RIP the Cook's Library

How truly bummed I was to read the sign posted on the door of the Cook's Library, one of the few specialty bookstores devoted completely to food and cooking. I loved exploring the thorough but finely edited selection of cookbooks, food memoirs, chef biographies, culinary histories, and collections of restaurant reviews. The sign doesn't suggest plans for a new location or reopening, but I like to hope there's something in the works. Chances are it has gone the way of the independent book seller--that is, under the giant boot of Barnes and Noble.

In honor of Cook's Library, I think I'll try to buy all my books from small bookstores. I will also boycott television (for today) and thumb through my own modest but special collection of cookbooks.

Butter Molds: Ode to My Favorite Fat

This morning I was seized by a 45 minute obsession for wooden butter molds after reading this excerpt from Letters from an Empty Nest:

I remember also at about the same age in another kitchen of another playmate whose mother was from Franklin, Louisiana, seeing her mother take a stick of soft butter and stir in pressed fresh garlic, finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper and then pack a dollop into tablespoon sized wooden butter molds. I was utterly fascinated as she did this and then put them in the refrigerator to firm up. A few hours later when we were served our sizzling steak off the backyard grill, her mom placed a green flecked butter pat onto the noisy hot steak and I watched it melt and inhaled the heavenly aroma of garlicky butter.

A couple of years ago my mother made me this ceramic butter dish:






I loved the idea of honoring butter with a little painted house. Similarly, butter molds turn the stuff--already perfect--into a work of art. Here are some oldies:

Feast Houston

What a toothsome surprise it was so wake and find a link (kindly forwarded by Colleen O'Donnell) to Frank Bruni's NYT review of Feast Houston, a Brit-owned restaurant in my dear hometown devoted to those benchwarmer cuts--trotters, cheeks, kidneys, livers, stomachs, and brains--of which I have been writing lately. The restaurant opened a year ago.

On most nights there is also braised chicken, though it goes by a name that’s not familiar to most American diners: cock-a-leekie. That’s a British staple on a menu rife with such terminology and fare: haggis, tatties (mashed potatoes) and neeps (turnips); cullen skink (a Scottish seafood stew); bubble and squeak (a potato hash of sorts); black pudding (a kind of blood sausage). To dine at Feast you need not just courage but a glossary.

When using all the animal parts, avoiding anatomical jokes is near impossible (how do you serve sheep's testicles without a wink and a smile?):

“With some of the things we’ve done, there’s schoolboy humor involved,” Mr. Silk conceded.

He was referring to a dish they called (accurately, as it happens) tongue in breast, and to another they called tongue in the hole, because it was a riff on the British classic toad in the hole."

As as a frugal cook and as someone who loves the marginalized and underrecognized, I naturally admire that these cooks welcome all creatures, strange and small:

"The fisherman who supplies Feast knows that Mr. Knight and Mr. Silk will take and cook critters from the Gulf of Mexico that are hauled in accidentally (the by-catch) and might otherwise be thrown away. Last week Feast smoked and served footlong baby barracudas.

On several occasions they’ve served an odd-looking Gulf fish whose real name they don’t even know but whose nickname greatly amuses them. The fish is gray in color, has an enormous gaping mouth and is referred to as a “mother-in-law.”

Even Frank Bruni attests to the practicality of serving organ meats, exotic though they may be:

"There is an economic advantage to that: Feast is able to keep most of its appetizers under $10 and most of its entrees under $25, in part by using less widely desired cuts of meat. The restaurant has never served filet mignon, and while there was pork belly, pork cheek, pig’s tail and pig’s head terrine the night I dined there, there wasn’t anything like a pork chop."

These are men and woman after my own heart. The use of offal meats is no marketing gimmick; it comes for a reverence for the whole animal.

“I could be a vegetarian if I let my conscience guide me. But another way of giving an animal the respect it deserves is using as much of the animal as possible.”

I couldn't have said it better myself.

*Sadly, but not surprisingly, Feast Houston is not turning people away at the door. I hope all my Houstonian homies will give it a chance and tell me how it was.

Oh-so Buco

All amped up to get down and dirty with the organ meats, I went to the farmers market to buy a tongue--a beef tongue, to be specific--but they had just sold the last one. Which led to two reactions: the first was disappointment, and the second was satisfaction that people are, indeed, buying less common but affordable cuts of meat. Not quite disheartened but wondering what I'd make for my next post, I saw they had veal shanks on special and couldn't resist trying a recipe I always loved and never made: Osso Buco.

There is really nothing gamy or challenging about this dish, neither in the preparation nor the eating. It is tender veal, browned and braised with vegetables and finished with a fresh parsley and lemon zest. The prize is the succulent marrow, usually a scant teaspoonful, at the center of the bone. I eat it last, like a dessert, a perfect coda to a delicious meal.

The recipe (and I use the term lightly, because I never can seem to stick to one) goes like this:

3 veal shanks (mine were a 3/4 lb each)
1 small onion chopped
2 carrots chopped
2 stalks celery chopped
3 cloves garlic minced
1 cup dry white wine (whatever you drink with dinner)
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup crushed tomatoes OR 1 T tomato paste
1 dry bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
3 T fresh chopped flat leaf parsley
1-2 T lemon zest
1 cup all purpose flour for dredging
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a heavy pot (dutch oven is best) on high. Pat veal shanks dry with paper towels. Salt and pepper them, then dredge and shake off excess flour. When vegetable oil is just smoking, brown shanks on all sides, roughly 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and reserve for later.



In the same pot, add carrot, celery, and onion and season with salt. Cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste/tomatoes, wine, chicken stock, bay leaf and thyme. Add veal and bring back to the boil, then reduce to simmer and cover. Let simmer for about an hour and a half, checking periodically to flip shanks so the top doesn't dry out. The meat should fall away from the bone. Serve over rice and finish with a scattering of parsley and lemon zest. Serve with a crisp green salad.

Special Series: Guts n Glory

Now that the whole country seems to be counting nickles and dimes, offal is making a comeback. There is more demand for the cheaper cuts of meat that, sadly, have been overshadowed by the safe and sterile skinless boneless chicken breasts and fat free ground turkey that glut our grocer's meat section.

I will begin a series for those among you who are curious to know more about these bits and pieces, oft overlooked by mainstream American food culture.

The last post, "Liver Let Die," was a gentle start. Let's now delve into something gutsier: Tripe.

Tripe refers to the stomach lining of ruminant animals (such as cows, sheep). There are three types that are commonly used for cooking: reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), rumen (blanket/smooth/flat tripe), and omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe).

Trippa alla Romana calls for honeycomb, which has a relatively mild aroma and spongy texture. The sponginess allows the tripe to absorb the cooking flavors nicely. Here's what it looks like:



Two main rules of thumb for preparing tripe:
1) cook immediately after purchasing, as they are highly perishable,
2) set aside several hours to allow for soaking (1 hour in 3 changes of water) and cook time (2 hours).

Trippa alla romana is a honeycomb tripe stewed with carrots, onion, crushed tomatoes and white wine.

INGREDIENTS:
1 lb. Honeycomb tripe
¼ cup White vinegar
1½ tsp. Vanilla extract
5 Tbsp. Extra-virgin olive oil, divided use
2 Carrots, cut in ¼-in. diagonal slices
1 Red onion, cut in ¼-in. slices
1 Celery rib, cut in ¼-in. slices
2 Garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 cupWhite wine
1 cupCanned crushed tomatoes, with juice
4 Sage leaves
Kosher salt as needed
Freshly ground black pepper as needed
6 slicesCrusty peasant bread, grilled or toasted
Garlic clove, halved
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese as needed

Rinse and soak tripe in cold water one hour, changing the water every 15 minutes.



Place tripe in large pot and fill with water to cover. Add vinegar and vanilla to soften the pungency, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer; cook for an hour and a half or until tender.

Drain and transfer to a bowl of ice water until chilled. Slice into 1/2 inch strips (traditional) or 1/2 inch squares (the way I like it).

Heat 3 Tbsp. oil in a sautépan until just smoking; add carrots, onion, celery and chopped garlic. Sauté over medium heat until tender and light gold, 8 to 10 minutes.



Add wine and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Add tripe, sage, salt and pepper. Let simmer 30 minutes.



Rub each slice of grilled bread with the cut side of the halved garlic clove and brush 1 side with remaining 2 Tbsp. olive oil. Halve each slice diagonally.

Serve tripe hot with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and bread.

*Post Script: I forgot to fill you in on what it was like to make this and how it turned out. While I've eaten it before (several times, unsuccessfully. Two bad menudo experiences were redeemed by a delicious smoky Chinese preparation.) First of all, the tripe itself is a strange but not altogether repulsive piece of flesh. And it doesn't smell--which I expected it to--thanks to some much appreciated processing. It did seem completely un-foodlike until the dish was totally finished, more like industrial sponge than meat. But the final product was sublime. Tender, mellow pads of tripe drew in the sumptuous sauce, which is so much more than the sum of its onion, carrot, celery, wine, and tomato parts.

Do I recommend this recipe to everyone? With caveats. If you like to cook and you like a challenge, or if you are trying to broaden your palette, by all means. If you have ever, even once, liked tripe, you must try this. If you retch a little at the pictures above, maybe start with a nice beef stew and get back to me.

Liver Let Die

Liver--like truffles, marrow, and caviar--is one of those flavors that takes some time and numerous attempts to appreciate, but when the mind finally adjusts it creates a craving center that may never be satisfied. Last weekend I found myself stalking the meat section of the local Albertsons, desperate for the deep, primal taste of liver, about a half step away from the scene in Rosemary's Baby where Mia Farrow catches herself in the mirror with the bloody organ juices dripping down her chin.

My romance with liver began as a flirtation with liverwurst, the kind that comes in the chubby tubes at the grocery store. My college roommate and I would huddle over the counter late at night and smear the stuff on crackers with a slice of tomato. The liver taste was mild and cut with spices and cream and fat. Then came the occasional foie gras in a fancy restaurant, seared and glazed with cherry reduction. This dish is so special, we call it by its french name and not the plain, vaguely medical term "liver."

Now I prefer the simpler, truer stuff. Chicken livers are good. Sweet, delicate little nuggets, a smooth deep red, salted and peppered and sauteed in butter or rubbed first in some coarse brown mustard.

You can eat them as they are or slice thin and spread on extra-crisp toast. Sautee a shallot or a small onion and some garlic and mash them into the livers with a squirt of mustard and some fresh parsley.

A pint of the stuff shouldn't set you back more than a couple of dollars for the organic ones--in fact, many butchers throw them out, so ask sweetly and you may have a free dinner on your hands.

This is my Fridge

When I moved into my apartment over a year and a half ago I had to wait over a week for my refrigerator to arrive. After living on a loaf of bread’s worth of peanut butter sandwiches, stacks of dry crackers, a bag of pita chips, and too many visits to Jack ‘n the box for Sourdough breakfast sandwiches, I vowed never to take my fridge for granted again. I would open its door with awe, like a treasure box. I would clean it monthly, emptying its contents and rubbing down its cool glass shelves with vinegar and water. I wouldn’t defile it by stuffing half-wrapped blocks of cheese or leftover tuna eaten straight from the can or topless Tupperwares of meat sauce. I would save only the food I knew I would eat in the next day or so, and I would package it expertly with an airtight seal.

Here is what is in my fridge today, no deletions, no substitutions, no enhancements. This is my fridge, as it is, in the raw:

The butter bin: a box of Tillamook butter, outside of which is a half a stick of butter with a wax paper flap protecting the exposed edge. Squashed beneath is the empty box of generic cream cheese from when I made a lox and bagel dinner for my honey.

In the bin below, an unused carton of Vitasoy soymilk, which sat baking in my car for weeks (months?) after I snagged it as a freebie. Why I thought I would drink it after its tenure in the backseat of my car during a scorching Southern California summer, I do not know. Maybe because I tend to eat things most people would toss, but there it sits, expectant, dejected.

A near empty tub of cottage cheese, maybe 3 weeks old, with about 45 curds in it. Just enough curds to load onto a sesame cracker, just enough to justify keeping it around, but old enough that I haven’t touched it in a fortnight and probably never will.

A pint of organic Half and Half. It, too, has been there for weeks, because I paid too much for it, and every time I sniff it it smells fine. The thing is, I don’t use half and half; it’s there for guests to put in coffee. And I almost never have guests, and can’t remember the last time I served one coffee.



The next bin inspires less guilt. A bottle of acidophilus, a fresh carton of chicken broth, Soy milk. Below it is my nutbin where I keep my mason jar of raw almonds and broken resealable bag of walnut bits, both of which I sprinkle on my morning granola and yogurt. I just started storing my nuts in the fridge because someone told me they keep better that way, something about fats going bad at room temp, and somehow I reasoned they would also be more nutritious that way. So I’m very pleased with my nutbin. It is in just the right place, and there are only nuts in my nutbin, no crusty bottles of condiments or jars of pickle juice. My nutbin is the only part of my fridge that is the way I want it to be.


To be continued...

Petite Cuisine

Since the last time I visited Paris, in 2002, the value of the dollar has shriveled. This summer I was met with costs that nearly doubled those of my already expensive Los Angeles. Had I stayed in a hotel, I might be feeding on cold sandwiches or baguettes and cheese (which, come to think of it, might not be so terrible). But I was clever enough to impose myself on the good graces of my friend, Julia, and so had access to a kitchen. Thanks to the incredible outdoor markets we were able to piece together simple meals without having to interfere with the ingredients very much.

What little cooking skills we applied, however, were tested by the munchkin proportions of our Paris kitchen. There's a photo of Julia Child, 6'1", towering over a tiny burner that barely passed her knees when she was studying French cuisine in Paris. At roughly nine inches shorter I can still relate to the claustrophobia she must have felt; still there's something virtuous or at least exciting about making do within these types of restraints.

With a few prepared items, like pate, prosciutto, good cheese, and olives, one or two easily assembled salads (we did a simple green and a tomato cucumber using the same dijon vinaigrette), and some fresh baguettes, we had the impression of abundance with no more effort than cutting and assembling our ingredients. On the little flat burner Julia sauteed some garlic and made a simple hot succotash with leftover courgettes, canned corn, and fresh tomatoes.

The resulting feast for four cost much less than a night out at even a modest restaurant in Paris. As the late sun set and the room dimmed, we drank the last of the cheap wine, sopped the dressing from our plates with the butts of baguettes, and leaned back into our chairs with smiles and full bellies.

Bacon Bar

Once again, the gentle plea of a faithful reader has nudged me to post again. At this rate I'll have a dozen posts in as many years. This time there was a request: while completely off-theme, the subject in question reminded me of the exceptions to my general principles of frugality--sometimes you just have to treat yourself. I'll be candid: economizing can be a huge bummer. And if you've got a few extra bills and a sweet tooth, bypass the junk food aisle and hit the gourmet chocolate section of the nearest purveyor of fine foods. Bacon Bar, by Vosges, calls to mind Sunday breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes and crisp, real bacon. It's rich, of course, and nothing to cram into one sitting. I keep it on the counter and break off a shard after dinner. Let it hang out on the tongue before giving in to the smoky crumbs of bacon.

Writer Reborn

INTRODUCTION
Miss Ruby’s Café: Ruth Reborn

Just before Christmas 1977 in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a pale moon cast its light over the frozen New England town, but inside the firelit storefront on Main Street, the room was warmed by blinking votives and the spice and sweetness of good home cooking. Her cinnamon hair pulled loosely in a bun, oval face turned toward her work, Ruth prepped vegetables, made sauces, started soups, fried tostadas and hushpuppies, boiled beans. For thirty-seven year-old Ruth Adams Bronz, this was the smell of new beginnings.

In a cutthroat business she was opening a restaurant from scratch with little more than a few thousand dollars and good kitchen sense. But she was as sure of success as if she’d already made it; for her, it was the most natural thing in the world. For a moment, the past was behind her--the death of her young husband and the shadow of infidelity, the sting of her father’s disapproval and indifference, the fear that she’d never find her calling--all of these things were neutralized, if only for a time, by Miss Ruby’s Café.

The next fifteen years would be the sweetest of her life. Miss Ruby’s saw immediate success, even in the slow winter months when there were no tourists and it was so cold even the locals were tempted to stay in. The restaurant was dubbed the focal point for the “cultured counterculture” and in its peak summer months drew around 600 customers a day.

Her customers called her “Miss Ruby,” and she liked it that way. The new name was apt. The “Miss” lent a southern lilt, a feminine dignity without associations of marriage or matronhood; “Ruby,” suggested things red and fiery, full of warmth and spice, passion and blood. The nickname, coined by an old lover, conveyed Ruth’s inviting familiarity that disarmed and delighted her customers. She didn’t have to bother with fussy feedback forms; customers told her--often hollered over the partition--while she cooked.

“Too spicy, Miss Ruby. Ease up on us Yankees” or “there’s bones in my soup!" She’d take it or leave it, depending on how fussy the customer, how crucial the ingredient, but was always gracious, reassuringly maternal. This was, at last, her kitchen, unapologetically her domain.

Ruth, after all, had had no formal training as a chef, only as a cook in a bistro flipping hamburgers and grilling fish. With little knowledge or concern as to what would be commercially wise or market savvy, she cooked what she herself would eat and serve to people she loved. Knowing that biscuits are best eaten piping hot and straight out of the oven, she had her waiters serve them from the pan they were baked in instead of wasting precious time transferring them to lined baskets. Because she wanted to expose people to new foods and pique their interest, she changed the menu every week, something unheard of by the townspeople, and rarely practiced then by anyone in the food business. Drawing inspiration from Junior League cookbooks, community cookbooks, and family recipes, she created meals out of a fascination with the food people made in their homes all over the country.

What seemed very natural to Ruth was largely unacknowledged in the food world maybe even today--that the United States has a diverse and worthy regional cuisine from border to border, coast to coast. Countries like France and Italy have long been recognized for their regional specialties, but Ruth’s appreciation was much more specific. She gave credence to recipes from home cooks all over the country, from the smallest towns in the Midwest to California’s northern coast. Many restaurants might recognize Creole cooking or deep southern cooking, New England or Tex-Mex, but Miss Ruby’s featured a different regional cuisine every week, sometimes repeating a region, but never a menu.

Though she owned the place and could have left the sweltering kitchen and long hours on her feet to the employees, Ruth insisted upon prepping and cooking the food she served. It wasn’t a chore, it was what she did--the feel of the sharp knife slipping through crisp vegetables, the crackle and earthy caramel of onions sautéing, the fresh perfume of a tossed salad--these were her unalloyed delights, this was her happiness.

In 1991, 13 years after she first opened her restaurant, Ruth would suffer successive, crippling setbacks. But on that cold December night in 1977, Ruth was free, solitary and strong, her past behind her and the present as rich as a good chicken stock. As the guests trudged through the snow that night towards the amber windows of Miss Ruby’s Café, they could smell pumpkin and biscuits, pork chops and gravy, and through the window they saw Ruth, aproned, smiling, and ready to cook.

The Empty Pantry Challenge

In penury we often forget to nourish ourselves and settle, instead, for mere feeding. But casual foresight is all we need to keep a respectable pantry alive and generous.

Strategies: buy on sale, even when you don't need something. If it's something that you eat frequently or could use in times of want, stock up.
Have soup with meals as a filler, something simple like miso paste keeps well and goes a long way. Stir a spoonful into a bowl of boiling water, and cut green onion or mushroom if you have it. Even a bouillon cube dissolved into water with a little egg whipped in as it simmers; or take a wilted carrot, peel, dice and boil it with the bouillon and some noodles.

Here's an incomplete list of low cost, typically easy to store items to keep on hand. Make a running list of staple items and tack it to a pantry door for reference.:

-Pasta (buy a variety: orzo with butter, parmasan, and pepper; Bowtie with bell peppers, pine nuts and grilled chicken;Simmer red chili flakes and garlic in olive oil, toss with salt and pepper.)
-Canned whole plum tomatoes
-Tomato paste
-Anchovy paste (a teaspoon gives pasta sauce character)
-Rice (see archived post on rice)
-Beans (white, black, red, kidney, black-eyed peas, lentils, lima, pinto -- a 1 pound bag of beans, which should feed a family for a week, usually costs under a dollar)
-Canned fish (see past post "to the cannery" for ideas)
-Dried fruit (often pricey, so look for it on sale or buy in bulk at Costco)
-Nuts (pine, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios all work in a number of dishes and lend themselves to snacking. Buying them in their shells is cheaper but more trouble. Nuts are a worthy investment and, like dried fruit, are bearable when bought wholesale)
-Crackers
-Ramen (see archived post "R-Amen")

Frozen Foods:
In an ideal world we would cull brightly colored produce from a farmer's stand each day to maximize its freshness and nutritional content; but cramped schedules and the temptation to overspend at the grocery store keeps most of us at bay for a week or more. Keeping the freezer stocked with fruits and vegetables frozen at their peak and a few select prepared foods for convenience.
-Fruit (In penury,with milk or juice, make a fine smoothie)
-Vegetables (broccoli, green beans, asparagus, peas, corn, spinach)
-Prepared foods (Trader Joe's pizza, breaded eggplant, lasagna--homemade or storebought)

Takeout-In

For a month now, a few of you readers have expressed to me, with varying degrees of patience, that a new post is long overdue. I met these grievances with a momentary pang of concern, followed by a flurry of brainstorming, and then a steady tide of complacency. But last night I learned that one of you, indignant, had vowed to eat take-out every night until I posted something new. This threat cut to the quick of my insecurities, and right then I decided to put an end to my epistolary lassitude. And so--a New Post is in the works. Stay tuned.

Meatballs and Spaghetti

A thrifty cook is constantly looking for affordable dishes that yield many servings, keep well, and satisfy. And while I encourgage experimentation, one of the most important principles of practical cooking is developing a steady, dependable repertoire. Everyone deserves a sense of mastery, and mastery comes with practice.

One dish that lends itself to repetition, both for its crowd-pleasing potential and its comforting nature, is Meatballs and Spaghetti. Ten dollars and a couple of hours in the kitchen can feed a party of eight, or feed two for a week. There is something both dramatic and familiar about piling fist sized meatballs, coated in sultry sauce, on a tangle of spaghetti, like unlikely boulders on a gentle hill.

More rewarding still is developing a signature sauce, a special way of coaxing the ingredients so the recipe is uniquely one's own. There is a scene in Goodfellas where Paul Sorvino slivers garlic with a razor blade so that when it hits the heated olive oil, it melts. As a tribute to the great director, and because the wine is pretty decent, I like to use Francis Ford Coppola's table wine in his sauce and sip from a short tumbler, cook's treat.

This recipe is an adaptation of one from Lidia Bastianich, a true Italian cook, and the Coppola wine comes from Matt. Serve a green salad (just lettuce!) on the side, tossed lightly with a lemon vinaigrette (instead of vinager, use lemon and its zest), and drink the same wine used in the sauce.



The Meatballs

1 lb ground beef with decent fat content
(if veal or pork is on sale, do a half pound of each. Generally beef will do just fine and is always affordable)
1 cup bread crumbs
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced
2 handfuls chopped parsley
1 tablespoon red chili flakes
1 large egg
generous grinding of black pepper
1 T salt
plus 2 cups all purpose flour (set aside on a plate for dredging the meatballs)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl until well incorporated and roll into balls. Mine are golfball sized because I like the ratio of meat exposed to sauce, but the baseball sized ones look dramatic on the plate. (Just make sure to cook the bigger ones longer.) Roll the balls in flour and set on a tray, then set aside and fix the sauce.

The Sauce

1 large can whole plum tomatoes
1/2 to 1 small can tomato paste
1 onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T salt
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 cup Coppola table wine (or nicer stuff if you want to spring for it)

Saute onion and garlic until soft over medium heat (I start from a cool pan so that the garlic doesn't singe and get bitter), add chili flakes and tomato paste, then squelch the tomatoes and add their liquid and the cup of wine. Add salt and pepper and bring to the boil, turn down heat, and cover with the lid just off kilter (this lets it reduce some without splattering red dots all over the kitchen). Incidentally, the dose of tomato paste is bold--the effect is a thick, tangy sauce, and concentrated so that less is needed to coat the spaghetti. Do adjust the paste to your own palate.

Meanwhile, heat a largeheavy skillet and add olive oil, about a quarter cup. Brown the meatballs in batches so that each ball has room to turn over (I brown the golfball sized ones on two sides; the larger ones need three). As they are finished, place them in the simmering sauce with tongs. If it looks like the sauce needs liquid, add a little water, stock, or wine and stir it around from time to time so that the bottom doesn't scorch (this can happen with sauce because of the high sugar and acid content).

Simmer the meatballs and sauce for 45 minutes, partially covered, stirring and adding liquid as needed. The flour from the browned meatballs incorporates and renders the sauce creamy. Halfway through cooking time, boil pasta water and cook til al dente, then toss noodles with some of sauce to pull in its flavor and to keep it from sticking. Serve hot, piled high, with freshly grated parmasan and chopped parsley.

Hiatus...Thesis

I've got a pretty red book that explains my absence these last three weeks. After 15 months of research and writing, I finally finished my master's thesis, Home on the Range: the Story of an American Cook. If anyone knows of an agent or editor interested in documenting the contributions of a pioneer of regional American cooking, let me know.

Soul for the Chicken Soup

Chicken stock, long revered as medicinal, even magical, has become so iconic it has been abstracted from its deeply aromatic liquid form. On cooking shows and in recipes, chicken stock is added, quite cavalierly, into stews and sauces with little acknowledgement of the stuff itself. Chicken stock made at home is a process and an end in itself, not merely the flavor enhancer or thinner it’s made out to be.

As quality organic stocks become available, fewer people brew their own; but to abandon the process is to decimate its potency and completely overlook the point. Part of the value of good chicken stock (and any food, really) is the time taken to make it, the care invested by its cook. Once mastered and streamlined, it can be meditative and old-fashioned--something like canning jellies and pickles for winter--because it’s not the kind of thing to make in small batches.

A chicken carcass simmered with vegetables produces a fine stock, because the marrow from the bones yields flavor and gelatin gives it body. Freeze scraps (onion tops, carrot and celery butts, fennel stalks, bones) in a zipper bag and when it fills up make a stock. It can be worth the extra cost to boil a whole plump chicken in order to strip it of its meat. Oily and mauve, the dark meat holds up best to boiling.

Carrot, onion, celery, and leek are usual vegetables for the stock because they are aromatic without overpowering and work well with each other. Starches like potatoes don’t give as much flavor and cloud the soup, though they can be added later, diced and simmered ‘til tender for a vegetable soup.

Salt the stock carefully and gradually after the cooking since the salinity increases as the water evaporates during cooking time. Too little salt and it tastes like dishwater; too much and you might just as well have Campbell’s.

1 chicken (3 to 4 pounds), well rinsed, neck in, giblets removed
1 1/2 gallons cold water, or enough to cover the chickens
2 medium onions quartered
2 large carrots cut in half
2 stalks celery cut in half
1 clove garlic cut in half
1 bay leaf
handful of parsley

Place all the ingredients into a large (3 to 4 gallon if you’ve got it) stockpot and set over a medium-high heat. Bring the contents of the pot to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Keep a spoon and dumping bowl near the pot and skim the impurities and fat that rise to the top. Cook the stock over the next 6 hours, skimming as needed. This is something to do casually, as you wash laundry or do housework; simply skim when it occurs to you. I have made stock without skimming and lived to tell the tale so if you find it cumbersome, cut it out and see if you can live without it. It should be simmering, where the surface of the liquid quakes and bubbles occasionally. If the stock boils outright the fat and scum will mix with the stock and cause it to become cloudy (again, a murky stock, while less beautiful, never hurt a soul.)

When the stock is done, rich and amber, strain through a fine mesh sieve and let cool. Fish out the chicken and harvest its meat, which can be added to stock for chicken soup or dressed with mayonnaise, celery, lemon, and pepper for a chicken salad. To de-fat the room-temperature stock, chill in the fridge and pull off the opaque congealed fat in shards.

The stock is perfect piping hot, alone or spiked with pepper, lemon juice, and chopped parsley. A handful of brown rice sunk at the bottom lasts longer in the belly; a pinch of grated ginger, carrot, and chopped green onion or minced jalapeno open up the airways. Add chicken, carrot, and corn on the cob then dress with chunks of avocado, lime juice and cilantro balance the richness of the stock with fresh, cool and tangy accents. Before embellishing, however, sip it straight up. Linger over this elixir that took so long to make. Sometimes a good thing must be stripped to its purest form.

Dinner Party on a Shoestring

Cooking for company is a way of getting interesting people together, lubricating conversation with food, drink, and candlelight. Going out to dinner is fine, on occasion, but it always ends with the moment when everyone puts hand to wallet and wonders how much they spent, whether or not to use cash or split it between five credit cards. Eating at home is never punctuated by an awareness of the cost of the meal, which is always, when cooked in earnest for friends, priceless.

When I throw a dinner party, I set the table, light candles, and play music on low. I make sure the food is never ready when the guests arrive. About a half hour before anyone should be there, I begin chopping vegetables, putting anything that takes a while in the oven or on the stove, and continue cooking and greeting as people filter in. For one thing, it removes the inconvenience of guests coming late. They ought to arrive on time, but if they don’t, you’re less likely to pace and fret if you’ve got something to do. Secondly, meals should not be unveiled all at once like a live rabbit from a hat; guests should interact with the food they are about to eat, should stir the soup or baste the roast, if they like.

The worst thing a host can do is fuss over the dinner. By all means, care how it turns out, but don’t work yourself into such a froth that the whole process ceases to please you and your guests. And if stress should begin to take hold of you, turn off the stove, pour a fat glass of wine, and sit down with your guests.

In fact, a great dinner party need not cost a thing if you encourage people to bring a dish or a bottle of something nice to drink. Other inexpensive ways to feed a group are casseroles. For an easy lasagna, layer tomato sauce, parboiled lasagna strips, ricotta cheese, and thawed strained frozen spinach, salted and peppered, until you run out of room or ingredients and top with handfuls of mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 for about an hour (check on it half way through) and let sit for 10 minutes before serving. Lasagna needs nothing more than a light-bodied red wine and a simple green salad. If you like, make strong coffee and butter cookies for dessert.

Dinner need not take long either—sausage, potatoes, and steamed kale might take a half hour altogether. Bring a big pot of water to a boil and salt it, then drop in as many small potatoes as you think you need. In another pot bring an inch of water to a boil and stuff in as much kale (a pleasantly bitter, leafy green—delicious with the salty sausage and bland, creamy potatoes) as you can and keep adding as it wilts until it’s all in. When it’s wilted, salt it and drizzle oil or toss in butter and set aside with the lid on. In another pan heat one link of Kielbasa for every two people on medium heat until the skin crisps and set aside. The potatoes should be done after 15 or 20 minutes. Strain, butter, salt and pepper them. Hearty, fast, and gentle on the pocketbook, this is a fine meal to master for unexpected or last-minute guests.

When deciding what to prepare, it is important, of course, to know yourself and your limitations. Make a meal you think you can manage, avoid trying anything new the night of the party, and if you begin to feel overwhelmed, delegate.

Polite guests will offer to clean up—let them help you and chat until things are tidy, thus avoiding waking up to crusty plates, wine-stained glasses and napkins, and the stench of sour booze and day-old food. Better to rise at your leisure to a clean room so that the only thing on your mind is the night before and the good black coffee you are about to drink.

Whether it’s an elaborate feast for ten or a pot of spaghetti shared between roommates, eating with company can elevate a meal to communion. Whatever the occasion, when you can, make it count.

A Good Cuppa Joe

Despite its brawny effect, coffee is rather delicate stuff. Once roasted, it begins to lose flavor after a couple of days; when ground and exposed to air, a noticeable flavor breakdown begins within minutes unless stored in an airtight container; brewed coffee must be drunk instantly. For that reason, it is best made one cup at a time; any form of mass-produced coffee will be undoubtedly inferior. Flat, burnt, stale.

All too often we patronize coffee houses like Starbucks and Coffee Bean for their signature drinks: frothy, syrupy concoctions full of fat and sugar and low on quality coffee. This is where these companies make their mint. Masked by shots of flavored syrup, smothered in whipped cream, shaken with milk and chocolate, it doesn’t matter what the coffee tastes like, and consumers are willing to spend several dollars for their morning fix.

If it’s dessert you want, by all means, indulge in your venti caramel macchiato; but when it comes down to it, most people are just looking for the sharpening, mind-clearing effects of caffeine. In short, coffee makes the morning a little kinder. And in my mind there is no better way to ease into consciousness than a freshly-brewed, steaming cup of coffee: dark, rich, and made at home.

First, it’s important to commit to treating yourself to home-brewed coffee. It requires a few pieces of equipment and a modicum of effort, but certainly less than lugging yourself to a coffee shop. And it’s much more affordable.

Second, the single most important rule to brewing coffee is ratio. Always use two heaping tablespoons for every six ounces of water (filtered is best). Too much coffee leads to overextraction: bitter coffee. If you like your coffee weaker, add hot water after it’s made.

Now, the equipment. There are a variety of ways to actually brew your coffee at home; each has its advantages, and you may want to experiment. For those of you who need a simple answer and don’t care to deliberate, pick one and stick with it. We are smarter than the tools we use and can make them work to our advantage.

I use a single-cup drip cone, which is a plastic cone with a small hole at the bottom. It costs a couple of bucks at the grocery store and washes up like a dream. You buy filters that match the size cone you’ve bought (mine’s a #2) and insert the filter into the drip. Boil water on a hotplate, in a microwave, or in an electric kettle, depending on how well your dorm/apartment is equipped. Once the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat, wait a couple of seconds, and pour the water over the grounds in your filter until it reaches just below the top. Let that drain about halfway and add more water to the top. This should fill one regular sized coffee cup.

If you have an automatic drip, unplug it as soon as it's brewed and drink it. You don’t want your coffee sitting on a burner—the continuous heat causes it to turn. These are just as easy to use, and some can be set to engage in the morning when you wake up. Simply fill the well with water, however much you want to drink. Remember to keep your proportions consistent: 12 oz of water needs four heaping tablespoons of coffee.

A french press brews a stout, frothy cup of coffee. It consists of steeping the grounds in a special glass beaker, then pressing down on them with a handled fine-meshed screen. The grounds are pinned under the screen, and you’re left with strong, full-bodied coffee. This method is easy and kind of fun once you’ve mastered the press motion. The only drawback is clean-up, which can be tiresome due to fine coffee particles clinging to the mesh screen.

There is no pleasure like the simple act of brewing your own coffee just right, every morning. It’s not merely the deep roasted aroma or the caffeine, but the reassuring ritual of putting water on to boil, spooning the chocolaty grounds into the filter, waiting for the coffee saturated water to percolate into the cup, the drips pattering more deeply as the mug fills up.

Tips:
*Buy whole beans and grind them at home or have them ground at the store. (Ralph’s has a self-serve machine and Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s will do it for you.)
*Store coffee in an airtight container away from heat but not in the freezer.
*Always measure two heaping tablespoons for every six ounces (about a mugful) of water.

Suggested Brands:
*Peet’s makes great coffee at a moderate price ($9.99 pack at Ralph’s)
*Don Francisco espresso ground is decent and dirt cheap ($3.49 tin at Ralph’s)
*Whole Foods roasts its own beans in-house. You may have to try a few kinds before you settle on one, but these are likely to be some of the freshest you can find.

The Ultimate Valentine: a Meal from the Heart

I received a request for a romatic dinner for two from a reader and developed the following menu.
There are two things to keep in mind:

1) plan and cook ahead of time if you can. Something that involves a lot of last minute primping will take you away from the main event, your Valentine.
2) Lay off heavy garlic, onions, or gas producing foods like beans, cabbage, broccoli. If you must (because onions and garlic are almost indispensable)
make sure to put after dinner mints on the table.

I often like to start with a salad because it's cool, light, teases the appetite rather than satisfies, and because it's a simple thing to have prepared in advance and toss at the last minute. Here's a killer recipe for fennel and clementine salad:

The Salad: Fennel and Clementines

3 T vinegar
6-8 T olive oil
salt and pepper
3 clementines
1 bulb fennel

In the same bowl in which you plan to serve the salad, make a simple vinaigrette, whisking one part vinegar to two parts oil, then salt and pepper to taste. Finally, zest and whisk in two of your clementines.

Cut the stalks off a bulb of fennel, reserving the fronds, and slice the bulb paper thin if you can. Lay the slices on the vinaigrette in the serving bowl.

Peel two or three clementines (tiny, succulent oranges usually sold in wooden crates at the store) and slice each into three parts, so that the slice, when lain flat, looks like a daisy. Keep these on a small plate and put the whole salad in the fridge until you're ready to toss the salad.

To serve, toss the fennel with the vinaigrette, then roughly chop the fronts and scatter. Finally, arrange the clemetine flowers around the salad bowl--the sharp, juicy orange against the pale mint green of the fennel is stunning.
The salad is so fresh, you could also serve it after the main course.

Main Course: Roast Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes and Fingerling Potatoes

Roast chicken, made at home, is always richer and more tender than you are likely to find in restaurants, and it's so easy and affordable that there's no reason not to make it a staple. Roast it on the bone (instead of buying skinless, boneless), and buy a whole or half chicken with thigh and breast meat, because it's not only cheaper and better tasting, but it forces the eater to pick it up with his fingers, work his mouth around the joints rooting around for last morsels. I think food tastes better when passed from hand to mouth.

4-6 pieces of chicken, bone in, dark and light meat
1 sack of cherry tomatoes
20 or so small fingerling potatoes
1 onion
6 cloves garlic
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 cup white wine or dry vermouth (optional)
1 handful parsley, chopped fine (for dusting at the last minute)
other herbs, like tarragon or thyme, work very well, too
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Before handling raw chicken, set everything out so you don't have to touch things with salmonella hands--have a big wad of paper towels handy for patting the chicken dry after washing. In a roasting pan or casserole dish, drizzle olive oil over the chicken and rub evenly. Wash hands, then salt and pepper the chicken on both sides. Chop an onion into big wedges and toss with olive oil. Place the garlic cloves in their shells around the chicken. If you have room in the pan, put the tomatoes in, or just put a few in for flavor and roast the others in a separate pan. The potatoes get their own pan. Olive oil, salt and pepper them.

Put the whole lot in the oven for about 45 minutes, just enough time to have cocktails and chat before dinner. It is also a good idea to let the chicken sit for 10 minutes before serving. This allows it to cool to a palatable temperature and the juices to distribute themselves. Serve the chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes on a big plate and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with a light red wine or the white wine you used to cook the chicken.

Dessert
Simple is best--buy a pint of darkest chocolate and serve with tart fruit, like strawberries or rasberries, maybe a sprig of mint; pistachio ice cream with chopped pistachios on top; or just make strong coffee with butter cookies or biscotti on the side.

The most important element of dinner is YOU, so don't let yourself stress out--gaffes make a meal memorable. If it burns, scrape it off, if it's ruined, order take out. Be cheerful and generous, don't drink too much--but eat well.

Cool Beans

I suppose I could survive without beans, but I’m glad I don’t have to. Whether blended into soup, spooned over rice with sour cream and green onion, or mashed and smeared on a corn tortilla with cheese and a fried egg, beans are versatile, salubrious, and cheap.

Common beans (a subset of legumes, which include lentils and peas) were domesticated in Peru and southern Mexico over 7,000 years ago. They have been found scattered in pre-Columbian tombs and in the pyramids of the Egyptians who worshipped the bean as a symbol of life. Most historians agree that it wasn’t until the 16th century that Columbus and his gang introduced the mighty legume to the Old World. Within about a hundred years, beans had been disseminated across Europe, Africa and Asia.

Today, the bean is fundamental to cultures all over the planet. What would Asia do without the soybean, or India and the Mediterranean without the chickpea? Where would Cuba be without the black bean, or Mexico without the pinto? The bean is embraced not only for its abundance and remarkable storability, but because it is so sustaining. It is full of protein and fiber and, when combined with grains like rice and corn, the amino acids of each complement the other to form a perfect protein.

It’s also a terribly efficient source of nutrients, containing generous doses of potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron and folic acid. Black beans in particular contain high amounts of flavonoids, which are the same cancer-fighting antioxidants found in blueberries and cranberries.

For the frugal, this ancient staple is a godsend.

However, for a number of reasons, it remains an intimidating and neglected dish. Beans have the indelicate reputation for causing flatulence. As it turns out, the more you eat, the less you toot. Increasing consumption of beans gradually reduces their tendency to generate gas. Chewing thoroughly also helps break down the gas-forming compounds, as do slow-cooking and adding a pinch of baking soda to the pot.

For others, making beans is a daunting, mysterious process of sorting, soaking, and slow cooking. Dry beans must be soaked overnight and cooked, depending upon the size, between 30 minutes and an hour and a half. I soak a pound at a time, cook half, and freeze the other half in Ziplock bags. Since soaked black beans only need about a half hour of cooking, I frequently make these to stir into rice and grate cheddar cheese on top. Black eyed peas also absorb liquid more quickly than pintos or kidneys.

Making beans for the week has become a ritual for me. I empty the bag in a large bowl and sort, fingering them like smooth stones, and remove the detritus—pepples, dirt, and dead beans—before rinsing. Beans expand three times their dried size when soaked, so I submerge the pile in a deep bowl full of cold water. The next day, whenever I have an hour to myself, I sauté a flavor base of bacon, onion, garlic, celery and carrot (or whatever aromatic ingredients I happen to have around) and simmer the beans on medium in chicken stock, bouillon, or water until tender.

The following recipe for black beans is a basic one to build upon and to vary. Try black-eyed peas with bell pepper and ham, or pintos with sausage. Serve over rice or with cornbread, and garnish with cheese, sour cream, or hot sauce. If you have a CROCK POT (see last week's post) just throw in 1/2 lb washed beans with the ingredients. The slow cooking allows you to skip the soaking process.

2 cups soaked black beans
3 strips bacon
1 medium onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 rib celery, minced
1 small carrot, minced
3 cups chicken stock (bouillon or water)
1 tablespoon salt
1 small bay leaf

Heat a medium saucepan on a moderate flame and sauté bacon until the bottom of the pan is coated with rendered fat, then add aromatics (onion, garlic, celery and carrot). Saute aromatics in bacon fat until onions are translucent. Add bay leaf, stock, and salt and bring up to a boil. Add beans to boiling liquid, and reduce to simmer. Simmer 30 minutes. For a thick, smooth consistency, blend a cup of beans with cooking liquid and return to pot. Allow five more minutes of cooking time to integrate.

For the lazy, busy,or meek, there are a number of quality canned beans on the market: Amy’s, Goya, and Trader Joes all make above average products but are typically high in sodium and bear the unmaskable flavor of tin. Nothing, however, compares to doing it the slow way, the right way. Nurture your beans, and they will feed you tenfold in return.

To Crock

Crock Pots

The purpose of this weblog is, in part, to encourage cooking and all that that entails, particularly the intimate interaction with the food as it changes form. To learn to cook is to watch the food change color, to hear it sizzle in the pan or bubble thickly in the pot, to taste the difference between something fried, roasted, poached, or braised, to smell fresh, bright ingredients turn mellow over time.

And so it gives me pause to suggest a method of cooking that limits the development of skill and good sense in the kitchen. That said, it is only fair to provide easy alternatives for those for whom eating out is neither economical nor wholesome. The compromise is in the crock pot.

This electric slow cooker is easy enough for the fledgling cook to use and produces results fine enough to please a picky gourmand. It can be as simple as putting the ingredients in, turning it on, and coming back 4-8 hours later for a tender, savory one-pot meal.

The principle is simple: the low, even heat gently cooks food over several hours so that you can turn it on in the morning before class and come home to a succulent one-pot dinner. Ideal for anyone on a budget, the crock pot can turn a cheap, tough cut of meat into a meal you could eat with a spoon.

Melt a brick of Velveeta with a can of Rotel chilies and some browned hamburger meat and serve at parties with chips. Make homemade applesauce with 5 or 6 peeled sliced apples, a dusting of cinnamon, and a 1/2 cup of water. All of the following recipes can be adjusted to taste and require only the assembly of materials and the flick of a switch.

Pork Chops, Apples, and Onions
1/2 onion
4 pork chops
2-3 sliced apples
1 tsp salt and pepper
Assemble ingredients in the bottom of the pan, top with the lid, and cook on low for 6 hours. On a cold day, this is as good as home.

Texas Beef Brisket
3 lb cut of beef brisket
4 T Liquid Smoke (or Worcester Sauce)
celery powder
salt and pepper
1 onion diced
Season both sides of brisket with salt, pepper, celery powder and liquid smoke. Set in pan and top with onions. Put on lid and cook on low for 8 hours. This is my mother’s recipe, and it renders its own rich mahogany gravy. Serve with a loaded baked potato or as a sandwich with sliced onion, pickles and white bread.

Coq au Vin
4 pieces of chicken bone-in (dark and white meat)
3 slices bacon
1 tub of mushrooms
1/2 bottle dry red wine
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
Arrange chicken on floor of crock pot and lay all other ingredients on top. Cook lid-on for 4 hours on low or until tender. This version of the classic French dish might make Julia Child blanch, but it is remarkably simpler than her complicated recipe.

*Note:
-Farberware makes a good 6 quart slow cooker, but check out consumer reports and find out which model fits your budget and cooking needs.
-Keep the area around the crock pot clear and pull it away from the wall, making sure the outlet is secure and sound.
-Check with dorm room and apartment safety guidelines before leaving a crock pot unattended.
-Always put food in before turning the crock pot on—some pots crack when food is added to a pre-heated surface.

Sweet Rice

Growing up in Houston, I ate rice almost every night. Money was thin and rice was a way to make food stretch. To fill in the gaps on our plate, Mom would cook a small brisket, pork chops or whatever meat was on sale and steam a big pot of long-grain rice.

Sometimes she'd sauté it with ground beef and onion, a dish my sister and I loved; we called it dirty rice. Other times I'd eat a bowl of it all by itself, soft and fragrant, with butter, salt and pepper. Rice may have saved us, in a way, because I didn't even know we were struggling until I was older. Even after our situation became comfortable, rice stayed with us.

Different grains call for different ratios, and even humidity and atitude can effect a pot of rice, so find a rice you like and tinker. Mom had a special way of steaming our regular long-grain whites and has recited the recipe slowly and solemnly so many times for me, I can hear it in my head like a psalm.

For every cup of rice, boil one and a quarter cups of water in a heavy pot. Stir in the washed rice and bring back to the boil. Add a pat of butter and some salt then bring down the flame as low as you can get it. Cover with a tightly-fitting lid and cook for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and let it sit for ten more - and for goodness sakes, don't take off the lid. Fluff with a fork.

The kernels of rice should be firm and tender, cooked through but not burst. Allowing it to set off the heat evaporates any excess moisture without scorching the bottom. This is the recipe for the perfect rice I grew up on, but cooking times and liquid ratios vary depending on the grain of rice.

Fried Rice

With a couple of staple items like eggs, soy sauce and an onion, it is possible to transform a humble bowl of rice into a savory main course. Use day-old rice or freshly steamed, and heat up a nice big skillet. If you don't have a skillet, use whatever large pot you have, as long as it can accommodate the amount of rice you want to use.

And if you still don't have any pot big enough, sauté your ingredients and stir them into the heated rice. In my opinion, the bare necessities for basic fried rice are: oil, onion (or some aromatic), egg, rice and soy sauce.

Heat the oil to medium high, shimmering, but not smoking and add your aromatic. This can be a green onion, regular bulb onions, ginger or garlic. Be careful not to burn the garlic, which you may have to add after the rice.

Let the aromatic sauté for a minute or so then pour in as many beaten eggs as you like, followed quickly by the rice. I like an egg for every cup and a half to two cups of rice. Stir vigorously and slosh in some soy sauce. This is a matter of personal taste, so add less than you think you want and you can always use more when the rice is served.

The thing about fried rice is that virtually any frozen food or leftover item can be stirred in. Here are some other ingredients you might have around to toss in: frozen chicken (thawed and cut small), frozen vegetables, fresh vegetables (chopped fine), leftover beans, citrus zest, bacon or ham, red pepper flakes, hot sauce, sesame oil, tofu, bean sprouts or water chestnuts.

The dish is really quite forgiving. Everything is heated through and sauced, served in a steaming coherent mound. Top with sesame seeds, orange zest, chopped green onion, peanuts or another drizzle of oil to make it glisten.

As a graduate student with not a little debt in my future, I economize the way my mother did. I shop on sale and eat rice with almost every meal. There's a big sack of it against the wall in my kitchen, and after almost a year I had to refill it for the first time. When I go to look for food, and the empty fridge gapes open at me, I can turn to the sack of rice slouching by the door and find comfort.

Consider the Egg

In her timeless collection of essays, How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher devotes an entire section to the humble, wholesome egg. With this book, published in 1942, she intended to entertain and inspire people to economize gracefully and tastefully despite the imposition of rationing during the Second World War. In this particular essay entitled “How not to boil an egg,” Fisher describes the simple pleasures of a properly cooked egg, which must be eaten fresh or not at all. Without the benefit of widespread refrigeration, eggs were deemed perishable and--unless one had hens of ones own--were something of a commodity.

Though Fisher’s praise of the egg is ever relevant, her concerns about price and freshness are, thankfully, outdated. Today eggs are one of the cheapest sources of protein available and are ideal nourishment for anyone on a budget.

The egg is, in essence, a self-contained, nutritious environment for a potential embryo. Therefore, it is no surprise that it is second only to mother’s milk as the ideal food for people. Full of amino acids, protein, and varying amounts of 13 different vitamins, eggs are also moderately lean, containing about 5 grams of fat apiece.

There are probably hundreds of ways to prepare an egg. Poached, boiled, shirred, fried, pickled, whipped, and swallowed quickly, in one gulp, raw. And, like any fine actor, it plays supporting roles as deftly as leading ones. The egg is essential to most baked goods and desserts, to mayonnaise, custard, soufflet and quiche; it enriches, binds, gives levity and fluffs, softens, smoothes and fortifies.

Perhaps the simplest way to cook an egg is to boil it—or, as Fisher put it, not to boil it. That is, the best method of “boiling” eggs is to place them in a pot full of cold water, bring the water to a simmer, and turn off the heat. Because the protein in eggs toughens with intense heat, they shouldn’t be boiled directly. This kind of aggressive cooking also leads to a sulfurous stench and an unsightly green tinge around the yolk. Once the water has cooled, or after about 15 minutes, the eggs are ready to be submerged in ice water and peeled.

Eat it bare, or sliced on toast with salt and pepper; chopped and stirred into tuna, chicken, or potato salad; or crumbled over spinach with blue cheese and bacon. Chop several boiled eggs, then stir them into mayonnaise, minced celery and onion, and eat on a sandwich with a smear of chutney or fruit jam.

Another great food writer, Elizabeth David, wrote a book called An Omelet and a Glass of Wine, which evokes the elegant simplicity of the dish, not purely a breakfast food, but a proper meal at any hour.

A true omelet is difficult to master but worth every minute of practice. Because it involves high heat and constant, rapid agitation of the skillet, it’s easy to slosh or burn.

A good batch of scrambled eggs, however, involves less skill and anxiety. If preparing with other dishes, for Sunday brunch, for example, don’t begin the eggs until everything else is done. Scrambled eggs lose their luster within minutes of being cooked, and guests should be seated and ready to eat.

5 eggs
5 tablespoons milk
1 pat butter
Kosher salt
Ground pepper
Extras: chopped ham or bacon, sautéed onions, mushrooms, cheese (feta, goat, cheddar, swiss), spinach or herbs (parsley, tarragon, basil)

In a mixing bowl, combine eggs and milk with a fork. Melt a pat of butter in a non-stick skillet over medium low heat until it bubbles. Stir a pinch of kosher salt into the egg mixture then pour into the pan, stirring slowly with a heat-resistant rubber spatula. As soon as curds begin to form, turn the heat up to high, add any remaining ingredients, and use the spatula to fold the edges over themselves while gently shaking the pan so that the liquid settles to the bottom. As soon as there is no more liquid running to the bottom, but the eggs still look a little slick, remove from heat and serve. They will continue to cook from their own heat and shouldn’t be dry in the pan.

Tips:
*Fresh eggs sink in cool, salted water; rotten ones float.
*Check all eggs before purchasing. Cracked ones may have begun to spoil and can make one very, very ill.
*For fluffier omelets or scrambles, add a pinch of cornstarch before whisking briskly.

More than just a cookie

The moment Proust’s character, Marcel, tasted the crumbs of a madeleine soaked in lime tea, his soul was flooded with memories of childhood, enough to fill six volumes. Because eating involves all of our senses, so many of our most vivid memories are tied to food.

The value of comfort food extends far beyond the qualities of the meal itself—it has the power to unearth specific emotion and allows a person to reconnect with the past.

Having grown out of fruit roll-ups long ago, I tasted one recently and was flung to my early childhood when my cousin John and I were small enough to squeeze onto the walk-in cupboard shelves. There we looted boxes of the roll-ups that his parents had tried to store out of our reach, ripping the elastic sheets off their plastic backing, stuffing the tart, electrifyingly fruity wads into our mouths.

Freshly shelled pecans mean brisk fall days at the ranch, stooping over brown grocery bags, eating one pecan for every three I picked up. Simple pork chops, rice and tan gravy will always bring me home to my mom.

For those who can’t go home for Sunday dinner, the best remedy for homesickness is to learn a few recipes that you grew up with. It might be the macaroni and cheese with hot dog coins that only dad could fix the right way; or the microwaved s’mores your good-looking baby sitter fixed when you were being good. Whatever it is, get the recipe. I can’t count the number of times I’ve called my mother to ask the best way to make a dish—sharing food and recipes is an exchange of affection, and whomever you ask will be glad that you did.

Proust fans trying to recreate the magical Madeleine found that it was nothing more than a soft cookie—nothing, at least, to them. To Proust, it meant the world. It would behoove us all to try a recipe we loved as children. Learning to cook, for me, has been a steady attempt to recreate the dishes of my childhood. And if that’s all you learn, then it will be well worth the effort.

Cinnamon Toast
1 slice bread
1 pat softened butter
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp sugar

Without the memory of my mother patting the cinnamon out of its shaker and cutting the toast into fingers, this dish would still taste pretty dang good. It ought to be made in a toaster oven, but if you have a regular toaster with slots, toast the bread first, then smear with butter and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar evenly over the top. Cut into three fingers, and save the middle, the most buttery one, for last.

Buttered Broccoli
1 head broccoli
1/3 stick butter
Juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese

Peel stem of broccoli and cut the whole thing into bite sized pieces. Boil or steam the broccoli in salted water until it is tender but still green. Drain and return to pot, adding butter, lemon, salt and pepper. Stir until broccoli begins to break down and is almost mushy. Serve in a bowl with a scattering of parmesan cheese.

Chicken and Rice Soup
1 stalk celery
1 lg carrot
1 small onion
2 or 3 cans chicken broth
1 breast poached chicken, shredded
1 cup rice
salt and pepper

Dice celery, carrot and onion very small and sauté gently in a deep saucepan until just tender. Add chicken broth and bring to a simmer, then add chicken and turn off heat. Put a scoop of rice in the bottom of a mug or bowl and ladle the soup over it, salting and peppering to taste. We had this sometimes when mom had roasted a chicken and had leftover bits. The rest were ingredients we always seemed to have around.

To the Cannery

Recently, I revived my interest in canned tuna when, in a fit of inspiration, I decided to forgo the cursory mayonnaise bath and send olive oil in its stead. I tumped the whole lot on a loose mound of romaine and endive, squelched a lemon on top with plenty of salt and pepper. The salad I had created, while nothing groundbreaking, was so clean, and almost noble, I pulled back to examine what made me so impressed with my experiment.

It was, in fact, the realization that canned fish could be frugal and elegant.

Galvanized, I tried another fish--a much reviled, slimy seeming bunch, the butt of so many jokes about claustrophobia: Sardines.

What I found was tender, unfishy meat, far more succulent than any tuna I've eaten. I felt very old-fashioned and hard core about eating these slim silver fish straight out of their can, overlooking any bone that peeked out, because it utterly
dissolved in my mouth..

Sardines are so portable, with their peel-back lid that I now bring them to work with a whole lemon, a handful of parsley, a baggie of crackers and salt and pepper (and a stout mint before I return)

One could serve them as an appetizer on a white plate, giving each fish plenty of room. Brighten with lemon juice and drizzle olive oil, green on the plate, and serve a basket of dry white crackers (like Melba) on the table.

Once converted to canned fish, I ventured to try smoked oysters and salmon. The Oysters were adorable, little caramel nuggets in neat rows, and the perfect size for a small melba. They tasted gently smoky but distinctively, essentially Oyster. The consistency was not so interesting and meaty as a fresh oyster--the canned felt more like fine clay between the teeth. But that didn't make them any less enjoyable.

I did not enjoy canned salmon directly, but found it worked well fried into cakes. I mixed with leftover potato hash or mashed potatoes, chopped onion, and mayonnaise, then rolled in japanese breadcrumbs like a poor man's crabcake.

Of course I wouldn't presume to replace fresh fish with canned. They can, I think, coexist, like cucumbers and pickles--distant cousins with very different jobs. But--unlike their high-maintenance relatives--the canned ones certainly are patient, waiting indefinitely for someone to peel back their tab and enjoy.

Something Old

For the last few months I've been writing a column for the Daily Trojan newspaper at USC. Since much of what I wrote was tailored to the modest budgets of college students, I'd like to include some of the essays in this blog. If it looks familiar, it is.