Get Comfortable

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

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

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

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

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

Shocking, but True

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

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

Holy Basil

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

"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

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?

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

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!]