meantime, wash up the broccoli rabe and cut it into one to two inch pieces. Get the water going for the pasta too. I believe it’s supposed orecchiette, so that’s what I use, little ear-shaped pasta.

After the big pot of water is boiling, blanch the broccoli rabe for about 3-4 minutes. You can tell when it’s done because you’ll begin to smell the greens. Take them out and into a colander, shock them with some cold water to stop the cooking and preserve the green color.
Slice up some Italian or Italian-like sausage. I used D’Artagnan Mediterranean chicken sausage tonight. It wasn’t as heavy as the Aidells chicken sausage, so it made the dish lighter. Sauté the sausage slices in a skillet with a little bit of olive oil if you’re using a chicken sausage. Let them cook through.

Once the water in the other pot is boiling you’ll be ready to cook the pasta. It will take about 11 minutes for orecchiette.

Put about a tablespoon and a half of olive oil in the empty big pot that cooked the broccoli rabe. Toss in a peeled garlic clove, and turn on the heat so that the olive oil warms and is infused with the garlic. Throw in the cooked broccoli rabe, and let it sauté for a couple of minutes. I add salt, pepper, and a dash or two of hot red pepper flakes.

When the pasta is done, drain it, reserving some of the cooking liquid. Combine the pasta with the broccoli rabe, the sausage, and some freshly grate romano cheese. Serve and be thankful that you get to sit down.

Flash: Working Mom Tries to Keep it Together: Buys Crock Pot

2006-10-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

Technically the word to use today is “slow cooker.” That keeps us "highly educated" "too much time in therapy" types from acknowledging that we are actually in some ways like our mothers.

My mom was not a big fan of many kitchen appliances, but that was mostly because she was not very interested in cooking. But she did have a crock-pot. It was avocado green, tall and round, and I can’t remember a thing that she made in it. Maybe we used it to keep cider hot at a Halloween party.

Cuisinart saved me from the ‘70’s style appliance. They’ve produced a sleek, professional looking contraption of polished chrome that fits perfectly with my Russell Hobbes electric teakettle. My plan is to find “some other place” for it, but for now it boldly hogs a good section of my kitchen counter. I’m compelled to use it to justify the amount of space it takes up.

Design wasn’t the only criteria for choosing the Cuisinart crock- pot (I mean slow-cooker). I did a thorough search on line, reading lots of Amazon reviews, until I came across an article by Jill Hunter Pellettieri in Slate that actually gave a rundown of some of the crock pots on the market. According to the Pellettieri, the Cuisinart “wins the prize” for cooking, ease of use, design, taste, and value. That clinched it.

So far I’ve had successes and failures. The Husband insists that the soups have been the best. I made a split pea soup that came out rich and delicious. I made an Italian White Bean Soup from Marcella Hazan that was pretty good (though some of the beans were more tender than others). I’ve also made an okay chicken with wine and a pretty good pot roast (though I will definitely use chuck next time).

The biggest problem for me seems to be figuring out how much liquid to add, how long to set the timer for, and what level of heat to set it at (low or high). According to the directions, if you set the thing on “high” it will cook the food to some safe temperature and then continue the rest of the time on “low.” After the timer is finished it will then automatically set itself to warm, keeping the food hot until you come home hungry.

I tried to make a lentil soup, but the minute I came in the door I could smell that the poor things were running out of water. Some were crunchy and it was even crispy around the edges. Then there was the second attempt at pea soup, a sad, sad story. I thought I would cook the pea on low all day, to make sure there wasn’t a repeat of the lentil saga. We all came home hungry, but the hard little pea pebbles were still sunk in a big puddle of water. I took the peas out of the pot and tried to cook them over the stove. Two days later they still weren’t done. You can only imagine the frustration.

On Monday, however, the thing redeemed itself. I sautéed some onion, celery and carrot, threw that in with some smoked, sliced ham shanks, black-eyed peas and water. I started it out on high and let it cook for hours and hours. I wasn’t trusting it with legumes, so I had already decided that this meal was going to be for the next night. For the next few days we ate the most scrumptious black-eyed peas over rice. The vegetables had cooked into an incredibly tasty sauce. The smoked shank meat fell off the bone, giving nice chunky pieces of ham to go along with the incredibly tender peas. It was a triumph.

My Obsession

2006-09-08T17:20:00.000-04:00

Although I mostly write about dinner, I have a different obsession. Cookies. Well, not exactly cookies (though I’m rarely known to pass up a chocolate chip with walnuts), I’m talking about what Europeans might call biscuits (beece-kwee).

Part 1 Le Petit Beurre
I was fortunate enough (and I mean really, really lucky) to study in France for a year in a town that had a Brun factory. Brun is a brand of cookie, kind of like our Nabisco, I suppose. And because the dollar was so incredibly high at that point, I could buy these sumptuous and delicate little cookies for about 20 cents a pack. They’re called Petit Beurre Extra. It’s the Extra that’s important; otherwise you’ll end up with something LU (French cookie company who makes those lovely little schoolboy cookies) calls “veritable,” which means “the real thing.” No, the perfect cookies, the most amazing little wafers that have the right amount of crunch and butter are the Extras. And here’s the truly sad part: I’ve never, ever seen them for sale any place but France.

Part 2 Stella D’Oro Breakfast Treat Minis
Don’t go for the regular size Breakfast Treats; they have much more crumb and are higher in saturated fats than the Minis. Look for the crunchy little Minis (of course neither Fairway nor my local Food Emporium sells them) and dip them in your coffee or tea.

Part 3 Mulino Bianco i Rigoli
These are little honey flavored cookies from Italy, and they are so amazingly perfect that I am very particular with whom I share them. They look like a big Petit Beurre, but the honey flavor gives a zing that takes it to another level. Again, what adds to their specialness is that they are so incredibly hard to find. I first had them in a little Italian food shop near Friends Seminary on East 16th Street. They had a glass canister of them on the counter and you could take a couple with your coffee to go. That place didn’t last very long because Starbucks was moving in a few doors down and part of their deal was that the little Italian competition had to go.

Now I sometimes find them at Buon Italia at Chelsea Market. I buy about 3 packages at a time, but at $4.00 a box it adds up pretty fast.

Part 4 Polaîne’s Punition
Imagine that you walk into a bakery and there in heaps and mounds on the counter are teeny little butter cookies for you to snack on while you wait your turn. They are like crunchy butter that just melts in your mouth. That’s what it’s like at Polaîne in Paris, and you can order them online (4.4 pounds of cookies that will keep for “at least a month”) for $64.10 (including tax and delivery) from www.polaine.fr I suppose that might work if you ate a lot of cookies and had a lot of money. But if I had a lot of money, I'd go get them myself in Paris.

Stand Up Dinner

2006-09-01T20:34:00.000-04:00

I can’t really say that I made dinner tonight. The best way that I can put it is that I “opened” dinner. The Husband is at his studio, so it was just The Girl and me. We were sitting there at 6:30 going through all of the extras in her new Angelina Ballerina video (Choreograph your own dance! Find the cheese to feed the castle ghost!), and that took about all the enthusiasm I could muster.

School starts next week (and I’ll be starting a new teaching job), so these waning days of leisure and summer need to be embraced. Making dinner didn’t really seem like a priority. With nothing planned and nothing even leftover, I padded over to the pantry shelf to see what I could find. The Girl stayed glued to the opening credits, anticipating yet another viewing of the dancing mouse. I came back with a box of crackers and asked her how she felt about hummus.

She was game, so we went upstairs, peeled open the box of whole-grain crackers, sliced up some apple, opened up a tub of hummus (it still had 28 days before the expiration), and found some pickles that we got at the Farmer’s Market last Saturday. We sat at the counter and dipped crackers and such into the hummus, chatting and making jokes.

I have to admit that though the meal wasn’t much, some would call it a snack, it still gave that opportunity for connection that the meat and potato meals provide. There was actually a closeness there at the kitchen counter, taking turns dipping, comparing what tasted best, discussing the pronounciation of her name, my teaching her that there is actually a country called Djibouti (Eastern Africa, near equator).

Then I had a brainstorm of an idea: “Would you eat hummus for lunch at school?”

“I like it here, but I wouldn’t eat it for lunch,” she said.

“Is that because hummus is kind of weird and kids might make jokes about it like they did when you had tacos?”

-silence-

“What if we called it ‘dip’? Would that work?” I pressed, hoping to add another possibility to the lunch list.

“We could call it ‘cracker dip,’ and it would be okay.”

"I'll put it in a little round plastic container and then you could have crackers too"

So that is how one overwhelmed mom exhaled a bit by not having to fix dinner, enjoyed herself, and added another easy solution to the lunchtime dilemma.

Not bad.

It's 5:30-Do you know what you're having for dinner?

2006-08-24T17:40:00.000-04:00

I’m wondering how long does it take frozen shrimp to thaw? What am I going to do with the shrimp after they thaw? Will Es and the boy from next door eat them with curry?

I’m guessing 30 min. in cold water, grill on skewers, no way!

Lunchables

2006-08-22T17:37:00.000-04:00

School is coming up on me, and I just got that letter home telling us we can’t send any nut products for lunch or snack. The Girl was just about doing a happy dance when she heard the news. Last year I gave her PB&J sandwiches for about a month, and I finally got sick of making them and then throwing them away every day. She has refused them ever since.

Still I was hoping that I could get away with a month of slathering bread with spreads with I waited for the coffee to kick in. No such luck.

So here’s an attempt to come up with a list of possible lunches that can survive without refrigeration but may require a hot thermos.

1. Some kind of pasta

2. Edamame

3. Sliced apples

4. Cheese and Apples

5. Fruit – all kinds

6. Red pepper strips (or orange, yellow, green)

7. Carrot sticks

8. Hummus and carrot sticks (or celery) or pita

9. Did I mention pasta?

10. Crackers and Cheese

11. Dried Fruit (esp. cherries because she’ll eat them)

I just asked Es what she sees other kids eating that she likes to eat. She said “pasta.”

12. Beans (esp. black beans)

13. Ravioli – oh right, that’s pasta

14. Tea Sandwiches: cucumber? Smoked turkey? Apple and cheese? [For mornings when I’ve already had a lot of coffee.]

15. Soup

Okay, so that’s my starting list. I’m going to keep adding to it…and suggestions are always welcome. What I don’t want to hear is how horrible dried fruit is or how bad anything else is on this list. I already left yoghurt off because of SFMom. And I’m telling you right now, chocolate milk is going to qualify as a snack in this house and that’s it!

And I'm also laying down the gauntlet to any folks from the nabe who scoff at Pizza Friday. They can start making lunch for my kid every Friday if they vote that little weekly reprieve down—and that goes for the little Anti-Pizza Friday contingent in my own house too!

The Amazing Woman Juggler

2006-08-12T14:05:00.000-04:00

The summer is winding down, and I’m getting kind of jittery. The big question that every working Mom (and some working dads? …maybe) asks herself: How am I supposed to fit everything in to my schedule?

Even as I’m writing this, The Husband is informing me that The Girl wants a play date with a friend and that she told him that I “forgot.” I’m home more, so it makes sense that I be the one to schedule it. Okay, that’s true. But still…

What is it about trying to fit everything into place, like a jigsaw puzzle that has too many pieces, that makes me want to run from the room pulling my hair?

And on top of The Girl’s dance lessons and piano lessons, my seeing friends when I can, going to therapy, doing laundry, shopping for groceries, keeping up with regular doctor appointments, sewing for fun, keeping the garden watered, scheduling repairmen when necessary, getting the car tuned up, going to work…I have to fix dinner. How is this supposed to work?

And the Livin' is Easy

2006-08-07T13:54:00.000-04:00

Maybe it’s practice. Maybe it’s a new mindset. I don’t know. I put together a lunch party and didn’t even break a sweat.

Jim and Vika were coming over at 2:00 pm, and here it was 9:00 and I hadn’t even thought up a menu. So rather than panic (regular mode), I sat at the table with a cup of coffee and some cook books and went through the possibilities (new and improved). I opted for:

Poached Salmon with Yoghurt Dill Sauce
Black Bean and Orzo Salad
Grilled Asparagus
Peach and Blueberry Crisp

I did the grocery shopping and preparation in 4 hours! It was as if my brain went on autopilot and I just knew what to do and when to do it.

First off: poach the salmon (in water, white wine, peppercorns, lemon, salt and dill. Cover the salmon with the liquid. Cover and bring to a boil. When it boils turn off the heat and let it sit for 30 minutes or so in the hot bath.

Peach and Blueberry Crisp – Peel and quarter 2.5 pounds of peaches. Combine peaches with 1 C of blueberries,1/4C white sugar, 1T instant tapioca, 1/2t lemon zest, 1-1/2T lemon juice. Grind up the topping in a Cuisinart until coarse: 5T chilled butter, 1/4C brown sugar, 1/4C white sugar, 1/4t nutmeg, 1/4t cinnamon, 3/4
c nuts (I chose pecans). Put the fruit in the bottom of a glass square-ish baking dish (so you can see how it’s cooking inside), and coat with topping. Bake for 30 minutes at 375, then pump the heat up to 400 and bake for about 10 more (not letting it burn). This recipe is from Cooks Illustrated.

We sat out on the deck talking about vacations and work, and even a pesky, determined yellow jacket couldn’t get us out of our summer mood.

The Peach Blueberry Crisp was by far the highlight of the meal. The peaches were soft, sweet, and melted in your mouth. The topping gave a gratifying crunch that made you want to scrape the sides of the pan for the crispiest bit, something I indulged in after our guests had left. The Husband was much less cunning. He unapologetically plopped the remaining helping into a bowl all for himself.

the basic cause, source, or origin of something

2006-08-02T09:40:00.000-04:00

My Uncle Harold was my grandma's oldest child. She adored him. That and the fact that he was more of an intellectual than anyone else in the family put him out of step with his twin sisters (my mother and my aunt). He could be incredibly sarcastic and spoke with a kind of nasal whine that would have made him very hip in New York. He liked astronomy, philosophy, and chess, and he had a little 24 hour restaurant called Cherryland Cafe in Hayward, California.

Uncle Harold worked the graveyard shift, which catered to the workers at the Hunts ketchup factory across the street. My grandma and I would walk there on summer nights, cut in through the parking lot to the backdoor, and Harold would whisk us up something. He always had a pot of chili going, made a decent burger, and sometimes I would get those flattened out crispy prawns.

He was a multi-tasker in that in addition to his short-order duties, he also had a game of chess going at the counter. It turns out that Cherryland was an East Bay institution for late night chess. He had a whole crew of regulars who would spar with him and each other over the board. One article that I found about the cafe on the web says that "when Harold triumphs, the defeat can be very embarrassing for his opponent, since he usually is cooking and serving customers as he moves."

I missed all that because at first I was too young and later began a quest to find things more remarkable than my family. Uncle Harold taught me how to play chess when I was about 6, but I never got into the game. I still have the set he gave me: big, clunky weighted pieces that mean business. So I have that, a fondness for diners of all kinds, and a feeling that I missed out on something way cooler than I ever suspected.

Too Darn Hot

2006-08-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

Once, in a boring meeting, I started to list my most memorable meals of all time. They were easily catagorized: meals where the people and circumstances were unforgettable and meals where the food itself seemed to awaken me from a sleep.

A lunch in Helsinki many, many years ago is an example of the latter. I was visiting some friends in Finland and their father invited me to lunch at a restaurant that specialized in all things Finnish. The glassware was by iittala, the tableware by arabia, table linens by Marimekko, in a room looking out on the Baltic and Helsinki itself. Still all of this paled next to a meal which couldn't have been more straightforward: smoked salmon, dilled potatoes, and a glass of white wine. The simplicity and elegance of that lunch along with the eye-opening zing of dill and salmon together made me feel as if I lived in a beautiful world.

Smoked salmon and dilled potatoes have become a menu favorite for the past 20 years: great for my own birthday meal when I don't want to cook, wonderful for New Year's Eve because it goes so well with champange. I have tried and occasionaly succeeded in recreating the sublime, but firsts are hard to beat.

Last night the old favorite became my ace in the hole because it was just too hot to do much about dinner. I boiled some of the smallest red bliss potatoes I could find, made up a quick sauce of dill and mustard, and put the smoked salmon on a platter. That was it.

We were all too broiled by the summer heat to eat too much or linger at the table. The Girl and the little boy next door wanted to get back to the sprinkler as soon as they could, so it was a short and functional meal. Not overly exhausted from "cooking," I even helped with the clean-up.

Table for Two

2006-07-31T00:34:00.000-04:00

After months and months of thinking about, shopping for, and preparing family dinners, I was recently struck by how important it is to not have the whole family together at the table once in a while. We were all on vacation with Evan’s family up in Ashland, Oregon, and the opportunity arose for Evan and I to go out to dinner to a fine restaurant — alone. This hardly ever happens, but there we were with a cadre of built-in babysitters and two hours to enjoy a meal. What the heck, reservations were made!

Those who know me well are probably fully aware that I am not one to shy away from a splendid restaurant, and it was important to me that Es learn the rudiments of “restaurant manners” at an early age so I could keep up with this habit. I have lots of memories of wonderful meals that she and I have shared: tea at the Plaza Hotel on a day when nothing seemed to be going right, lunch at the white table cloth Scossa in Paris to get ourselves out of the rain and assess our Petit Bateau cache, and bowls and bowls of penne with butter all over Manhattan.

But having a nice dinner with one’s husband (or wife) is another story. There’s a sublime pleasure in just relaxing and having an easy conversation over delicious food that is so necessary and wonderful that I can’t believe how rarely we have the experience. Sure, it's about cost (meal + babysitter = yikes), but it's also about priorities.

Given the opportunity to only have to splurge on one aspect of the date, we treated ourselves to a meal at a little place called Amuse in Ashland, and everything about the meal was exquisite. It’s the kind of place that offers a little amuse bouche before your appetizer (mine was a little piece of toast with some charged up pesto) and the possibility of cheese course—in other words: my kind of place.

Evan and I had a fabulous meal(we both had salmon on a crispy little potato pancake and if my memory serves me there was some kind of creme fraiche and dill in the mix); wonderful wine; some astonishing cheese; and rich, uninterrupted conversation. We reminisced, laughed, and made a couple of plans; It felt more like a real date than anything in a long time.

My friend N. had a similar experience lately. She was on her way to meet her husband at a posh French restaurant for a birthday lunch. She decided to look at her husband with the eyes of someone on a date (possibly some of these: open-minded, curious, intrigued), and I think she’s on to something. In order to have a satisfying family dinner most of the time, we have to take ourselves out of it once in a while to re-connect with our partners and remember why we want to sit down with these people all the time.

Maurice's Hot Summer Tip

2006-07-10T09:08:00.000-04:00

Maurice reminded me that now is the time to grill asparagus, so that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I used to carefully cut the bottoms and sometimes even go so far as peel the spears. No, he instructed. Bend the asparagus spear and let it break off where it wants to—that’s the right spot. Don’t bother with peeling them for grilling. Both of those suggestions have saved me lots of time.

Drizzle the asparagus with some olive oil and grind some fresh pepper over them, then put them on the grill: direct heat. Cooking time will depend on the thickness of the spears, but I’ve been liking them pencil-thin. The thin ones are more apt to fall through the grate, but think of this as yet another skill to develop. You have to watch them pretty carefully so they don’t char up, but let get a little brown. I’ve even liked them a little over cooked, which I’m sure many would complain about.

I wait until they’re evenly cooked, then sprinkle them with salt off the grill. They remind me of French Fries this way, a finger food that you can serve either with your grilled chicken or before as an appetizer. I can imagine grilled asparagus tossed in a salad, but mine barely make it to the table, let alone in another dish.

Variation on a Theme

2006-06-28T17:37:00.000-04:00

I made another cilantro/lime marinade last night, and I have to say this version is even better (sorry, Stonewall Kitchens). I put a couple of handfuls of washed and dried, fresh cilantro in the blender. I added the juice of two limes, about a half a teaspoon of salt, some fresh coriander seeds, peppercorns, and a little whole cumin seeds. Then I blended. After everything was chopped up, I added olive oil to form an emulsion like last time. I gave it a taste, and it needed something more. Remembering that I had seen salad dressing recipes with lime call for orange juice, I looked in the fridge for something sweet. No orange juice, but I did have mango juice. I dipped a little bit of the marinade on one spoon and a little bit of mango juice on the other to try the two out. Oh my was that good!I added about 1/4C of the juice and blended well.

I marinated chicken breasts in the marinade and then brushed more on while the chicken cooked.

I tried the Cook's Illustrated version of grilled corn on the cob. They say to peel the corn down to the last layer of husk, grill 8-12 minutes, turning every minute in a half. Master Chef Maurice is against the grilled corn idea, but I thought I would try it out. Result: It tasted kind of nice and nutty, but it was a lot of work to stand over the grill turning it every minute and a half. The regular boiling method produces fine corn with much less work.

Out of Gas

2006-06-27T16:51:00.000-04:00

I had a pretty good menu planned for last night, but instead I made one of the worst meals of my life. I had intended to grill up some shrimp—seasoned with lemon, garlic, and whatever else, along with a sliced avocado squash. I thought of serving the beautifully grilled shrimp on a bed of rice. So far, so good.

But then the grill wouldn't light. File this as argument number 321 for having both a gas and a charcoal grill.

So I sautéed the shrimp, which became less than memorable, except for the squishy centers. The squash (which cost $2.50 at the Larchmont Farmer's Market!) was bleh under the broiler. The rice couldn't help anything. Besides, it was kind of like paste.

Better luck next time. And I'm going to need it too; Lora is coming to dinner tomorrow!

Announcing: The Summer Food Competition

2006-06-18T10:44:00.000-04:00

Here is the first official entry in the category: best dish to take to someone's house for a barbecue. Black Bean Salad.

We were invited to our neighbor's house for a super-casual barbecue, and I wanted to bring something easy, fresh, that would travel across the backyard well, and that most people might like. I love black beans, and I've had lots of variations on black bean salads, so I decided to make one with all the different things that I love all in one big bowl.

When I make a salad I mostly measure with my eye. I want things to be represented but not dominate, so my process is chop a little bit, see how that looks—add more if necessary. Here are the ingredients for the salad, a salad that is so good that I quietly took the leftovers home and am eating it right now for breakfast.

Black beans (of course)— I used one can of Goya beans, carefully rinsed.
Orzo — cooked in salted water
Corn — I cooked one ear of fresh corn. I think I'd use frozen, but not canned.
Red Pepper — diced to about the same size as a black bean
Yellow Pepper — also diced to about the same size as a black bean
Red Onion — I used about 1/4, diced smaller than a black bean
Mango — about 1/2 C, diced
Cilantro — fresh, about 1/3 C chopped
Juice of 2 limes
salt / pepper
Ground Coriander — a couple of shakes
Ground Cumin — a couple of shakes

I'm eating it right now with a dollop of spicy guacamole on the side. I would add some diced jalapeno if I didn't want kids to have any and wanted most of it for myself. Fresh little tomatoes could be good too, but chopped tomatoes might make it a little watery.

Make it. Love it. Submit your own best take-away summer dishes.

You Say "Tomato"; I Say "La Tomate"

2006-06-15T16:27:00.000-04:00

I got the latest Penzey’s catalog today. They’re a mail order spice and herb company with what must be very Mid-Western roots. I place orders from them from time to time, unless I run out of something and need it right away. Now they’ve opened up a shop in the food mall at Grand Central Station, so I’ll be able to save on shipping fees.

I thumbed through the catalog anyway because I’m always entranced by the food photography. They offer recipes that use a good portion of their product and the photos that reveal the desired result are shockingly bright. They’re old school, like the photos that illustrate Betty Crocker cookbooks or 1001 Quick Meals Using Campbell’s Soup. You can almost feel the warmth of the wattage used to light the food.

All of a sudden a bunch of bright shiny tomatoes caught my eye, and there it was: La Tarte! Penzey’s was suggesting that we should all make fresh Tomato Tarts this summer. They put the Penzey’s spin on the recipe by calling for Shallot Salt (a new product of theirs) and suggest that you could use either dried or fresh basil (as if!).

The part that truly surprised me, and made The Husband jump, was their suggestion to spread a full 2 T of Dijon mustard on the bottom layer. Regular readers will know the problems that can come from that kind of advice. They leave out the cheese too, which I think is a mistake. The Gruyere adds a nuttiness that balances out the tangy mustard and the sweet tomatoes.

It’s a strange to see something that has seemed so quixotic and unattainable in boldface in a catalog. Everyone will be making Tomato Tarts now, and I wish them luck.

The Squash of Summer

2006-06-11T22:44:00.000-04:00

The vegetable of the moment in our house is summer squash. I slice it , length-wise, in thirds. Then sprinkle salt and pepper; drizzle with olive oil. I put it on the grill for about 3-4 minutes a side. That's it.

I used to steam summer squash and zucchini, and it always tasted kind of bitter and watery. Grilling makes summer squash incredibly sweet and succulant. I make sure not to overcook it, so there is still a bit of bite to it. Plus, the grill marks make it look much fancier than it really is.

More on Steak

2006-06-08T18:43:00.001-04:00

I can clearly remember the first meal I had with The Husband. We were walking out of an Environmental Ethics class in Berkeley, and he was on his way to The Stuffed Inn on the North Side of campus. He didn’t really invite me to dinner, it was much more casual than that. He was going to get what must have been the cheapest vegetarian meal in town and I could too.

The Stuffed Inn was a darkly wooded den of a place with serve yourself soup, kept hot all day in steam kettles. Split Pea soup was their specialty, it seemed, and you could ladle yourself up a big bowlful and grab a wedge of chewy bread to go along with it. I was nearly in love with him by then, and it just seemed so fitting to be discussing living attuned with the environment and then having a peasanty porridgey bean soup. At that point in my life I knew how many acres of arable soil it took to produce a pound of beef, and I tried really hard to live a life that considered human impact on the planet.

I am not a hemp-wearing vegetarian. That’s a fact. I think my life began to shift when we moved to New York City. It can be extremely difficult to feel in touch with the Earth when you see so little of it. Some things don’t change: The Husband is an avid recycler. I prefer to buy organic food. Some things have.

Once bean soups were satisfying and comforting for The Husband. Now steak does the trick. When I know that he’s been having a hard time and that he needs to feel loved, I make steak. I either pan-fry it in a little bit of peanut oil or put it out on the grill. I like to make a rub out of coarsely ground peppercorns and coriander seeds, and a sprinkling of salt. I’ve gotten pretty good at telling how much it has cooked by how much the steak “gives” when you press on it (the softer it is, the more rare it is).

I usually buy prime beef at Fairway. It’s kind of pricey, but the three of us share one New York or Rib Eye steak, so it doesn’t set us back that much. Once I bought a strip steak at Lobel’s on Madison. It was delicious, but I just couldn’t rationalize the price. (Their ribs though, that’s another story).

The Husband can be less talkative at the table when we have steak for dinner. But that’s also because he’s usually enjoying his meal, as well as busily cutting up The Girl's portion too.

Turkey Because I'm Chicken

2006-06-03T14:45:00.000-04:00

I grew up on hamburgers. I used to pinch pieces of the raw meat when my grandma was making meatloaf or burgers. She used a castiron meat grinder that she screwed onto the tabletop and ground it all herself. Years later, when I first saw someone eat steak tartare in France (a plateful of raw ground beef with a raw egg on top), I was overcome by both desire and revulsion.

We were regulars at Val's Burger's in Hayward, California when I was a kid. My cousin and I would get charcoal grilled "baby burgers," grilled by Val himself, and then add ketchup from a squirt bottle, lots of pickles. We'd share a plastic basket of crinkle-cut french fries and be in heaven.

Fear of mad cow disease has pretty much taken me off of ground beef, so whenever I go to a diner I usually order the same thing: a turkey burger, well done with tomato, onion, and mustard. They are usually pretty dry and sometimes taste like cardboard with mustard. I decided that I could possibly do better, so I took a stab at my own turkey burgers.

I didn't do any of the "fancy" things that make diner turkey burgers even worse. I didn't add chopped onion to the meat or add anything else that makes you sorry you ordered it. I simply made patties out of the burgers, put a little salt, pepper and ground coriander on top and then put them on the grill. I pulled out some of the bready part of the bun, gave each a brush of olive oil and let them toast on the grill for the last couple of minutes.

What really set these burgers apart, I think, were the condiments. I'm so tired of getting 1/2" slices of onion and tomatoes at diners. I know it takes more trouble to slice them thinly, but they would save money by having the onion and tomatoes go further. Mine were about 1/8", which seemed perfect. You could double up on tomatoes without having them slip out of the sandwich. I couldn't find dill pickle chips, so I went for sliced, and they were fine too.

I got mixed results with this dinner. The Husband was extremely happy (or extremely hungry—or both); he ate three! I thought they were much, much better than anything I previously ordered, and ate two (they were small). The Girl ate the pickles. Lots of them. At one point during dinner she came over and climbed on my lap and whispered, "I think I'm going to throw up." We waltzed away from the table, and I applauded her for paying attention to her body.

I know I'm going to be dissatisfied next time I go to a diner. Maybe I'll have to be like The Husband and order the fish filet sandwich. Next time I'm in the Bay Area, though, I'm going to Vals.

I Did It - My Way

2006-06-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'm a big, big fan of Stonewall Kitchen's Cilantro Lime Dressing. Mostly I use it for marinating chicken before grilling, but at about $5.00 a bottle ($5.95 if you buy it through their website) it can get pretty expensive. I can go through a bottle of that with a whole chicken. So, in an effort toward living the frugal life I decided to make my own cilantro / lime concoction.

I put about 2-3 limes (cut away the peel), 1/2C fresh cilantro, 1 heaping Tbl of toasted, whole coriander seeds, a clove of garlic, and about a tsp. of salt in the blender. Then I added 1/4 of olive oil. I blended it really well for about 20 seconds. Then I poured in more olive oil while the blender was running to get it the consistency I wanted: a thick paste. Then I pourerd it over cubes of chicken in a shallow baking dish to marinate.

When it was time to get dinner going I jabbed the chicken cubes on to skewers and grilled them for about 8 minutes. Other grilled vegetables balanced out the menu (e.g., mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, tofu), and it was all served over rice.

Here are some of the good things about this:

1. It took hardly no time at all.
2. I got to use up some of my "older" limes.
3. The thick paste adhered nicely to the chicken, so a lot of the flavor stayed -on- the chicken.
4. It was truly delicious. Everybody said so.

The Trout

2006-05-29T20:30:00.000-04:00

I've been immersed in readings about women cooking in France. I finished the recent Julia Child memoir with the definite understanding that not only am I not Julia Child, I don't even want to be like her. I don't have her drive and enthusiasm for the details and technique of cooking. I'm not even especially intrigued by nuanced combinations of flavors. I cook for friends and family, and I'm still trying to figure out my nexus of cooking, pleasure and servitude.

After Julia Child, I picked up Madeleine Kamman's When French Women Cook, a memoir with recipes. She goes through each stage of her life, chapter by chapter describing the women who influenced her with their cooking. There's Marie-Charlotte, her great-grandmother, who taught her La Cuisine Misere ("cooking something from nothing"). A recipe for Cream of Dandelion Soup (Creme de Pissenlits) follows. I haven't tried this recipe, and I can pretty much promise that I never will. It's stipulated that you want two pounds of the early dandelions, and it's already too late for that.

Victoire the mushroom maven is Kamman's next mentor. She starts that chapter saying "Disappointment comes early in life." How true! Her letdown came when she injured herself in the audition for the Paris Opera Ballet and was sent off to a distant relative's care for recovery. This raises all sorts of unanswered questions; Kamman stays focused on her accidental apprenticeship, recording what she refers to as a "France that has disappeared."

She describes a time that she and Victoire celebrated a mushroom windfall by eating out, having Truites au Lard. Following the theme of disappointment, the special meal didn't "measure up," so Victoire promised to prepare the dish the way it was supposed to be. Her story goes on with the older lady catching a trout with her bare hands, and of course they tasted better than those from the restaurant.

Having passed on not only weed soup but Squabs with Grapes and Pineau and Poached Chicken in Vinegar, I decided it was time to recapture lost France in my kitchen. Even though I knew I wouldn't be able to grab any trout except at Citarella, I decided on Truites au Lard. It's basically trout pan-fried in fat rendered from diced pancetta. [Note to self: try to avoid using the word lard in recipes; real turn off.] It was one of those French recipes that are deceptively easy:

• soak trout in milk (I don't know why, but it said to, and I did)
• render pancetta fat (1/2 oz cubed pancetta for each trout)
• take out crispy pancetta.
• flour the trout and saute about 4 min. a side. (I had some big trout, so this wasn't nearly enough time.
When the trout are done, put them on a platter and return the crispy pancetta to the pan along with 2 cloves of garlic, 2 T parsley and 2 T butter. It's done when the garlic starts to color up.
• Pour this over the trout. and serve.

I had the full Madeleine Kamman experience: I was thoroughly disappointed. I don't know what exactly I was trying to conjure. This certainly wasn't the fresh trout my mom used to make when everyone had gone fishing in the Sacramento Delta. Nor did it seem decidedly French with the mammoth fish on offer in New York. I had high expectations, to be sure, anticipating being transported to some little French kitchen where nobody had to hurry about synchronizing dinner, piano practice, bath, and bedtime stories in two hours time.

Iron Chef Maurice!

2006-05-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

The Husband's dad (my cooking mentor), Maurice, is here for a visit from California, and this presents an opportunity for both learning and anxiety. After a lunch out at Nick and Toni’s in Manhattan, we drove up to Fairway on 125th street to plan the night’s meal. “What should we do for dinner?” I asked.

Smiling, Maurice offered: “Hey, you decide. It’s up to you. Cook anything you want.” It all seemed so inconsequential to him. So easy.

When in doubt, fix chicken. So I got an organic broiler and had the butcher butterfly it for me. I thought of rice and then an endive salad. Maurice was being completely nonjudgmental, pushing the cart along and oohing and aahing at the shelves of oils and sauces and the tubs of olives and capers. He couldn’t resist though when we came along the little Italian cippolini onions. I had never noticed these before. They’re right next to the shallots and the ginger, across from the cornhusks for tamales. He noted that the price was about a third of that in Sacramento and started stuffing about eight or so into a bag.

We came across a heap of pears (Bartlett, Red Bartlett, Anjou) and Maurice bagged 4 of those, along with some heavy cream from the cold room.

Then we came by some “heirloom” tomatoes. One of the highlights of our annual trip to Sacramento is when Maurice takes me to the Farmer’s Market and we pick out wild and gruesome looking tomatoes to slice and drizzle with olive oil. I was hoping that these New York tomatoes might qualify as worthy. Maurice looked at the $5 a pound price and edged over the cheaper beefsteak variety. “You have breadcrumbs? Parmesan cheese?” We picked up some oregano and then headed over to the check out line.

When we got home I threw together a marinade for the chicken (lime, garlic, crushed cilantro, olive oil, s&p) and Maurice started in on the onions (peeling and trimming).

As I grilled the chicken and cooked the rice (sautéing in butter first, adding a sprig of the oregano, and covering the lid in a linen towel (I don’t know, that’s what a French woman taught me), Maurice was simmering the onions in some butter and olive oil and a bit of water. He was also halving and cleaning the tomatoes, crushing garlic, stuffing breadcrumbs, Parmesan olive oil and oregano into the nooks and crannies of the tomatoes—ready to be roasted in the oven.

Then I washed the escarole and made a 3:1 olive oil/ balsamic vinegar salad dressing. As the onions were perfuming the whole house with their heavy, sweet fragrance, he let the sauce cook down among the tender little buds and then caramelized them with some balsamic vinegar.

So there on the table was a nicely grilled chicken, some white rice, a nice green salad along with the most delectable little onion buttons you have probably ever seen and some squishy bright red tomatoes oozing with garlic and cheesy bits.

If you were lucky you got an onion small enough to pop in your mouth all at once, that way you had that little explosion happening as you bit into it. As for the tomatoes, I’m glad The Girl didn’t like them because that left more for me. I choose to cut them into pieces and plopped it on a piece of baguette. The only thing that would have made it better is if we were sitting in a café in Italy.

I got up to give The Girl a bath, and when we came back down Maurice was sautéing the pears, building up a caramel sauce, to which he added some of the heavy cream. He cooked it down and cooked it down, shaking the pan to keep the pears from burning or sticking. When the sauce started to turn a light brown, they were close to being done, and he carefully waited for that moment when they were just right. I was in charge of scooping up the vanilla ice cream that went on the side. He said he saw this recipe on the America’s Test Kitchen show and that they had said to serve it with blue cheese. We all agreed that cheesing up the caramel pears was just plain wrong.

As I scooped my final bite of pear, scraping whatever bits of caramel sauce I could onto my spoon, I considered not that I had been beat, for this wasn’t a competition. It was more like cooking with Master Kan, and I was trying to snatch the pebble.

It's What's For Dinner

2006-04-26T22:36:00.000-04:00

Laurie Colwin told me about flank steak; then it took me years to try it. I passed over the New York and Ribeye cuts at Fairway because I just couldn't see putting all that money on one steak. But here's what made the flank steak good tonight: I smashed up some peppercorns and some coriander seeds, sprinkled in a little salt and then added some olive oil. This made a flavorful rub. I grilled it for about 7 minutes a side and everyone was happy.

I grilled the little pencil asparagus too, without dropping even one down the grates.

Where There's a Will

2006-04-24T22:17:00.000-04:00

It started with one of my best qualities: optimism. I was going past the fish case at a nearby fancy-schmancy market when my eyes fell upon some gorgeous wild salmon filets. I wasn’t sure how I would prepare it (broil? grill? Try out one of those smoker bags that stowed away some place?), I just new that a hunk of that salmon was coming home with me.

But then it became Thursday evening and one of my worst qualities set in: lethargy. I think the religious call it sloth. In my defense, I had spent most of the day furiously working on a project (a muslin for a dress that was going very, very badly), and when dinner time rolled around I lost all interest in the salmon.

The Girl fed right into my mood. When she found out that it was just the two of us for dinner she made a winning plea for Arthur Pasta. Still, I knew that I had to do something with the salmon while it was fresh, so I poached the salmon while we spooned up orange mounds of whatever Arthur pasta really is. And actually, the crispness of my Sancerre went well with the tang of the pasta. Well, it was kind of like that.

Now it's the next night, and I have opaque pink salmon, speckled with coriander seeds and peppercorns lying on a plate in the fridge. Again, its me and Es (Evan is at his studio painting again), but my energy is uplifted, having solved one of the horrible sewing problems. Optimism and enthusiasm take over and I make just about the world’s best salmon cakes. I adapated Mark Bittman’s Salmon Croquette recipe, borrowed an egg from next door, and served the delectable crusted patties at about 8:00 p.m.

I can attest to the fact that children love them. My sample size is weak, but according to my sole juvenile test subject they were “great” and “beautiful.” Adults too have raved. “Write this recipe down; it’s a winner,” said The tired and hungry Husband when he got home an hour later. And that was his comment after eating one cold!

Here’s how to make them:

Combine about 1 to 3/4 pound poached salmon with 1/3 C mayonnaise, 1/4 finely chopped white onion, 1/4 C finely chopped red bell pepper, about 2 tsp Dijon mustard, 1/2 to 3/4 C bread crumbs, one egg, 2 Tbl. finely chopped fresh parlsey, 1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce, 1/2 tsp. ground coriander, pepper, and a bit of salt.

Form into 3” round cakes, any bigger and they can be hard to flip.

Cover each cake in panko (Japanese bread crumb).

Pour 1/4 inch of oil in skillet and let it get pretty hot.

Cook each salmon cake about 2.5 minutes per side, letting the crust get golden brown. Adjust heat as necessary.

Let cakes rest and blot off extra oil on paper towels. Serve and enjoy.

Thanks to the Riverdale Salmon Students for the great salmon painting.

Food for Thought

2006-04-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

I recently picked up Julia Child’s posthumously published memoir, My Life in France, and it drives home some of the many differences between the two of us. Although we both love France and French food, I’m nowhere near as passionate or dedicated to French cuisine, or cooking in general. She is just so excited about every little thing about learning to cook. She writes about the thrill she had in studying at Le Cordon Bleu, how she couldn’t wait to get home and prepare dishes (such as pigeon, I’m not kidding) for Paul.

That’s not me, and ever since reading about her zeal for the very act of cooking I’ve been asking myself what it is that I like about it. What about cooking, meal-planning, serving and eating a meal do I enjoy?

Then today I read Frank Bruni’s review of Jean-Georges in Manhattan. I have kind of eaten at Jean-Georges in that The Girl was invited to a birthday party there. She went to day care with Mr. Vongerichten’s nephew and his 5th birthday party was held at the restaurant. This was one party where the adults didn’t drop off the kids and race out. We stayed and lingered over the wonderful food, though I can’t remember what exactly was served. I do know that you could get a cappuccino on demand. The kids ate pizza and chicken tenders, probably a first for the restaurant.

In Bruni’s review he raves about the complex flavors that are layered in the dishes at Jean-Georges, how he had to carefully take bites so that each ingredient was on his fork. I love eating out as much as anybody, and that kind of dining experience sounds intriguing, but it’s not what I’m aiming for in the kitchen or even when I choose a restaurant.

On the other hand, I’m not a fan of Rachel Ray and her quickie meals either. It bugs me how she opens a can of this, chops up a bag of that, and then assumes that we find it appetizing. I don’t.

So where does that leave me? I’m not sure. Am I having an existential food crisis? Or do I just need a new job?

For Easter I made pork shoulder roast using a Cuban recipe. It called for a cup of lime juice, lots of garlic, and some vinegar with hours of roasting. It came out great, and I was just as pleased that the black beans grew uniformly tender in 2 hours. Still… there’s more to this than turning out a good dish. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m thinking about it.

La Tarte - Troisième Fois

2006-04-16T15:26:00.000-04:00

I decided to go with puff pastry as the base for my third attempt at Chrystèle’s tarte. I had recently tasted an onion tart that had such a flaky and delicate crust that I thought this might be what this tarte needs.

Results? It was light and crisp on the edges, but the bottom was still like a bad pizza, soggy and gloopy.

Chrystèle’s daughter happened to be over at lunch the next day, so I heated up the leftovers and served it to the girls. “My mommy makes this same tarte,” remarked the little girl. I was thrilled that it was at least recognizable. “But I don’t like it.”

I whipped out yoghurts and fruit while the girls picked the crispy crust off of their tarts. When they were done I scavenged The Girl's tomato and cheesy bits, which even leftover weren’t half bad.

Food = Love

2006-04-13T12:51:00.000-04:00

It’s an absolute luxury to meander through the wide aisles of Whole Foods, contemplating a single night’s menu. Es and I had nothing but time, and of course that is key to most creative endeavors. We got to the butcher case, and there, gleaming pink and white, were some gorgeous spare ribs. I had only really tried ribs once before, and this time I decided to go for the baby back ribs. The butcher said that they had less fat, which is good for the most part unless you’re looking for extra flavor.

I never tell the butcher how many people I’m trying to feed on the meager amount of meat I buy. I usually get one steak for the three of us, one good-sized fish filet, and this time less than a full pound of the ribs. Often it's enough, but not always.

The work at home was a snap.
1: Preheat oven to 300F

2: Plop ribs in a single layer in a shallow baking dish (or two)

3: Smother with barbecue sauce. I couldn’t find Stonewall Kitchen’s Maple Chipotle Grille Sauce, so I used Annie’s Smoky Maple instead.

4: Cover with foil.

5: Bake for 2.5-3 hours. Check on them after 1.5 hours and if the sauce looks kind of thin, take the foil off.

6: Crank the oven up to 500F, and blast them for 10 minutes.

7: After I put the ribs on a serving plate, I poured the sauce into a saucepan, skimmed off most of the fat, and then reduced the sauce down some. Then I poured a good amount of it over the ribs.

I braised some chard, heated up some rolls I had in the freezer and that was it.

I left the ribs baking in the oven while we went to the station to pick up The Husband. On the way home we teased him about what’s for dinner. “Pigeon gizzards,” The Girl cried out. “Frog cheeks!” There was no hiding it though as soon as we walked into the house. The sweet and tangy perfume filled every corner.

Making ribs is a great way to get anyone to feel better about the world. If I wanted to compel someone to love me, I’d make them some ribs. There was certainly a lot of love around our table that night. The Husband cut up some meat and put it on The Girl's plate. “Try that,” he coaxed. She took one bite, then to our surprise and amusement, she (really) got up and danced. Now how many foods can you say that about?

Poetry Month

2006-04-09T11:42:00.000-04:00

I work in schools, and for some reason April is poetry month. I'm glad schools don't wait for February to teach African-American history or March to teach about women in history, but many of the English classes I know save poetry for April.

I have many, many favorite poems, but there is one that has a long history with me. I found it in the 70's in a free paper called The Berkeley Monthly. I loved this poem so much that I asked a friend who did calligraphy (he also made his own chain-mail from wire, could quote endless Monty Python bits, and became a firefighter) to write it out for me on parchment. It hung in my kitchen for years, and then in preparing for one cross-country move or another I took it off the matting, glass, and clips and rolled it up.

I still have it, though the paper is cracking in parts. Some might say that it's treacley, but I like that sometimes. I think it says less about what my life was like in the 70's, but more about one slice of the life I wanted to create for myself. I had some Julia Child on my shelf, but its pages weren't as worn as Laurel's Kitchen or Diet for a Small Planet. At the same time, I kept a little card in my purse that held the complete text of the ERA. It was a confusing time, maybe more so because I was so young and trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.

Biscuits Made-From-Scratch

I had forgotten how good it feels
To cook slowly and with patience,
To chop things fine and sauté, to bake and boil
To mix with care, to keep the oven warm all day
Through breakfast, lunch and dinner,
To clear and clean continually
Each meal's debris, to wipe
The tables and mop the floors
To fold the laundry, to set
The accounts in order
And color with the kids
To act as Solomon for all disputes
And nurse to every hurt,
To take the time to make things
More than tidy,
With flowers arranged just so.

The separate lives come and go
In the house, and I am
That day's center, the base
Each one touches.

I had forgotton nurturing
And in this slow, summer rain,
The soft gray sky, found again
What pleasure there is to start
The day with biscuits made-from-scratch
And end it with a bedtime story,
To narrow my world view
To those things I can touch
Only with my hands.

—Dian Hanley

Times on My Side

2006-04-06T10:09:00.000-04:00

holds a heralded position in our household. Starting around 7:00 am (later on weekends) The Husband and I take turns peeking out to see if the blue plastic bag is lying in our driveway yet. The Times is the closest thing The Husband has to a bible in that he reads it religiously, pretty much cover to cover (omitting the Business section unless there’s some news about Apple). I’m a skimmer, breezing through the pages looking over headlines and then lingering on the obituaries.

Yesterday, right there below the fold of the front page, there was a whole story on people trying to get dinner on the table. It was exciting to find a topic so close to my heart right there, and I admit that there was a bit of pride of ownership. I was onto the Crisco Challenge way before The Times. [They must have done the same Google search that I did.] The long article had a lot of the familiar discussion with lots of statistics about how healthier kids are when there’s a regular family dinner. It reported that "children who eat dinner with their families regularly are less likely to get involved with drugs and alcohol than those who do not. They also tend to get better grades, exhibit less stress and eat better." They didn't mention that having dinner at home can be cheaper, that cooking dinner together can be a way to connect, or that the food can be much better when you make it yourself. But then they didn't consult me. This one Upper East Side woman kind of got to me:

"We try to have dinner together every night, and sometimes that means not eating until 9 o'clock," said Ms. Tatge, who lives on the Upper East Side. "But I think it's really important. We always have candlelight. It sets the mood and calms everyone down."

I don’t know, the candlelight kind of puts me off; it has that nuance of competition, that throwing down of the gauntlet (oven mitt?) that makes me cringe.

The article also mentioned the impulse to over-schedule ourselves (something I’m prone to do) and our children. For me, having a full calendar gives me the sense that I’m important, I’m popular and busy. But when I over-schedule myself I see the effect it has on everything else in my life, and I take myself away from what is meaningful, sometimes hard, occasionally thankless, often tiring, and extremely satisfying: making dinner for my family.

BummER

2006-04-05T23:42:00.000-04:00

A sign of a meal gone wrong is when at least one person at the table ends up in the ER.

Everything was going along pretty well. I had some pre-marinated chicken breasts from Trader Joes on the grill, along with some flour tortillas (wrapped in foil with some water to make them steam up a bit). I even had a ripe avocado that I picked up for almost nothing at a Chinese grocery store in Jackson Heights. Then I had this idea, borrowed from our neighbor Michelle. The Girl and I had enjoyed a “taco night” at her house recently and she made some Spanish rice. Great!

I sautéed some onion and green pepper in butter along with the rice and added some chili powder, ground coriander and ground cumin. Then I added a combo of canned tomatoes (Fancy S&W brand), the juice from the can, and some water to round it out. I let that cook for 20 minutes. Some of the tomato juice got on my hand and stung like mad. It was all red, and it didn’t stop hurting until a few minutes after I had scrubbed and rinsed it off.

The meal was pretty good. The meat was tender, spicy and juicy (note to self: refill the canister on the grill; the chicken got done just in time for the gas to run out). The avocado was smooth and decadent, tangy from lime. And the rice was so good that I ate all of mine and then what Es left on her plate. Somewhere in that time my voice started to give out. I had started the day with a scratchy throat, but it was getting worse—fast. I was able to breathe fine, but I my voice was a rasp.

Water didn’t help. My throat felt raw and tight. Thinking I was having an allergic reaction I took some Benedryl. Nothing happened. Next I went to my friend (the internet), cruising around for information about allergies, throat-constricting, tomatoes. I found out that five years ago a woman in the UK died from opening up a can of tomatoes for a Bolognese.

So I called my GP, who uncharacteristically called me back within a minute. He told me to take another 25mg of Benedryl and that if I wasn’t better in 20 minutes to go to the emergency room.

I kept hoping that suddenly it would clear up, but no.

I called our neighbors to have them take The Girl while The Husband drove me to the ER, and they were so nice that they stayed here with her! I didn’t want to go all the way to Columbia Presbyterian, so we went to the Westchester Medical Center. It was about 8:30 pm.

The triage nurse established that my breathing was fine, and so we had to wait…and wait. About an hour later they called me in, and another nurse told me to change to an exam robe and wait in a curtained cubicle for the doc. Next door, beyond the curtain a poor guy was suffering from a partially amputated finger (cooking accident?). He was getting shots of lydacaine, which were supposed to burn like hell. I didn’t even hear the guy wince.

Then this really tentative guy in a white coat, must have been 14 if a day, enters my curtained space. It seemed as if it must be his first rotation ever because his confidence was nil. He kept asking me the same questions over and over again. “What did you eat?” “What allergies do you have?” I joked that even though I sounded like a heavy smoker that I never smoke anything. “How much do you smoke?” he wanted to clarify.

So after that there was more waiting to do. Another hour ticked by, and all I could think of was poor Michelle hanging out at our house. At least she didn’t have to hear a commentary about how well the finger was being sewn up behind curtain number two. I had to put my fingers in my ears to keep from squirming.

Next came the big guy, the main man, the doctor in charge. He was tall, bald, and had the kind of suntan that shows how big his sunglasses are. There was nothing iffy about this guy. Much more macho Dr. Ro mano than sensitive and handsome Doug Ross. He was here on business, ready to make a quick diagnosis and move on to more important matters. My voice, at this point, was getting better, just a hint of Brenda Vaccaro about it. I answered the same questions over again. He ruled out allergic reaction (no swelling) and gave me a pepcid. I was glad not to need an epi shot, but come on, a pepcid? Such a let down.

Again we waited while the prescriptions and the discharge papers were prepared (and the guy next door continued to be sewn up). He was given delauden, so maybe he was in a happier place than the brightly lit curtained cubicle.

We finally got home at about 11:30. I was exhausted. Evan was exhausted. Michelle was exhausted.

The rest of the tomatoes are in a jar in the fridge. I think I’m going to throw them out.

March Madness

2006-03-31T14:32:00.000-05:00

This has been a month of medical procedures for me. I found myself putting this and that off, and then when I heard that Wendy was dying—suddenly all this time opened up in my schedule for all of those time-consuming medical visits. The list is long and gruesome, but I’ll leave it that it involved being stuck with needles, lying in a tube, ultra sound gel, drinking potions, and worst of all: being weighed!
Wendy was a colleague and friend, and among the many cool things about her it stated right there in her obituary that she made her own knishes. They were good too. Evan and I got to try them when we ventured to Staten Island once for a party at her house. It was the kind of party where the people “in the know” hung out in the kitchen for first dibs.
A friend who visited her while she was in the hospice told the story of how Wendy declared that she had become much more blunt since she got sick. More blunt? How could that be possible? This was not a woman who pulled punches. I had a hard time with how blunt she could be with me. “You know you’re cat’s going to die from this, right?” she said when Sula was first diagnosed with kidney disease. When I confessed having trouble being pregnant at the same time my mom was dying she instructed that I would have to look at why I chose to get pregnant at that point. That was a little more bluntness than I was hoping for right then.
Still, she was funny and committed to doing good work: one of those atheists who serve the common good better than many believers.
What does this have to do with dinner? Well, family. Near her 50th birthday Wendy reported that she came up with the meaning of life. I feel lucky that I was one of the ones she shared it with: spend time with the people you love. She did that, and threw herself a big birthday party. It wasn't as fancy as Oprah's, but then Wendy wasn't the kind of person who liked a lot of attention.
So now as I’m waiting for my date with Dr. G.I. and his sleep inducing cocktail (sounds like a bad date), I’m starving. Hungry for that cinnamon toast I smell The Husband making downstairs. Hungry for the sandwich from Via Quadronno that I’ve requested for after the date, I mean "procedure." Hungry for dinner.

P.P.S. Everything's fine; thanks for asking.

Much Depends on Dinner

2006-03-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

I ran into a colleague today who told me how our conversation about dinner changed her. I listened, nodded, and felt like a fraud. I have been completely out of the family dinner mode. It’s as if having guests over knocked me for a loop. It’s not that I haven’t fixed dinner; it just hasn’t been that often or that much of a family thing. It seems that for one reason or another we weren’t together around the table.

It all started last Tuesday when I picked The Husband up from the station with the news that we were eating out that night. That’s how it starts, and it’s downhill from there. Thursday he was home late, so The Girl and I shared a steak. Dorte came over on Friday, and we ate out again. Saturday The Husband was at his studio again. That left Sunday: I roasted a chicken on the grill and the wind blew out the flame. The grill got down to 200F before I noticed the problem. Then the meat thermometer went bust. We recovered, but it wasn’t pleasant. Monday night, we ate out with friends in Queens. Finally, tonight I fixed lamb chops, asparagus, and rice. We lingered over regina biscotti from Dorte for dessert

And all of this makes me realize, again, that it’s not a family dinner. It's all of them, back to back. It’s the ritual and the routine. It’s what can be depended upon, looked forward to, and expected.

So, tomorrow night we’re having dinner out with Desirée and Sarah. Then I’m having the special colonoscopy diet on Thursday night. [Was that too much information?] I think Evan is having a studio night on Friday. I might be meeting Chrystèle for dinner and French practice on Saturday. How am I going to make this work?

Cooking Dinner for Other People - Epilogue

2006-03-12T13:30:00.000-05:00

My father-in-law (Maurice, the wunderchef) has taught me some things about cooking. Rule Number One: no matter what doesn’t go right with what you're serving, put it on the table and shut up. Rule Number Two: dinner takes less time if you work quickly, and you can work quickly with practice. Rule Number Three: the more you cook the easier it gets.

The potatoes weren’t cooking fast enough. The roast was done resting. The salad was ready to toss, and even the asparagus had come off the grill. Still those little taters refused to brown and crisp. The cocktail hour was reaching its factual limit, the nibble bowls were nearly empty (except for the olives), and the gin and tonics were getting down to ice cubes. In a last ditch effort, not knowing what else to do, I turned the broiler on high. That was the only true moment of anxiety the whole evening. I decided to shove them all into a serving bowl and call everyone to the table. I served the dish of potatoes, and even though I should have implemented Maurice’s first rule, I just quoted the rule, which must be almost as good.

Everything else was a breeze. The food was tasty. I had prepared enough (though the roast shrunk during cooking) food. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Nobody was shocked that there were blocks under the coffee table. The Girl gave a brief piano concert.

When you decide to move someplace you check out all kinds of things, but you don’t really get to interview the neighbors. We were incredibly lucky because the Nordlinger’s are incredibly friendly and unpretentious. Their two kids are sociable, well mannered, and interesting. After dessert The Girl and their youngest son went to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and their 13-year-old son stayed and talked with us at the table. We talked about our town, the schools, where we grew up, and the benefits of using Netflix. It was almost 10 when we realized that it was late. We all said good-bye and they left out our backdoor through the gate that leads to their yard.

Even the clean up didn’t seem too onerous! We had it done in no time.

This reminds me of Rule Number Three. I can do this. I’m thinking of whom we should invite next. A former colleague of Evan’s is on the list. Just about everybody we know has had us over for dinner, so I could get lots of practice.

Cooking Dinner for Other People #4

2006-03-11T17:54:00.000-05:00

It's almost 6:00 pm. The roast has been in a 250F oven for about an hour and is now at 90F . Ten more degrees 'til I pump up the oven to 500F for it's final blast. Chef and father-in-law extraordinare has assured me that I can cook it to 130F (despite the fact that my thermometer reads 140F for medium-rare).

The salad is washed, dried, and sitting in the fridge. The potatoes are tender and are waiting in a pot with some salt, pepper, rosemary and garlic for their turn in the oven. The asparagus is sitting in a pan with olive oil, salt and pepper.

This is the time that I get a little anxious. The Girl's bed isn't perfectly made, but I'm not going to let it bother me. I haven't mopped or vacuumed—keeping to my promise. I did clean the bathrooms though because that just seems like the courteous thing to do. There's a box of blocks under the coffee table. I'm not going to move them. I don't even know if the piano is dusty. This is progress!

My goal is to concentrate on my guests and not get overally obsessed with how the house looks or how the food tastes.

Cooking Dinner for Other People #3

2006-03-11T16:20:00.000-05:00

It's almost 4:30. Our next door neighbors are going to be here in about an hour and a half. The table is set. The roast is getting to room temp. The escarole is soaking in the kitchen sink, ready for a spin. I made little post-its for each part of the menu (e.g., potatoes, boil for 20, roast w/ garlic and rosemary for 20) to keep me focused. Evan brought home two bottles of red wine (Cotes du Rhone). I start to flinch: what if they want white? We have some champagne, but that would absolutely go against my trying not to do anything too big. I better put some seltzer in the fridge. I have the before dinner munchies down: rosemary potato chips, olives, pistachios, dried cherries, and a peanut mix that might appeal to the kids (it has M&M's in it). What am I forgetting?

Cooking Dinner for Other People #2

2006-03-11T11:31:00.000-05:00

The Menu

Esacarole Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
Rib-eye Roast
Roated Red Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic
Grilled Asparagus
Red Velvet Cake

Okay, the cake is done and in the fridge. The roast will probably take about 3 hours (roasted slowly). The asparagus will take no time, but 15 minutes to get the grill hot. I do potatoes out of the Zuni Cafe cookbook (boil them and then roast them), so oven time is about 20 minutes. Salad I can wash early, have the vinaigrette ready and toss just before serving.

I think I'm set. The Huband and The Girl went to the school yard to learn to ride a bike. I'm still in my pajamas trying to rid the house of clutter. I'm promising myself I'm not going to mop or vacuum. Really.

Fixing Dinner for Other People

2006-03-10T18:10:00.000-05:00

"I am relaxed. I am not getting all worked up. I don't need to get into a tizzy just because the next door neighbors are coming over for dinner tomorrow night." That is the mantra I chant while I'm trying to whip up a Red Velvet cake, from scratch. "I am powerless over my addiction."

Right now, I'm hoping the fancy schmancy red food coloring dissolves in the buttermilk, egg, oil, vanilla and vinegar mixture. Why couldn't I have just used the little squirt bottles?

La Tarte: Take Two

2006-03-09T21:54:00.000-05:00

The Girl and I were driving south on Lexington when I told her that if there’s a parking space we’re going to stop at the Kitchen Arts and Letters bookstore. She gave out a sigh, clued in that it wasn't likely a place that sold Playmobil, lollipops, or sticker books. She was right. This place sells cookbooks and is one of the reasons New York is such an amazing city. Scanning their shelves, I was drawn to the title When French Women Cook by Madeleine Kamman and was quickly whisked into her world where “Sundays were gastronomic celebrations, where dinner tables were islands for animated conversations around plates of nuts being cracked and picked by nimble fingers.” I don’t know about you, but I’m there!

The book is full of wild recipes that I can’t imagine I’ll ever make. “Duck with Artichoke Hearts and Hazelnut Sauce”? “Shank of Veal with Masses of Garlic”? I don’t think so. But doesn’t “Rabbit with Shallots and Pickles” sound intriguing? Who has time for that, though, when there's dinner to be made?

The tomatoes had been sitting on the counter for days. Each day they got a little less shiny and their skin began to show it's age. Kamman's writing about butter, how to get ready to cook, and her memories of shopping for cheese with her grandmother began to fortify me and she give me the confidence to confront my problem: La Tarte.

Once again I started with the Pillsbury pie shell, the kind that comes in a box and you unroll. I rolled it out a little thinner and carefully spread an ever-so-thin layer of Dijon mustard on it, then the sliced tomatoes. Slices of rich Gruyere cheese went on top, and then a drizzle of olive oil infused with garlic and basil. I set it in the oven and crossed my fingers.

Not being too much of a gambler I padded the rest of the menu. I marinated some chicken breasts in olive oil, garlic, smashed coriander seeds and lime juice, ready for a quickie on the grill. I used up the rest of the escarole for a salad and put a loaf of Whole Foods frozen baguette in with the tarte. Not only that, the fridge was completely stocked with yoghurt. Nobody was going to be hungry tonight.

The first sign that things were going well was that it smelled really good in the kitchen. The cheese wasn’t oozing out on to the baking sheet this time, which I also thought was positive. After about a half an hour I declared it done, but I let it sit on the sheet a bit to become a little less molten. I think I’ve seen guys do this in pizza shops when a fresh pie comes out.

It was a hit. The Girl had a third slice (really). The Husband said it was good. I knew it was almost there. The tomatoes where nicely smooshy with cheese melted into them. The schmear of mustard had some kick. The crust, at least around the edges was crisp and brown—the center was a bit limp though.

It was definitely edible, dare I say tasty, but not quite ready for guests. Next time I won’t roll the crust any thinner and I might not drizzle the olive oil until it comes out of the oven. I may, even, make my own crust, (but that might be pushing it). Soon I might be ready for "Pigeons on Butter and Prune Pudding."

Three Nights, Three Dinners

2006-03-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

Night One
It was a fairly typical evening in that I was rushed to get dinner on the table. The Girl and I did a dash through the Food Emporium on our way to the pick up The Husband on the 6:28. I was thinking of grilling some Portobello mushrooms, but we were already having rib eye steak, so that seemed redundant. I decided to opt for the endive salad that I had learned from Chrystèle, a variation of which I e-mailed off to Natalie for her Unitarian potluck. Chrystèle served this great salad at a party to celebrate the birth of her second child. She and Pierre displayed a vast array of cheeses with the confidence and pluck that only the French can, and in the back was this simple salad of endive and roasted walnuts in a simple, simple vinaigrette. I gorged myself.

I was trying the version that I shared with Natalie, all of the above but with some chopped apple and dried cherries (Food Emporium didn’t have a good selection of nuttish cheeses—surprise).

I have been on this kick of trying to serve two vegetables at dinner, so I steamed some broccoli too. The steak was simple and quick (salt and pepper, direct grill heat for 10, indirect grill heat for 6). It cooked so fast that I was constantly going in and out of the house, crunching snow all the way.

The dinner was done by 7:20, everyone was happy and well-fed.

Night Two
The Girl and I had gone to the Inwood section of Manhattan for her piano lesson, and by the time the lesson was over we were both zonked. There was no way I was cooking dinner. We climbed into the car and just started driving North on the Saw Mill. “Think there’s anyplace new we can go to?” I asked (and by new I meant new and cheap). Nothing was coming to mind, and we just kept passing exits. “Let’s see what kind of diner Bill Clinton goes to in Chappaqua,” I suggested.

So the next thing I knew we’re in the Chappaqua Café and Restaurant, aka Jacques. It didn’t really look like the kind of place where Bill would hang out, but it was definitely kid-friendly. Every booth had at least one kid in it; it almost seemed mandatory. The Girl ordered the pasta “wheels” which went with the model car décor and the hot wheels brought along with a basket of crayons. The best part, she decided, was the jello that came with kid’s meal. Not being a whipped cream fan, she missed out on being handed the whole can to garnish her dessert.

We got in the car, took a wrong turn and ended up on a dark (and to The Girl scary) country road that eventually led us to the cosmopolitan hub that is White Plains. We overcame our frustration and fears by singing Rockin’ Robin extra loud.

addendum: I was wrong! Look here for correction info on my favorite living former president and the Chappaqua Restaurant and Cafe.

Night Three
As a parent I try to listen for the subtle cues my child gives me. I watch for the ever-so faint indications of what is going on with my child in order to support her the best that I can (see Mutiny Over Mac & Cheese). That’s why she and I had Arthur pasta for dinner on the third night. Teh Husband was getting a haircut, so it was just the two of us again. [The Husband took umbrage about being called “finicky” in a previous post, but he would be the first to admit that he draws the line at Arthur pasta. He absolutely refuses to ingest it.]

First we mixed it in bowls with peas and chicken (the florescent orange of the so-called “real cheese” and the shamrock green peas make a colorful plate), then she wanted to try it on a plate, all separated. Dinner went on and on. She reveled in it all. I was done much sooner and picked up Haroun and the Sea of Stories, reading aloud as The Girl savored every last Arthur-shaped piece.

Mutiny Over Mac and Cheese

2006-02-27T21:06:00.000-05:00

I couldn't believe it. This incredible macaroni and cheese, a dish even finicky The Husband named the best ever, was snubbed by my own flesh and blood.

"No," The Girl declared, "it's not really the best. I like Arthur pasta better."

That stuff in a box with orange cheese powder? How can that compare with this dish that is full of butter, whole milk, and two different kinds of cheese?

She ate a few bites. I had six servings.

Hey, they were small!

Performance Anxiety

2006-02-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

We went over to Mark’s house for dinner tonight. Few things are as wonderful as somebody else serving you a home-cooked meal. All you have to do is sit down and enjoy. He made a salad of escarole and then some penne with a Bolognese. Desirée (his sister / our friend) and her daughter Sarah were there, and we talked about the up-coming Oscar awards, UAE managing of US ports, and the advantages of having a Lexapro prescription. The girls regaled us with skits from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie (“Dadee, I whant a new pohny”) and then we discussed the Olympics and the complexities of computers and cable. It was a wonderful evening, and I couldn’t help but ask myself why we didn’t do this more often.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot: why does it make me anxious to invite people over for dinner? If it’s a spur of the moment thing it’s not problem at all. I’m just roasting up a chicken and Mark or Jim should come over and join us. No sweat. I’m okay with Dorte coming over any time. She does kitchen duty too, so it never feels as if I have to put together a meal to impress or satisfy.

The trouble sets in when I have to start thinking about what will make people happy. How clean does the house have to be? Do all of the Polly Pockets have to be picked up? What should the menu be? Should I try something new? Sometimes when I’ve tried a new recipe for dinner I’ll ask The Husband, “Is this good enough for guests?” Invariably he says yes, and still I never get that dinner party going.

I was talking this over with Chrystèle the other day. She’s always having people over for dinner, so I consider her a pro. “You just can’t worry about not having it perfect. People are just happy to be at your table.” She sounded so convincing in her French accent that I think I believe her.

I’m going to invite the next door neighbors over. I’ll make flank steak or macaroni and cheese. Maybe I’ll do fish filets in parchment with an endive salad. I’ll think of something.

Promise Keepers

2006-02-15T20:15:00.000-05:00

I have so wanted to go out to dinner the past two nights, but our new austerity plan forbids it. Only our vow to stay within our budget (and my work’s inability to pay me in a timely fashion) has kept us at the table here at home. Last night was Valentine’s Day, so even though I just wanted someone to take my order, I whipped up a paste of rosemary, parsley, garlic, olive oil and salt to spread over some luscious Costco lamb chops. Mashed potatoes and carrots did the rest. But what really irked me was my lack of foresight. We had a bottle of champagne in the fridge, and I volunteered that we open it on Sunday night to celebrate the blizzard. So here it was Valentine's Day and no champagne.

Tonight was hardly different. The Girl and I drove to the Hastings station to pick up The Husband, and all the way there I kept thinking how nice it would be to just pick him up and go to Ardsley for some Thai food. We could be there in a flash, and I was already so hungry from only having an economical peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana for lunch today. When The Husband got in the car I tested him out: "How about going out for dinner tonight?"” He agreed without hesitation, and that, somehow, made it easier for me to confess that the dinner I had at home would be a snap and would take less time than going anywhere else. I mean really, how long does it take to heat up some smoked pork chops, boil up some egg noodles, and steam some broccoli?

And in the long run it all worked out for the best. The Girl was full of stories about her first 100th day of school, which she reported was the greatest day she's had at school yet. And then of course there's the issue of tomorrow night. The Husband will be at his studio to paint, and The Girl and I have an invitation to meet Desirée and her daughter Sarah for dinner at Haiku in Bronxville. I have already said "yes."

Just Like Mom Used to Make

2006-02-08T20:04:00.000-05:00

Just when I needed it most, my daughter came over and gave me a kiss. She got up from the dinner table and came around for a mid-dinner smooch. I've been kind of down in the dumps, what with work and all (read: my job sucks), so I was really on the lookout for any hint of positive reinforcement.

I had been feeling really bored with my dinner repertoire and completely uninspired for my foray to Fairway Market, so I started going through my collection of recipe clippings to find something new. Who knew? Back in December 2000, Mark Bittman shared a recipe for black-eyed peas in his Minimalist column in the New York Times. As The Girl said at dinner tonight, "I love black-eyed peas," and she comes by it naturally.

Her Great-Grandma Gertrude, The Husband's Grandma —who unfortunately she never met, introduced me to black-eyed peas when I first had Christmas eve dinner at her house about 20 years ago. For a while she grew her own, then later she got them, pods and all, at a farmer's market. Eventually I tried to reproduce her recipe and had a heck of a time tracking down her secret ingredient:Liquid Smoke. I also had to substitute green beans for the black-eyed pea pods. Even though it wasn't absolutely authentic it was pretty good.

Tonight's blackeyed pea recipe hit the spot from a number of angles. It was easy—very few ingredients. It was cheap, if you (like me) happen to have some kind of ham, lying around your fridge.

To round things off, I pulled that cute little box of Jiffy corn muffin mix out of the pantry. This is what my mom made when she was really cooking something good. Looking at the box, you wouldn't think it could possibly taste as good as it does. Add a third a cup of milk and an egg to the mix and you've got a sweet little corn bread muffin.

And it not only got me a hug and kiss from The Girl, but The Husband even reached over and planted one on me too. I know I've been kind of pathetic lately, what lamenting about work and all, but I really think it was the black eyed peas and corn bread.

Here's how to make Bittman's Black-eyed Peas, which he calls South in a Soup.

Quickly sauté 2 oz of ham in 1 T of olive oil. Throw in a chopped medium onion and cook until it begins to get a little golden. Add 2 C of black-eyed peas. [He recommended frozen, which only took 30 minutes to get nice and tender.] Cook them with 4 C of water until tender. I let the water drain down a bit so that it was a bit thicker. Add in 2 C of greens. I used watercress, so that didn't take very long at all to wilt and cook down. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Dash with Tabasco. Serve.

Charge It To My Room

2006-02-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

There are times when this whole dinner ordeal is a burden. Take tonight. I have the dinner all planned, and it’s not too involved or anything: grilled swordfish, some rice, and some kind of vegetable that’s in the crisper and that I bought today, but I’ve completely forgotten. Granted, I genuinely enjoy having dinner with my family. Tonight, however, I want room service. I want to be in a hotel ordering something that will taste good from a cart and that comes with a metal cover. I want to stay up late and watch Charlie Rose.

Why Charlie Rose? He’s having a tribute broadcast to Wendy Wasserstein tonight. That shouldn’t make any difference in a family dinner blog, but it does make a big difference to me. I feel so completely sad about her death. I’m a huge fan of her play “Uncommon Women and Others,” but I never saw anything else she ever wrote. Still, she always impressed me as somebody who enjoyed life, approached it with a great sense of humor, and (it seemed) knew how to be a friend. The thing we have in common is that we both gave birth to baby girls in the winter of 1999. She wrote about the birth of Lucy Jane in the New Yorker and then in her collection of essays Shiksa Goddess, and it’s such a compelling story of love and faith (in her doctors, in her daughter’s will) that it moves me no matter how many times I have read it.

Work isn’t exactly a piece of cake these days either, but I won’t go into that right now. Can I add that the hot water heater broke down over the weekend, the roofer came last week, and the washing machine repair man stopped by too. Such a klatch of home improvements experts (no matter how friendly) don’t brighten my mood. And to make matter worse, I just had a birthday, inching my way toward the unspeakable.

So perhaps I’ll get in a better mood by the time I start making dinner or by the time I sit down at the table. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll at least break one rule and have a gin and tonic before Memorial Day.

Sunday Night Turkey Meatloaf

2006-02-05T23:34:00.000-05:00

Fast, Cheap, Easy & Good

2006-02-01T18:09:00.000-05:00

Most times I cook where I follow a recipe. Sometimes it’s a recipe that I’ve made many times before, so I can improvise a little bit and fool around some (a little more of this, some of that instead). There are very few dishes that I can put together without consulting anything. Even when I grill a steak I have to look up every time how many minutes for how thick a steak. But there is one dish that I have learned to do by heart: bucatini all’amatriciana.

It sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well it’s easy! It doesn’t take a lot of time or ingredients, and it’s good enough to serve to guests.

The first thing you have to know is that bucatini is a long, narrow tubular pasta—kind of like a hollow spaghetti. Find something close enough and you’ll be fine. Boil up a pot of water with a tablespoon of olive oil in it (keeps the pasta from sticking together).

While you are waiting for it to boil, dice about a third a pound of pancetta (Italian bacon) into pieces the size of a pencil eraser. Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a good-size sauté pan and sauté the pancetta until it is nice and crispy. Then let it drain in a bowl padded with paper towels, keeping the olive oil in the pan.

Now your water should be about ready to boil. Add some salt (adds flavor to the pasta) when it’s at a rolling boil and add the pasta.

Add 2 cups of canned diced tomatoes (almost all of one of the big-size cans) to the olive oil in the sauté pan. Cook it for a few minutes (about 5-7) to let it thicken up a bit. Then lower the heat and add 4 tablespoons of freshly grated romano cheese and about 1 teaspoon of crushed red peppers. Stir on low heat for a little bit, and then add in almost but not all of the crispy pancetta.

Drain the pasta (it should be just about al dente by this time), and mix the pasta and sauce (to make it so that there is a nice coating of sauce on the pasta, but not like it’s swmming in it). Top the dish with the remaining pancetta and some more romano. And that’s it!

That’s what we’re having for dinner tonight. I’ve already crisped up the pancetta, and I’m going to stop at the market the romano and some broccoli rabe as a side dish.

I have made this pasta so many times that I could (almost) make it with one hand tied behind my back. It’s what I’d cook if I was nervous about having people over for dinner, and it’s what I’d make if I was on vacation in some strange house without a cook book.

Grilling in Winter

2006-01-29T10:08:00.000-05:00

When we moved to Hastings from our apartment in the city last year I knew that I wanted a grill. My heart rate would quicken every time I stumbled upon a July issue of a cooking magazine outlining all the fun other people were having with their grills. They were making sublime vegetables with beautiful lines across them. They were flipping steaks and chicken parts to their heart’s content. Back in the apartment, I had thought about using one of those stove-top grill pans on our little gas range, but without a range hood I knew that I was only asking for trouble. So the first warm day in May last year, The Husband, The Girl and I trekked over the hill to Home Depot and got ourselves a grill.

When I lived in California I had a Weber kettle charcoal grill, which I used mostly for marinated chicken pieces. I was ready to put a grill to a lot more use now. I didn’t want to be limited to only cooking in warm weather and I didn’t want to come home from work and wait 45 minutes for the coals to get just right. That’s why I got a gas grill. And even though I miss that wonderful carcinogenic flavor from the coals, I use the grill rain or shine (well, to be honest—sprinkling or shine, and snow has been a deterrent too). There are two problems with grilling when it’s cold 1) it takes a lot more gas to keep the grill hot, and 2) the cold air drifts into the house every time you go in and out. Another negative is that you can’t really cook dinner in your pajamas.

So last night, even though it is winter, I fired up the grill to make dinner. First I wrapped some baking potatoes in foil, and set them up on the shelf, a bit aways from the burners. I let them sit there as the grill got hot and hotter. In the meantime, I made up rub (from the Cook’s Illustrated Best Recipe cookbook that I got for Christmas) for the flank steak. It was basically a couple of tablespoons of ground cumin and chili powder. About half of that of ground coriander, some pepper, a little bit of cinnamon, some dried chili flakes and some salt. I did those puréed parsnips, but also made some steamed carrots as insurance.

With about 15 minutes left for the potatoes I put the flank steak on the grill. Turned it after seven minutes and then let it cook for about 5 or so minutes more. The potatoes continued cooking while the steak “rested.” And that was dinner. The Husband and The Girl took doll-sized bites of the parsnips, but the flank steak and potatoes were a hit.

Only Connect

2006-01-25T18:10:00.000-05:00

I might have made a big mistake the other night. I answered the phone during dinner. At the moment it didn’t seem like such a big deal. The phone rang as we were having the leek and potato soup, and I automatically leapt out of my chair like a teenager. We have an interesting division of labor around the phone in our house. It’s basically this: I answer the phone. It’s not that the phone calls are always for me. It’s not because I am always rushing for it; sometimes it will ring and ring and ring until I get it. I usually answer it. Evan usually doesn’t.

So this was just one of the many times that the phone rang, and I looked (yes, we have caller ID) to see who it was and made the snap judgment that I needed to talk to that person more than I needed to have my leek and potato soup.

The truth is that it was a kind of “important” call in that the person was a neighbor that I don’t know too well, that there is an issue of a shared fence that the wind blew down, that she, too, works and has children and has a busy schedule. We talked and made a plan for the poor, lopsided fence. We talked about our kids, our work, and both (I think) felt that it would be great if we were to talk in person sometime soon. I hung up feeling glad to be a neighbor, even if we have to deal with problem fences.

When I returned to the table The Husband and The Girl were eating the chicken and the spinach in silence. The chicken (which I bought already roasted) was pretty dry, and something was clearly lost from the mood while I was up and talking on the phone.

I’m not trying to scold myself; given the same situation I might take the call again. But what the experience did remind me of is how precious and tenuous those moments at the dinner table can be, how much they connect me to the people I care about, and how hearing about what The Husband did for lunch and who The Girl played with at recess really matters to me. Maybe I don’t have to be so hard on myself to produce a terrific meal, maybe showing up is more than half of the work.