Cook the Wolf

2012-01-06T16:36:00.001-08:00

Ungaretti & Harris Llp

2011-12-31T14:13:00.001-08:00

There's a Butternut Squash Contest at Food 52!

2010-10-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

And I've got a dish in it. It's so easy, it's rich, and it's vegetarian. We all liked it. And I won't be upset if you like some of the other recipes better than mine. They look amazing.
http://www.food52.com/recipes/7387_double_squash_linguine_with_roasted_butternut

I surrender to baking bread--and other stuff

2010-10-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

I am a semi-stepmother. The Man has an 11 year daughter, whom I've known since she was 7, and whom I adore with the kind of mushy adulation I thought possible only in real parents, which I am not.

I will say that she is a great eater, but--and maybe this is because I am not connected to her genetically--I will not say that she knows all the waiters at Spiaggia and keeps a cheese diary and eats (or even knows about) foie gras and makes a better omelet than I do. She is very adventurous, and she does have friends who eat only bagels, which makes me feel outlandishly superior, but the truth is I knew she was my kind of kid not when she ate my early Thai experiments but when I found her hiding a big ball of bread in her hand, stuffed with butter, during my first dinner out with her. It was like a butter-filled baseball that she was waiting to pitch, handcrafted right there at the dinner table when no one was looking. She was clearly trying to break my heart.

Bread is one of her favorite foods, and I think butter is one of her second favorite foods. When we go to Trader Joe's, she heads for the coffee sample station so she can drink the cream, straight up.

Anyway, she just left us for two weeks, and I find myself with the kind of empty time I used to relish. And I freeze at 2:30 thinking I've forgotten to pick her up at school. What the hell am I going to do with myself? I'd say "bake some bread," but I just did that.

Because for her going-away present, she asked me to make her favorite, Mark Bittman and Jim Lahey's super-simple loaf. She took the whole thing, which I pulled out of the oven last night, along to school wrapped in plastic and shoved into her giant bag along with her books and extra clothes and vampire fangs, which she collects. This, of course, breaks my former lump-of-coal heart in two, yet again.

Five years ago, if you'd told me I'd be baking, I would have . . . I don't know, punched you in the nose? I've always cooked a lot, but baking seemed to symbolize the whole sad Hilary Clinton trap: how can you take yourself seriously if you bake cookies? Well, guess what, I've been baking cookies, too. And I haven't melted into a puddle on the castle floor. And I'm not going to stop, either.

For those of you who have grown a heart, as well, I give you the recipe for this amazing, never-fail loaf, for which you'll need a dutch oven, but that's about it as far as equipment goes. And: no kneading, no proofing, no talking about your dough like it's a person. Just mix it up, let it sit for about 18 hours, then, practically, throw it in the oven. It's great to bake with kids, because it truly does seem like magic. I've changed a few things regarding getting the bread from the counter into the oven, but this recipe is otherwise almost as I found it, in the New York Times.

No Knead Bread, adapted from Mark Bittman and Jim Lahey

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
water

In a large bowl stir the flour, yeast and salt together, then add 1 5/8 cups water. Stir this together, too, until it comes together in a shaggy, sticky dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. I usually put it on the back of the stove.
Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over like you are folding a towel, once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
Flour your hands, then quickly shape dough into a ball. Place it, seam side down, on a floured sheet of tinfoil; dust with a little more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with a cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Pick up the tinfoil like a tray, and turn dough over into pot, seam side up. Shake the pan once or twice to more evenly distribute the dough in the pot. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until browned. Cool on a rack.

A Doily-Worthy Dessert

2010-04-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a dessert that I got from my Aunt Mariah's recipe box when I went down to Galax to cook with her and my cousin Toni, whom I grew up with, and their cousin Martha. Toni and I were planning on photocopying whichever recipes we just had to have, but I was so taken with this recipe in particular that I wrote it down on the spot on a scrap of paper (no one ever writes anything down on a sheet of paper; it's always "a scrap"). And after coming back home and making it in my Chicago kitchen, I felt like a goddess for having the great ability to know a terrific recipe when I see one. I'm still patting myself on the back.

Aunt Mariah was planning to make these lemon sponge cups for her book club meeting coming up the next week. "I serve them with whipped cream and a slice of lemon," she told me in her slow Tidewater Virginia accent, which is so lilting and pretty and which she has always maintained in spite of the fact that everyone in my family has attempted, it seems, to tease her out of it by imitating it. Which must be maddening for her, and which is hilarious since we all have Southern accents, just different kinds of Southern accents. (Hers is quite remarkable though. Apparently, she once said: "Ahm about ta perish for a Co-cola." However, this is a teasing story that gets repeated, along with her pronunciation of wha-tah, aka water, and sofer for sofa, to the point that such tales no longer seems quite plausible. Until you hear Aunt Mariah speak.)

Anyway. . . these lemon sponge cups are wonderful and also quite easy. They make you feel fancy: you pour the batter into individual souffle dishes or ramekins, and when they come out of the oven they have cute puffy-brown tops, with a layer of lemon custard on the bottom. Without whipped cream, they are perfectly light and sour-sweet; but a spoonful is nice for company.

Lemon Sponge Cups

Serves 4-6

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons flour
1 lemon (grated rind and juice)
1 1/2 cups milk
3 eggs, separated
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, cream butter. Add sugar, flour salt, lemon juice and rind. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks; stir in milk, then add slowly to first mixture. Beat egg whites until stiff; gently fold into mixture. Pour into custard cups and place in pan of hot water. Bake in "moderate" oven (350, in my case) for 45 minutes. You will have a layer of lemon custard, with sponge on top. Let cool a bit. Turn out and serve with whipped cream, or serve in the dish. You can also bake this in one large souffle dish.

My World and Welcome to It

2010-03-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

Meet Mabel. Favorite meal: oatmeal, hold the berries. Likes: anything that stinks. Dislikes: being tickled in her armpits. Peeves: people who put scraps down the disposal.

Two Things Regarding Salad (longwinded version)

2010-03-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

Herewith another blurry picture, sent by cellphone, from the architect who lives here. It's what he and his associates cooked for themselves recently while in Colorado for a little ski get-together.

Can you find the steak in this picture? I'll save the jokes about Fred Flintstone, but I think anyone who knows him would allow me to take some credit for the fact that the colors orange and green appear on the plate. Which is to say I've gotten him to start eating his vegetables.

He, on the other hand, would probably say that he has always loved steamed spinach, and that he has also always cubed sweet potatoes, tossed them with butter and garlic, the roasted them at high heat until they have a nice crust on one side and are tender and crazy delicious inside.

But never mind. The point is the vegetables are there.

Although, and I really don't want to belabor any of this, but I just cannot help it: I can't get over the fact that last night while we were having dinner out (at La Madia, a really good pizza place in Chicago), he said to me, as he folded some green leaves into his pie-hole: "I have always enjoyed salads."

Ha-ha-ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha -ha.

That's hilarious. It's true only if a slab of pork tenderloin on a Kaiser roll with barbecue sauce and fat white onion slices qualifies as a salad. On the other hand, maybe he did not mean "leafy green salad," specifically.

Perhaps he knows, the way everyone should, both things that I want to say about Salad.

1. A salad doesn't always have to look like lawn clippings.
2. You're crazy if you buy salad dressing.

I love leafy greens, dark and pale--I do--but I don't make a ton of leaf-based salads here, actually, because we always waste the leftovers and I hate washing greens but don't trust "prewashed."; I have a big bag of arugula in the fridge; I just put half of it in lentil soup because I forgot to buy spinach. It was really good. Guilt gone.

But I do like to make a refreshing melange of vegetables, or vegetables and fruit, or grains or beans served with a homemade main course. Although, like anyone with people to feed on a regular basis, I've been known to cook dinner and serve nothing with it at all, especially if it's pasta. A kind of eat-it-and-shut-up entree as opposed to how-do-you-like-this-dish-I-created-for-your-dinner-I-really-want-your-opinion.

Which is to say: a salad is civilized. And they can be so easy.

You should never buy salad dressing, unless you just really really like bottled dressings and have money to spare. There is one I do like very much but I haven't bought it in years. I just tried to find it on Amazon, which confirmed my feelings: a search for "salad dressing" turned up, among several other unsavory bottles, a "blue cheese, pecan balsamic vinaigrette," which not only sounds like something you should eat on jumbo Fritos but no longer seems to be a vinaigrette per se, and another that I originally read as "Taliban Lime Ginger Vinaigrette" but turned out to be "Tahitian Lime Ginger Vinaigrette," thank God.

A salad can be anything. I know you know this, but it's good to remind yourself every once in a while that you do not have to submit to the necessary tyranny of washing and drying greens. My mom used to serve canned grapefruit sections with avocado and red onion, dressed with red wine vinegar and oil. I loved it--and I loved canned asparagus back then, too--and later adapted it to be the modern-lady lifestyle that I live today: fresh grapefruit sections, some thinly sliced red onion, avocado, and soft red-leaf or Boston lettuce with arugula. I tend to use pretty much the same salad dressing on everything, because I have always thought that it goes with everything (my mustard vinaigrette).

But I recently served a salad that was so simple it barely deserves this long-winded entry and made me realize that I should think a little bit harder about dressing. My mustard vinaigrette has sort of become like khaki pants: it has grown tedious in its splendid utility. And so often is completely inappropriate.

So my salad: super-sweet seedless oranges (they're everywhere, and we should eat them while we can) cut into thick slices, with a scattering of pomegranate seeds, some diced shallots, and a dressing made with o.j, molasses, a little balsamic vinegar, a bit of olive oil. If you serve this with a non-spicy dish, you can throw in a pinch of cayenne, or a half-teaspoon of red pepper flakes.

I served it with another dish that I love to serve for guests but is perfect for a Friday night family supper, Green-Chile Chicken Thighs with Arugula Salad and Creamy Grits, a dreamy recipe my sister sent to me from Food and Wine a few years ago. I've given you the link to click. Make the dish; trust me.

My salad was just the thing. Refreshing, sweet and sparky--the perfect antidote to the rich and spicy chicken and creamy grits.

Emily's Easy Orange Salad

Serves 4

3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons molasses (I've also used Maple syrup)
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
pinch of cayenne or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (this is semi-optional; if you make it to accompany the Green Chile Chicken Thighs, leave it out)
1/2 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
pepper
2 shallots, very thinly sliced, separated into rings
3 large seedless oranges, peeled and cut into 1/3 inch slices (click to see how)
1 cup pomegranate seeds (I got mine at Trader Joes, already liberated; diced strawberry would be pretty, too)

Slice the shallots thinly and separate into rings.
In a jar, place olive oil, orange juice, molasses, vinegar, cayenne, salt, pepper. Screw on lid and shake until well emulsified.
In a small bowl, pour some of the dressing over shallot slices to cover. You can let this sit at room while you're making the rest of your dinner, the longer the better.
When you are ready to serve your salad (and I like to serve this right along with the chicken thighs or after, because it is refreshing, and I am uncouth), divide orange slices artistically among 4 salad plates, topped with 1/4 of the "pickled" shallots, and sprinkle prettily with the pomegranate seeds. Drizzle each plate with some of the dressing.

Anyone Can Make Biscuits. Everyone Should

2010-02-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

As I prepare to head back down South to my hometown, in Galax, Virginia, to cook with my Aunt Mariah, I've been perusing some of my Southern cookbooks, which of course has made me hanker, like crazy, for some biscuits.

Not that Aunt Mariah makes biscuits. She is known for her exquisite Parker House rolls, which are pillowy yeasty pale butter-browned wonders, and I've always wanted to learn how to make them. She'd better teach me.

Contrary to popular belief, you see, not everyone in the South spends half of their daylight hours cutting lard into flour and frying up country ham to make ham biscuits. If that were true, I'd certainly still live there.

While I do miss those super-salty, leathery slices of pan-fried country ham, which is what always accompanied biscuits--at least in my memory--when I was growing up (ham biscuits seemed to show up everywhere back then, at the Midtowner Restaurant, at bake sales, at the Fiddler's Convention, at church potlucks, and for sale at card tables at the VFW gun show and flea market in Hillsville)--it is important to know that country ham is not the boss of biscuits.

Biscuits are good with a smoked salmon and goat cheese frittata at brunch, or a bowl of vegetable or tomato soup for lunch, or butter and jam with tea. Biscuits are like flowers, which, according to Aunt Mariah (the Emily Post in my life), are a perfectly wonderful thing to offer at any time.

But I had never baked any myself until I grew up and bought Marion Cunningham's perfect little book "The Breakfast Book." These biscuits do not require the least bit of hard labor, or buttermilk, no beating or much kneading, and they do not contain lard (this may be a downside for you). Also, they are very pretty and they are not round but cut into squares (which reminds me of an old Southern math joke--they exist--the punchline of which is: Pie are not square. Cornbread are square. Pie are round.) So you don't even need a biscuit cutter.

And I dare you to find and send me an example/recipe of/for an easier and more delicious biscuit. Oh, I'm forgetting my Southern manners, yet again. What I meant to say is: Please try them at your earliest convenience, and share your own recipe if you wish. I'll set up a biscuit blogroll!

Cream Biscuits, from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book

Makes 1 dozen

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1 to 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup (5 1/2 tablespoons) melted butter (for coating biscuits)

Preheat oven to 425. Use an ungreased baking sheet.
Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir with a fork to blend and lighten.
Slowly add 1 cup of the cream to the mixture, stirring constantly. Gather dough together. When it is tender and holds together, it is ready to knead. If it seems too shaggy and pieces are falling away slowly add enough cream to make the dough hold together.
Place the dough on a lightly floured board and knead for one minute. That is not a very long time!
Pat the dough into a square that is 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 12 squares and dip each into the melted butter to coat all sides. Place the biscuits 2 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

Some Salmon for Ya

2010-02-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

This is a recipe I entered in the weekly recipe contest at Food52.com. Since I didn't win that week (but I was an editor's pick, which makes me unspeakable proud), it seems like a perfectly good idea to share it here at Cook the Wolf. The contest was for Your Best Couscous. (If you're not familiar with Food52.com, you should check it out; it's more fun than a barrel of Marcona almonds. Way more.) I got the idea to share it when I read the terrific Food52 blog Jenny's in the Kitchen, which, you'll note if you log on, features an equally fabulous salmon recipe that uses one of the same (perhaps surprising) ingredients that mine does (cinnamon) and would be wonderful and even quicker. Anyway, here's what I entered:

One of my favorite easy dishes is fish baked in foil. And I love tagines on couscous, the tiny pasta sopped with big flavored stewy juices.This is not a tagine, technically speaking. But it has some of the flavors and textures that make the classic Moroccan dish so alluring to me. And it only takes about 15 minutes to prepare, and 20 to cook. I don't really measure when I make fish in foil, but this is a close estimation; it's an easy dish to tinker with and you should feel free to do so. But try it this way first.

Splendid and Simple Salmon and Vegetable Couscous

SERVES 4

1 teaspoon olive oil
4 pieces salmon filet, 6-8 oz each, skin removed
1 medium zucchini, very thinly sliced
1 small red bell pepper, in very small dice
1 small to medium red onion, very thinly sliced
1 large tomato, seeded and diced
1 small bunch parsley, roughly chopped
12 large basil leaves, chiffonade
1 teaspoon cumin
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 pinches red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon cinnamon (more to taste)
1 teaspoon ground coriander
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 lemon (cut into quarters)
1 cup dry white wine, divided
1 cup cream, divided
salt
freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 cup couscous

Place a large oven-proof casserole or baking dish in oven and preheat to 450.
Cut four sheets of tinfoil, about 18 inches long. Stack them; one by one, in the center of each, layer a quarter of the ingredients: a bit of olive oil, a bed of zucchini (about the size of fish filet), the fish, bell pepper, tomato, onion, parsley, basil. Sprinkle each with 1/4 of the cumin, the garlic, the pepper flakes, cinnamon, coriander. Squeeze the juice of a lemon wedge on each piece. Top with a tablespoon of butter.
Fold the foil into a little boat shape to hold in liquid. Then splash each filet with a quarter of the wine and a quarter of the cream. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Fold the foil packet like an envelope and seal the edges along sides and top so that no steam or liquid could possibly escape. Remove the hot baking dish from the oven. Place packets of fish in the dish and bake for 20 minutes. They should begin to make a sizzling noise after ten minutes--cook for 10 more minutes after they do. Do not check for doneness until 20 minutes has elapsed.
Make the couscous once the fish has baked for 15 minutes. Boil 1 1/2 cups water, to which you have added 2 teaspoons of butter. Add the couscous, quickly stir, then cover with lid for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.
Divide the couscous among 4 bowls; open the foil packets from the top, being careful not to burn yourself. Tip the packets over each bowl so that the broth runs out; use a spatula or spoon to place the fish and vegetables over each portion. Serve with more fresh parsley if you wish.

Pizza: You Can Do It

2010-02-17T12:52:00.000-08:00

Yes, one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life is buy a pizza stone. It's my version of Olympic gold; I got into pizza making out of curiosity, on a whim, to escape some challenging circumstances in life that might otherwise have made lesser beings give up forever, but I saw it as a chance to overcome my setbacks, and it turned into a reason to be, a chance to show the world that I could be number one at something.

Not really. Anyone can do it.

Actually, I didn't even buy the pizza stone for myself. That would be too easy for a cook like me, who would rather crack a giant chunk of stone off of a mountain and heat it over an open fire pit I dug on my own, then grind the wheat for the dough and catch the pepperoni in the forest. Buying a pizza stone for myself would have been so self-indulgent, so weak. So. . . normal.

But it was a great gift for the architect, because I have turned him into the true pizza expert around here. Making pizza is incredibly easy when you have a stone and a peel, which are worth the investment because homemade pizza is also a very cheap meal, as long as you don't like lobster and caviar pizza. And to paraphrase my friend Mark Bittman once you start putting too much kooky stuff on it, it's no longer pizza.

Anyway, let me share with you here the easiest and most triumphant pizza dough recipe in all of the Olympic Village. I don't have a giant mixer, with a dough hook (as I've complained about a million times, probably); I mix it by hand, and not to punish myself. It's just really easy. I got the recipe from Simple Italian Snacks, a book you should own if you like, um, simple Italian snacks. And what crazy person doesn't? As the chef/author Jason Denton points out, this is a nonobsessive dough--"no eye on the clock, and no theories on rise times." Also, he suggests using a pizza pan OR a stone, so don't think you have to use a stone like we do. But they are cool.

Before I got this book, I would make an uncooked sauce of canned Italian tomatoes (San Marzano, as we all know, are best), with a bit of chopped garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. It was delicious, but before we got the hot idea of buying a peel to get the pie in and out of the oven, it was a way-too-wet sauce, which made it almost impossible to transfer and thus marred the joy of pizza-making.

We now use the cooked sauce from Simple Italian Snacks, too. It's wonderful. I make the dough. The architect assembles and supervises the pie baking. But all you need to do after you spread out the dough is give it a thin layer of sauce and top with your favorites: pepperoni, torn basil, slices of mozzarella, drizzle of olive oil, red onion, olives, arugula, mushrooms--whatever.

Pizza Dough, from Simple Italian Snacks

The book claims it makes 2 12-inch pizzas; we always end up with 3

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups warm water (about 105 degrees)
1 tablespoon of salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 1/4 cups all purpose flour.

In the large bowl of a standing mixer (I do this in regular mixing bowl, and do all the mixing by hand. You can too), combine the yeast with the warm water. Add salt and olive oil and stir to combine.
Using the paddle attachment (or a human arm and a big spoon, like I do), slowly add half the flour to the yeast mixture. When they are well combined, add the rest of the flour. With the mixer now set to medium and refitted with a dough hook if you have one (hahahahah!), continue mixing until the dough comes together in a smooth ball. Mix for 2 minutes, until the dough is soft and pliable. Turn it out ont a lightly floured board and knead it gently with your hands for a few minutes. (This part, contrary to popular belief, is not difficult but in fact fun and makes you feel very impressed with yourself, and a bit like Laura Ingalls Wilder).
Shape the dough into a ball and place it in an oiled bowl. (I oil the ball of dough, too). Cover the bowl with a clean towel and let the dough rise for 30 to 40 minutes, while you clean up and prepare toppings. The risen dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap (not too tightly; it expands and will pop through the plastic) and refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 2 weeks. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator. (I actually think this dough works better after it has been in the refrigerator for a day.)
Turn out the dough onto a floured board, then cut it into half (as I mentioned, we make three generous pizzas with this amount of dough, so you can freeze one ball for later). Press and stretch the dough to form rounds, or 12 x 6 rectangles if you are using cookie sheets.

Note from me, on putting the pie together: if you are using a pizza stone, place it it the oven at 500 degrees for at least a half hour. Put it on the middle rack. We made our last pizza this way: layer of sauce (recipe to come) slices of pepperoni, thin slices of buffalo mozzarella (don't use crappy cheese; get the good stuff), torn basil, drizzle of oil. Don't overload your pie; this is not a lasagna you're making. The architect brushed a little olive oil on the exposed ring of crust, then slid it into oven at 450 or 500 degrees. You want to take it out when the crust browns. Keep an eye on it.

Assemble your pizza on a floured peel, or on a floured rimless baking sheet. You need something to slide it onto the stone (or your preheated pans or cookie sheet).

Simple Red Sauce, from Simple Italian Snacks

Makes enough for 3 pizzas

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 additional tablespoons

2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced (I used 3; we love garlic)
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes
Salt
Pepper

Heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice. Using kitchen shears or a knife, cut the whole tomatoes into small pieces. Add salt and pepper and cook until the sauce is thickened and reduced by about a third, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Re-season with salt and pepper to taste, and refresh by stirring in a tablespoon or two of olive oil.

As the Barefoot Contessa might say, how easy is that?

And Another Thing

2010-02-15T13:19:00.000-08:00

My continuing crush on Thomas Keller's latest cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home, has been good for me, because I tend to like extremely simple recipes. Simple, because I have a kitchen the size of an olive, and no mixer or food processor or very much that makes a cook's life very easy. I have some guilt issues apparently, and treat every joy in life like a hairshirt.

In this cookbook, which is simpler than you might imagine (coming from one of the country's greatest chefs), even those recipes that are a (longwinded) breeze are good for the aspirational cook--which is what I am now, for better or for worse--because you learn new tricks to play around with.

You really need to want to learn some new tricks, however.

And let me say right from the get go that some of the recipes require you to have ready have at the ready concoctions made from other recipes in the book, before you can proceed. For instance, if you want to eat Keller's Catalan Beef Stew (with fennel, leeks, fingerlings and olives) on the spur of the moment, you'd better just pop in on Keller himself at home. Unless your refrigerator already contains his Braised Beef Short Ribs. And 1/2 cup of his Soffrito. Both of which are in the list of ingredients. Not that there's anything wrong with that. How sweet a world it would be if everyone did have all those things in their fridges all the time.

I'm obsessed in this case with a technique, employed in the perfectly innocent sounding Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup. Get some lentils throw them in a pot with some sweet potatoes, right?

No. You must make the "parchment paper lid." When I first read the instructions, the words "no way" floated around in my skull, like a feather on the wind. I had to call in an architect, who lives here with me. He seemed to think it was fun following Keller's demands that he make a fan out of a rectangular sheet of paper, then "place the tip over the center of the pot to be covered and mark the edge of the pot the pot with your thumb, the cut the edge off there." I had to really think about what this meant. He did not.

The point is, I ended up loving the lid, which had a hole cut in the middle, fit inside my giant pot and acted as a sort of spa steam treatment that imbued the vegetables beneath it with the aroma and flavor of bacon, but not in an overwhelming way. It was delightful. And I'm planning on folding parchment paper lids for other purposes. And maybe writing some haiku about it.

Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup, adapted from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home

Serves 6

8 ounces applewood-smoked slab bacon (I just used sliced applewood smoked bacon)

3 tablespoons canola oil (Keller doesn't believe in cooking with olive oil, because high temperatures effect its flavor)
2 cups thinly sliced carrots
2 cups coarsely chopped leeks
2 cups coarsely chopped onions
3/4 to 1 teaspoon yellow curry powder (he gives a recipe for this in the book) or Madras curry powder (which is what I used; you can buy it at the store, but I've also made it using a recipe from Raghavan Iyer's great book 660 Curries; it's a snap)
kosher salt
1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes
2 sachets (more on this later; you'll need some cheesecloth but I have often used a wire mesh tea ball as a substitute in similar situations)
2 cups French green lentils (they hold their shape and don't turn to mush like your average lentil, so buy some of these definitely)
8 cups chicken stock (Keller gives directions on how to make this; I didn't do it. Canned chicken stock is not very good, obviously, but I used it anyway. I often make lentil soup with water and it is quite good. My goal in life is to make my own chicken stock. I do have frozen vegetable stock, however, and this makes me feel virtuous and discriminating.)
1 to 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (which I also add to my own lentil soup recipe. It does something great to lentils).
Freshly ground black pepper
Cilantro leaves

Cut the bacon into 1/2 inch pieces. Heat the canola oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the bacon, reduce the heat to low, and render the fat for 20 to 25 minutes. The bacon will color but not crisp. Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon, and set it aside (you're going to crisp it up later).
Add the carrots, leeks, onions, and curry powder to the pot and stir to coat in bacon fat and incorporate the curry powder. Season with salt (I used about 1 1/2 teaspoons), reduce the heat to low, cover with Parchment Paper Lid (! instructions to follow), and cook very slowly for 30 to 35 minutes.
Meanwhile peel the sweet potatoes; trim and cut into 1/2 inch dice. Put the potatoes, one of the sachets, and 2 teaspoons of salt in a large saucepan, add cold water to cover, bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender but not mushy, about 10 minutes. Drain and spread them on a tray to cool. Discard the sachet.
Add the lentils to the pot of bacon fat and vegetables, along with the second sachet, and stock; bring to a simmer and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, until the lentils are tender.
Place the bacon in a small frying pan and crisp over medium high heat.
Add the vinegar to the soup, then the potatoes. Cook until heated through. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the soup garnished with bacon and cilantro leaves.

Sachet: lay out a 7-8 inch piece of cheesecloth. Place 1 bay leaf, 3 thyme springs, ten peppercorns, and a clove of garlic, smashed and peeled, at the bottom, then roll it up the way you would a paper tube. Tie the ends with kitchen twine with kitchen twine. Don't forget you're making two of these.

Parchment Paper Lid (verbatim) "To make a parchment paper lid, fold a large rectangular piece of parchment paper in half to give you a square bigger than the pot ot be covered. Beginning at the crease, fold over the edge to create a narrow triangle. Continue to fold the triangle over until you have reached the opposite side of the parchment paper. To gauge the size, place the tip over the center of the pot to be covered and mark the edges of the pot with your thumb, then cut the end off there. With a pair of scissors, cut 1/4 inch off the narrow tip of the triangle. Trim the pointed edges of the triangle to form a smooth rounded edge. Unfold the triangle. It will be a circle the size of your pot with a steam hole in the center. Put the paper lid in the pot so that it rests gently on the food you're cooking.

Cookbook Love

2010-01-25T12:16:00.001-08:00

Once you've become addicted to cookbooks (taking them to bed the way old movie stars tote along pitchers of frozen margaritas) you will begin to notice that you've made only one or two (if that) recipes from each of the books that tumble from your shelves and onto the coffee table, kitchen counter, the floor etc. It's hard to get to them all.

A lot of cooks I know claim to feel a nagging guilt about this. I try instead to reserve my guilt for other uses and treat my cookbooks with lightheartedness. Remember that every cookbook you own has a reason to be in your life, even if it is to remind you why you don't make your own puff pastry. And it often happens that a cookbook you've ignored for years will fall open while you are dusting and lead you to discover that you would indeed love to do something with freshly cooked favas.

And your relationships to cookbooks change, of course. I used to like healthy vegetarian cookbooks (I know!). Then I started to like homey cookbooks, full of buttery things. Then I got stuck on on the Mediterranean style, olive oily, fresh lemony stuff. And on and on. In the last year, I've been attracted to cookbooks featuring more far-flung cuisines, Indian and Thai food most recently. I have never owned a book about baking. But it turns out that I need one.

I have tended not to fall for any cookbook that is way, way, way over my head.

But now I seem to be coming into an aspirational cooking phase. I love my new favorite cookbook the way I love certain people: I look up to it, and I know I'm never going to tire of it.

The Man, who is a great example of one of those of people, bought me a copy of the cookbook I refer to, Thomas Keller's "Ad Hoc at Home."

As we've all heard, opposites attract: Thomas Keller, of The French Laundry, is one of the world's most revered and famous chefs, and, obviously a very precise man for whom every motion in the kitchen is deliberate. His cookbook is also very precise and deliberate, but its tone and effect is very homey (hence the title) and warm (which I gather has not been true of his earlier cookbooks). I, on the other hand, am unknown, and imprecise in the kitchen--some might say a culinary loose cannon--but I think of myself as just lovely. Can you see what I'm saying?

I can go on being just who I am at this moment, as a cook, and leave it at that, or I can choose to stretch. And Mr. Keller is encouraging me to do that, whether he knows it or not, especially in terms of precision and focus. I know this is off the topic a bit (see: typical) but I grew up in a large family where food was made for 8, with enough for leftovers the next day. So if I make chicken today, I buy the one that looks like a heavyweight boxer. If I make soup I don't measure I just throw things in the pot until it's almost full. That's a slight exaggeration, and only slight.

But ever since I made my first dish from this book, the plain-sounding Sauteed Chicken Breast with Tarragon, I have started to think there may be something to this whole culinary/chef thing. I've actually begun to assemble my mise-en-place, which I used to think was only for suckers or people forced to do it in their restaurant jobs. Now, I find it makes me feel fancy, like I have a cooking show, as well as calmer in the face of time constraints. I like the ritual of chopping assembly-line style, then placing my work in little dishes for using later. Cute little carrot slices!

This is only the first dish I have cooked from the book (I've also made a lentil-sweet-potato soup with curry, and a whole roast chicken on a bed of root vegetables, both fabulous). It was a good one to start with because aside from being absolutely wonderful, and something that the 10-year-old around here requests by description, it was no trouble at all, and left me feeling like a genius. You throw some spices on boneless breasts, let them sit in the fridge, pound them, then fry them up, make a pan sauce with some shallots, wine, etc. We have this dish with roasted butternut squash seasoned with cayenne and lime and a cold cucumber salad. It's all perfect together.

Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Tarragon, from "Ad Hoc at Home"

Serves 6

1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon yellow curry powder or Madras curry powder (which is what I used)
6 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
Kosher Salt
Canola oil
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1/4 cup dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc
One cup chicken stock
1 tablesoon coarsely chopped tarragon
freshly ground pepper

Mix together the paprika and curry in a small bowl. Season the chicken on both sides with the mixture. cover and refrigerate for 2 hours
Lay 2 pieces of chicken on a large piece of plastic wrap. Cover it with a second piece of wrap and pound the chicken using a meat pounder or a rolling pin, to about 1/4 inch thickness. Transfer to a plate and repeat with the remaining slices.
Preheat the oven to 200. Set a cooling rack over a baking sheet.
Season the chicken on both sides with salt. Heat some canola oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat Working in batches, without crowding, add the chicken smooth side down and cook, adjusting the heat if necessary, until golden brown on the bottom, about 90 seconds. Turn and cook the other side until golden, about 90 seconds. Transfer cooked chicken to the rack in the oven; repeat process with the remaining chicken, adding oil to pan if necessary.
Wipe out the frying pan, removing burned pieces if there are any. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat. Add the shallot to the pan, reduce the heat t o medium, and cook for 30 seconds, stirring to coat the shallot. Pour in the wine, increase heat to medium high and cook until the wine has reduced by halve, about 1 minute. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, and cook until reduced and thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the chopped tarragon, remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, and any pan juices that have accumulated on the baking sheet. Stir in the butter, season with salt and pepper. Arrange chicken on a platter and pour sauce over. Garnish with some tarragon sprigs.
NOTE: These directions are almost verbatim from Mr. Keller's cookbook. The chicken turns out absolutely perfectly cooked this way, so don't mess around with that. I had to cook the sauce a bit longer to reduce, and I like a little more of the Paprika curry mix on my chicken, but just a bit.. And I did not make my own stock, nor did I thaw the frozen homemade stock in my freezer. I imagine it would be even more wonderful if I had.

Upstanding Baked Pasta

2010-01-21T07:35:00.001-08:00

I'm not a giant meat eater, and yet here I am again offering you another very heavy meat and pasta dish--the kind of dish Henry VIII or Fred Flintstone or the king in the Hossenfeffer episode of Bugs Bunny (titled "Shishkabugs") or any other cartoonishly big eater would enjoy. I swear on a stack of Bibles we eat salads and green things at my house. We do! We make vegetable soup the way some families breathe air.

For now though, since I'm entering a dish in this week's Food52.com contest, for baked pasta, I may as well share what I've devised. Because sharing is a virtue, whether arteries are clogged as a result or not. That is what I must choose to believe.

I'd seen a recipe in some magazine--I think it was Martha Stewart--for a dish of vertical rigatoni lined up like little soldiers (with sauce poured over them) and baked in a spring form pan. It seemed like a fun dish to make with a kid in the room, and it turns out that I was right. And if you use really good ingredients (I bought hand-dipped ricotta, really good buffalo mozarella, reggiano, and some pasta that I don't even want to discuss--the bag was tied with a ribbon) it's pretty devourable and just what you want a baked pasta to be: plentiful, rich, and very satisfying.

If you have a pastry bag, it would probably be the best way to squirt the ricotta mixture into the pasta, plus it would be fun for the kid that is in the room. If not, you'll be fine. The pasta is big enough to drop a spoonful into using a spoon. This sounds like a lot of trouble, but it's the only thing about this recipe that could possibly make peevish those people who think they don't have time to cook. It is otherwise easy-peasy.

Upstanding Baked Pasta

SERVES 6

1 pound Italian sausage, casing removed
1/2 cup plus 1 TB olive oil, divided
2 15-ounce (or 1 28-ounce) cans of whole peeled Italian tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups fresh ricotta cheese
1 cup cup Parmigiano Reggiano, grated, divided
1 egg, beaten
1 pound fresh mozzarella
salt, pepper (to taste)
1 pound paccheri (giant rigatoni)

Preheat oven to 375. Get out your spring-form pan, wherever it is, and lightly grease it. Put on a giant pot of water to boil for the pasta.
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large heavy skillet; raise heat to medium high and brown sausage well (without casing), mashing it to break it into very small pieces as it cooks, about 8-10 minutes.
Place tomatoes, remaining half cup of olive oil, garlic in blender. Puree until just smooth.
Once meat has browned properly, add puree to skillet. Add salt; bring sauce to a very lively simmer and cook, over medium high heat, for 5 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer until the sauce has reduced by about one-third (20 minutes). Add red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar, and continue cooking for 5 more minutes.
Meanwhile, mix together ricotta, half the Parmesan. Stir in the beaten egg. Thin the mixture with a bit of milk if it seems too thick for its own good. Season with freshly ground pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon).
Cook the paccheri at a rolling boil until it is barely al dente. You don't want the large tubes to lose their shape and become too flattened. Rinse with cold water, then toss with a bit of olive oil and the remaining Parmesan cheese.
Place the paccheri vertically in the prepared spring-form pan. Using a pastry bag or a small spoon, squirt about a tablespoon or so of the ricotta mixture into each noodle, pushing it down a bit to make room for the sauce. Pour the sauce over the cheese-filled noodles. Place the spring-form on a cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes. Remove, cover the top of the casserole with slices of mozzarrella, and continue cooking until the cheese has browned and the casserole has heated through, about ten more minutes. Serve in slices, like a pie.
Run 8 miles.

Boo-hoo? Ragu.

2010-01-14T10:51:00.001-08:00

I went away from myself for a while. (Sigh!) That sounds very melodramatic, I realize. As if I rowed away from myself while I remained on the shore, waving goodbye. In a student film. Made in Sweden. Or Germany.

It's been a schmaltzy, self-involved year. But tell me you've never been there! It happens to all of us: we come to a point where we have to sit ourselves down and establish who, exactly, is the boss of the relationship: our worst selves (surly, sockless in winter, feckless in all other seasons, and undecided to the point of absurdity) or our better selves (focussed, sly, claws unclenched from petty discontents). I cried like a slob more than once in the process (and when I say "slob." I mean the charming, adorable, interesting sort of slob whose face does not get red, and whose tears reflect the color of her eyes and the depth of her soul, under particularly flattering lightl). The point is I made a choice.

I still go sockless at the wrong times, but I'm definitely focussed enough to want to get back to being a writer. And I've settled into the idea that it's okay to spend one's days and afternoons doing something a person loves as much as I--and many people I know and admire--love to cook. And that sharing recipes writing about food can be as noble as writing about City Hall. Or as useful, at least. And more noble, certainly, than passing along gossip about American Idol judges.

Actually, let's just leave the word noble out of it.

I owe some of the return of my zest for life (and the reappearance of a lemon zester into my kitchen) to Food52.com, which is dedicated to home-cooking and will result in a cookbook containing winning recipes from a year's worth of competitions (hence the 52). If you don't know about the site, and you love to cook, you really should log on and see what's going on over there. It was created by two friends who've cooked together for some time (the lovely team of Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs), and once you start to participate you feel like they and all the other cooks are your friends, too. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the competition had something to do with it how much I like the site. Winning (as I did, for my lemony cream cheese pancakes) really will put the git back in your gittyup, no matter how zen-like your resistance to the idea of competition may be.

None of this is to say I didn't cook much over the last 9 months or so. I cooked a lot, and it made me really happy, even when I was being a pill; I think it made the two people closest to me happy, too.

Anyway, here is my Ragu Bolognese, which I perfected during my fallow period and which we have begun serving at Christmas in my family. It will make you cry. But in a good way.

Ragu Bolognese

Yield: 7 cups, which serves at least 10 people, or 10 million, I can’t remember. It’s a rich sauce. It freezes very well.

4 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter (you can leave this out and substitute more olive oil if you insist; I think it helps browning process)

2 medium onions, finely chopped

1 large carrot, scraped and finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound ground veal

1 pound ground pork (or use all beef/veal)

1/2 pound ground beef

1/4 pound pancetta, minced or ground (or you can use bacon, but less)

2 cups cream, half and half, or milk (or use a combination)

1 (16-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, chopped, with the juices

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups chicken stock

Salt and pepper

In a very large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic and sauté over medium heat until translucent.
Add veal, pork, beef, and pancetta to the vegetables, cook over medium high heat for about 15 to 20 minutes. You really want it to brown; stir it often, breaking up clumps of meat.
Add half the milk/cream and simmer until almost dry, about 15 minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer, breaking up any large pieces, 15 minutes. Add the wine and broth, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, add remaining milk; simmer for another 1/2 hour, or longer, until the flavor has intensified, and the sauce has become somewhat dry. It is not a very “saucy” sauce. It’s a meaty sauce. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve on pappardelle, with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

"Julie & Julia" movie: my piece about Julie Powell from 2002

2009-08-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

I've never interviewed Meryl Streep, but I did do a phoner with Julie Powell before she finished the project on which her blog was based. She cussed a lot. And that made me like her. Click below to read the story, from my dark and painful Chicago Tribune days. Maybe I'll do a blog!

From: 525 Julia Child recipes in 365 days: `government drone' climbs a food mountain.
Source: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL), 9/2/2003.
Via: HighBeam™ Research
COPYRIGHT 2007 Chicago Tribune

Hello, Gorgeous (#3)

2009-07-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

2009-06-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Chicago: Beautiful lake views at sunset. Very little pimento cheese.

Pimento Cheese (It's a Spread)

2009-06-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

One of my brothers, who lives in Los Angeles, recently asked me for the recipe for Pimento Cheese (if you are Southern: yes, it is capitalized), which reminded me that it has been a long time since I'd tasted any. It's not available in local restaurants, here in Chicago (correct me if I'm wrong). And I imagine the same is true for this brother; if there were someplace he could pick up a tub of it, he'd do that.

While I was writing down how I make it, I started fondly recalling all the finest Pimento Cheese Moments in my life; there are so many that I won't be able to recount them here.

The few bad Pimento Cheese Moments of my lifetime will just take a minute, and who wouldn't have time for that?

If you're not a Southerner, you probably don't even know what P.C. is, and I'll start by telling you that is a cheddar cheese spread with chopped pimentos.

What is is not is a dip, and if you call it a dip, my sister will let you have it. So annoying to watch someone trying to dip crudite in a batch. You eat it on toast, as a sandwich, or saltine crackers. Watching yankees mess with the recipe, by adding onion or chives or something to give it visual interest, which is insane, is excruciating. Of course, there are Southerners who put pickle relish in it. And sugar. So it's not just the yankees. It all makes my skin crawl.

Anyway, my worst Pimento Cheese Moment involved making it for two new friends, a father-daughter duo with whom I'm now very close. I made a big batch for them; he is a Southerner living in Chicago, too, so naturally he hankered for it. I used a lot of black pepper. I love black pepper. And I was not used to cooking for children back then. And after eating way too much of it (removing many of the pimentos one by one) on saltines, the daughter got a stomach ache. I blamed myself. We now know, from this awful experience, that one must decide: make it spicy and eat a little, or make it normal and eat a little more. Do not eat a vat of it. And don't let children eat a vat of it.

Because this is not health food. The first recipe is one I like very much, from my very favorite restaurant in Charleston, S.C., a place where the food is close to perfect for me. It incorporates some fanciness, but not too much. Mine is lazier. Here is their website, which features a few more Southern recipes.

Hominy Grill Pimento Cheese

Makes 4 generous cups

6 cups cheddar cheese, grated (1 1/2 lbs)

3/4 cup Parmesan cheese, crated

1/2 cup jarred pimentos, rinsed and chopped fine

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1 1/2 tablespoons bourbon

1 teaspoon ancho chili powder

1/3 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Combine the pimentos, mayonnaise, bourbon and seasonings in a large mixing bowl. Work the grated cheeses into the mix until thoroughly combined.

Emily’s Pimento Cheese

Makes much more than you should consume in one sitting

1 giant (1 lb) block cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 cup mayonnaise (more if necessary; it’s just to bind)

1 jar (4 oz) pimentos, drained, juice reserved, and finely chopped

lots of black pepper (probably no more than 1/2 teaspoon)

Tabasco sauce, a few shakes

Combine the cheese, mayo, pimentos, some of their juice, pepper, and Tabasco. Adjust seasoning to taste. I usually use about half the pimento juice from the jar. It’s not much. And I probably use more than a half cup of mayo. You don’t want it to be too wet or too dry. It helps to let this sit for a while so the flavors can blossom, before eating. Again: you can eat it on saltines or on toast with more mayo. Some people eat it on celery, but I can’t dope that out. And remember: “It’s a spread not a dip,” and tell that to yankee lady who insists on calling it “this marvelous dip,” with wonderment, as if she’s never heard of pimento cheese. If you put to much pepper in it, it will keep you awake at night.

Ruined Beauty, Repaired

2009-06-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

O Asparagus! Who among us has not turned your slender felicities into a soup that was unfabulous?

Many of us, I suspect, have made plain old bad asparagus soup. It probably happens with great frequency, but we'll never know since such statistics are rarely reported.

Because the shame attached to botching a soup--or any dish-- made with such an appealing vegetable, and composed of nothing more than the lissome stalks, broth, salt, pepper, and some dairy, keeps cooks from sharing, and therefore preventing, such unnecessary horrors in the future.

Here's how you make a creamed soup with just about any vegetable: you saute some onions or leeks, if you like, maybe a bit of garlic, in some oil or butter; briefly saute the starring vegetable--broccoli, tomatoes, squash, etc; then simmer it all in liquid, usually stock, until tender. You may add a complementary herb. Then you puree, add some salt and pepper and some cream or half and half. What could be bad?

And yet. . . I did make bad asparagus soup, or, at the very least, soup for which no one requested seconds.

I'd love to blame it on the asparagus. But they were not old or tough and imperfect. Just look at them.

During my most recent Saturday trip to Chicago's great Green City Market, there wasn't much else to buy so early in the season, so I came home with way too many of them. Hence the soup, just for variety.

I'd also love to blame it on the tawdry chicken stock from a box that I used, even though I have frozen vegetable stock in my freezer. But, free will and all.

Why did I do this? Because I wanted immediate gratification; what I got instead was a beautiful looking puree that had a faint underlying flavor of boxed chicken.

But I fixed it rather than wasting, by adding plain nonfat yogurt, a tiny bit of ground cayenne, some more fresh lemon juice, and a little more salt and black pepper. It was delicious cold and hot. This recipe suggests vegetable stock; use chicken stock from a box, if you must, but don't blame me when your delicate soup tastes like poultry.

Creamy asparagus soup

Serves 6 or so

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 lbs fresh asparagus, trimmed, cut into 1-inch pieces

1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon, crumbled (optional)

4-5 cups vegetable stock

1/2 cup cream

1 1/2 cups plain nonfat yogurt

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt, pepper

pinch of ground cayenne

Saute onion in a large heavy pot over medium heat, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add asparagus pieces and saute, stirring, until they turn bright green. Add tarragon (optional). Add vegetable broth or water, bring to a boil; lower heat to simmer and cook until tender, about 15 minutes.
Once the mixture has cooled slightly, puree in blender in small batches, being careful not to burn yourself; don't fill the blender, and use a potholder to hold down the lid! Return to pan, add cream, yogurt, lemon juice, salt, pepper and cayenne. Cook slowly over low heat, until heated through. Taste for salt and pepper.

Note: you can remove some of the asparagus tops after step one, and set aside for garnish if you'd like. Sprinkle on top before serving

Hello, Gorgeous: #2

2009-05-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that my last two posts were fried and brown. This tulip interior is intended as a visual antidote.

Why Feel Awful When You Can Cook?

2009-05-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

It's bound to happen to anyone who leaves New York. Wandering down Michigan Avenue here in Chicago, surrounded by Midwestern tourists (with a few Germans thrown in), I'll frequently feel a pang of longing that is so palpable and intimate it usually throws me for a loop. I won't go as far as saying that I reel, or anything like that. But it's like missing a long-gone person you're still in love with, somebody you always believed was just right for you, someone you couldn't get enough of, even though the relationship was a bit one-sided.

I bring it up because if you live in Chicago you have to keep this kind of love a secret in sort of the same way you should hide carrying a flame. Never tell a Chicagoan you miss New York. For a more precise elucidation on my reasoning on this, one more eloquent than I could ever provide, read A.J. Leibling's "Chicago: The Second City," which seems mean but nonetheless evergreen in its incisiveness, though it was written half a century ago.

I'll generalize wildly here and say that Chicagoans love to have friends in New York as long as the friends stay there. They'll tell you about visiting them, and how they go to NYC all the time and know it like the back of their hands.

But if you move here you better never mention New York to any of them ever again. Especially if you work at a newspaper. Because Chicago is just as good as New York! You don't like it here, go back! Bleh! Take that!

But just as good is not the point, of course. And, I understand the bad reception to such longing, because it is the equivalent of saying to a spouse: "Now that Bob, he was a fun guy. So well-adjusted. Such a charmer. We had the best time when we were dating. And handsome? You never saw such a handsome man."

However, if you really know the two cities (living in NYC for 6 months and then leaving does not count; nor does visiting Chicago for a Cubs game and having a hot dog), you know that they cannot be compared. And should not be. Each has a distinct personality; if you want one, the other just won't do. And it cuts both ways.

Anyway, this is sort of sad, but one of the things that really makes me lonely for NYC is the fact that Chicago does not have street carts or corner deli/grocers on practically every block. In fact, there aren't really many street carts to speak of; they are not a part of the urban landscape.

I loved walking outside on a workday and buying a giant bag of cherries for lunch, or a pint of ridiculously delicious ripe figs, for what now seems like almost no money at all. I took it all for granted. I hardly see fresh figs at all in my life here, and when I do, they're a million dollars. I miss the Halal chicken and rice cart at 43rd and 6th. I miss the salad man, who was outside Grand Central, before he moved inside Grand Central. I miss the banged up taco truck in my old Upper West Side neighborhood.

And whenever anyone says "I feel awful," I kind of do, too, because it makes me think of the falafel cart at 46th and 6th Avenue, Moishe's. You get a pita crammed to bulging with giant crunchy-fried balls, lettuce, tomato, tahini, hot sauce, and great pickles. Sometimes, the guys give you a pickle while you wait. They are ridiculous street food, because standing and eating them on the street is like eating the giant barbecued turkey let that Chicagoans consume at Taste of Chicago, a festival that happens only once a year, and inspires many restaurants to sell their food from stands in the park. It's very popular, and you'd think Mayor Daley would get the big idea; but he doesn't like the cart/stand thing. Such a prissy pot.

I know that I will never be able to replicate Moishe's street falafel. So I don't try. Instead, recently, I made a version that a person could serve to man and child seated at the dinner table, as a casual supper.

It's a combination of the old reliable Moosewood version, combined with the amazing Joyce Goldstein version, from her fantastic newish cookbook, Mediterranean Fresh. My own crazy thoughts: I will make it in patty form (Moosewood), serve it on an English muffin, and rather than tahini we'll have it with a yogurt sauce and some cukes.

So that's what I did. I added an egg and some baking soda, as Goldstein does for her "chickpea croquettes," and we made Goldstein's unbelievably good yogurt dressing and a cucumber, red onion, tomato and avocado salad splashed with cider vinegar (I am a huge fan of plain cider vinegar), olive oil, salt and pepper.

Falafel to Feel Better

Makes 6-8 patties

4 cups cooked or 2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup of flour, plus more for dredging

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 large egg, slightly beaten

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon turmeric

sea salt (I used about a teaspoon)

4-6 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced

1/4 cup water, more or less to bind mixture

canola oil, for frying

English muffins

Joyce Goldstein's yogurt dressing (see below)

Mash the chickpeas with a potato masher. If you did not give away your food processor when you moved into an apartment with a smaller kitchen, use it, pulsing until coarsely ground. Add remaining ingredients, except the canola oil, and stir until you have an unlumpy doughy batter, thick enough to form into patties. If it is too thick, stir in a bit of water.
Form hamburger-thick patties with dough, a little larger in circumference than an English muffin, then dredge patties in flour and set aside on a cookie sheet or large plate. Heat 3-4 tablespoons canola oil in a large, heavy skillet, until a bit of the dough sizzles when dropped in.
Carefully place patties in skillet (they may break easily before cooking); fry 6-8 minutes per side, until they form a crunchy, dark golden exterior forms; you may need to add extra oil before cooking on second side. Drain briefly on paper towels. Keep warm in a 300 degree oven if necessary, before serving.

You can eat these, as we did, on warm English muffins, topped with Goldstein's yogurt dressing. Maybe a little hot sauce. She suggests tahini sauce, and that of course is traditional. Lettuce tomato and thin slices of cucumber are good, too. Or served topped with a cucumber, onion, tomato, avocado salad dressed in olive oil and cider vinegar. Or serve in pita (warmed in the microwave still in the plastic bag; that's how Goldstein does it), topped with vegetables, drizzled with whatever sauces you like. You decide.

Joyce Goldstein's Yogurt Dressing

Makes 2 1/2 cups

2 cups thick yogurt (I used Fage nonfat Greek; it's amazing)

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

sea salt

2-3 teaspoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Whisk together yogurt, oil, lemon juice and salt to taste (I used about 1/2 a teaspoon); fold in garlic and herbs. So so so so so good.

Is Chicken the Devil?

2009-05-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

Possibly. If you've ever been in a chicken coop (yes, I have), they can be rather unpleasant.

But as my friend Mark Bittman, author of the excellent book "Food Matters," recently pointed out regarding the vilification of pork during the swine flue hysteria: it's not the animal, it's the industrial agriculture that is to blame for dangerous farmed meat. Same goes for chicken: they didn't do anything to humans. We did something to them.

And yet, during the recent Oprah-KFC debacle, which was sad to me but which a lot of people seemed to find amusing (click here), we loaded the poor little chickens down with too much of our own personal baggage.

Oh, how we attach our sensibilities, our politics, our opinions, our obsessions to our food. Never mind that it helps keeps people alive, or that some people can't afford much and will take what they can get. It's all about us, us, us.

But how about this? How about we all use the KFC-Oprah thing to remind us to be more thoughtful next time anyone tries to give everyone in America a free chicken dinner, via coupons.

I will, however, allow myself a final word(s), because this is my blog. I tend to forgive anyone who offers free food, even if the giveaway is a marketing ploy. I'd rather it not be factory raised food that is destroying the planet, but I don't think truly hungry people are offended by that sort of thing. I have a lot of tangled thoughts on this, which I'll keep to myself until those thoughts get straightened out, which should be never.

I will use this opportunity to say this one more time: learning to cook is becoming more and more essential to eating well in the world we live in. The more we cook at home, the less we end up to eating food that has an unseemly provenance. It's cheaper, in general, and it gives the power back to the consumer, if you shop wisely.

And this: Some people don't have much access to fresh food (much less organic, local, non-factory farmed, etc.). Some people wouldn't know what to do with it if they did have easy access. Some people are too poor to buy food, be it fresh frozen fast factory farmed or fried. Some people have never eaten a fresh tomato. Some people are starving. Some people starve themselves because they want to be skinny. Some people eat too much because they want to be happier. Some people just really like to eat, and spend all their disposable income doing so. Some people don't, and use food only for fuel. Some people eat organic fudge but are mean to dogs. It's a crazy world, difficult to judge, but I'm glad that we're changing directions, away from fast food.

See, I can't keep my mouth shut.

Back to the cooking part: here at my house, there's a person who really likes fried chicken--a lot. She likes fried chicken fingers, specifically, and I have seen her eat one of these contraptions (served at a now defunct, thank god, hot-dog stand, so it wasn't even their specialty) that looked like a deep fried, ossified dinosaur claw. The chicken inside was like rope. And three of these fingers together weighed about 5 pounds.

There is absolutely no reason to ingest that sort of thing if you can avoid it. And, of course, making your own chicken fingers is easy, fun for the chicken-finger set, and you don't have to fry them. If you can get organic vegetarian fed minimally processed free range chicken that has not been tortured on the way to your table, of course, do that. Sorry to bring it up before merrily offering you this recipe, but if you're still averting your eyes to the harsh realities of factory farmed food: wake up.

These are finger licking good, but I'd rather you use a napkin and finish all your broccoli.

Chicken Fingers You Can Live With

Serves 4-6 kids

2 cups panko (these Japanese bread crumbs are available in the grocery store, in the imported food section, but you can also use crushed saltines or crushed cornflakes)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

6 tablespoons butter, melted (you can also use canola or olive oil here)

1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Preheat oven to 425. Mix panko, Parmesan, salt and pepper together and spread on a plate or shallow bowl. Melt butter and pour into another.
Place breasts between waxed paper or plastic wrap and pound with a rolling pin to about 1/2 inch thickness. Lay the breasts on a cutting board and cut into lengthwise strips, a half inch or so wide. You can cut them in half is they're too long.
Take each strip, coat in the butter, then roll over in the panko, pressing to make sure the crumbs adhere.
Place strips on an ungreased baking sheet; bake in the middle rack for 15 minutes or so, until cooked through, moving the pan around occasionally to make sure they don't brown too fast. Cool for a few minutes before serving.

At my house, these are eaten with ketchup, which is probably full of poison. But we rarely eat ketchup. Dijon mustard with a little honey mixed in is good, too.

Just do it

2009-04-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

The more you cook, the more many of your nagging culinary questions--Why the hell do I have to sear/brown this, when it makes my stove messy, wastes my time, makes me burn myself? for example--answer themselves.

And then you forget the answer, and try to make certain beef, chicken, pork etc. dishes--like my disastrous pork tenderloin with olives and oranges--without first searing the meat.

The reason for quickly searing meat before subjecting it to other cooking methods like braising or roasting is not, as many believe, to "seal in the juices," according to page 161 of Harold McGee's brilliant book "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen," but simply to enhance flavor. In fact, brown meat too much, you're just drying it out. The point is to create a tasty and pretty "crust" that will also add depth to flavors of braised dishes and stews.

But do you need to know why, as long as it works? Probably not. Are you a professional chef? Not if you're reading this, and neither am I. Besides: You already have too much information in your head. So if you'd like to be a decent cook without going to culinary school why not just do as you're told by the many chefs and cooks who have come before you and subsequently sold you their cookbooks.

And once you do, remember what you've done/read.

Because culinary history exists for the same reason that regular history (especially that of the Bush Administration) exists: so that we can learn from our extremely stupid mistakes rather than repeating them over and over again and thereby living like Prometheus, whose liver was eaten by that eagle or vulture or whatever kind of bird it was, then grown back each night, to be eaten again the very next day. Over and over and over.

Try to give the lessons of history the slip, and you end up running the country into the ground, or, in our smaller circumstances here, wasting expensive food. Believe it or not, I actually got the hot idea not that long ago (meaning, way after I'd been cooking for decades) that I would not cream the butter and sugar in a cake recipe. What folly. What a loser! Just like Bush.

Anyway, rather than dragging you along as I skip down the lane of my hubristic culinary mistakes, I'm showing you this picture of the aforementioned pork dish.

I'm not going to try to explain in words what I thought I was doing here, except to say that the cooking method and the meat were not a good match. I really like pork tenderloin, and making a terrific meal out of this cheap cut is pretty simple. My next post will be a simple supper, invented by the man who lives here with me, of pork medallions with red curry paste, in fact.

Anyway, I urge you to trot this picture out whenever you need a grotesque reminder of why we sear. Or print it out and put it in your Halloween recipe file, because, as you can see, it looks like a human arm. In this case a human arm dotted with olives and oranges. You want it to look like a browned human arm.

In conclusion, I offer this note on how to sear: add a little olive or canola to a large heavy pot or skillet, turn heat up to medium high; when the oil shimmers, drop in a bit of meat. It should sizzle. If it doesn't, wait a few minutes, but don't let the oil smoke. Place the meat in the skillet, and let it brown until the skillet releases it without sticking, then turn. For smaller pieces of meat, there should be plenty of room between each portion. If you have a lot, cook it in batches with good space between pieces, otherwise the ambient moisture begins a braise before you are finished, which you don't want, until you're ready to braise, if that is what your plan is. You can let it cook a little longer, too, but don't burn it. The idea is to get a nice color on every inch, before you really cook it. I like a deep golden brown. Thank you.

Bird in a Nest, Edible Version

2009-04-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

One thing I wish more people knew, especially people who have lived their lives on fast/takeout/restaurant food: cooking doesn't always have to mean making a giant involved recipe. Many people are unaware of the incredible amount of culinary satisfaction that can come with very little effort. Putting out freshly boiled corn, sliced tomatoes, and cucumbers in oil and vinegar is cooking. I consider a really good ham sandwich cooking (put pickles on it!).

Read a few cookbooks that appeal to you, make a few of the simplest dishes, and the whole process begins to grow on you.

Or, that's the way it happened with me. Granted, I loved being in the kitchen when I was a kid, and started cooking for other people when I was in college. But I happen to know that even if you grow up in a family where cooking is not the absolute norm, or where no one cooks at all, that can change very quickly.

For instance: doesn't this Bird in a Nest look delicious to you? It does to me, and I can say that without sounding like a braggart because I did not make it. I taught it to a close personal friend of mine, who is 9, and now she makes it herself, much better than I make it. Just look at that browned crust, the perfect amount of pepper. Aaahhh: Saturday morning breakfast. Add half a grapefruit, a smoothie: you're cooking with gas until lunchtime rolls around. This version looks especially good, I imagine, because this friend puts about a half a stick of butter in the pan before starting, but she can do that because she is slender as a piano leg--a graceful, lovely butterhound. She also took the picture.

She loves food, and likes to help me cook about half the time. But her favorite dish is fried chicken fingers and ketchup, and you should never expect her to take it lying down if you try to serve "cooked oranges," as part of a pork tenderloin dish. I'm just trying to make sure you know that she is not one of those junior food snobs. Because I believe that if you took all the cuteness out of the world, what you'd have left over is a runty, mean little former boss of mine, and children who say things like "chevre," "aged balsamic vinegar" and "sous vide."

It's not, of course, a recipe at all. It's just our breakfast. You need a slice of your favorite bread (we like rye), a fresh organic egg, some butter, sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Using a small biscuit cutter or small glass, cut a hole in the bread, saving the bread from the hole as the little round hat.
Melt butter in a medium nonstick skillet, over medium high heat. Place the bread and the bread hat in the pan and let each get toasty brown on one side, then the other, moving them around in the pan so that each side gets buttery. Turn down the heat to medium low.
Crack the egg into a coffee cup, being careful not to break the yolk. Once the pan has cooled down a bit, gently pour the egg into the hole. You want it to cook slowly, so it doesn't get that horrible leathery coating. When the egg white has become firm and halfway opaque, salt and pepper it, then flip it. For over-easy, cook for barely a minute more. You'll have to use a spatula to get it out of the pan; once you do, flip it over on the plate and serve, topped with the hat, which you can use to dip into the yellow. Practice makes perfect.

2009-04-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

The Purloined Lentil

2009-04-18T13:47:00.001-07:00

I have knowingly and openly stolen two things in my life: a Peppermint Pattie and about one-quarter of the flowering branches from a medium-size forsythia tree growing in a yard that was not mine. In both cases, I was punished to the fullest extent of civilized parental law, using the shame method: I was forced to return both items, then endure otherwise moot lectures by the affronted drugstore owner and the horrified gardener.

In my defense, during my criminal period I clearly recognized what had real value in the world.

Both crimes were of course committed back when my brain was still pliable (i.e., before age 10). So rather than blow the punishments off and continue to take what I wanted, I turned into one of those people who goes out of her way to make it very clear that I am not stealing: I generally return things that accidentally end up in my grocery bag, I don't "taste" cherries at the produce stand, I give other people credit even if I think I am the one who really deserves it; if, for instance, I still happen to have a book loaned to me by a person who has moved out of town, I flinch when I hear a police siren. It can be hellish, being so virtuous.

Of course, each person's idea of what qualifies as theft is probably flexible.

When it comes to reworking recipes, I tend to go so overboard in giving credit that the creator of the original probably ends up resenting the byline--especially if my version has a certain graceless rusticity not found in its model. But I like to think that I am not making recipes better or worse; I am tailoring them to my own tastes.

Sadly, we live in a world full of people are not as naturally guilty as I am. They'll lay claim to a dish for flimsy reasons, especially on the internet, where some terrific sites (such as simplyrecipes) are often attacked by evil recipe pirates. In Chicago, one chef, Homaro Cantu, has taken the step of patenting.

Of course, if everyone were like me, recipes that had been handed down a million times would be so title-cumbersome--like the future great-grandchildren of couples who give their offspring hyphenate surnames--that people would give up cooking altogether. We don't want that.

So when is calling a not entirely original formula your own no longer stealing? If the person who gave you the recipe dies? If you add 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg instead of the 1/4 teaspoon suggested in the original? If you use salmon instead of mahi mahi? If you roast rather than saute?

And how do we punish those who steal recipes?

I don't know. But I do know this: however neurotic I am, I'm probably not the only home cook or recipe collector (or recipe inventor) who worries about this sort of thing. [This just in: a nice piece on the topic by the truly wonderful F.F.W. (Famous Food Writer) David Lebovitz, sent to me by another blogger I'm keen on.]

This dish I'm about to share (aside from borscht, it is the best use for beets I can imagine) falls into a gray zone. I know I didn't dream it up myself, but I also do not have a recipe record. I am pretty sure it came from an article in Metropolitan Home, back in about 1992, accompanying the story of a cute young couple so poor that they threw together their wedding with the help of friends. One friend/guest made salad very similar to this one. It is a surprisingly delicious, elegant dish that needs nothing from the dairy department; don't even be tempted to add goat or feta cheese. I love the way it all takes on the ruby stain of the beets, too.

If anyone can give me the exact origins of the recipe, I'm happy to cite. Until then, it is:

Emily's Purloined Beet and Lentil Salad

Serves 6-8

6 medium beets, unpeeled, scrubbed, trimmed

1 medium onion (red or yellow), quartered lengthwise, sliced into 1/3 inch slices

20 basil leaves, torn

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper

3 cups lentils, picked over and rinsed

4-5 cups chicken stock

Simple Mustard Vinaigrette (below)

Preheat oven to 425. Place whole beets into a 13x9x2-inch baking dish; strew with onion slices, basil leaves, crushed garlic. Drizzle with olive oil; salt, pepper. Add water to pan.
Cover pan tightly with foil, bake without uncovering, for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
While beets are roasting, place lentils in another 13x9x2-inch pan with 4 cups of the stock, tightly covered with foil. After the beets have cooked for 45 minutes, place lentils in oven. Check lentils after 30 minutes. If stock has been absorbed and lentils are tender, remove with beets. Otherwise, continue to cook another 15 minutes or so, adding more broth if necessary to prevent lentils from burning.
Meanwhile, make Simple Mustard Vinaigrette.
Allow beets and lentils to cool, uncovered. (Drain any excess broth from lentils if necessary) Remove beets from pan, reserving remaining beet-juice-onion-basil mixture. Peel, cut into 1-inch chunks; combine with lentils and juice-onion-basil mixture in a large bowl. Toss with about half jar of Simple mustard Vinaigrette, more or less to taste. Adjust salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature.

Simple mustard vinaigrette, again

In a jar, stir together 8 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, freshly ground black pepper. Place the lid on the jar, and shake vigorously, until emulsified.

Promises, Promises

2009-04-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

After recently mentioning a dish that makes a good supper for company, and promising to post it, I did not. So here it is, my version of Pierre Franey's Crevettes a la Mode Grecque avec Rigatoni, or Shrimp Greek-style with Rigatoni, from the wonderful "60 Minute Gourmet."

I say "my version," because I have a lot less restraint and am obviously therefore a much less masterful cook than Franey was. I love garlic too much, and am just now beginning to realize that you can indeed use too much of it, as well as too much tomato, etc.

But I learned that lesson, halfheartedly, by cooking with Marcella Hazan's cookbooks, in which her most super-simple recipes go something like this: "Slice a medium zucchini into 1 inch slices; saute in 1 tablespoon olive oil in heavy pan, with one tomato, skinned but otherwise intact. When the tomato has softened but still maintains its spherical integrity, add one clove of sliced garlic; stir for one minute, discard the tomato and zucchini. Serve the garlic at room temperature." And it is the most delicious thing ever.

Anyway, this is a dish that requires buying some good feta for. Don't even try to use prepackaged grocery-store stuff; if you're going to spend the money on the shrimp, buy the good feta.

Shrimp with Too Much Garlic and Lots of Tomato, on Rigatoni

Serves 4

5 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic (or 3)

4 cups chopped tomato

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

1 teaspoon dried crumbled oregano (if you have fresh, use it, but this turns out well using dried)

1 1/2 pounds medium-size shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails intact

1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

1 lb rigatoni

1/2 pound feta cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 400. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, cook briefly, stirring, until it begins to scent the air like the perfume of the gods. Add tomatoes; cook for 3-5 minutes. Add wine, salt, pepper, basil, oregano.
Continue to cook over medium-low heat for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, sprinkle shrimp with salt and pepper. Heat remaining oil in a large heavy skillet, over medium-high heat. Add shrimp; cook for about 30 seconds on each side, moving them around in the pan, until they just turn red.
Spoon shrimp and their pan juices into a small baking dish; sprinkle with crumbled feta, spoon tomato mixture on top. Bake for 15 minutes, or until piping hot.
Cook rigatoni (careful not to overcook); serve in shallow bowls, with shrimp-tomato-feta sauce spooned on top.

I also mentioned that I recently served this dish with my own Pale Green Salad. This is just a salad that consists of pale green things: one medium large cucumber, peeled, seeded, sliced into half moons; one or two avocados (peeled of course), in cubes; 2-3 large celery stalks, in thick slices cut on the diagonal; butter lettuce; and baby romaine, cut into shreds crosswise. I serve this with a simple mustard vinaigrette and toss together salad and dressing before serving, so that the avocado mixes with the dressing and makes it avocadolicious.

Simple mustard vinaigrette

A Kinder, Gentler Sort of Depression

2009-04-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

I walked a mile to school in the snow when I was a kid growing up in Virginia. I really did. But it wasn't because we were poor; it was just what I did. I liked walking to and from school. Sometimes it happened to be snowing.

It was pastoral and pleasant in my hometown, which had a population of 6,000 and is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I did not enjoy seeing the exact same people all the time. And, one other bad thing, which I didn't even recognize as a disenfranchisement: there were few restaurants. People cooked when I was a kid! Get off my yard.

In fact, when I was very young the only restaurants were at the two local hotels (for all the people wishing to vacation in a rural factory town), in addition to a place called the Red Barn (of course), and not one but three drive-in restaurants, where a woman in stretch pants would come out to your car to get your order after she'd finished smoking a cigarette. Two of the drive-ins are still there; you can order corn dogs, cheeseburgers that have been flattened in a press and wrapped in wax paper, and Boston shakes (giant milkshake with a sundae on top) or lime flips (a lime sherbert milkshake). I wish I had one of those cheeseburgers right now. The Red Barn and one of hotel restaurants had Sunday buffets with all the thousand island dressing you could pile on your iceberg salad and green beans and biscuits, etcetera. I don't think I need to say anything else about that.

Anyway, whatever deprivations may have marred my childhood growing up in the South, none were nearly as as bad as those that marred my mother's childhood in the South, especially when it came to food. She grew up during the latter portion of the Great Depression. And like a lot of mothers from her era (and a couple of mothers I know today, who have it pretty easy) she reminded me and my brothers and sisters about her hardships more often than was probably absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, there's only so much sympathy a child of perfectly comfortable means can muster for anyone, their own mother even, if she serves Depression-era food to remind the child of the suffering that goes into giving life.

Which in my case was cabbage--boiled cabbage and potatoes.

Rather than making me want to send her a thank-you note for all she'd endured on my behalf, this malodorous dish made me surly and resentful, and seemed, quite frankly, spiteful. What the hell had I done? I didn't ask to be born! ("It's a good thing--we would have said no," my father responded.) I can assure you, it did not make me appreciate my life of leisure. Otherwise, we lived in a household full of delicious food, which is a feat when you're cooking for five kids.

Needless to say, I grew up dreading two things: being poor and eating cabbage.

But it turns out that while a lot of childhood wounds can be difficult to heal, cabbageaphobia is not one of them, at least not for me.

I began eating smothered cabbage as comfort food, in fact. I discovered that rather than boiling it (why would anyone?) I could smother it (just like feelings, but with better results!).

For many years, I would chop up a couple of slices of bacon together with 4-5 cloves of garlic and some rosemary, sautee that in a large heavy pot until the garlic was golden and the bacon had browned, then throw in a whole head of sliced cabbage, salt, pepper and toss to coat. I'd turn the heat down low, put a lid on it, and let it cook until very tender, about 45 minutes, adding a half a cup of dry white wine at some point early in the process. Usually, I made mashed potatoes and turnips, and ate the cabbage on top. Very delicious.

But, recently, as we slid into a recession of our own, I discovered Jamie Oliver's red cabbage recipe. It's much, much prettier than my smothered green cabbage (which ends up a kind of drab military gray), because it retains its gorgeous garnet color, and the apple turns bright red, too. It's terrific with mashed potatoes, but I also like to serve it with chicken sausage. Most recently we ate it with a bacon wrapped turkey breast (the cabbage is not bacony; so it's not like throwing a bacon festival), marinated in adobo sauce. This was so good (and cheap; it cost about $7) that I am going to give you that recipe, too, A.S.A.P.

Make this dish right now, though, and you will feel like happy days are here again.

Jamie Oliver's Red Cabbage with Bacon, Apple, and Balsamic

Serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 slices of thick bacon, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon fennel seeds, "bashed" (as J.O. puts it)

1 medium onion, peeled, halved, sliced into 1/3 inch slices

2 medium apples (I used Macintosh, but any good tart eating apple works), peeled, cored, chopped into 1-inch pieces

1 red cabbage, cored, chopped into irregular chunks (in other words, don't just slice or shred)

1 teaspoon sea salt

freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup good balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, or more to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a large heavy pot. Add the bacon and fennel seeds; cook until golden. Add onion and cook, with the lid on, until golden, about 5 minutes. Add apple, cabbage chunks, salt and pepper, vinegar. Toss to coat well.
Cover, cook on low heat for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Stir in butter, taste for salt and pepper; sprinkle with parsley.

What to do if the wolf is chasing you?

2009-04-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Advice from someone who has been there. . . check it.

Red Cabbage: Recession Vegetable or Beauty Queen?

2009-04-11T07:33:00.000-07:00

You can decide after I post a recipe for a dish that tastes almost as good as this cabbage is pretty. And a super-cheap bacon-wrapped turkey breast that is the best thing I've cooked in weeks.

Entertaining made unfreaky (longwinded version)

2009-04-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of cooking around here, lately. Hoo-boy. Lots of cooking.

Most of it has been for my peeps (actually a rooster and a little chick), and I hope it has saved us a lot of money--something cooking can do for anyone, as long as in practice "cooking" means making things from contemporary scratch (as opposed to Little House on the Prairie scratch; you don't have to make your own cheese). And not wasting the food you buy helps, of course.

You are not cooking per se if you simply purchase convenience products to eat at home (the premade Philly Cream Cheese cheesecake filling, in a giant tub, springs to mind; so do canned soups; so does microwaveable rice).

Even buying bags of precut broccoli, which I have done, is a pretty senseless act, not just because it takes two seconds to saw the stem off of a head of broccoli, but because if you peel the stems, slice them into rounds, and sautee them in olive oil (or eat them raw in salad), you will have a special added treat that will surprise you. Two broccoli treats for the much more expensive price of one.

More and more, lately, I'd rather cook than go to a restaurant. Unless I get freaked out.

Some things that might freak me out, in order of intensity

1. The possibility of giving anyone food poisoning (which has never happened, but probably only because I refuse to stuff a turkey) or getting it. No one touches my raw chicken after patting the dog. I'm like that Saturday Night Live character, the Obsessive Compulsive Chef, so there's a certain amount of Silkwood worthy hand washing that takes place in my kitchen.

1. The people I am cooking for are starving, but do not cook themselves. This is not because I want them to help me cook, necessarily, but because they sometimes do not understand that that simple dish they love and request takes more time than, say, microwaving a Hot Pocket. I don't have a food processor, I just bought a box grater, and I tend to make stewy dishes that take a lot of chopping, etc. But I also have a hard time saying no to people I adore. So I rush to make the requested dish, then act as if someone asked me to carry the world on my shoulders. "Here's your 'simple' dish, that took me an hour and a half to make; I hope you don't get indigestion because I would never want you to feel as bad as I do right now, which is to say I can barely walk I'm so exhausted."

3. Company is coming. This is probably a side effect of the existence of Martha Stewart, whom, God help, me I love; I even bought a poncho like the one she wore on her way out of prison. Not to mention all the shelter magazines I read. The way some women obsess over body image and clothing, I worry about not having six matching place mats, which I've never owned.

Until now! I don't own just six, I own 8. It was an accident, because a couple got stuck together, (but we did pay for them). So, we own 8 matching place mats. We also have these three adorable succulent plants, which I bought for 4 dollars apiece, and which make a very nice centerpiece.

I'm on top of the world. Of course, there is no point to place mats and cheap succulents if you don't invite your friends over.

All of which is a drawn-out prelude to announcing that I'm going to start sharing the food I make with more people. Now is a just a good time to share.

I object to the term "entertaining" in this context. If I feed people good food, should I also be required to amuse them, like some circus plate-spinner? Must I engage in crafting? I own a book with the words "entertaining" and "simple" in the title, for instance, and it suggests that I "sandwich two [millinery] flowers together at the top of [a drink] stirrer with a drop of hot glue." Obviously, I'm not going to do that. And it would make me a little uncomfortable if I arrived at your house and you had. Yet, as I have said, I love Martha Stewart.

Besides, my friends are so wonderful. They've travelled to places I have not, they bring cherry pies, they use their brains in ways that are different from the way I use mine (which is mostly for worrying), know things I don't, tell hilarious/ironic/sweet/amazing stories. They are lovely.

Some bring their adorable 3 1/2 year old daughter with them, for a swim date with the resident chicklet. For them, I made a steak salad (for the adults), from one of my favorite old cookbooks, Cucina Fresca; for the kids, a four cheese mac and cheese, from Sheila Lukin's latest cookbook, Ten. With bread, and an apple crisp for dessert, it seemed just right.

Others come bearing beautiful scented soap, heart shaped candies, Good & Plenty (my favorite candy). But of course, they don't have to bring anything. For them I made a good party dish, Pierre Franey's Crevettes a la Mode Grecque avec Rigatoni, a.k.a. Greek-style shrimp over rigatoni. It is incredibly easy and makes great leftovers. That, my own Pale Green Salad, and for dessert, homemade hot fudge on vanilla ice cream with toasted almonds and whipped cream (from a spray can), about which nothing bad can be said. I'll give you those recipes later.

But only because this has gone on way too long.

Insalata Bistecca, from Cucina Fresca, by Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman

Serves 4-6

2 pounds sirloin steak

1 pound white mushrooms (white are really the correct ones to use; don't be tempted to get fancy).

1 small bunch scallions, trimmed

3 good ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded (I peel them by poking a fork in them and holding them over a gas flame until the skin pops; you don't want to cook them, though)

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley, or more. I like a lot.

DRESSING:

1/2 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar (I used 4; I love vinegar)

1 tablespoons Dijon mustard (I used 2-3; I love mustard)

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 small shallot, peeled and minced

Coarse Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Mixed salad greens.

Place steak in a preheated broiler, about 4 inches from flame. Cook about 3 minutes per side, for medium rare. Remove to a plate to cool. (Obviously, this would be even more fantastic on an outdoor grill, so do that if you have a yard.)
While steak cools (do not refrigerate), clean mushrooms with a damp cloth; trim stem ends and slice mushrooms thinly. Cut scallions into paper thin rings; discard green tops. Dice tomatoes.
Cut steak against the grain into 1/4 inch slices. combine with mushrooms, scallions tomatoes, parsley in a large bowl.
Prepare dressing: combine all ingredients in a jar, and shake until emulsified. I like a bit more vinegar, usually. Adjust to your own taste.
Pour dressing over steak mixture and toss gently. Serve over a big bowl of torn mixed lettuces, and let guests serve themselves. How much lettuce is up to you. Cucina Fresca suggests serving it on a few leaves. (I like it more salad-y, as Pee Wee Herman says. "Mmmmm: Salad-y!") You can always serve more dressing at the table, but it's not necessary.

Andrew Engle's Mac and Cheese, from Ten, by Sheila Lukins

Serves 8

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound penne (or elbow macaroni)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

6 tablespoons all-purpose four

4 cups milk, warmed (Lukins says use whole; I use lowfat)

1 1/2 cups grated Gruyere

1 1/2 cups grated cheddar

1 1/2 cups grated mozarrella

2-3 dashes Tabasco (I use a lot more than this)

Sweet paprika, to taste.

Bring a large pot of water to boil, add olive oil, penne; stir. Cook until al dente (just tender), 12 minutes. Drain, return penne to pot, cover and set aside.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees; butter a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish.
Prepare sauce. Melt the butter in a large heavy saucepan over low heat. Sprinkle in flour, whisking constantly. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes (don't let it brown). While whisking, slowly add warm milk. Continue to whick until the mixture is thickened and lump free. Remove from heat.
Stir three cheeses together in a mixing bowl. Set aside 3/4 cup of the mixture for topping the casserole. Slowly mix in the remaining cheese, in small handfuls, stirring until each has melted completely and sauce is smooth. Stir in Tabasco, pepper, salt, paprika. Fold in the cooked penne, coating well.
Trasfer mixture to the prepared baking dish, sprinkle with reserved cheese, bake until the top is golden and crusty, about 35 minutes. Serve promptly.

Idle thoughts about you-know-what

2009-03-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

Years and years and years ago, I disentangled myself from The Worst Boyfriend in the Universe, and after he finally packed up and drove away I ate a Krispy Kreme donut.

While I was eating the donut, I started crying--sobbing, actually. Not because I missed the bad guy, but because I was eating a Krispy Kreme donut, alone. And then I started laughing because I was crying because I was eating a Krispy Kreme donut, alone.

I bring it up because I've been thinking about the term "food porn," which I find particularly inappropriate. First, I just don't like those two words together. It kills my appetite.

And second: the items that people tend to refer to as food porn--gorgeous art-directed photos of lobsters dripping with butter, cocoa nibs on a rustic burlap sack, a steak, an eggplant--are not the least bit "pornographic."

I notice, however, that no one ever refers to pictures of, say, Pez or corn chips or a bear claw as food porn. That seems wrong.

If we as a people are going to continue to use the term, we should use it properly, for objectionable food that makes us feel guilty, pathetic, lazy affection in spite of the fact that it could never love us back. Like the donut.

Or, for instance, the iconic Pillsbury poppin' fresh cinnamon bun (honestly: poppin' freshs buns?).

I prepared a can this morning for a very close friend who loves them, who also gets a tremendous kick out of icing them with the stuff in that plastic container that arrives, also poppin fresh, in the the same can, and who would eat all of them if I let her. This, even though I am more than capable of making a proper cinnamon bun. I only had one bite. But I won't lie to you: fabulous.

Some sexist generalizations, with recipes

2009-03-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

While the man was away for a week recently, bringing home the bacon, I cooked a lot of fish.

In Chicago, where I live, men really, really like bacon. In fact, I received this blurry snapshot from the man after his 6 a.m. arrival in London.

Then, as he stopped through London again, I got another unsolicited blurry bacon-sandwich picture. I do not know what the sauce is. And I will not ask.

These men in Chicago? They will grab a cow carcass, tear off a chunk with their teeth and chew, then wash it down with sloshing tumblers of red wine, or a whole pitcher of beer, in one gulp. Aaaargh. Arr.

Am I making sweeping sexist generalizations? Did I just reduce the man I live with to a rabid Paul Bunyan-like character? Am I readily admitting that I do most of the cooking around here? I am. So be it.

The only problem that I can see with the arrangement is that I don't eat as much fish as I used to. It's too bad there is no such thing as a bacon fish. Then my life would be absolute perfection.

I'll admit, an overzealous treatment may have had something to do with fish falling off our household menu. But during my recent week alone, I made fish the way I want it--simply cooked--rather than dressing it up like some cheap floozie hanging around the bar on Gunsmoke, just to get the man's attention.

My standard dish is a fish en (faux) papillote. It is nothing new, but it is something quite good.

I preheat the oven to 400. Take a filet of salmon or roughy or whitefish (If I'm alone, I eat a big piece: 10 ounces or so, with nothing on the side), place it crosswise on a foot-long sheet of tinfoil, top it with some thinly sliced mushrooms, some chopped tomato, chopped parsley, a few fresh herbs if I remember them (basil is always nice; tarragon), a bit of crushed garlic. Splash of white wine, splash of cream (optional), tablespoon of butter in pieces, salt and freshly ground pepper. Another good combo is thinly sliced seeded cucumber, thin onion, white pepper, some cream. Herbs if you like, but a sparing amount.
I bring the two ends together at the top and roll it tightly together, then down the sides, to make a roomy envelope that will serve as a steam room for the fish. Place on a sheet pan and cook it according to how thick the fish is, in this case about 25-30 minutes. You should try to wait as long as possible before you check it for readiness (fish flakes at the thickest part when it's done), because you'll lose good steam once you open it, but don't wait too long because overcooked fish seems more expensive than perfectly cooked fish.

I like this dish because it ends up being almost like a stew, which I tip from the foil packet into a big bowl and gobble down with a spoon. Since the cooking time is pretty brief you must be sensible about the vegetables you use, unless you plan to steam them first. Don't use hard carrots, for instance, and don't use stupid vegetables either. No lima beans.

A recipe I just discovered, and that I plan to spring on the man some time soon, is straight out of Ina Garten's latest book, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics (Clarkson Potter, $35), which I love so much I want to marry it. I followed Garten's recipe to a T, which is something I rarely do, but I interviewed/fell more madly in love with her not long ago (you can read my piece here) and realized that the reason her recipes are always perfect is because she is so extremely precise about the flavor she is trying to achieve. Rather than "one medium onion, finely chopped," she often suggests an exact measurement. So I see no reason to stray; this dish, for instance, is a snap to achieve (ten minutes to prepare; 15 to cook) and luscious beyond expectation.

You basically ice the fish, like a cupcake.

Then you cook it, and the sauce turns to a liquid gold, then browns. How easy is that?

It's one of the easiest ways I know to get more fish into your life, and as Garten points out, "It's good enough to serve to the fanciest company." Or, a bacon-eater.

Mustard Roasted Fish

Serves 4

4 (8-ounce) fish fillets such as red snapper

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces creme fraich

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard

2 tablespoons minced shallots

2 teaspoons dried capers

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
Line a sheet pan with parchment. (You can also use and ovenproof baking dish.) Place the fish fillets skin side down on the sheet pan. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
Combine the creme fraiche, two mustards, shallots, capers, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl. Spoon the sauce evenly over the fish fillets, making sure the fish is completely covered. Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish, until it's barely done. (the fish will flake easily at the thickest part when it's done.) Be sure not to overcook it! Serve hot or at room temperature with the sauce from the pan spooned over the top.

Oh, no. Not again.

2009-03-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

The house is full of apples again (and that one pear)--apples just past their prime. I love them too much, and bring way too many home. Why does the world have banana bread, but no bread for the dead apple? I'm looking for one, and in a bit of a hurry, because it's starting to look like the Collyer brothers' house around here. If the Collyer brothers had run fruit stand.

Hallelujah! Celebrating the Good Book

2009-03-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

The Flavor Bible ($35, Little, Brown), that is. That other Bible is interesting enough, but Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg's book (which I wrote about when I was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune's Good Eating section) is much newer and you probably haven't heard quite as much about it.

I explain why the book is so miraculous in more detail in my Trib piece. You should definitely click on that article to see how the book works, because it will change your life no matter what your level as a cook. And it will give you back your courage, too, especially if you have been discouraged in previous culinary endeavors. (Hmm: I love watercress, I love turmeric: how about watercress-turmeric ice cream?!)

I like to pick up the Flavor Bible (subtitle: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs) often, for inspiration; I also like to read it in bed, which is a bit odd since it has no plot.

Just look up the ingredient you're obsessed with (for me, right now, it's apples), and take it from there. By the way, the croque monsieur sandwich included in the Tribune piece was inspired by Ina (and don't pretend you don't know which "Ina"), and the salad, which is fabulous, is my own invention.

Karen and Andrew are charming and brilliant; with good reason, they are particularly proud of the fact that Grant Achatz, the enigmatic and exquisitely innovative Chicago chef who created the restaurant Alinea (and whom I interviewed in his kitchen a couple of years ago for Men's Vogue), has called the precursor to this book, Page and Dornenburg's Culinary Artistry, "My most used cookbook."

Already, this morning, I've used The Flavor Bible to decide what to do with my slightly raggedy apple surplus. I opened the book to Apple, of course (Season: autumn Taste: sweet, astringent Function: cooling. . . . Techniques: bake, caramelize, deep-fry, etc); checked out the dishes that a few famous chefs mention as favorites (Caramelized Apple Sundae with Butter Pecan Ice Cream, from Emily Luchetti, of Farallon, in San Francisco, for instance); then decided that I'm going use the apples to make a dense buttery cake, or maybe a sour cream cake, with a bit of chopped candied ginger and chopped apricot.

At least, I think I am. I have all the ingredients here (which I'll admit influenced my decision). I may be barking up the wrong tree, but those ingredients are complementary, so I know the flavors will be nice. There is not a single recipe in this book, which is part of its charm--the possibilities seem more endless!--so the vehicle is up to me.

And I love that task. I'm checking all my cookbooks (Sarah Raven's In Season looks especially promising) for something to base my cake on. And I'll let you know how it goes. Cheers.

Beatrice's Blender Mayo

2009-03-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

My grandmother Beatrice, or Bea, was like the Scottish terrier of grandmothers: stout, scrappy, and she tended to stiffen up a little bit when you hugged her. But she was charmingly eccentric (she had a darkroom in her basement, a kiln, cake decorating station, and a lot of other stuff I really shouldn't discuss) and she was cool, and a great friend in the truest sense of the word, so I don't care how corny it sounds: I miss her and think about her all the time. And I've been thinking about her a lot more, lately.

She also cared about food, and always had a giant country ham on her kitchen counter in case anyone got peckish while visiting her. Rather than the cameras, the furniture, the alligator train case, one of my favorite things left to me by Bea is this recipe. If you've never made your own mayo, do so right this instant, because it's just another example of how a simple recipe can change your quality of life (and save you money, although you can't, of course, keep fresh mayo in the refrigerator for a zillion years like the stuff in a jar but this doesn't make a ton and it just takes a few minutes). I have the original, jotted on a notepad, that she gave to me over 20 years ago.

I was living with her in Virginia for a summer before moving north--which would change my life in great ways--during which time I drove her to North Myrtle Beach to stay for a week with her sister Gertie, in Gertie's condo. During the daytime I'd go to the beach and Gertie and Bea would hang around the pool or read or . . . I'm not really sure what they did actually. What do cute old ladies do at the beach? I took them to the hair salon, to be coiffed. They played cards. We visited with my Aunt Mariah, who was also around, while my Uncle John golfed. At night we'd cook--but only after Gertrude and Beatrice had put on their muumuus, and Gertie had mixed drinks and, on a couple of nights, put out cold shrimp with cocktail sauce.

The may recipe is from one of my favorite dinners of all time: great tomatoes from a roadside vegetable stand, slices of chicken that Gertie had just roasted, Bea's blender mayonnaise, with lots of black pepper and salt. I usually only give the recipe to people I really really like, but in celebration of life heading in a great direction again, toward doing the things I really want to do rather than silly things other people want me to do, I offer it up here for anyone who wants it.

Bea's Blender Mayo (verbatim)

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons vinegar

1 cup of salad oil [by this she meant Wesson]

Break egg in blender and add salt, mustard, vinegar, and 1/4 cup of oil. Cover and turn blender on low speed. Immediately uncover, with blender on, and pour remaining oil in slow steady stream. Cut off motor [this means "turn off" in Southern] and stir. Turn on blender briefly. Be sure blender is dry when you start.

One thing she doesn't mention in the recipe is that you should have everything at room temperature before you start. Obviously, you can use different oils, such as olive or walnut or grape-seed or peanut (just make sure it's fresh, and make sure the eggs are super-fresh, too). And you can add garlic to make aioli, or soft herbs. Don't keep it longer than two days in the fridge. And don't leave it sitting out on the counter, crazy.

Next up: my Aunt Mariah's Parker House rolls, but I'll have to call her to ask her if I can post the recipe, first.

No vegetarians here. . . yet

2009-03-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

I have enormous vegetable love. Really. In fact, I'd like to have a scarf that looks like this picture of rainbow chard stalks (Peter Max would be my designer). I find giant fast food chains repellent and what they've turned all of us into tragic. I wish every other corner in every urban wasteland had a vegetable garden instead of a McD. While I eat cheeseburgers (and not just good cheeseburgers; I'll eat the crummy one, too), and display other frankly carnivorous habits, I think it is extremely important that we all learn to eat a lot less meat. I believe that if the world does not start cooking more, it is lost. O, lost. But I sure do wish there were a lot more good restaurants in my neighborhood. Do I contradict myself? Very well then.

Anyway, against my better judgment and in spite of the fact that I believe myself to be a kind person at heart, it seems that I have tended to make fun of vegetarians, even though I expect them not to make fun of me.

Which I didn't even realize until I started cooking so often from Peter Berley's really terrific vegetarian cookbook Fresh Food Fast (Regan Books, $34.95). Berley--who, also, is not a vegetarian per se--is the former chef at the wonderful East Village cafe, Angelica Kitchen, a place I used to visit pretty frequently when I lived in NYC.

The night before last, I made a delicious soup from his book, using some ethereally pretty purple turnips, the deep green leafy tops of the rainbow chard, leeks, and some tiny white potatoes. It was so dreamy (especially since it contained an added, gigantic glug of cream in my version as well as the addition of some leftover crushed potatoes to thicken it) that I went to the Angelica Kitchen site and took a skip down memory lane.

There I found a review I wrote about Angelica Kitchen, back when I edited Tables for Two at the New Yorker magazine. I didn't remember writing it until that moment; the piece is that old (from a quainter time, before everyone signed their pieces, so maybe 95? 96).

The point being: I now feel like a bit of a dolt. I seemed smug, depicting the place as a kind of hippie throwback; if you look at the Angelica Kitchen site today, you'll find the place seems incredibly modern. And who could not love a place that serves a Wee Dragon Bowl? So, here, hangdog, and so many years later, I apologize for my tone, especially since I really liked the food.

Post-Angelica, Berley and his new book seem even more modern. (Caramelized bananas with blood orange and pistachio, giant arepas with aged Gouda, warm mesclun salad with sherry vinaigrette and five-minute eggs.) Fresh Food Fast has its share of wheat-heady recipes that I know I won't make (tofu, yes! seitan: hell no), and it was upsetting to realize a pressure cooker is required for quite a few of the recipes. But it is otherwise a great example of how terrifically creative and satisfying vegetarian home cooking can be.

Now, you're probably wondering where the turnip soup recipe is. (Saunders ate 3 bowls in one night, and the next night she asked very politely if I we could make my version of another dish from the book, a spicy sweet potato, kale, and coconut milk stew, served with rice. So that's here, too.)

Leek and Turnip Soup with Potatoes and Chard, adapted from Fresh Food Fast, by Peter Berley

Serves 4-6

3 tablespoons butter

2 large leeks, white and tender green parts, cleaned, cut lengthwise, and sliced into 1/2 inch thick pieces

1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon caraway seeds (don't overdo it)

2 pounds small turnips, peeled if necessary, cut into 3/4 inch pieces

1 pound small red or yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 bunch of Swiss chard, trimmed and leaves roughly chopped

Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup cream or half and half or 1 cup milk

Optional: Any leftover mashed or crushed potatoes you have. I used about 2 cups.

Melt butter in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add leeks, a pinch of the salt, and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, caraway seeds; saute for 3 minutes.
Add 6 cups of water, turnips, potatoes; bring to a boil over high heat. Add remaining salt, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, covered, until vegetables are tender, about 15-20 minutes.
Add chard and simmer until wilted, about five minutes. If a thicker soup is desired, use a potato masher a few times, right in the pot of soup.
Optinal: Add leftover mashed potatoes if you have them. Simmer 5 more minutes until heated through.
Lower heat, slowly stir in cream or milk if you'd like. Adjust salt and pepper to taste; a lot of pepper is really good with turnips, FYI.

Spicy Coconut Sweet Potato Stew with Kale, adapted from Fresh Food Fast

Serves 4

With the coconut milk (which makes everything wonderful, but has 900 calories in a 14-ounce can, like some kind of crazy tropical lard), not to mention jalapeno and lime, this stew puts you in a trance. You can't stop eating it. Substitute light coconut milk with little ill effect.

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups diced onion (2 medium)

2 teaspoons coarse sea salt, or more to taste

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1 inch chunks (about 5 cups)

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, with seeds, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted and ground, or 1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk

1 bunch kale, stems removed, roughly chopped

1 lime cut into wedges

1/2 cup chopped cilantro, for garnish

Heat oil over medium in a large saucepan. Add onion, pinch of salt; saute until softened, about 5 minutes.
Add sweet potato, garlic, jalapeno, ginger, coriander, turmeric; saute for 5 minutes. Add 3 cups water, coconut milk, remaining salt; raise heat, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 15 minutes.
Add kale; cover and simmer until kale is tender, about 10 minutes. If too soupy, continue to simmer until thickened. Taste for salt and pepper. Serve with a large spoonful of jasmine rice, garnished with cilantro and lime slices.

Hello, gorgeous

2009-03-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

If any of the noses in Grasse created a cologne that smelled like raw turnips (horseradishy, tonic) I'd most certainly wear it. Call it Eau de Root Cellar, please.

Barley + Sheila Lukins' New Cookbook = Love

2009-03-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

Somewhat perversely, I hankered for barley. It was a vague hankering. This was about a month ago. I'm not sure I'd ever cooked barley, and may not have actually seen any since my last can of Campbell's Scotch Broth, a thousand years ago (barley is an ancient grain).

As much as we brag in Chicago about the great food, we do not mean the grocery food. Or, I don't. My local grocery is a cruel place that never has anything I want. In fact, not long ago there was no broccoli, no sweet potatoes. Many times there has been no basil. Many times.

No Basil: A One Act Play, by Emily Nunn

Me, to produce manager: Excuse me, sir. Have you any basil?

Produce manager: No! Leave us!

[She exits]

So they didn't have any barley. I looked all over. I found pearl barley--this means the bran has been removed, and the grain has been steamed and polished, according to the Food Lover's Companion; imagine polishing barley for a living--far, far away from my home. I bought it. I treated it like sack of Magic Beans, a treasure. And for a long time, just owning it was good enough for me. Also, I didn't know exactly what to do with it.

Then I found the cookbook "Ten: All the Foods We Love and Ten Recipes for Each" (Workman, $19.95), by Sheila Lukins, which has quickly become a favorite, because the recipes are simple but elegant; they seem like celebration food. She is after all a Silver Palate lady.

Here is Lukins' recipe for Butternut Barley Risotto, which, if you have not tried it, may not sound like a dish to trot out for a party. But that's because you haven't tried it. I've made it 3-4 times, and we ate it for breakfast, recently, too. At the suggestion of Saunders, who is 9. It's that good. And it makes you feel virtuous.

Butternut Barley Risotto, from "Ten," by Sheila Lukins

Serves 6

1 butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, cut into 1/4 inch dice

5 cups chicken or vegetable broth, preferably homemade, or more if needed.

1 cinnamon stick

1 cup diced seeded ripe plum tomatoes (I used canned once; it was fine)

1 cup of pearl barley, rinsed

4 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil Add the squash and cook until just tender, about 3 minutes. Drain, set aside.
Heat the oil in a heavy pot over low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until they are very tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
While the onions are cooking, pour the broth into a saucepan, add the cinnamon stick, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 5 minutes. Discard the cinnamon stick and keep the broth hot.
Add the tomatoes to the onions and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
Stir the barley into the onion/tomato mixture, coating it well with the oil.
Raise the heat to medium and stir 1/2 cup of the hot broth into the barley mixture. Cook, stirring frequently, until it has been absorbed into the barley. Continue this process, 1/2 cup at a time, making sure each addition of broth is absorbed before adding the next, until barley is tender and most of the broth has been used, about 45 minutes.
Carefully fold in the reserved butternut squash, 2 tablespoons of the parsley. Cook to reheat the squash, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, garnished with remaining parsley.

Emily's Product Korner

2009-03-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

May I just say, without sounding like an advertisement: Trader Joe's has some rockin' raisins, the Jumbo Raisin Medley, which consists of "Seedless Golden Light Raisins, Flame Raisins, and Jumbo Raisins, Sulfur Dioxide." They're so good I don't even care about the word "dioxide."

I am not a raisin person. In fact, I grew up thinking of raisins as a kind of culinary buckshot, that ruins perfectly good food: why is this lump in this lovely muffin? And it probably didn't help that my grade-school cafeteria, which was like something out of "Oliver!" (children filed through a garbage alley/garage that led past the sad dishwashing station into a giant room/prison with high windows that we couldn't see out of), served a dish that had no name but that I presume was meant to be a "raisin pie." Basically a giant casserole filled with brown bloated raisins, surrounded by a nondescript raisin-pie sauce, with a crust on top. You'd have had to chloroform me to get me to eat it. But, as my mother would say, some children had no raisin pie at all.

That said: I really like these raisins and you should try them. I have them on oatmeal, which I eat 231 times a week, with honey and almonds. They come in a bag, not a box; are tart like apricots, tender yet chewy, and discrete (i.e., they don't stick together like those crappy little boxes of raisins that people feed their children as snacks).

Please examine this raisin picture closely: I think it will convince you.

2009-03-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

Come on in, the door is open

2009-03-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about cooking Canis lupus again.

Meaning, of course, the snarling beast at the door, the one that M.F.K. Fisher conjured in her famous book “How to Cook a Wolf,” written during the intense economic impoverishment of the Second World War.

It’s a wry book, so full of grace during truly horrible times that it breaks your heart.

For the lucky ones (i.e., you and me), The Wolf is less about poverty, and more, perhaps, about disappointment or despair or sadness or anger, a broken heart, a fear of the unknown. He's a cartoon character, who sniffs around everyone’s house occasionally, looking for a place to settle; I imagine him in giant striped shorts, for some reason.

Do I qualify as hungry enough, in either sense, to cook a wolf, though? I'm not sure. So I plan to invite him in, trick him into sitting down at my table, then feed him an exploding blueberry pie. It’s going to be fun. And I know it's going to make me feel better.

But since the animal Fisher was writing about--the real, vicious one, with sharp teeth, glowing eyes--seems to be making a return, I also want to help show more people how easy cooking can be. Never mind how incredibly happy it can make you.

Because the idea of being an organic sustainable locavore is surely going to seem more absurd and cartoonish than my imaginary wolf-in-shorts, especially to all the people in the world who have no idea what to do with a butternut squash or a cabbage. Never mind the number of people who live in neighborhoods filled with liquor stores and fast food chains but not a single grocery store, much less a farmer's market.

So, hey! Sorry if I've harshed your mellow. On a brighter note: let's all cook! And let's all teach someone else to cook, while we're at it. Here's a good place to start helping, by the way: http://www.healthyschoolscampaign.org/event/cookingupchange/2008

And to soothe any such undue harshness, I offer a recipe that gives new meaning to the words "comfort food." It requires that you slice many onions, then caramelize/smother them--which means you get to weep openly for a few minutes (like Holly Hunter, in Broadcast News) then sit on the couch and watch American Idol as they cook. Which is exactly what I did last night.

I first made this dish about 10 years ago, when I was living in NYC, where, of course, I had a kitchen the size of the desk I'm sitting at right now. I can't remember where I found the recipe (a Marcella Hazan cookbook?), but I do recall that I liked it because it was cheap (my apartment cost more than half my monthly salary) and required one pot.

It makes a dreamy, luxurious, but unattractive mess; you might want to double the recipe, especially if sliced pork tenderloin with caramelized onions on toasted rye sounds good to you. Use red or white wine; both work.

Caramelized Onion and Walnut Sauce for Pasta

Serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 pound onions (6-8), peeled, cut in half, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, sliced

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

1 tablespoon rosemary, finely chopped

1 cup wine

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup walnut pieces, toasted, chopped

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

1 cup fresh parsley, chopped

1 pound spaghetti or other thin pasta

Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions and toss to coat with the oil; cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Raise heat to medium high; cook until onions begin turn light brown, about 10 minutes.
Stir in garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary; cook, covered, over medium low heat, for 15 minutes.
Add half the wine and cook, uncovered, until reduced, about 5 minutes. Add remaining wine, cook until reduced, five more minutes. Remove from heat; stir in butter, walnut pieces. Serve over pasta, topped with Parmesan and parsley. Or, you can do what I do and mix the sauce, pasta, and cheese, according to how much sauce you like, together in the pot. You'll probably still want to sprinkle more parmesan on when you add the parsley.