graficionada

Mr. Congeniality

2011-02-03T20:15:00.005-06:00

I was walking around my apartment Wednesday morning, brushing my teeth and looking bemusedly yet uneasily out the window at the unholy mess falling from the sky/blowing around my building/overtaking the entire city with its arctic chaos. I’m a traveling tooth-brusher; I like to mosey as I brush. So it took me a few extra minutes to get to my phone to see the text from my coworker, informing me that the day’s training had been cancelled and that I could take the day off.

After a triumphant victory dance session to my very favorite cotton candy jams for about 10 minutes (AHEMjustinbieber), I stood, staring out the window, wondering what I was going to do with this Glorious Surprise Day Off. I could go straight back to bed! I could go outside and build a snow man! I could bake cookies! I could make soup! I could watch piles of Seinfeld DVDs! I could read one of the two food-geek books I had recently purchased, or one of the three gorgeous cookbooks I got for Christmas! I could clean my apartment! I could bury my dying houseplants in the rapidly-accumulating snow and give them a very strange and dramatic farewell!

Overwhelmed by the possibilities, I went with an old reflex: I called my mother.

Mom: So, what are you going to do today?

Me: There are about fifty things I could do, but I can’t decide what’s the best, or most important.

Mom: You could blag.

Me: I could what?

Mom: Blag!

Me: I’m sorry, what?

Mom: You know, write in your blag!

Blag. Like the first part of former Governor Blagojevich’s nickname. Blago. Blag. I’m a blagger.

God, I love Chicago.

Mom: Well, whatever you do, you should call Grandma. She’d love to hear from you.

What my mom might not realize as she reminds me to dutifully call my grandmother is that I have a really great time talking to Grandma Eleanor on the phone. Eleanor is a chatter. Eleanor likes to hash it ALL out. I can tell Grandma Eleanor stuff that would make anyone else yawn, roll their eyes, change the subject, claim they have a sock drawer to organize, or any combination thereof. I like to talk about the minutiae, and so does Grandma.

So I call Grandma and we chat. She talks about the neighbor who is supposed to visit her driveway with a recently-downgraded snowblower, and expresses doubt as to whether he and it will be able to get the job done. She suddenly interrupts herself, almost as if she’s had an epiphany that I might have had a more important reason to call on my newly-awarded ain’t-got-jack-to-do snow day than just to chat. She asks if I’m engaged yet. She’s started doing this lately, which is mostly funny, because although things are kind of headed in that direction, I have as vague an idea as she does. I tell her as much, and she continues her story as if nothing happened. I love this about her. We talk about the goings-on in Egypt and agree we are both relieved that my brother is escaping the fray and coming back to Chicago, safe and sound. We talk about the weather, this blizzard and blizzards of yore, and then circle it back to snow blowers. We both take that as a sign that we’ve covered every possible topic, and that we’ll talk again soon.

I watch about 4 consecutive Seinfeld episodes (season 2, when things get weird with Elaine & Jerry for a minute, but then everything is hunky-dory and mundane and wonderful again). I’m snuggled under a large blanket and about every 20 minutes or so, I burrow, contentedly, further underneath the blanket. I also sigh and grin a little with pure satisfaction.

I think about a conversation I had a few years ago with a friend in grad school. We were talking about the beautiful burden of synonyms in the English language; that there are about a thousand words for “pleasant,” each with its own different shade and connotation. We talked more specifically about the academic’s penchant for familiarizing himself with every last one of those synonyms, and his (our) pride in deploying them in just the right situation. His very favorite example of this is the proclamation of one professor who was hosting a visiting professor in his house: “The guest room is a bit small, but I think you’ll find it quite congenial.”

That was my day: congenial. Hunkered down (up) in my snug, wee apartment, with enough provisions to keep me fed for the day, a little smartphone to keep me connected, and all the books, blankets and tea I could ever want. This was congenial. This was livin’.

Later on, after the snow had stopped and the sun sort of came out, and I saw figures down on the street venturing back into the world, I began texting with a friend, Danielle, about meeting for a celebratory we-lived-through-the-Blizzard-of-2011 cocktail. We were both very much behind the idea, but realized that, much like our places of employ, not many places would be open on a day like this. So she checks around and LO: one of my very favorite places in the whole city is open.

Vincent. Have you been?

I looked at the clock, then looked outside, then called Danielle.

“It’s still daylight out there and it looks sort of magical. I kind of want to be out there like, righthisecond. How quickly can you be ready?”

We agreed we could meet in about 30 minutes at the corner of Bryn Mawr and Broadway, near where she lives, and walk over to Clark & Balmoral, where Vincent is tucked away in all of its cozy and chic and warm and delicious glory.

We walk in, and we’re greeted by Mike, the bartender for the evening (and the server I’ve been lucky enough to have each time I’ve gone in). Not two seconds later, Joncarl pops out of the kitchen, and “HIIIIIIIIII!!”s and hugs are distributed. Danielle had been in there recently with her mother, and since both are ebullient and memorable, Joncarl also remembered her. (I think this is how he works – you go into his restaurant with your parents, and it’s like you’re cemented in his brain for life. Or maybe only if your parents are lovely. I need to research this more.)

The guys explain that they are a staff of three that evening, and that they look forward to another surprisingly busy night. Apparently they had quite a few people stumble in from the storm the night before, and that night, much like the one that brought us in, was one of almost giddy triumph in the face of the most ruthless and inclement weather.

Sure enough, signaled by a small cold gust as the front door opened, the face of each entering patron held an almost expectant, surprised glee – as if they had been tromping through snow drifts for hours solely on a mere rumor that, somewhere around here, there’s a lovely, warm little restaurant that will take you in and make you a nice cheese plate and a gin drink. “Wow!! It really is true! It’s all here!” their faces seemed to say.

Between congratulating ourselves and other guests on our victorious and safe arrivals at the bar, we ordered some drinks (both with marvelous Dutch gin), and some salads and frites. Danielle and I talk to each other, to our new friends, to Mike, to Joncarl… and suddenly, Danielle and I look at each other, eyebrows piqued, then we look around the room.

Something. Smells. GORGEOUS. What is that what is that what IS THAT?! Our eyes settle on Nick, the third musketeer on staff, swanning about the room holding a pan and smiling coyly.

“It’s just cinnamon,” he says. So apparently you warm it up in a pan and it gets supercalifragilistically fragrant.

Not that this is shocking. Danielle and I both comment that we actually feel kinda dumb for not having figured that one out on our own.

By this time we are pleasantly sated and a little sotted. The music is good, and playing at the level I like to think of as “fun loud.” Nick turns on a Florence and the Machine song (yes, That One. It’s the jam, and I won’t apologize.) There are about 9 patrons in the restaurant, and 7 of whom are in the front bar area, talking and laughing. I’m ogling the St. Germain and before I know it, I’ve been handed a champagne drink with a glug of St. Germain and some lemon peel. Joncarl comes out of the kitchen with two wee tiny forks, each with a small piece of steak on the end. He hands them ceremoniously to Danielle and me and we take them as he explains that flank steak really is one of his favorites. (Mine too!) Danielle orders a beer – her nightcap – and asks for a Hollandia. She is informed by a pleased Joncarl that it is, in fact, “a total Dutch dockworker’s beer” and that she is awesome for having ordered it.

So I’ve painted the scene. All of this happened. And all of it, despite the zillion more ways I could describe the evening, calls to mind only one word. Yes, it’s congenial.

God, I love Chicago, part 2: Its restaurants. Not all of them, of course. Because not all of them are congenial. Some are cozy, some are comfortable, some produce thoughtful but approachable food, some are priced for normal people, some have wonderful and warm staff. Very few of them, though, are all of those things.

On my way out, I try to explain to Joncarl why I love his restaurant so much. I like HB, too (his other restaurant, and a BYOB), and for many of the same reasons. However, I love to cozy up to the bar sometimes for dinner, and if that bar is mirrored, so much the better. I’m a sucker for an interesting cocktail list. And for gin. And for bartenders that hand you a plate of housemade pickles, even though you certainly did not order the pickled herring shot. But mostly it’s because I’m convinced each time I go that the food at Vincent is from someone’s very deepest, most earnest heart.

So I don’t know what I’m telling you. I’m telling you I got a snow day, and that I talked to my grandma, and rolled around my apartment watching old sitcoms and reading books, and that I went out later and had a rollicking wonderful time during which I was quite pleased to have survived such a gnarly storm. Yesterday almost felt like another New Year’s Day. (Except without the debilitating hangover and marathon episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter.) So maybe happy New Year. Maybe congratulations to all of you for pulling through. Here’s a toast to congeniality, and to all of the things that, just one month in, still await us in 2011.

Reboiled, revisited, all the time.

2011-01-18T10:16:00.007-06:00

So it's wintertime again, and that can only mean one thing.

(Well... it actually means a lot of things, like wool socks and extra comforters and, lately, matinees. But I know you know what I'm thinking...)

It means soup. And I feel like it's safe to say that the Official Soup of Winter 2010-2011 is ribollita.

Ribollita is peasant food. Ribollita translates to "reboiled" in Italian, because you first boil the beans (traditionally), then boil the whole shebang again later. Ribollita is beans and cabbage and whatever soupish vegetables you've got lying around (because wintertime also means buying 5-pound bags of onions and carrots and working your way through them, only sometimes creatively). Ribollita is cheap as hell and gets better as it sits. Ribollita is versatile - the original recipe I used, by Mario Batali, called for leeks and potatoes, in addition to a silly bundle of fresh herbs that one is to remove before serving. Over the course of the last four batches, I forgot the leeks and potatoes once, then ditched the leeks indefinitely because I don't know any peasants, Italian or otherwise, who can find a halfway decent leek in the middle of a Chicago winter, and honestly they didn't really add much to the finished product. I did pick the potatoes back up, and that ridiculous bouquet garni (again, what peasant does a bouquet garni???) has been traded for stripping the herbs off their stems, whole, and left in the soup to simmer into oblivion. So there.

(Don't Get Me Wrong: Or, a note about Mario Batali: I do actually like Mario Batali very much. I like that he makes simple Italian food taste amazing and look really sexy but honest [like me!] [heh], but I think sometimes when you're a Really Big Deal your common sense abandons you while you're picking out new orange Crocs.)

The first time I made this soup, it was for Break & Enter Monday a few months back, when Danny was sick and I was off work for the day and craving a long, relaxed afternoon in a kitchen. I had some pantry veg and an idea to make something very hearty and well-making, and kind of new. I followed Batali's recipe exactly, down to the garlic toasts and a few shaves of parmigiano. Since then, this soup has been made for special occasions, like a New Year's Eve potluck dinner party, served with a fat, lofty Italian loaf and some hard sheep's cheese. It's also been a weekday workhorse that, even after eating it for lunch 4 times in a week, is hard to stay mad at. It's been made using water and using vegetable stock. It's been made in a 10-quart stockpot (OH HAY best Christmas gift ever), a 5-quart pot originally belonging to my grandfather's stepmother, and a bazillion-quart beast of a pot with about a 3-foot handle originally belonging to my grandfather's birth mother. It's been made with bits of spicy Italian sausage, and it's been made with zero meat and double kale. I've made it almost every other week for the last two months.

This sort of consistency and dependability is nice, because 2011 is already getting off to a bustling, sometimes wonky, start. As I write this, I'm searching for bed & breakfasts in southern Michigan for a weekend getaway in February, making an appointment for a much-needed haircut, cleaning a colony of Weird Glasses Schmear off of my new (AWESOME) glasses, and slipping into the living room for 15 minutes at a time to watch Rachel Zoe on Bravo. (What.) I'm not at my apartment, I'm at Danny's. I'm not on my computer, I'm on Danny's. My laptop bit the dust just before Christmas and it's unclear as yet whether it can be resurrected or if I need to let 'er go and pony for a new one. I move into this very apartment in three months and underneath the logistical pains in the tuchus - cleaning out my closet and confronting years of questionable shoe/bag/clothing choices, leaving my beloved neighborhood and all of its surrounding streets and haunts, figuring out what to do with a veritable Noah's Ark of housewares and furniture once the households combine - is this weird bubble of excitement and calm and happiness. Excited to finally do this, calm in no small part because two households and two parts of town and two everyday lives will just, finally, be under one roof, and happy that it all feels so steady and sure and welcome.

But in the meantime my resolution stands. It's a modest one, but my goal for now is to start blogging again, once a month. The blog will be the same as it's always been; it will be about food and about the kinds of everydayness that bring me into the kitchen (whether it's mine or Danny's). There will be photos again once I have a halfway decent technology setup (i.e. not now; i.e. once I get a laptop up & running), but for now we're going back to the old school. 'Cause I'm a old fool. Who is, of course, so cool.

You'll just have to trust that it looks - and tastes - as good as it sounds.

And in the meantime, I suggest you give yourself over to the making and eating of the Best, Most Comforting Winter Treat I've encountered in a long time. Get out a long wooden spoon, pin back your hair, turn on the album of Italian accordion tunes your grandmother gave you. It's very rewarding, I promise.

Ingredients:
(a quick note: all of these ingredients are completely flexible. If you've got 4 carrots that are on their last legs, throw all of them in. If your onion is mutantly large, it's okay. If you insist on putting leeks in every last thing you eat, regardless of season, size, or quality, I certainly won't fault you for it. Put 'em in, coach.)

1 medium white/yellow onion
3 cloves of garlic, or more if you're into it. (You'll need one of these to rub across the toasts.) (That's what she said.)
2 carrots
2 ribs of celery
2 waxy potatoes/ (Yukon Golds work fine for this, but if you've got other varieties available, go for it.)
1-2 bunches Tuscan/lacinato/dinosaur/black kale. (For God's sake WHY does this kale - my favorite of all the leafies - have 67,000 names???) (I say 1-2 bunches because I adore kale and especially if you're making this soup vegan/vegetarian, you're well-advised to bulk it up with the good stuff.)
1/2 head white cabbage. (Don't worry, the other half will keep for a week or two in the fridge - just in time for your next batch. If you see spots on the outer leaf, just peel that bitch off and chop up the rest.)
2 cans cannellini beans - NOT drained!
1 sprig rosemary
3 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
1 shitload vegetable broth (ideal) or water (not ideal, but perfectly serviceable). I avoid exact measurement here because it sort of depends on how brothy you want your soup and how big your pot is. If you want more of a thick stew to serve over toast, use less liquid. If you want something more brothy, use more. I like a consistency somewhere in between. Especially if you're using broth, the soup is so flavorful that the brothy part is just as enjoyable as the chunks.
Your trusty bottle of olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste
Optional: a few energetic shakes of red pepper flakes.
Optional: 1 pound mild or spicy Italian sausage, casings removed. If I'm using sausage in this I usually do 1/2 pound of each. You can also totally use Italian turkey or chicken sausage if you like.
Optional: 1 big-ass Parmigiano rind, for simmering.
Optional: 1 hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano, or a hard Pecorino (not Romano) for grating.
Optional: a few slices of crusty bread.

In terms of hardware beyond a knife and cutting board, you'll need the following:

An enormous pot. Aim for an 8-quart daddy, if you can.
A long spoon that will reach the bottom of that pot while still affording you some decent leverage - you'll need this when you add the kale & cabbage.

So now do this:

Chop everything but the garlic. Mince that, except for one clove, which you should just cut in half.
If you're using sausage, brown that in the bottom of the pot you're using. Once it's cooked, put it in a bowl and set aside.
Saute the onions and garlic in a swish of oil for about 10 minutes at medium heat - until the onions are translucent and tasty-looking.
Add the carrots, garlic, potatoes and herbs, and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the kale and cabbage. This is where your long spoon and your elbow really get called into service. These will wilt down as they heat, and you'll help this along by getting them closer to the heat source (i.e. the bottom of the pot). With your spoon, shimmy the other vegetables from the bottom to the top, and let the kale & cabbage tumble to the bottom. Let this cook down for another 10 minutes or so.
Add the beans AND their bean-water-stuff, and the broth or water, crank the heat to high, and bring the whole thing to a boil. Once you do that, simmer that bad boy for 45 minutes or so.
In the meantime! And if you're making those garlic toasts!: heat your oven to 300. Rub the halved garlic clove across each slice of bread, then throw them into the oven. Let the bread toast for a while, the time depending on the heat of your oven and the staleness/freshness of your bread. I like it to get nicely dried out so that it's still got some texture when I pour the soup over it, and for me this generally means 20 minutes in the low oven. You can also just put the bread in the toaster - the only difference is that it just won't get dried all the way through.
When the soup is done simmering, fish out the bay leaf, or leave it in and invent a game in which the person who gets the bay leaf in his or her soup is the winner of a tour of dishwashing duty. Or a cocktail. Or both.
Serve the soup over the toasts, or alone. Grate some cheese over it if you like. I also like a few grinds of black pepper over top of everything, as well as a bit of red pepper flake if I didn't put it in the soup.

See you next month. Or maybe sooner. In any case, hopefully with something that's not soup. (I've been getting way into bean salads lately, if that's any indication...)

Hold the brains.

2010-07-07T20:30:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was one of those days that went from okay to great to amusingly weird to annoying and back to okay again.

Okay, I suppose lots of days can be like that.

I was teaching my usual Tuesday orientation at work, kicking serious ass and touching serious nerves in my brief history of American farming from 1945 to the present when... the lights went out at work.

Now, I work in a big place. It's like a spaceship. We have more employees than some small towns. And yet, amid placid murmurings in the hallway of brownouts and backup generators, the power stayed out. For two hours.

Priorities shifted. I had to cut short my rhapsodizing on cover crops and horticultural light oils, to say nothing of the store tour, to say absolutely nothing of the post-tour cookies. I barked a mandatory OSHA presentation to my group on the noisy mezzanine, where there was daylight, at least, with the limited battery power left on my laptop. It was like Dilbert at the Apocalypse.

Some minutes after my group left in pitch blackness, armed at least with aprons and schedules (but lacking entirely in knowledge of mop sinks and confined spaces), the power returned. I retreated to my office and did whatever simple busywork remained, too addled to do anything of consequence.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but I am highly uncomfortable when things do not go according to my (obviously perfect, infallible) plans.

So I finished my work and went downstairs in search of comfort (food). Though order had been restored to my life, I was utterly without patience. Dinner last night = veggie tacos.

Before any of the cilantro and onion and lime and red pepper and avocado, however - in fact, right as I grabbed a basket - I saw a basket of fava beans in their shells. I knew that I had had fava beans before, but not only had I failed to remember what they tasted like, the only thing I could associate with them at that moment was Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lechter talking about fava beans and Chianti and brains and being super gross.

And yet. Cannibalism aside: I desired them.

I selected six firmish pods and went in search of cilantro. I didn't know what I'd do with the fava beans, and by the time I had found my El Milagro corn tortillas, I had pretty much forgotten about them altogether. The sensation of grocery-store-impulse-amnesia was remarkable; it was the same feeling you get when you've picked out some kind of ice cream novelty item or something out of desperate haste for a lovely treat you've decided you deserve. Except my ice cream novelty was... beans.

But no matter. Today came around, and after a solid 8 hours of active, weird, mostly wonderful dreaming and my favorite workday breakfast, it was an active, weird, and mostly wonderful day at work. Throughout the day, I bounced the fava beans around in my head, but since I couldn't remember their taste (only brains and Chianti), I had to call in reinforcements.

I searched "fava beans" on Epicurious. The third recipe down looked lovely, and comforting, and like it could involve a respectable pat of butter in a saute pan. (I've reunited with butter on certain occasions, inspired, mostly, by my recent acquisition of the most delightful book about cooking and gardening ever. Jamie Oliver enjoys excellent produce and cooking it simply. Often, this means sauteing in butter. Excellent.)

However, the recipe was also trying to tell me that it was appropriate to be making homemade ricotta gnocchi on a Wednesday night. This was asking entirely too much. (There is also a mention of boiling your leek, which I simply won't abide.)

No no. My methods would be simple. My ingredient list would be simple.

Chanting: "Leek, sage, gnocchi, ricotta. Leek, sage, gnocchi, ricotta."

My mantra and I went downstairs and sailed through the store. I rode home in the almost-storm and made it inside before the fat drops began to fall. I took off my shoes and my jeans (summer policy in my apartment dictates pantslessness for a full 10 minutes before any further activity and/or re-clothing can occur) and turned on a Dr. John album.

The music reminded me of the vacation to New Orleans that Danny and I have one or two times idly imagined. The rain, viewed among neighbor buildings and surprisingly calm clouds through my big window from my just-slightly-wider-than-a-galley kitchen, reminded me of all the times I used to mock, or celebrate, the weather and the rest of the world by cooking something cool and then writing about it.

It's obvious that things are different now. The food blog of yore was my rabbit hole - a way to be the person I wanted to be, and actually kind of was, in spite of a work life and non-work life I felt hesitant to let define me. It kept me off the streets, out of bars, away from work, away from bad dates and toxic people - and in the kitchen, either alone or with good people. It defined me quite tidily, and I liked it.

Now, I have a work life I'm proud of and excited about. I have a non-work life that's positive, that I love and find worthy of focused cultivation. This life also involves a lot of kebob-grilling and taco-esque concocting with a lovely, funny, caring dude - somewhat repetitious (but no less delicious, of course) cooking done in the context of a relationship I still believe should stay relatively protected and private. I still care about good food, but I care less about proving to myself and everyone else that I can make it and live to tell the tale. Now I have a few things that define me, not just one, and I'm still - after the handful of months of blog-delinquency - pleasantly surprised at how much I actually kinda like it.

So I have a conversation at Pork of July (no seriously) with Danny's friend about this blog. He enjoyed the writing and the stories. He encourages me to pick it back up. I explain my dilemma. He understands. I tell him to fix it for me. He tells me he can't find my voice for me. Hmph. I know this, and I know this is the actual challenge.

And I have a conversation last night with Kristy about the same thing. And about the guilt I feel, and about the distinct creative desire to write, and about the vague motivation that only sometimes stirs me somewhere. She tells me it will come back, and I announce I will let it rest. Which is a big deal for me.

So tonight. Dr. John. Fava beans. I peel down the soft spine on the side of the shell to crack it all open, and to my surprise, find these little beans couched in a gauzy inner coat. The beans themselves look like big, pretty, pale lima beans. I drop them into some boiling water for a couple of minutes, then into an ice bath. I pop them out of their shells into a pan, already sizzling softly with leeks, sage, white pepper, olive oil, and yes, butter. The gnocchi go into the pot, cook for another couple of minutes, and join the beans & leeks & sage in the pan.

It's all tossed. It's all sprinkled with more white pepper and some salt. It's crowned with ricotta.

It is... really delicious. The leeks have been thoroughly caramelized, and the fava beans taste, well, a bit like lima beans in their soft starchiness, but the flavor is much nicer - sweeter. And it's all really beautiful. (I love a well-edited food color scheme.) It's completely something that I would make for a kinda-special occasion. Or, for a super special occasion, I would make the gnocchi and the ricotta myself (but NOT ricotta gnocchi, thankyouverymuch. I like to taste my cheese).

So it's a successful night. Dinner was glorious, and this post somehow managed to just kind of write itself. It feels like what it used to feel like. I don't know what this means (hopefully, obviously, it means that the flow is back and this will be happening more often), but I hope you enjoyed it. I've missed doing this, and I've missed knowing that at least a couple of people read it and maybe kinda like it. See you soon.

Salad for Breakfast, and Other Newfangled Ideas

2010-04-13T23:57:00.001-05:00

Whoa. It hath been a long time, guys. In the last four days, the tree outside my window has gone from bare to puffy with little leaf buds. In the last four weeks, my new job has gone from making me feel excited but kind of useless to excited and halfway capable.

"Things are happening now."

Fabulous, no? But let's be real here: In the last four months, I've posted... pretty much jack-shit. So I stink. And I'm sorry.

Because my schedule for many months was both erratic and irregular, it was not only near impossible for me to plan a day or two of writing, but also impossible for me to come up with very many cool things to cook after closing down the cheese cave and rolling into my kitchen at 10:30pm, sometimes with a 5:30 wakeup the next morning to go play Big Sister Grammar Coach at a small university in the suburbs. For a while it was a lot of breakfast-for-dinner (shock of shocks) and a lot of cooking with... well, the new boyfriend.

Who, I suppose, is maybe not quite so new anymore. It's been 6 months, and though he did play a starring role in some recent posts, I also didn't feel totally comfortable about chronicling our cooking together on this here blog. The relationship was too new for me to feel okay about saying, "Hey, is it alright if I compose, then post for the whole world to see, an amusing but probably a little bit personal vignette about tonight's Bachelor Tacos?" I'm sure he would have been lovely about it, but cooking with someone you want to learn a lot about, to me, deserves undivided attention.

So here we are now. My schedule: Infinitely more humane and supportive of a cooking (not to mention social) life. My job: Still working for a company and an enterprise that I believe in, and getting closer to helping people think in ways that foster a happy, thoughtful existence. I also get paid to read articles on food, farming, healthy eating, and why people choose the foods they do. Rock & roll.

In this meantime of the last few months, and the last few weeks in particular, I've started to think about meals differently. What makes dinner dinner? What foods, in our minds, constitute breakfast's breakfastiness? (Why am I secretly really excited that Heidegger just got dragged out?) Can someone have soup? - or salad? - for breakfast, if its nutrition & flavor profiles happen to be what that person's body craves at the beginning of a day? When did dessert become a legitimate food group to put in our bodies first thing in the morning? Or, really, when did it become okay for us to not think beyond conventional food standards, and more importantly, how can we start to think beyond them now?

So this is the kind of stuff I'm thinking about now. I mean, I'm also thinking about massive spring salads. And hand-rolled whole-wheat pasta. And homemade mustard. These things won't end. But I'm thinking the blog will also, hopefully, be a place where I (we) can discuss some of the bigger ideas that drive us to eat and cook and make the things we do.

Yes?

It's soup again!

2010-02-22T00:00:00.002-06:00

But this time, you can have some.

Come to the Hideout this Wednesday, February 24 for Soup & Bread. Learning from last year's capacity issues (read: two too-smallish pots), I've now got my mother's Big Red Stockpot on loan and I'm finna make a towering vat of steaming goodness.

Crockpots get fired up at 5:30, and I'd suggest getting there around that time or shortly thereafter to ensure you get a decent tasting of what looks like the 6 soups to be served that evening. Proceeds go to First Slice.

See you there!

Come on-a my house.

2010-01-30T23:17:00.000-06:00

It was a harried holiday season, you guys. Lovely and festive and there was music and dancing and silliness and cookies and layers and layers of blankets. But good gawd, it was exhausting. I'm just now coming out of the aftershocks and realizing, like I do every year, that I might prefer the smaller treasures of the ordinary to the joyous, exuberant excesses of the extraordinary. (Might.)

In recent months, with a work schedule that changes every week and often precludes me from joining cronies for weekend brunches, I've gotten really good at luring friends to my apartment of a Wednesday morning for what often turns out to be some form of Peasant Breakfast.

I was also gifted this past hurliday season with two pounds of coffee from a lil' joint in Michigan called Biggby Coffee. And - nicest gift ever from folks I've still sort of technically never met (to be remedied in early February)- a coffee grinder. So I casually add to my prospective guests that there will be freshly ground, French-pressed coffee.

And LO! A social life/cottage breakfast industry is born.

So a couple of weeks ago, after waking up one day and realizing that my time, once again, belonged solely to me and my doings, I reached out to a handful of friends. "I miss your radiant face." "You. Me. Burritos." "It's been at least a thousand years. Let's drink, honey." "I have a dozen eggs and a cast-iron skillet with our names on them."

I announced something like this last bit to my girl Cara, who responded favorably. We made plans for breakfast and coffee and music and food-talk for an approaching weekday morning. The day came, and she asked what I needed her to bring. I informed her I was still in possession of the eggs and skillet, as well as the abovementioned coffee, "umm, a fresh multigrain loaf, some buttery French triple creme, some kale, and some spicy Italian chicken sausage. No casing." She informed me she would fly to me in the company of a shallot.

Cara arrived, I pressed the coffee, and we sipped and talked. After about 30 minutes, we wandered into the kitchen to get breakfast started. I was, however, hesitant to suggest outright the (admittedly obvious) potential for Peasant Breakfast.

Because I make it All. The. Time.

I mean, it's not that I have no other ideas. (In fact, I've got lots, and the collection of thoughts for new breakfast delicacies and cravings is expanding rapidly these days. Post on "rethinking breakfast" forthcoming, and soon.) It's just that Peasant Breakfast is so flippin' delicious. And easy. And versatile. [Starch + creamy thing + green(s) (+ optional meat) + soft-fried egg with cooked white and runny yolk] ^ stacked = peasant breakfast. Baguette-goat cheese-spinach-egg. Polenta-ricotta-escarole-sausage-egg. Latke-farmer cheese-kale-egg. Sourdough-brie-arugula-pulled pork-egg.

See?

So you'll imagine my relief when, looking at the collection of breakfasty treasures on my counter, Cara said, "Ummm, could we just make, you know, like, a good old Peasant Breakfast with this stuff?"

GOD YES.

So we did. Toasted a couple thick slices of the billion-grain loaf. Shmeared some St. Andre on top once the toasts cooled (after coming to the happy mutual conclusion that we disliked when warm bread melted thick, creamy, gooey cheese. "I want texture," we chorused). Threw the chicken sausage in a pan with thinly sliced shallots and olive oil. Tore up the kale and cooked it down in the pan with the sausage & shallots. Fried up a couple of eggs.

Stacked it.

Replicable? Totally. Like, weekly? Sure. Formulaic? You bet.

BUT: Comforting? Oh yes. Easy? Yep. Kickass? YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

Here's to working with what you've got, calling a spade a spade, and honoring favorites in 2010.

Cheap Chic: Return of the Lobster Carcass

2010-01-18T23:29:00.000-06:00

You guys remember this.

Summer of Terror, 2009: Death and Lobster Rolls.

Welp after a six-month deep freeze, I'm hauling out the variety bucket of lobster-carcass-parts and, um, dead lobster juice. I mean, that is, the - theoretically very tasty - water in which we cooked the lobsters. And I'm making lobster stock.

Because, buddies, I am le broke. (Idea for 2010: Make a little bit more money while maintaining my distance from things that stifle this little light of mine. I'm working on it.) So while a little know-how can alchemize for me a little kitchen gold out of something I helped to do months ago, what it can't do is magically spirit me some sweet, sweet claw meat without bumping some chedda from my checking.

SO: what do you make with lobster stock when you don't have any lobster? (And you're STILL obsessed with soup?)

Enter cioppino. My mother was a raving fan of the stuff until she heard the theory at Glenn's Diner (where everything, from the cioppino to the service - to the lobster rolls, come to think of it - is mind-blowing) that cioppino was actually born in the Bay Area, where fishermen & fishing families would get together and "chip in" to make big pots of seafood soup from the bits and pieces they had sitting around. The rest, allegedly, is just catchy Italian phonetics. I'm not sure how much credence I give to this, but it sure is hilarious to see my mom's sweeping disavowal of something when she learns it originated in California. (You'll have to get her thoughts on the matter sometime; all I can tell you is that the magnitude of her reverence for rules and order is nearly eclipsed by her staunchness in insisting that California is a state that functions on neither.

One thing I do know is that cioppino, regardless of its origins, is one of those blessedly flexible soups that only asks for Kinds of Things, as opposed to These Things And No Others. Cioppino, in my experience and (very recent, very limited) research calls for a seafood stock, whatever sea creatures you've got lying around, and maybe some vegetables and herbs. Beyond that, it's your game.

Which is good. Because I've got dead, meatless lobster (aka seafood stock), and a couple of other things...

A handful of wee bay scallops (also socked away in my freezer for a rainy day). (Because my rainy days entail the consumption of semi-luxurious seafood items, apparently.)
Some, um, mature celery ribs
A head of garlic
Tomato paste

Like, literally. That's it. Okay, that's maybe 4 out of the 7 viable/edible items I currently have in my possession. I respect and completely believe in the "chip in" philosophy (very similar to Shit From My Fridge, no?), but I keep finding it difficult to believe that La Bonne Maman Four Fruits preserves will complement seafood.

What I did not have until quite recently was:

Some shrimp. ("Chreemps.")
A very neat-looking mahi mahi fillet (it was on sale; any firm-fleshed fishy will do. In fact, any fish will do.)
About four little squid fillets
A bulb of fennel
A big, fat yellow onion
Two potatoes
Three carrots

So I came home and lined up my modest battalion. Not bad, really. Everything I need to make a huge pot of something that will feed me for a week, maybe more. (Okay, lunch & dinner, at least. Breakfast, as you know, goes a little something like this. Yes, still.)

I get to work on the stock. And by now, you know the drill. Put dead creature parts in pot, cover with water, add whatever herbs/peppercorns/root vegetables you're willing to part with (AND A BAY LEAF. God, this is totally another post for another time, but if there is one thing I've learned about making soup - okay, two - it's that you can't make a good soup without good stock and a damn bay leaf. It MAKES it. You'll see), and simmer until you've watched 4 episodes of 30 Rock and called your mother. Or something. Drain to remove bones and other detritus.

In that same pot, once I've drained the stock into a large bowl for the time being, I cook down the celery, onion, carrots, garlic, and fennel. There's butter and olive oil in the pot, and lots of salt and pepper.

Then, in my balla-baby 5-quart saute pan, I sear the little pieces of mahi mahi that I've cut up. This takes about 5 minutes, after turning them a few times and making sure I've got some good texture going. Then I add the scallops, shrimp, and squid (which I've cut into little rings). I cook this - gently, gently - until the shrimp are certainly white, but definitely not pink yet. I'll cook the whole mess in the big pot at the end, and while I do want everything to be cooked safely, I am also easily saddened by overcooked seafood. So I add some of the stock to pull up the fishy bits from the pan, and wait a minute or two. Once this is simmering gently, I dump it all into the big pot with the vegetables, add the rest of the stock, a hefty squirt of tomato paste, and the potatoes, which I've cut into small but hearty chunks. I bring all of this up to a quiet simmer, work it for about 10 minutes - really just until the potatoes are done - and consider my work done.

(This is at my desk. Which is now by the window. For ease of writing and flow of creativity. There's a very old Polaroid of my brother and me in matching sweaters in March of 1985. We may have been in Ithaca, NY. There's also one of the original pedals belonging to Janice, my bike. Though Janice is a Schwinn, the pedal claims to have been made in France and it's probably the queen of the janky, weird objets that decorate my apartment.)

The soup will be good now, but I know it'll be even better tomorrow. And even better the next day. And folks, it turns out that the lobster stock - the cheapest ingredient of them all (this time around, at least) - was totally the MVP. It makes the soup velvety and complex and, strangely, not that... fishy. It's a little sweet, very savory, and very deep. I would maybe not do the squid again (maybe another fish instead? Or mussels?), but overall it's a soup that I'm really kinda proud of. It's not easy to be a food geek on the cheap. The things that I find save me again and again are my freezer, a bay leaf, and, really, any idea that my mother dismisses.

Just like that.

2010-01-02T22:06:00.002-06:00

Happy new year, friends! In the spirit of the annual burbling of self improvement sentiments (or what other folks tend to refer to as new year's resolutions), I'm focusing my devotion once again on cooking and writing and blogging and y'all. This is a post I composed mostly in November, but upon which I have been sitting for some months for no reason other than general winter malaise/laziness. I figured that finishing and finally posting it would be a good way to get things started back up, especially with this particular soup. Enjoy!

On November 1, we got one less hour of daylight. It was 6:30 or so in the evening and I was walking down Kedzie toward Grand with a certain Dude on my arm. We were dispensing tutorials on family nicknames, pointing out strange/tasteless/now-outdated Halloween decorations, and talking about being late for movies. (We were late for ours.) To be sure, I was engaged in the conversation, but my mind and, quite frankly, my stomach, was churning, waiting for the right moment to... just... jump in and... ask something.

A discernible, but by no means pregnant, pause between topics and:

"So. Um, am I your girlfriend?" I blurted.

Another pause.

"Well. I'd like to call you my girlfriend. If... that's okay?"

Probably another pause, though it's punctuated in my memory by a huge mental (and probably physical) exhalation.

Relieved, we both confessed that the question had been weighing on both of our minds for a week or two, and, I dunno, you know, how do you just bring that up?

"Just like that," I said.

Only as we were crossing Grand Avenue, looking down the empty street for a possibly, hopefully approaching bus, did it occur to me how dark it was; it could have been midnight. There is a weird thing that the mind does around this time of year to prepare for the coming winter. It's this hybrid of hazily remembering Last Winter and wondering whether the experience could be at all useful in preparing you for This Winter. It's almost like when you're trying to remember a strange dream: Was last winter bad? How bad? Worse than the winter before? How much snow was there? Did we think it was bad at the time? Did I make the best of things? I need to learn how to mend socks. How often did I go out? How did we deal with winter? I think maybe we probably drank more. Whoa, wait, how warm is my coat? God, I wanna make some soup. And so on.

These were my thoughts as we sat down at the stop, as Danny hit up the CTA bus tracker on his phone, as he commented on the broken glass on the ground, as I noted, but did not comment on, the broken, hard-boiled egg on the ground (another post: my deep, abiding, quiet love for all things absurd).

Danny: So a bus is coming in like 7 minutes.
Me: You know, I have been thinking about how dark it is.
D: ...
Me: And how we deal with it. I think we just become nocturnal, right? We do all the things we used to in summer, just in the dark.
D: Right. Come sit down with me.

And I sat with him. And I remembered when I was little and how, given my 7pm bedtime, I thought that all the grown-up and cool things I was clearly missing out on must have been happening after I had gone to bed. So then, my entire vision of being Grown Up and Cool came to life in front of a shimmering black backdrop of night sky and stars (and... well, in my five year old head, sequins and bright red lipstick).

We sat, in the early evening darkness, arms linked, waiting for the bus, seeing our breath.

Later that night, after the movie, we talked more about the dark and the cold. And about soup. And about my blog, actually. Danny asked why I hadn't been updating it lately, and I explained that all I had been doing in the kitchen for the last few weeks was making soup. I mused that I should just change the name of my blog to Crazy Soup Lady. Or Soup A Week. He mused that I should open a soup cart in the Loop and have one different soup every day. And it would be tasty. And people would love me.

D: And you could have regular soups. Like Wednesday could be your parsnip soup.
Me: Yeah! And Thursday could be roasted red pepper & tomato soup.
D: And Monday could be chicken noodle soup. People'd need something cozy and nice for Mondays.
Me: Yeah! But wait. I... do not do chicken noodle soup.
D: ...?
Me: I dunno, I mean, maybe I just had a bad experience with chicken noodle soup growing up. It's not something my mom or dad ever made, so the only kind I had was Campbell's in a can. Which was a pathetic excuse for a soup.

As the words came out of my mouth it occurred to me how silly I sounded. With all of my chicken-stock-making and adventures in dough/dumplings and general adventurousness in the kitchen, I clearly had not yet put it together that I could - DUH - wrest chicken noodle soup from the jaws of bad/bland associations with my own Gra know-how.

It was time for a Reclaim.

So, a few nights later, gazing wistfully/incredulously at the last wisps of sunlight as they fizzled over the November horizon and noting the time - 4:27 pm - I put on my shoes, strapped on my grocery/bike bag, and went to market. It was dark and cold and I had charged myself to (re)define my relationship with winter, and, really, living in the dark.

I bought:

a roasting chicken
fresh sage
fresh thyme
a lemon
a few heads of garlic
an onion
a bunch of celery
flour
eggs

I was going to make chicken noodle soup.

And then I remembered that I own neither a rolling pin nor a pasta roller.

CORRECTION: I was going to make chicken and dumpling soup.

First, I roasted a chicken using this method. (I considered the resulting croutons my prize/fuel as I finished making the rest of the soup.) Once it had gotten cool enough to handle with my bare hands, I pulled it apart, separating meat from skin and bone. I made a nice chicken stock with the latter two materials, as well as half of an onion and a bit of celery and parsley.

In separate nice big pot, I cooked down the other half of the onion, diced, with the rest of the celery, thinly sliced, and some garlic. I added chopped parsley, sage, and thyme. (I warbled Scarborough Fair begrudgingly and tunelessly in my kitchen and mused upon the devastating ridiculousness of Art Garfunkel's hair.) I made a mental note to highlight in this very post the absence of carrots...

I like carrots. A whole lot. I might make a soup from them very soon. But I'm a sucker for a nice color scheme in a dish and I had always found rather jarring the presence of orange carrots in an otherwise serenely green/brown/translucent white chicken noodle soup. So, because this was my very special reclaim and mine alone, I omitted carrots. Because I like nice things and sometimes nice things have to be pretty, regardless of possible hurt carrot feelings.

As my vegetables were cooking down, I chopped the chicken meat into hearty, but bite-sized pieces. Then I mixed together in a bowl, with my hands:

3 eggs
2 cups of flour
a generous splash of water
a generous sprinkle of salt (maybe about 1/2 teaspoon, which, in hindsight, should have been more. I like a salty dumpling.)

I emphasize the hand-mixing because a) it can and should be done in most situations, and b) I want the world to know that I don't have a stand-mixer. Whether that garners me a KitchenAid for Christmas, or a new level of respect from my (five) readers, I don't care. Mixing by hand is awesome. Most of the time.

So. The dough for egg dumplings was mixed. The chicken meat was ready to go in. I added the warm stock to the vegetables, along with some water (it was a strong stock), and the chicken, and brought it all to a gentle boil. I plunged my hands back into the goopy dumpling dough and, basically, dropped pieces of it into the pot in a rather graceless, but necessary fashion that allowed me to pull/peel/mangle it off of my be-doughed fingers. As with the previous week's gnocchi, the dumplings floated dutifully to the surface of the pot when they were done.

And when the dumplings were done, the soup was done. And it was still dark. But I had done it, just like that.

Fear less, or: Easier, better, slower, lazier.

2009-10-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

As I write, the sweet potatoes I sent back into the oven seem to have decided to cooperate. That is, my kitchen smells like sweet potatoes. (A rule we all kinda know: When you can smell what it is you're cooking, it's probably done.)

See, I'm attempting to make sweet potato gnocchi.

Those who know me know that I do not bake. And while gnocchi, I will obviously grant, fall into no one's conception of baked goods, I will also confess that when I say, "I don't bake," I really mean, "I don't make anything that involves dough."

So I'm a little bit scared. More than that, though, I'm hopeful. See, I'm trying this new thing called "assuming that things are just as likely to be blindingly awesome as they are to be a complete failure" (see also: optimism), so I'm also kind of relishing the half-possible fantasy of producing some damn fine gnocchi and the accompanying conclusion that, actually, I can do things I used to think I couldn't do.

While the potatoes bake, I'm reviewing old I'm trying/not trying to impress/seduce you playlists on my half-busted old iPod. The thing only speaks to me via speaker dock now, so plumbing old music means I have to fill my entire apartment with it; sit in it. I'm trying to decide if the bits & pieces of soundtracks for dinner dates past might be useful for dinner dates present. So far the answer appears to be "no." Because the date appears to be different.

The music swims around me. Folk with man's voice, folk with woman's voice ("Let this Cat Power song be your guide to my probably misguided feelings for you") (is it weird that most of my retrospectives manifest themselves like a Someecard?), old soul, new soul, post-soul electronica, and a couple of rather overtly sexy hip-hop tracks ("No seriously, I am trying to seduce you").

I can't say these were, like, failsafe jams. (By any means.) Part anthem, part valentine, they were the soundtrack to the life I had and the parallel life that sometimes pushed against the window as my train trundled past, slipped back under the door early, early in the morning in the moments before I woke up, blew my hair forward into my face, somehow, as I rode into lake wind. They had, now that I think about it, very little to do with with the dinner guest and everything to do with me. They gave me confidence; they were a crutch.

For the other leg (since, in this extended metaphor, I'm apparently some kind of socioemotional paraplegic), I had my repertoire. Everyone - okay, everyone who cooks for people they care about - has a repertoire. Mine consisted of dishes that were, ideally:

a) deceptively simple in composition;
b) low to moderate in time commitment (everything could be done in under an hour);
c) probably inclusive of some type of cured/salted pork product.

And it's not that these dishes weren't good. In fact, they kicked a lot of ass. But like my playlists, they were more about covering my own nervous bases than factors like seasonality, or working toward goals of cooking new things, or the tastes of my guest (though, truth told, criterion C usually took care of that one).

So more recently I've been moving toward a different approach in cooking for/with others. In general, I feel like I've become a lot more flexible and forgiving of myself in the last several months. I rarely get my apron in a twist anymore over substitutions, bad emulsions, botched proportions, etc. And in particular, in the last month or so, I've started to open up to a newer, though by no means novel, priority: Enjoyment of present company.

I KNOW. IT IS A REVOLUTION, Y'ALL.

Because, and this is what I've been getting at all along: Making dinner for a dude was always really just about personal validation.

But now, the sweet potatoes resting on the counter and waiting to be peeled, I restlessly skip through track after track. I'm finding it difficult to latch on to any songs from old lists, just as I found myself less than enchanted by the dishes in my trusty repertoire.

So I'm going rogue. Not for the sake of badassery; more because I care less about what's coming out of the speakers and how the food turns out (I do have a high enough baseline of kitchen confidence that I know nothing I make will be horrid) than I care about who I get to hang out with.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dinner party snapshots...

(all photos courtesy of DPO)

Gruyere, St. Andre triple creme, meet Dude. Dude, meet Gruyere and St. Andre triple creme.
(Jeanelle, meet Eola Hills pinot noir. *Swoon.*)

The gnocchi (super not-daunting recipe here) turned out relatively well for a first go. I would use a bit more salt; a bit less nutmeg next time. And yes, there will be a next time, because I b'lieve I've conquered my fear of flouring. (OH! OH IT'S A PUN! DO YOU SEE?!)

We made fresh ricotta to go on top, along with a walnut-pine nut-sage pesto. Please excuse my bright, folky dinner plates. They're charming when they're not a backdrop for styled food, I promise.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Upon tasting the finished product, Dude did a jubilant shuffle from my kitchen to my door and back. I laughed, partly out of sheer amusement, and partly out of surprise and relief that both of us, apparently, dance when we taste good things.

I don't remember what music we played; I just know there was a lot of it. (Okay, I do remember Paul Simon's Graceland. And an hour-long podcasted DJ set. Everything else, blur.) I had big plans for a prettied-up version of rice pudding for dessert. We didn't make it; we were too full. Instead, we laid on the couch doing impressions of weird YouTube videos and talking about Baltimore hip-hop and blowing raspberries into the crooks of each others' elbows. No one was trying to seduce anyone, mainly because no one had to try.

Shit From My Foiled Dinner Plans

2009-10-12T23:20:00.000-05:00

My apartment was spotless.

I don't really get motivated to clean out my whole life in the Spring, but somehow, when the air gets crisp and I start buying apples and making soup, I go into, like, Defcon Autumn Cleanse Mode. So I had done the ceremonial cold-weather wardrobe switch in the dressing room, scrubbed my kitchen floor (on my hands and knees, thank you), and finally, after over a year at the Nest, finished filling the empty wall spaces that had somehow not really bothered me until rather recently. I had also, I will confess, treated myself to the acquisition of a new soy candle, the price of which, while not entirely prohibitive (obviously), would have been quite likely better spent on things that might fall more decidedly into the "necessities" column. (But it smells SO lovely. Like figs. And me.)

Clearly, the thing to do at this point was to make dinner with/for a dude. A current Delightful Young Dude.

So we had a plan. We were gonna make this. And this. We were gonna ransack my newly replenished cheese collection, finish the wine we cracked the other night and likely start (and finish...) another one, and have a generally lovely time.

And things were very much on track for all of this to happen. Until, waiting for the bus at North & Kimball, homegirl got her first nosebleed of the season.

The readers with delicate nasal tissue will feel me on this one. The hardier folks are gonna have to dig a little deeper. Because, let it be known: A nosebleed on the fly, with only a profoundly chivalrous Dude and a pocket-pack of Kleenex to defend you from utter mortification and general hot-mess-itude, is probably The Most Infuriating Inconvenience ever to befall the human species. And this one, it still pains me to say, was a serious humdinger. (Note: To my further irritation, I found out this very morning that the whole debacle could have been avoided by executing a rather simple maneuver outlined by my mother, bequeather of the problematic nasal tissue in question. But we won't talk about that anymore, at the risk of... my head exploding.)

It hum-dinged to the point, in fact, where it was decided it might be prudent to take the Puffs Plus party off the #82 bus and into the bathroom of a wee corner laundromat while Dude darted across the street to the Walgreens for... more tissue. (And, as I found out later, some cookies. "To replenish your blood sugar. You know, like after you give blood," he grinned. What a guy.)

About twenty tissues, five muffled, embarrassed apologies, and thirty minutes later, we emerged from the bathroom. I was still holding tissues to my nose, but the worst appeared to be over. We had decided to go back to Dude's house - which was still relatively nearby - until the situation blew over (oh, pun!) completely.

By the time that happened, though, it was roughly 5pm. I was, actually, sort of exhausted after the whole ordeal and had plopped myself onto a stool in the kitchen as Dude popped open the pack of double-chocolate Milanos. He handed one to me, and asked what we should do about dinner. It was, admittedly, getting a bit late - it would take us a solid 40 minutes to get to my place, another 30 to grocery shop, and then that chicken needed at least an hour and a half to roast and rest. At this rate, we would be eating at 8:30. Fine for a Friday or Saturday night; less cool for a schoolnight.

Butbutbutbut! My apartment! Roasted vegetables! My soy candle! No no no no nonoNO!

Yes, gra.

So I got real. (Okay, I pouted openly for a few minutes and snarfed like three cookies. And then I got real.)

"What do you have in your fridge?" I asked with equal parts disappointment and resignation.

And Dude opened up his fridge and his cabinets, and announced every last viable item we might consider for the evening's consumption. After several minutes' consideration (and a few more cookies, and an offer to don a Swedish Chef costume to make me laugh [I had to decline, unfortunately, or risk another nosebleed]), it became clear that the Shit From His Fridge was leading us south of the border. On hand, he had tortillas, chihuahua cheese, a red onion, some garlic, a can of black beans, a can of tomatoes & peppers, and a wee can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. We decided to run across the street for tostadas, a bell pepper or two, a bit more cheese, and some chorizo to round things out.

We came back. Dude fished out the iPod jack from behind his turntables; I handed him my little Nano. The "dinner party" playlist was really just a compilation of all the songs that were evocative of moments/places/people that mattered to me. (We've all made this playlist; it's the one you make when you want someone to get you.) Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone; Jamie Lidell, Elton John; Common, Ratatat; M. Ward, Iron & Wine; a mashup, a remix, a cover. I swung my glass around and warbled to Lou Prima, we bobbed our heads to old Kanye, stirring the chorizo into the onions & peppers. I went from pouting into my cookies to smiling into my wine and snacking on the all-Brunkow cheeze plate that Dude had put together after an especially fruitful visit to the Logan Square farmer's market.

(Photo courtesy of DPO and his fancy camera.)

Soon, the pan was simmering away, full of a red-brown mess of chorizo, peppers, onions, garlic, black beans, tomatoes, and those chipotles with their (reeeeeally good) adobo sauce. We had tostadas and tortillas. We had wine. (We had 5 Milanos left for later.) We had a whole 'nother playlist - his - to get through.

I will never not detest a nosebleed. I will also probably never not detest foiling of plans, especially my own. What I don't detest - and rather adore - is the providence of folks who just want to make it all better, have a few cookies, make some tacos, and get on with things as they stand.

SFMF: The Reclaim

2009-09-29T21:33:00.004-05:00

Welcome back, gra! And welcome back, fall. The time for gourds and tubers and hardy greens is upon us once more.

It may not be news to some of you that our dearest Ms. Klein has recently undergone a bit of a shift. Whether you're employed or between gigs, it can sometimes be rough going these days, and in this post, Kristy talks about sailing through it with grace, wit, and some kitchen therapy.

"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect, and beginning the work of becoming yourself." -Anna Quindlen

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Maybe you can pull it off when the lemon is that the Clark bus (#22, you are a hoor) is refusing to scoop you up or that you wanted one of those buffalo blue cheese chicken burgers but your favorite Whole Paycheck meat-dude informs you that they are out. But there are times when life rocks you too hard. When you are so completely and utterly blindsided by an event that you feel like you don't even know who you are anymore, and you begin to question whether or not you are the person you pictured yourself to be. You spend a day or a week or a month in a complete tailspin, irritated that the world continues to turn. Slowly, though, you realize that you have to pick up the pieces and turn along with it.

And suddenly - in the midst of tears, and laughing and phone calls - you have a moment where you begin to realize that everything really is okay. That you have a beautiful crowd of true friends and family who will go to the end of the earth to stand behind you. That breathtakingly gorgeous things are happening in the world around you (xoxo, baby Ethan!). That (in my case) you have a partner who loves you, believes in you and needs you more than you ever realized or expected. And... that you. Are. Happy. That you are lucky. That you are not the person you pictured yourself to be; that you are, in fact, better and stronger and more loved than that person. You look inside yourself and begin to see the things that really define who you are and who you want to be.

There is something about the transition from summer to fall that is comforting to me... especially this year. The return of Frye boots, big cozy sweaters and mulled apple cider. The visual confirmation that the world is moving forward and that I am moving forward along with it. A steaming bowl full of fresh fall flavors... and a big, dumb golden retriever sitting and licking my feet while I eat it. Life is good. And I am happy.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Fennel, Apples and Walnuts

adapted from Real Simple Magazine (October 2009)

2 servings

- 1 package of Whole Foods Butternut Squash Ravioli

- 2 tbsp olive oil

- 1 small fennel bulb, diced

- 1/4 cup (heaping) chopped walnuts

- 1 medium apple (a sweet variety) cut into matchsticks

- 1/4 cup fresh, flatleaf parsley, chopped

- salt and pepper

- freshly grated parmesan

- cracked red pepper

Cook the ravioli (al dente) according to package directions.

In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a pan over medium high heat. Add the fennel and the walnuts and cook until fennel is soft and walnuts are fragrant- about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add the apples, parsley, salt and pepper (about 1/4 tsp of each). Toss to mix.

Split the ravioli into two bowls and top with the apple mixture. Garnish with freshly grated parmesan and a touch of cracked red pepper.

The wax and the wane.

2009-09-23T21:08:00.000-05:00

Summer evenings in Chicago are sort of magical.

I mean, summer evenings in general are magical, but summers in Chicago send people spilling onto sidewalk patios, beer in hand, squinting from laughing and the blazing glow of another lofty pink sunset, a flip flop dangling from a crossed leg. Summer in Chicago is an exercise in urgency and spotaneity - yesterday's weather was shit and it's impossible to plan a social calendar around tomorrow's "isolated showers," so if it's nice right now, we take a walk, we have a drink, we sit outside for far longer than our grandmothers' mothers would have advised. We stroll for hours, freckling and roasting under afternoon sun; we haul every candle and blanket in the house onto the patio to resist a chill and, more gravely, the end of another day.

One such evening a few weeks ago, I traversed a certain stretch of Broadway not one, and not two or three, but four times in the span of three hours. First trip: I rode down from the nest at 4157 North down Diversey-ish way to a weird little vintage/art shop, made a purchase that was equal parts unnecessary and endearing, and emerged back onto a street now flushed with the gold-pink haze whose allure and the corresponding urge to try and just, like, swim in it, has, for as long as I can remember, proven completely irresistible. The summer was, it seemed, barefaced and at its peak, having waxed slowly and unhurriedly to this moment over weeks of mild and occasionally strange weather.

I can't go home. Not yet. I have functioning legs, and the rare, it turns out, ability to guide my bike with only one hand as I walk down the street.

So Janice and I stroll down Broadway, paying attention to not very much, yet mildly amused by everything. We are - I am - technically heading homeward, but in no particular rush to get there, or anywhere else, really, for that matter. I'm thinking about what I might make for dinner, though I know I'm in possession of very few noteworthy items. In fact, one of these days I'll weave a tale of Desperation Hot Dish, inspired by these very pantry-metric conditions. But not today.

Because today, or rather, that day, I ran into Anna. Never-really-ornery, tomato-guts Anna. My partner in lazy weekend breakfast crime, Anna. (Though, if cheese pierogies with eggs and bacon and toast are wrong, I don't wanna be right.) The third sister I never had, Anna. And the one with whom I exchange cat-calls/schoolyard insults across Broadway Avenue at dusk, apparently. Hollering above the passing traffic, Anna clutched a 12-pack of some type of summer beer to her black deep V, and, once my inglorious reputation as a surly, conniving tart had been proclaimed to all and sundry within a 3-block radius, crossed the street and asked if I wanted to come over for dinner.

Of course I did.

Anna's roommate Sarah and Sarah's boyfriend Ari were making dinner for themselves and a couple of other friends, and it was (believe it or not) not really been the first time I had been veritably plucked off the street and put to use in the kitchen at their marvelously cabin-y apartment. I was only happy to oblige, since I clearly was doing nothing else with my evening anyway.

So, back south we strolled - me, Anna, beer, and Janice - for Buzz Down Broadway #3. The evening light was still glowy and winking, and I was told the fridge at the apartment held a rather motley collection of wonders, so we weren't sure what-all was going to end up on the table. Upon arrival, our suspicions were confirmed, though Ari had roasted a chicken and put together a GORGEOUS chilled corn & roasted poblano soup and is, in general, an excellent delegator. I explained that I had been selected to help in the kitchen in exchange for some-a-that soup and maybe a beer, and he put me to work on a salad.

Like I said - excellent delegator.

See, you may have guessed from previous posts that I'm kind of a salad-person. It's something about the assembly, maybe. There's no heat necessary; it's all chopping, arranging, ordering. Salads are... calming. That, and even the most random and seemingly infelicitous combinations always seem to turn out really nicely.

So Ari opens the fridge door and digs out my options: some ripe heirloom tomatoes, a bunch of green leafy business that I assumed was arugula until I tasted it (more on that in a moment), an onion, some peaches, 1/2 a log of goat cheese, a new container of mixed baby greens, two oranges, a cucumber, and some chopped pecans.

Turns out the "arugula" was a bit of homegrown radicchio that had been picked before its time. Its bitterness was, on my tongue, somewhat pleasant, but the group felt otherwise. I furthermore figured that, even if everyone was for it, its bitterness would overpower pretty much any other cohabitants in a salad, so I'd have to choose between it and... well, everything else.

And those tomatoes and peaches looked. SO. GOOD. I won't mince words here: the height of summer is a sensual time and I wanna sink my teeth into something sweet and fleshy and juicy when I can, while I can.

So I sliced up the peaches. And the tomatoes. And threw some other stuff up in there - maybe the cucumber, definitely the goat cheese and the pecans, maybe some balsamic? There might have been another vegetable lurking in there, but it was all so slapdash I can't - now, over a month later (AH! for shame, gra) - remember the exact composition.

And there was that salad. And there was beer, and chicken, and the chilled chowder with - hooo baby- homemade cilantro oil and a bit of sour cream. We sat on the back porch and ate (and I... thought about eating a few spoonfuls of cilantro oil) and we talked about the summer so far, and whatever bit of summer might still be left. The sky was decidedly darkening; the air was decidedly cooling, though still heavy with the weight and the smell that sunlight leaves behind even hours after it's gone.

It was as if the summer had peaked and begun its slow wane in the same night. I cut my 4th swath up Broadway and... I dunno, I was a little sad.

And it happens every summer, to everyone - we haven't done enough, we've done too much, we could be more tan, we could be more rested, we could have gone out more, we could have gotten drunker, we could have gotten closer to each other, we could have gotten further away from the things that make us fade.

But we did what we did. And there's always next summer.

You thought it ended here! It could have. It would have been bittersweet, but, I dunno, maybe kinda nice.

But dearests: it's the tail-end of peach season and right now is when everyone's got tomatoes coming out of their ears. And I was so charmed by the combination of lovely, fleshy peaches and tomatoes together that I made it a point to refine the concept in order to give the highest respect to these fruits of summer.

I got some good, ripe peaches (they're on sale now, guys), two nice, veiny, weird-looking heirloom tomatoes - one yellow, one red - and a hunk of goat cheese the size of a small cell phone. I candied some walnuts I had sitting around (I make that sound so offhand and easy BECAUSE IT IS. Srzly, look it up, and be amazed), and broke 'em up after I let them cool.

Then I assembled. And arranged. And ate.

This was from a few Tuesday nights ago. Nothing special; I ate at my desk and lazily swatted a rogue feather from my comforter (yes, the secret's out, I have a studio) while online shopping for a 2009 day planner (needless to say, I got a deal, being practically 2010 and all).

But this salad is... so pretty. And so delightfully slurp-inducing. Make it for someone you like and impress them. Or make it for yourself and relive the rise and the fall of Summer 2009.

Breakfast/business time

2009-09-10T22:10:00.000-05:00

I'm getting up early again, you guys. Like, for a job. I KNOW. My lifestyle. It is so unique.

Okay, but seriously. For those in the relative know, I had spent half of July and the better part of August luxuriating in the bosom of the newest and best colloquialism ever: Staycation. Staycay 09 was really just a hopeful, restful, reflective and blindly optimistic break between the steady, full-time job I'd held for two years and the two jobs that, through what can only be a strange, cosmic marriage of miracle and sheer force of will (either those, or a strange trifecta of foot-stomping stubbornness, weird petulance, and pure naiveté, still with a sprinkling of miracle over top), managed to materialize over the course of that month-and-change. Whatever it was, I came out of it with a new frame of mind and two lovely, if wildly different, jobs that make up one meager, yet livable income.

And now I'm getting up at 5:45am on the daily.

And at 5:45 in the morning, I want to cry a little. Just, you know, whimper as I rub my eyes and reluctantly stretch one leg, then, sigh, the other. To combat this, I need things to look forward to. Something to live for. Something to get out of bed for.

I get out of bed for this:

That's iced coffee over there. Nothing special - brewed extra-strong in a big pot and then kept in my fridge throughout the 5 or 6 days it takes me to get through it. When morning temperatures are anywhere over 60 degrees, it is iced coffee season in my apartment. (No one likes to start a day sweaty from having to down hot coffee before sailing out into the world.)

But then down there, in the bowl, that's breakfast. Light of my life, morning treasure, sweet yogurt of angels. My grief at having to wake up in the semi-darkness (these days) dissolves once I remember, all over again and in my half-sleep, like remembering a really good dream or that today is payday, that THIS is what I get for breakfast.

And THIS is, in all truthfulness, also not really anything special, per se. It's greek yogurt, cherry preserves (in the pretty La Bonne Maman jar that I get to reuse as a glass), and a wee dab of lemon curd. I set it up all pretty like in the picture, but give it a quick stir before the first smooth spoonful's tart cherries and citrus remind me that swinging my legs over onto the floor in the morning is not nearly the worst fate that could befall me.

It's not complicated, and it's not fancy. It's just breakfast. But at 5:45, straining to find some lick of sunlight on the horizon, realizing you're bidding summer goodbye in these moments, it's what brings you back into the land of the living and grateful.

Salute my (jean) shorts.

2009-08-12T23:40:00.005-05:00

Last weekend, I found myself having a Really Great Conversation. You know, the kind where a small group of people who have just met need to come to a common understanding and then realize, rather quickly, that you're all already on the same page (and, ergo, that you'll all be good friends for a good long time).

That kind.

Setting: A house in Osage Beach, MO, 5 feet from Lake of the Ozarks.
Time: 11:00am.
What's Up: A group of girls staying in the house for a Bachelorette Weekend discuss a trip to the local Hy-Vee for provisions. Some are lounging on the dock a few steps from the house, some are inside.

Jeanelle: What time is it?
Sarah: About 11am.
Jeanelle: ... I could... use a beer.
Sarah: Agreed. Now is a completely appropriate time for a beer run.
Jeanelle: Excellent. I'll ask the girls outside what they want.

...a few minutes pass...

Jeanelle: Geralyn said she'd make out with me if we got some Bud Light Lime. So, obviously... that goes on the list. The general consensus, though, is "anything that comes in a can and a 24 pack." Laura pointed out that we might also just pick up some stuff for lunch while we're out. Like, maybe for sandwiches and stuff. Oh, and Sunny also said something about a "full buffet at the Hy-Vee"...?
Michelle: Oh yeah, the Hy-Vee has a buffet.
Jeanelle: But... it's a grocery store.
Sarah: Oh no, the Hy-Vee here is more than just a grocery store. It's nothing short of magnificent.
Jeanelle: [eyes wide] ... Wow.
Michelle: But it looks like the sun's coming out - I think we should take advantage of that and eat here.
Sarah: Yes.
Jeanelle: Yes. And in that case, Sunny also said that she wanted an onion. For her sandwich.
Michelle: Will do.
Sarah: What else do we have planned today? Like, does Kristy [the bachelorette] want to do anything before we go out tonight? Should we try to find something premade so we can eat quick?
Jeanelle: Nope. Kristy wants to hang by the lake all day and drink beer from a can and shove that can in a hot pink koozie. She has also considered going out on the paddleboat.
Sarah: So we're laying around and drinking today, is what you're saying.
Jeanelle: YEP.
Sarah: [eyes wide, looks at Michelle] We should make whiskey dogs.
Michelle: YES.
Amanda: [just walking in] YES.
Jeanelle: ... what... what, pray tell, are whiskey dogs???
Michelle: Whiskey dogs are cocktail weenies cooked in ketchup, brown sugar -
Sarah: - and whiskey.
Jeanelle: That's it?
Michelle: That's it.
Jeanelle: THAT IS SO DIRTY.
Amanda: Sure is. And delicious.
Jeanelle: Do you... make these whiskey dogs often?
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, for parties and stuff.
Michelle: They're really easy, and they're good.
Jeanelle: And dirty.
Michelle: And dirty.
Jeanelle: Well then. Let's make 'em.

We pile into Michelle's wee Saturn Ion and coax it up and down the hills of the surrounding terrain. We pass Kay's Restaurant where I am told there is a stellar breakfast buffet, a Maid-Rite sandwich shop, a bar called Wobbly Boots, and then... pull into the Hy-Vee Mothership parking lot. We tumble out of the Ion - all five of us in variations of the bathing-suit-coverup-flip-flop combo - and behold...

Sweet fancy pickles, you guys, this store is enormous.

Good thing we had a list, is all I can say. We walk into the fabulous arctic blast of air-conditioning and, immediately to our right, lay eyes on The Buffet. It IS magnificent. It's a roundup of every kind of comfort food that exists to Americans: Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, fettuccine alfredo, spaghetti & meatballs, garlic bread, lasagna, pork fried rice, General Tso's chicken, crab rangoons, egg rolls, cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, sausage pizza, sausage & mushroom pizza, mushroom & pepper pizza, Hawaiian pizza, supreme pizza, Waldorf salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, 7-bean salad, Jello salad, a deli counter, and a shrine to Paula Deen and Baby Jesus.

(I mean, no. But yes. But... no. But kinda.)

But onward, homies. We had whiskey dogs to make, beer to buy, and sunburns to get.

So we get the cocktail weenies. And ketchup, and brown sugar. And whiskey. (So then Coke. And two... no wait, it was three 24-packs of beer. And some bread & cheese & lunchmeat. And an onion, don't worry. And chips. Which happened to be ridged. So then, you know, french onion dip. And salt & vinegar chips. And Oreos. So then milk. And you know, and all that.)

And then we get home. And we crack beers. And we dump ketchup in a pot. Like, the bottle. And then we dump whiskey in a pot. Maybe a cup. And then we throw in brown sugar. I'm not sure how much got in there because, honestly, at this point, I was quite busy digging out the salt & vinegar chips. (Obviously.) There might have been a tablespoon of brown sugar, or maybe two... or maybe more. (Ladies who were there: Please feel free to fill in this mystery using the comments section. Chicago thanks you.)

And we put it over medium heat and went down to the dock. For... a while. The whiskey dogs probably simmered away for the better part of an hour, stirred just about as often as a girl would come in the house for more beer or chips. (Gee, you know, as I read this: I do consider my writing to be quite frank and without very much lipstick, but gracious-and-wow do I ever sometimes paint myself as the very shiftless, belching girl with a swimsuit wedgie I secretly aspire to be.)

When they were done - which, really, is simply the point at which you've decided the mixture tastes less like boozed ketchup and more like barbecue sauce if barbecue sauce wore jean shorts and a scrunchie - they were nothing short of addictive. A little crusty from where some had stuck to the bottom of the pot, and all of them covered in a slick goo so sticky that sometimes rendered it necessary to eat two wee dogs at one time. Perish the thought, I know.

I mean, yeah, all it is is cocktail weenies simmered in tangy, weird sauce. We've all had these. (Yes, even you over there. At that Super Bowl party a few years back? Ohhhhh yes. You remember now.) But I do believe the whiskey has something to do with the magic of this. It definitely lends something special to the flavor, whether it's a measurable thing or just psychological. Because you feel so awesome and proud to say "WHISKEY DOGS." And, really, anything with whiskey in the name is guaranteed to be kind of baller in its own way.

(P.S: We did end up going back to the Hy-Vee buffet for dinner that same evening. Nothing gets a girl ready for a night out like a solid foundation of industrial-grade pepperoni pizza and beef lo mein.)

Playtime

2009-08-05T01:24:00.004-05:00

A couple of months ago, over some Sazeracs in Andersonville, the summer still young, our imaginations ripe with visions of trotting all over this mighty city in search of challenge and adventure, my friends Cara and Adrian and I discussed the prospect of lobsters.

Killing and eating them, specifically.

So fast-forward to a recent Thursday night. Sporting my new, and already much-beloved DIY jorts (judge not, crackers), I squeezed the brakes on old Janice, my 1973 Schwinn Continental, as I pulled up to Adrian's apartment next to the red line. Upstairs, he and Cara - decked out, quite possibly just for the occasion, in a wee black romper - had begun to cocktail and were ogling the cover of the July issue of Gourmet when I came in.

You've seen it. I know you have. Coral-tinged lobster chunks flecked with deep green parsley and pale green celery, nestled in a toasted, golden roll against an austere, almost-mint-green background. It, more than anything I've seen in a long while, and especially in the middle of a Chicago summer... is kinda food-porny.

Since the day that magazine was delivered to Caracita's graystone walkup, plans had been in the works for an Ultimate Lobster Showdown. An excuse to play around at Dirk's Fish & Gourmet ("for the sofishticated palate." Heheheh. Heh.) (What? I like puns. Sssh.) and come home with some deep-sea treasures? Yes. A reason to wreak havoc in Adrian's otherwise-rather-pristine kitchen? Yessir. A way to make lobster salad without mayonnaise (god bless it, it's just not that appealing in the summertime)? Please. An excuse to pit lobsters against each other in various tests of speed, agility, and grace?

God yes.

But first, because all three of us are, after all, only human and because we do care for all the creatures of the earth, preparations for the evening's feast necessitated a bit of gin. And then some crisp white wine. And then a few re-reads of the recipe and conversations about how this would all go down to both reassure us that it could be done and to remind us that, yes, we did actually kind of need to put these boys in a pot of roiling, boiling, salty water if we wanted our dear lobster rolls. (And, of course, the obligatory badge of honor that comes with killin' something with your own hands in the name of yum-yums.)

So then, we were sufficiently (if only mildly) sauced to start the showdown. The pot was boiling, the sink had been transformed into an icy receiving bath, and we had explored ad nauseam and like little children the party trick of calming a fussy lobster by rubbing a finger across the top of his lobster cranium.

We had four lobsters to boil, for about 9 minutes each. Ceremonial tongs were brought out, and Adrian did the first plunge. You stick the lobster headfirst into the water for reasons more morbid and, conveniently, obvious than I probably need to discuss here. As seafood lore tells us, the lobster shells got to a nice reddish-pink over the course of the 9 minutes. What did not happen, however, and thankfully, was the Dreaded Lobster Scream (in which a noise, likely caused by steam escaping the shell, arises from the lobster's body as it cooks). Maybe it was our lobsters. Maybe the scream only happens sometimes. Maybe it's a total myth. But it didn't happen, so once we got each guy in the pot, the cooking process was relatively peaceful and kind of interesting in a detached, science-project kind of way.

Once all four were in the ice bath, it was time to harvest the meat. This... was a challenge. I mean, it normally is, but especially so for three Chicago kids whose food knowledge lies more in the field of encased meats than in the tools and anatomical know-how involved in the dissection of deep-sea crustaceans. Meaning that we were working with: a pair of kitchen shears, a hammer, a chopstick, and only a faint anecdotal knowledge of What Parts of a Lobster Are Good To Eat as imparted to us on sundry occasions throughout each of our landlocked lives.

Once we revisited our respective nuggets of seafood wisdom, though, in addition to enacting such classic kitchen scenes as: Hey! If You Whack the Claw With the Hammer, The Meat Will Fly Straight Out (And Into Your Eye!); The Tail Meat Is Kind Of Easy to Get At, But Isn't the Tastiest; and the perennial favorite, Lobster Shell Shrapnel and Its Hilarious/Horrifying Vicissitudes, we managed to get quite a respectable amount of meat into the bowl.

After that point, we had simply to add the celery, parsley, and vinaigrette in the recipe, load up some garlic-buttered rolls with the resulting salad, pour some Belgian farmer beer and...

... die of happiness.

You guys. This recipe. Is baller. Nothing unnecessary; the lemon juice & olive oil vinaigrette really lets the delicate lobster flavor sit comfortably at the front & center. I had wondered if the garlic butter on the toasted rolls would be too much, but since ours had had a good long time to soak into the bread and get toasty in the oven, it was all quite nicely balanced.

If it was possible to make this scene any better, I think we managed to do it. Because there was blueberry pie for dessert. Glee!

With our eyes closed, we beamed and stretched our necks and legs with pure joy at the evening's many victories. Maybe it was the hours we had spent worrying about these bugs and the ramifications our actions upon them might have on our eternal souls. Maybe it was the Beach Boys playing in the living room. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was that our plan, hatched back when the season was way more new than it was old, had come into being at the peak of the summer and that, finally, sitting around in saltwater-stained playclothes with tired, happy grins on our faces and sunburns on our collarbones, it all tasted so, so good.

It's a start.

2009-07-21T08:31:00.001-05:00

Last week, on my way home from work, I wanted a beautiful spring-green soup, light, fresh-tasting, maybe still warm, a little creamy. Probably with peas.

I wanted it to exist. I wanted it available to me.

And I figured it probably was available, somewhere in this city, on the menu at some little place with lovely white tablecloths and tea lights and quiet waiters who swished softly around the room, devoted to bringing me this green soup.

But practicalities stood in my way. Armies of them. I'd have to do research when I got home, which would already be around 6:30 anyway. I was le tired. I had already had my Meal Out for the week the night before (at Hopleaf, with Anna, O Dear Lord, Mussels) and wanted to conserve funds. And I really, really wanted to put this together myself - I wanted to explore and have control over what went into this soup and how it came out. I'd never made any kind of summer-friendly soup before - my inaugural effort in the Nest Kitchen last summer was vichyssoise and I promptly decided I preferred it hot.

And, finally, I really like getting what I want. And what I wanted was to taste a soup with peas and fennel. So there.

I called a friend who recently claimed he didn't get enough home-cooked food and asked how he felt about peas. He said he felt fine about them. I told him I was making a soup I had never made before, that I wasn't using a recipe, and that I couldn't make any promises. He came over anyway, with two sharing-sized bottles of summer beer. (My friends are generous both in their estimation of my culinary whims and in the supplementation/enabling thereof. Bless.)

Beers were poured, and into a big pot I tossed:

A hunk of unsalted butter
A rather grand flourish of olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 large fennel bulb, also diced
salt & ground white pepper (yes, white. It's milder than black pepper and does a nice job of keeping things perky without overwhelming the flavor.)

Over medium-high heat, I let this cook down and get a little golden brown/sticky, stirring a couple of times over the course of a 30-minute conversation about how to get community college students to care about a philosophy class. The format of these 30 minutes, as you may suspect, can vary. I probably would have watched an episode of Arrested Development if I didn't have company. Soup woulda turned out the same; apartment just would have been more silent, punctuated by the occasional semi-conscious giggle. Anyway.

After the onions & fennel were fairly soft, I added:

about 2 cups of vegetable stock, and let it cook for another 15 minutes or so. Then I turned off the heat and added...
about 1 1/2 bags of frozen peas. Yes, I know it's pea season and I coulda had fresh peas, but remember: le tired. Le don't care. (Le super do NOT feel like shelling peas while trying to hang out and just have a simple beer with a friend.) So I stirred the peas around until I tasted a few and though they certainly weren't hot (nor would I have wanted them to be), they had been thawed and pretty well warmed through. Then it was time for The Bustup, so I needed...
a few cups of milk. Depending on how thick or soupy you want this, you can vary the amount. I think I put in about 3 cups, then hauled out the outboard motor and went to town.

Despite its relatively rustic texture and humble/impromptu beginnings, the soup turned out to be exactly what I had been after - sweet, certainly, but only mildly so, and with a complexity held together in no small part by the fennel. The color was also quite pretty.

Once we dug in, I tried to help my friend, who had never had fennel, identify it in the flavor of the soup. I think I said something like, "Okay. It's like, pea, pea, pea, pea, a quiet knock of sweet-veg-earthiness, then a familiar creamy oniony base. That knock in the middle is the fennel." He found that helpful, but countered that he would have used one less "pea" in the description, which made me feel better, because, you see, it was quite pea-y. Not like eating a bowl of hot peas (though, to my mind, that sounds rather lovely), but there was no mistaking that peas had been on my mind and that the soup was all about them.

A little note: An immersion blender - or at least my immersion blender (which is not state-of-the-art) - won't nearly get you to anything resembling a puree. If you spend a few minutes on it, you'll bust up about half the peas/fennel (the onions will have cooked down into mere slips of tastiness by now), and the soup will be creamy but still have plenty of texture.

Another note: After I added the stock, we also put together some little toasts for dipping. Just a few slices of baguette, toasted with a little gruyere on top. This is totally optional, obvi, but was quite nice. The nutty cheese was a really good counterpoint to the mild, sweet soup. My friend had also never had gruyere before, so it was, of course, quite important that he be exposed straightaway.

Overall, I think the soup was a very strong first go of things - I liked it, my friend liked it, and I like the idea of peas and fennel working together to please me. I think, though, that I want to try to perfect this - the flavor was so lovely and gently sweet, and totally satisfying for a summer dinner. Next time, I'll probably use more fennel and try to get a better puree on the soup. Like, if someone just gifts me with a VitaPrep or something between now and then. Not sayin', just... sayin'.

Excesses

2009-06-07T20:24:00.004-05:00

Deep in the recesses of the Hayner backyard, and between the months of April and August, you could always find at least one of three natural harbingers of the season: forsythia, lilacs, and/or rhubarb. Standing guard with unruly pride along the border between our yard and our neighbor's, these overgrown heirlooms, residing behind the tall turret of the swing set club house, which was behind the back garden, which was behind the pool, held a certain dangerous allure, at least for a kid of eleven. Drawn by the scent of lilacs, one could wander back there to feel quite far away from things and then, through the branches of the forsythia tree, conveniently (yet terrifyingly... again, for an eleven year old), witness the neighbor boys, who were like, 4 and 6 years older - and therefore unspeakably cooler - than you, undertaking the traditional Saturday yard-work/car-washing omnibus, with or without the presence of ratty junior high gym class t-shirts.

It was in this excited but of course rather fraught natural context that I first became acquainted with rhubarb. My father - the preserver and pie-maker in the family (Big John is a true Renaissance man) - had a few times put the nontoxic part of the weedlike rhizome to use in tanging up some of his applesauce and various berry and apple pies, so I was familiar with it in its tamed, smooth, cooked-down state. But here, in the wilds of the backyard, the shirtlessness and the adolescent nerves and the smell of bees and grass and imminent sunburn on my shoulders and the almost-obnoxiously enormous jungle green of the rhubarb leaves hiding the smartly pink stalks which held them aloft dizzied my mind into such a summer stupor that any vision of domestic subordination of this savage, exotic realm was simply impossible.

But then, last weekend (and about fifteen years after the Backyard Trance Chronicles), I went to the farmer's market. I thought, by arriving at about 9am, that I would beat the wild mob of strollers and lattes and Hunter boots and strategically distressed denim.

Silly, silly, silly me.

So I found myself adrift in a sea not only of designer sunglasses and fleece vests and really shiny hair, but also of asparagus, leeks, and rhubarb. And that's it. I mean, I understand - 'tis the season for not much else in the Midwest. Sure, the cheese folks and the wheatgrass-shot guy were there and the guy with the really great but really expensive apple cider was there and the sun was shining and you know what, jesusIhatepeopleIjustwantedsomenicethingsandwhyiseveryoneinmyway.

Five minutes and about ten dollars later, I rode back north on the Lakefront Trail with three things in my bag. Say it with me: asparagus, leeks, and rhubarb. Sigh.

After a bit more coffee and a shower, though, I entered my kitchen with renewed energy and overall patience with my universe. (I find coffee and bathing are good for resetting the mind, in general.) I looked at the rhubarb stalks arranged in repose on my counter, staring innocently up at me, and got to work.

Turns out all you need to tame you some rhubarb and make a compote is a big knife and a 1/4 cup of sugar.

Starting with 8 small/skinny stalks of rhubarb, or 4 fat ones (like what they now seem to be carrying at Whole Foods):

Rinse and dry the stalks
Chop roughly into about 1/4 inch pieces, but accuracy isn't at all important - it all breaks down in the pan later
Throw rhubarb in a large bowl and combine with 1/4 cup of sugar and a pinch of salt, then cover with a kitchen towel
Go about your life for an hour or two (seriously, leave the apartment if you want - the rhubarb has seen more than its share of shirtless neighbor boys and $1000 strollers - it's not going anywhere)
Come back and put rhubarb and its juice (which will have seeped out quite nicely by now) in a small nonstick pan over high heat
Once the liquid begins to bubble a bit, turn heat to medium and cook until the pieces of rhubarb become stringy and fall apart
The compote keeps in the fridge for at least a week, if not more.

Of course, you can freeze this as well, or, you know, just stand around eating it with a spoon. My new favorite breakfast, though, has become greek yogurt with a healthy slather of rhubarb compote and a dab of lemon curd. Yes, tangy.

Wake up, Alice, you've fallen asleep under the swing set and your shoulders are sunburned.

To be more amazing would be impossible.

2009-05-13T21:51:00.005-05:00

A few weekends ago, I was in Milwaukee, WI, visiting a close friend, and we went to her sister's housewarming party one evening. On the kitchen table sat an array of fabulous(ly old school) party snacks, including cupcakes, mini hot dogs wrapped in Pillsbury crescent roll dough, and what looked sort of like cheese-injected beef jerky bites.

Which... is sort of what they were. Except better.

Me: Is this... cheese in here?

Jess: Oh yeah, it's pepperjack. And actually, the meat in there is venison.

Me: [a look that is 2 parts awe, 1 part incredulity, 1/2 part I might make out with you]

Jess: Yeah, seriously. John shot a deer last summer and we bring it to this guy -

Me: John's... got a guy??...

Jess: Well, yeah, I mean, it's a guy who processes the venison -

Me: [lost in reverie] John's got a venison guy?

Jess: [casual as you please] Yeah, we go to him every year. And last year when we started having him make these sticks for us, I thought "This would be amazing with some pepperjack in there." And so this year, when we were asking him to do the venison sticks, I asked if he could throw some cheese inside. And he said yeah.

Me: ... Wow.

Jess: Do you wanna take a package home?

Me: [falls to floor with a thud]

It's true. They're real. And they're in my fridge.

Everybody's happy.

2009-05-08T17:32:00.000-05:00

I try very hard to avoid predictability. I chide myself when it happens, all the while ignoring the fact that everyone else is also constantly clawing their way out of predictability, rendering our collective efforts ultimately quite... predictable.

Not that I dislike predictability - it's a necessary part of getting along in one's life and structuring accordingly one's more subversive, spontaneous activities. But it turns out I'm just now getting comfortable with that reality; with coexisting with predictability, and respecting it for its comforting - and yes, even restorative - properties.

Case in point: Tomato guts vinaigrette. Sneakily mellow and almost seductive in how good it is, here's my true confession: I do not have enough fingers and toes to count how many times I have whisked this together in the last few months. When in doubt: tomato guts. When trying to impress: tomato guts. "Hay gra, what's for dinner? OH WAIT, let me guess. Tomato guts."

You see? Predictable. But srzly: So, so good.

I learned about tomato guts vinaigrette about a year ago, when my good friend Anna told us of a mythical salad her stepmother, a kitchen goddess, "always feeds me when I'm being ornery." Anna is a lovely creature and it's hard to imagine her being ornery, but I won't argue - if it weren't for these supposed spells we would not be here today, lauding the virtues of tomato guts...

... To which, I must now explain, I had up until recently been quite averse. For years, I had endured the slings and arrows of outrageous shame: Being Italian and not liking fresh tomatoes. It wasn't for lack of trying, certainly. But what my beloved grandfather would refer to as the gagoots (traditionally a slangy term for a zucchini, but you can see where, when cooked, their consistency might comparable to the boogery-ness of a tomato) would get the better of me every time - like many folks, it wasn't so much the flesh itself as the texture of the goopy guts inside that I couldn't handle. Thus began a self-driven regimen toward Liking Tomatoes, Or At Least Not Having to Be That Ass Who Has to Ask for Everything Without Them. Being an adventurous eater and having fun with food began to be an important project for me, and I just couldn't see a future in foodie-ism without first reconciling myself with tomatoes.

So I started making this tomato guts vinaigrette. And you guys: IT. IS. A JAM. As you might have predicted, repurposing the gagoots into a liquid dressing component is a completely successful strategy for disarming the tomato. The dressing is really, really mellow - even if you decide to put a bit of garlic in it (which I do sometimes) - and the vinegar actually helps to break down the goopiness of the tomato guts so the end result is smooth and utterly approachable for even the orneriest of Annas.

You might ask how one extracts the tomato guts from the tomato. I'm a little surprised you ask this, if you know me, because you know that many of my techniques are utterly unrefined, and this one is no exception. You slice a tomato - a small kind, like a Roma or a little vine tomato - in half and, holding your prey over a bowl, jam your finger into the guts, scraping out the liquid and seeds into the receptacle below. Slice and repeat. Whisk in some dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, fresh garlic if you wanna, and olive oil. Keep beating it up til the tomato seeds are separated and there are no "guts" left to speak of.

Oh, "what's that?", you ask? Are those... tomatoes sitting in the vinaigrette??

Oh yeah. So, to add to the already visceral delight of this project - an icky, strange joy that is, to me, reminiscent of the Halloween fair in 3rd grade where you reach into a shoebox and touch a peeled grape that your art teacher claims is an eyeball - you might consider marinating the tomato slices in their vinaigrette. And yeah, this also feels weirdly and sort of hilariously cannibalistic in a Veggie-Tales-gone-horribly-awry kind of way. But it makes for some good tomato eatin', which is really the point of this whole exercise.

green(s)

2009-04-24T17:55:00.010-05:00

I entertained folks in my kitchen for two nights in a row last week. One was a planned event (a friend's birthday), and one was impromptu, encouraged, I do not doubt, by the lovely and dare-I-say-officially-spring (?) weather. Because Wednesday's dinner consisted of a relatively simple but no less eggy/silky carbonara and then a half-batch of rice pudding for dessert, I was hoping Thursday could be a little more low-key. By which I mean low(er)-cal. And, you know, maybe not beige.

So we looked in my fridge and lo!: Fields (okay, shelves) of green! See, I had had a bit of a produce-gasm on my last grocery trip and had, in a single weekly rotation, transformed about 60% of my refrigerator into something like a tasty rainforest. I had everything we needed for a lovely dinner salad, except for maybe some protein. I had some bangin' feta already (get the Trader Joe's kind that's packed in brine - comes in a little plastic box for about $5, and you get a LOT of cheese up in there, and it keeps for an age), so I figured, with a little chicken, we could go sort of Greek.

Fast-forward through our quick shopping trip (I love you, Rotisserie Thursdays at Whole Foods) and a chance, lovely conversation on the street with my down-the-hall neighbor, during which said rotisserie treasure, resting in my bike bag, nestled in the small of my back, began its work on scenting my surrounding 1-foot radius.

Back at the nest, I dismantle the chicken, saving the warm white meat for our salad, putting the rest in my fridge for chicken sandwiches, and handing the carcass over to Ed so he can have some very special DIY-chicken-stock time in his Bridgeport kitchen. I toss the meat onto a bed of greens & veggies, throw on a vinaigrette, and call it dinner.

Ed asks me how my salads taste so fresh. This question kind of makes me feel like I'm being secretly filmed for some sort of bagged salad commercial. And because I hadn't thought actively about my treatment of leafy greens since... well, since I started making salads for myself in college, it took me a second to think about how I learned to store them.

Basically, I told him, your greens - especially small, fresh leaves (so stuff like mixed baby greens, spinach, arugula, etc) - actually do need a bit of air. If they're squished into a bag, all of the moisture will glom right onto the greens and turn them to goo in under a day. If the moisture, however, has a place to hang around and create a generally pleasant, comfortably humid atmosphere, the greens will stay relatively happy and fresh - you should have about a week together in crisp yet tender bliss. So: When you seal up your salad greens, make sure the bag is sort of, well, puffy. Like a salad pillow. You should be able to shake the bag and see the leaves bounce around inside.

Okay, so onto the recipe:

Spring Salad with Chicken, Feta, and Honey Lemon Vinaigrette (serves 2, for dinner)

2 chicken breasts, roasted (or sauteed, or whatever), cut into bite-sized pieces
1 cup feta, crumbled
1 huge handful mixed baby greens
1 huge handful baby spinach
1 cup celery, thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1 handful long green beans, steamed and blanched

For the vinaigrette, whisk the crap out of the following, then toss with the salad:

juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon honey - ratchet this up more if you want a mellower dressing
1-2 teaspoons dijon mustard (to taste)
1/4 - 1/2 cup olive oil (to taste)
salt & pepper

Arrange a small pile of green beans on each plate, then top with a huge lovely pile of salad. Throw on some pine nuts if you've got some around. I did, actually, have some around but forgot to use them, and I'm still having grinny daydreams about this salad.

Bacteria ho

2009-04-20T20:35:00.006-05:00

As far as I've ever been concerned, there are two kinds of yogurt.

There's this Yogurt:

And there's this yogurt:

Now, as we all know, the unfortunate truth is that Mel Brooks is impossible to replicate in a home kitchen, or really anywhere else. However, it's recently been made clear to me that the other yogurt is not so far out of reach for pretty much any geek with a cheesecloth and some time on her hands... (One guess who that might be.)

Oh haaay new project.

Soup lady.

2009-04-19T10:35:00.008-05:00

A few months ago I sent an email into the ether to inquire about making soup for the weekly crockpot roundup that is Soup & Bread. Though it was mid-January and I still felt relatively comfortable in my wintertide hermitude, I sensed a sort of preemptive antsiness from the burst of energy that would undoubtedly wriggle under my door around March, needing to be channeled into something. Anything, really. My calendar for 2009 was annoyingly sparse, and that simply would not do: What I needed was a few playdates.

As it turned out, the ether (Ms. Martha Bayne, in this case) wrote me back and gave me a crockpot on March 18. I now had two full months to work out some kinda wonderful brew. First I thought a subtle homage to the coming spring might be nice - new peas, maybe, or something with whitefish or asparagus. Or maybe something classic, like a sort of ultimate chicken noodle soup, or white chili. I consulted cookbooks, picked brains, slept on it, thought of past victories, had my palms read...

But then I thought of what I really just wanted to make - the things I would love to see in a soup, even if a recipe didn't exist anywhere. Or, at least, anywhere that I had seen, which, with an aversion to written recipes on par with that of the old-schooliest, cheek-pinchingest, black-wearingest nonnas, I will admit covers a rather limited amount of territory.

I used to do a bit of painting, if you can believe it, and the canvases were never much more than a collection of somewhat-related colors I would blend with about a zillion continuous, circular brush strokes. See, I kind of lack the ability to convey proportion on paper (I can taste it, I can tell you about it, but I can't quite show you), so subjects that existed in reality were out of the question. And all I really wanted anyway was to cover the canvas with colors I just wanted to see together - aesthetic matchmaking, maybe.

So this soup was along the same lines: I knew there were things I loved to eat, regardless of their context; I knew there were things I was obsessed with at the moment; I knew there were things I had sort of envisioned making but had never had a reason to concoct.

AND LO! It came to me in a vision:

Things I Will Never Not Love: Italian sausage; prosciutto; roasted garlic
Things I Was Sort of Obsessed With This Winter: kale; ho-made beans
Fantasies That Had Yet to Become Realities: using my cast-iron skillet for anything more than dirty fried eggs; a special stock tailor-made to a particular soup. Couture, we might say.

So I wrote out that list in some thought-catchall notebook, thinking I'd tweak the idea in the coming months and magically end up with something swish, yet familiar, yet refreshing and edgy.

Which this might have been, I don't know. To me, the ingredients and methods were all familiar, I was just taking some things to a different level. I grew up with Italian-inflected, thrown-together soups and stews and casseroles and glorified winter-tastic goop-in-a-bowl, so in a way this soup was just a variation on other stuff I (and you, I might venture) had made for dinner once upon some Thursday night.

Okay. Except for the prosciutto stock. We are going to talk about this. I was straight JAZZED about the idea when it popped into my head, and trying to put it into some kind of at-least-halfway-usable practice was one of the more fun/badass challenges of my culinary life. I am fairly sure I was aboard a northbound blue line train one Sunday morning for a dominoes play-date with Rosellen and Eleanor when the thought of prosciutto bones drifted before me. (Because that happens all the time.) I had seen whole prosciutto in Italy, of course, and knew that the meat was hung by the narrow, bone-y end...

... So, of course, somewhere in there, there is a bone to be had. Right? (RIGHT, Ed?) But here in Amurikuh, not so much - or at least I hadn't witnessed it. Just the comparatively more-modest hunks of it in the deli case for an immodest $35 a pound. So on my budding shopping/idea list for the soup I wrote, "Prosciutto bone?"

My mind roved all over the greater Chicago area and oulying suburbs, and I could think of a healthy handful of places that might be able to hook me up, or at least know someone/someplace that could. But then one Saturday morning, after brunch at Cafe Too with Jack, my quest came to a quick and conveniently-located resolution. See, what you didn't know about Big Beet Saturday is that, after picking out a sexy bundle of beets, I trotted over to the Luscious and Expensive Shit Section (i.e. the deli counter) and asked the dude there about prosciutto bones. Furthermore, when I asked, "Hey, would you happen to have any prosciutto bones back there?" I said it in a tone that was really just code for "You and I both know this ain't the kind of place that sells anything but the best and baller-est of smoked/cured meats, so what I'm really asking is if you've got a cousin somewhere who would have what I need."

Instead, he answered that he didn't have any bones, but what he DID have was "a few nice ends for about $4 a pound."

Sold.

Yes, behold: That's about two pounds of prosciutto. The end result of my soup labors would - ideally, and according to Martha's request - yield about two gallons of soup, which meant I needed to end up with two big pots' worth of soup, which meant I needed to start my stock by filling my (only) two huge pots with, well, this:

Okay, and some water, and then some black peppercorns and fresh parsley. Nothing special. (I have yet to convince myself that a full-on mirepoix makes enough of a difference in a meat-based stock to be worth dealing with carrots and celery, items which, in my mind, are too boring to just happen to have on-hand on much of a regular bases.) Though the idea for this particular stock was new to me, I wasn't going for a paradigm shift in terms of flavor. This was not getting nailed to any church doors or defended in front of a soup-dissertation committee. This was, perhaps, the "close reading" of soup stocks: Nothing revolutionary, maybe a little populist - I cannot name anyone I would call a friend who does not love (or at least respect) a nice bit of cured meat - but certainly fulfilling on various fundamental and even theoretical levels. This stock would be the wise, whispering consiglieri in the unstoppable crime family that was to be My Soup.

So I let those things - the prosciutto ends, an onion, and about eight cloves of garlic - cook down slowly in m'skillet (two culinary dreams realized in one fell swoop! Weee!). The most important thing for me was to render a good bit of the fat off of the meat so I could reserve it and, YES, use it to flavor the soup later on. Once that was done, I put the meat & vegs into stockpots and did the damn thing. Two hours and, miraculously, roughly two gallons later, the stock was done. It was... pretty porky. (Yes, fine, you're dying to say it, go ahead: That's what she said.) This was just fine, I figured, since my vision had only extended as far as the ingredients and the procedure, so, not having any expectation in terms of flavor, I was really just pleased that it didn't taste like this:

Okay, but freals: It was prosciutto stock. Certainly hammy, but with the, well, kick for which everyday prosciutto is beloved and which one might, when one feels honest and graphic and real about things (the same mood on which the rhapsodizing of really stinky cheese is generally predicated), describe as delightfully musty. Translation: You can't make a simple soup from this stock. Too much of this stuff on its own will make you feel dirty, inside and out. And not in a good way. If it's a brothy bowl of comfort you seek, go with chicken stock. However, if what you want is an extravaganza of meat and beans and kale and bean-water (oh yes I did, more in a minute) and onion and roasted garlic and parmigiano heels, the stock is a sexy, complex base from which to start. If this consiglieri was whispering, it was in a throaty southern Italian dialect and it was telling you things that made your eyes widen with scandal and glee.

(Incidentally, and to give you an idea of the strange effect this stuff seems to have on all who cross its path: I had coffee with a friend the day after I made this, and when I told him about it, his eyes got real big and I, also excited about my creation and apparently temporarily losing all grasp of irony and verbal awareness, offered enthusiastically: "Wanna come up and smell it?" He did.)

So a few days later, it was Soup Day. And without further ado, because I've exhausted all of us by weaving that tapestry of stock, I'm going to do my best to just hammer down a list of what I did, attempting to minimize anecdotal instruction. (I am not good at this, as you may have noticed.)

(Also, please remember that this was for 2 gallons of soup - that's like 2 enormous pots - so you'd be advised to trim down the quantities if you were to try this in real life, which, of course, I heartily encourage you to do.)

Cooked the following in the cast-iron skillet, building layers in this order:

2 pounds of Italian sausage, in casing. At first I was mildly miffed at Trader Joe's for not having their lovely bulk sausage in stock when I showed up, but it was actually better using the casing as you might use a pastry bag - as a way to portion out small-meatball-sized bits of sausage. Okay, that's a gross visual. And yeah, it was kind of gross doing it (in fact, I distinctly remember whining "eeeewwww" as I worked it into the pan), BUT: it was a great way to eliminate the risk of having itty bitty sausage bits at the bottom of a soup pot or bowl. You know those. They're annoying.
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced. You may be thinking, "Gra, this is... not the quantity of garlic I would have pinned for two gallons of soup. Your soup, moreover. Your dishes tend to include roughly one clove of garlic per person. What gives?" And then I would say, "Settle down, tulip. More garlic to come." Hehehe.
1 pound thinly sliced prosciutto, roughly chopped and scattered about the pan. This just needed to get a little brown & shrivelly - not much time necessary.
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
salt & pepper

And did some other stuff:

Roasted 3 heads of garlic (there's that extra garlic, sweethearts), let them cool, squeezed out the soft cloves, and mashed them with a bit of olive oil and salt to make a little paste. Set aside.
Took 2 cups of dried white beans, cooked them, drained them, and reserved the thick, flavor-packed cooking liquid.
Roughly chopped 1 large bunch of lacinato kale after removing pretty mich the entire rib. Normally, as you know, I'm cool with a bit of starchy rib in my kale, but since it was getting thrown straight into the soup at the very end of the cooking process, it would have been nigh on impossible to get it down to a soft/done enough texture. Na'mean?
Pulled my 2 little vats of stock out of the fridge, readied the small bowl of pan-bits/renderings I had saved from the stock showdown a few days earlier.
Plucked a couple of parmigiano heels from my freezer.
Got ready to rock.

And now, the assemblage! (Special equipment: immersion blender.)

Distributed stock equally between my two pots.
Dumped in beans and roasted garlic paste.
Blended about half the beans into oblivion.
Realized the broth needed more body; added all the bean water.
Dropped a parm heel into each pot. Let it simmer away for about 30 minutes.
Removed heels, emptied skillet of sausage, prosciutto, onions, garlic, etc into pots.
Stirred, tasted.
Added kale, watched it wilt. Grinned a little.
Stirred, tasted again.
Added salt, pepper, entirety of pan-bits/renderings.
Stirred, tasted again. Grinned a lot.

So it was done. I wanted to be able to take a picture of the finished product but, lookng at the clock, I realized I had roughly 10 minutes to change out of the disintegrating t-shirt I was wearing and into something less frightening. It was just about time to tape the tops onto my pots and get going to the Hideout, where five crockpots were being plugged in and fired up. There were hungry people to feed. And hoo boy, did they feed!

(As soon as I whittle this tome down into something that looks and reads at least bearably like a recipe, I'll be sending it to S&B HQ to post. When that's up, I'll put up a link!)

Deep beets, part 3...?

2009-04-01T21:59:00.003-05:00

I hadn't planned on covering beets again/next. But, I just found a few things out:

You can roast, peel, and then freeze beets. Let 'em thaw out in the fridge and use 'em like nothing ever happened.
Feta is the new goat cheese. (As far as beets are concerned, at least.) I made Bittman's beet salad again, this time with a handful of pine nuts in addition to the walnuts, lemon juice instead of orange juice, a bit of extra olive oil (to counter the lemon), AND CRUMBLED FETA.

Brace. Yourself.

Deep beets, part 2

2009-03-18T10:23:00.001-05:00

So when we left off I was... beet-curious, we could say. Though I had enjoyed many a beet in the now-ubiquitous and standardized "salad" form with goat cheese and sometimes other accoutrements, I had never been totally romanced by it in that sort of arrangement. But that seemed to be the only way a gra could get her hands on it (short of a nice bowl of borscht, of course), at least until recently.

As many of the Chicago readers will know, it's recently become Bike Season around here. Now, it's important to note that the start of Bike Season is in no way synonymous with the start of Spring, though the two can coincide when the stars align, the gods smile, and everyone in the city wears their lucky underwear on exactly the same day. Or something. Anyway, Bike Season starts when everything that has fallen from the sky in the last 4-5 months - snow, sleet, ice, debris, street signs, stray gloves, the ever-present but no-less-inexplicable doll head or two, and apparently, as I noticed the other day, an apron - has melted and/or been washed away by That One Really Warm Day Where It Didn't, Like, Snow or Anything the Very Next Day. You know that day: standing rivers of crap flank the sides of the streets and what stops you from being utterly repulsed is the fact that today promises the distinct possibility (though by no means inevitability) that you will be able to count on one hand the number of times you will wear your winter coat before retiring it FOREVER. (Okay, until October.) So, on this day, it's possible to ride one's bike footloose and fancy-free down the detritus-lined avenues without spattering (very much) of it all over one's person.

Ah, Bike Season.

So anyway, after my (very deep) discussion with Kristy about the virtuous and colorful beet, it made sense to make a Spring(ish) pilgrimage to Trader Joe's to track down these baby beets. There they were, in the fridge section, on the top shelf above the other vegetables, in an adorable little package. I batted one down into my basket, brought it home, and made that beet salad from the Minimalist video.

I agree with MB that the union of beets and goat cheese seems like it shouldn't be something completely inescapable, though that's the world we find ourselves in right now. I had seen beet salad on a few restaurant menus before I had ever tasted a beet and thought, "Man, beets must kind of suck if they need goat cheese to cover up them up." It's not that I don't like goat cheese - in fact, I LOVE goat cheese (it was my first foray into the Realm of Fancy Cheeses back when I was a budding food geek) - but its flavor seems to me too different, and not in an interesting-flavor-foil kind of way, from that of beets for it to really appeal to me in that combination. It's like whoever discovered beets caught that one fleeting note of sweetness, completely ignored the rich earthiness, and was like [caveman voice], "Goat cheese go with sweet things. Beet sweet. Beet go with goat cheese," and no one had since thought to investigate further. (I am hoping you find this epicurean-caveman thing as funny as I do right now...)

Which is why I kind of swooned after trying the beet salad with garlic-walnut sauce. It's amazing.

But I wanted to to roast my own beets and do my own thing with them, trying to see where else I could go with this earthy, deep flavor. I also liked the dense texture of the beet and wondered if it couldn't be used in place of a starch in certain situations. And I also decided that I'd prefer my beets with some salty, earthy feta.

So then I wondered if I could go sort of Mediterranean with all this.

Then I thought of my love of stacked/piled food. (Sandwiches, peasant breakfast... sandwiches...)

Then I thought of napoleons. Originally a pretty French dessert (and named for our boy Bonaparte), I've seen savory napoleons here and there more recently. And really, it's just a fancy way of saying you've made a Tasty Stack of Various Components, isn't it?

So last Saturday I roasted some beets according to the method MB mentions in his recipe, and for which he credits Jean-Georges Vongerichten. I had a friend in town for the weekend so once the beets had cooled (still in their foil shells), I sealed them up in a bag and put them in the fridge until Monday.

Monday came; I dragged the beets out and got to work. It's said that this method of roasting in individual foil packets creates almost no mess; this is true, but ONLY to the extent that you won't have a roasting pan full of baked-on beet juice. Once they come out of the foil and you've got to slide those skins off (which actually really is as easy as they say), all bets are off: you are looking at about two days of rosy-fingered dawns.

I was okay with this; I figured it would be a badge of foodie honor.

Once I had peeled my beets (and eaten a few pieces that were, you know, just... too small to make a decent stack... or something. See photo), I cut them into 1/4-inch slices. Substantial but not unmanageable. Then, I sliced some cucumber relatively thinly and put a few pieces on each beet. Then, topped each stack with crumbled feta and cracked pepper. Squeezed down some lemon juice, drizzled some olive oil, and dug in.

(I ate one then remembered to take a photo. Selfish.)

I thought they were perfect. The beets were a really nice base, the feta, to me, tasted perfect (it was a more "ripe," authentic Greek feta that I was using, though the drier kind would probably do nicely), and the cucumbers were a nice, fresh addition. It was a warm day, I was glad to actually want cold, crisp things again after months of... well, lots of soup.

(Speaking of which, I am obnoxiously reminding you to come to Soup & Bread tonight. The Hideout. 5-8pm. Eat up.)

Deep beets, part 1

2009-03-16T11:31:00.001-05:00

Kristy: beat in my trunk beat beat beat in my trunk

me: mmmmhm

like beep beep

beat beat

DEEP BEATS

3:19 PM Kristy: i'll take the BEETS

me: i also need to start working with beets

what do you do with your beets gra?

Kristy: beet salad

beets

goat cheese

hearts of palm

green

3:20 PM me: how do you cook the beets?

Kristy: BEETS

gra i buy the ready-to-go baby beets in the ming's produce section

less MESSY

3:21 PM me: whoa

are they frozen?

i'm confused

beets are a new world to me

3:22 PM Kristy: no gra

they are fresh

but all the 'wrappings' have been removed

me: wow.

Kristy: they are in the refrigerators

usually on the top

3:23 PM in some type of shrink wrap

me: how big are they?

how big is a baby?

Kristy: like how the guacamole is packaged

a baby is... maybe the size of a red potato

and you get a few

me: mmhm

how would i cook up a beet if i just bought a big granddad one at the paycheck?

boil it?

Kristy: they have been steamed and peeled

steam it

me: wow. luxury.

alwight

3:24 PM Kristy: it is MESSY gra

me: i will look to mark bittman for advice on this

Kristy: watch out

yes

it will stain all your shit

me: i'm sure he's got something to say about a BEET

mmmhm

i will make organic lipstick

(no i won't.)

to be continued...

s&b @ h/o

2009-03-16T10:13:00.003-05:00

Don't make dinner plans on Wednesday.

Come eat soup at the Hideout.

I won't spoil the surprise here, but I'll give you a substantial tease: There is two pots' worth of prosciutto stock (wild forays into foodie-ism, I know) in my fridge as we speak.

See you then!

Shit from My Pushy Coworker

2009-03-13T10:05:00.003-05:00

Kristy Klein is BACK! I happen to think this recipe is pure (dirty) genius. Happy Lenten rebellion, friends.

When I was growing up Lent meant one thing - no desserts. Unlike other children in the hood (or at catechism - the Wednesday night version of Sunday School), my sister and I were not afforded the opportunity to select our 40 day sacrifice. While my overachieving peers had signed on for 40 days without hitting their siblings, I was stuck in an 8 year old's nightmare. 40 days and nights without one single Oreo, scoop of ice cream, brownie or jumbo size box of rainbow nerds. Life was rough (but don't think that I didn't cheat; I didn't choose the sacrifice so I figured I was doing Jesus a favor by obeying my parents 90% of the time).

It is my firm belief that this forced sacrifice led me to distrust anyone in a Girl Scout uniform for the better part of my formative years. What, you may ask, do those two things have in common? The answer is: plenty. You see, every January the cute little pig-tailed Girl Scouts would arrive at our front door selling their sugary wares. My favorites at the time were Thin Mints, Samoas and Tag-Alongs so I would casually mark off a few boxes of each. Without fail that same Girl Scout would arrive at our house with her wagon full of cookies on the second day of Lent. She would smile sweetly at my mother and say "Here are your cookies, Mrs. Klein!" and my mother would take the cookies and promptly place them in the back of the freezer for safekeeping until Easter. How rude. How dare she drop those off when she knew that my mother would hide them from me!!! The NERVE!!!

Over the past few years I have learned something very interesting. Girl Scouts don't sell cookies; their parents do. And their parents work in your office and my office and they are ruthless. They present you with the order form for little Suzy and casually point out that everyone else in the office has purchased at least 5 boxes for themselves and 15 boxes to be sent to the troops in Iraq. What are you supposed to do? Even CNN did a piece on this motley crew. So you make a purchase. Despite the fact that we ordered no more than 1 box of cookies from anyone who wasn't a niece (and that Mike kept 3 boxes at work for strategic bribing of his 300 pound coworker), Mike and I ended up with 2 boxes of Thin Mints and 2 boxes of Samoas on the kitchen counter.

At this point in my life I would probably thank my mother for hiding those boxes of cookies in the back of her refrigerator. Anything to get them out of my face since I can no longer eat through an entire box of Samoas without being overcome by an immense feeling of guilt... and usually some agita. Rather than dealing with the cookies in a responsible manner, I decided to go the opposite direction and turn them into something disgusting... errrrrr.... delicious. In honor of Mike's birthday I was inspired to combine Mike's favorite cookie, the Samoa, with two of his other favorite things: cheesecake and bourbon. So I present to you something that is not for the faint of heart, but something that does allow you to forget that you are consuming an entire box of Samoas.

Mike's Birthday Bars

1/2 box vanilla cake mix

3 eggs

1 stick of melted butter

1/2 cup flaked coconut

chocolate syrup/fudge

5 oz light cream cheese (to pretend you're being good)

2 cups powdered sugar (to offset the 'light' part of the cream cheese)

2 tbsp Makers Mark bourbon

1 box of Samoas, chopped into chunks

Mix the cake mix, 1 egg and 1/2 of the melted butter. Pour this mixture evenly over the bottom of an 8x8 (or so) baking dish. Cover in shredded coconut and drizzle lightly with chocolate syrup/fudge. Using your stick blender to blend together the cream cheese and 2 remaining eggs. Gradually add in the powdered sugar (so as not to create a thin layer of white dust all over your kitchen) and remaining butter and blend until smooth. Stir in the bourbon and Entire Box of Samoas. Stick that bad boy in a 350-degree oven for about an hour. You'll know it is done when the sides are sufficiently brown but the middle is still a bit jiggly- not too jiggly- but enough that it will move a little when you set the pan down. Allow everything to settle for about 30 minutes. Prepare for your sugar coma.

My final word goes out to the dedicated Girl Scouts of America: I am terribly sorry for blaming you for all these years.

Glorified

2009-03-11T11:26:00.006-05:00

Looking back over what I've been eating this winter, I realize it's been a lot of "glorified such & such." Glorified peasant breakfast, glorified roasted vegetable puree-as-soup, glorified shit from my fridge.

Then I thought: Wait, when is anything I make not a more or less glorified version of something really basic/dirty/easy/lazy? And furthermore, aren't these glorified dishes the ones we celebrate the most enthusiastically? The ones we crow about to our friends? "No seriously, this pasta thingy took me 15 minutes to make and I was in the shower for about 10 of them." How many times have I finished putting up a Shit From My (Whatever) and thought, "You know, in retrospect, that was actually a really lovely dish. I'd totally make it again, but, like, not... accidentally."

So I guess what I'm saying here is that "glorified" sort of loses its shimmering properties when you realize that all the stuff that comes from your kitchen can be, and probably is, kind of... well, glorious.

It's in this spirit that I exalt the humble kale green. It seems a lot of folks have been writing about it and cooking with it lately, though it's certainly not a new thing. Kale is healthy. Kale is tasty. (Kale is cheap.) And, for the lazy-ass I seem to have become in these waning weeks of winter, fresh kale keeps in your fridge for way longer than any other green thing I've seen. So at the grocery store last week, I picked up two enormous bunches of lacinato kale all for myself. See, like most greens, kale cooks down to about .0000000001% of its original size (in my highly-scientific and not-at-all-dramatic opinion), and I had been without it for several weeks, so I budgeted one bunch for a fabulous reunion evening in which I singlehandedly devoured an entire bowl of the greens, sauteed and probably garlicky, and one bunch for when I'd use it in smaller, less obsessive quantities.

Cut to Tuesday night, riding north on the red line with my lovely friend Neil. We were discussing the peculiarities of academia and academic folk, as well as his recent visit to Blackbird. Trundling north of Belmont we began trading farewell sentiments, which included discussion of dinner ideas for the evening. I mentioned to Neil that I had piles of kale lying around and I intended to cook it all up, throw some accessories on it, and pretty much just dig in.

"Will there be garlic?" he asked.

"He asks me if there will be garlic..." I mutter playfully.

"Are you using stock?"

"I have chicken stock," I said, "but I've used white wine vinegar too in the past..."

"Oooh, wait, how about some lemon juice?"

"OHMYGOD. Yes. I actually just picked up a lemon the other day. Perfect perfect! Oh, Sheridan approaches... happy trails!"

Mark Bittman suggests using white wine vinegar in his quick recipe for "flash cooked kale," and I've used it, and I dig the tart acidity in contrast with the earthy, almost meaty (?) (but no, seriously) greens. But this lemon thing was a nice idea, I thought. Spring is tiptoeing toward us, and I'm starting to look toward things that grow instead of things that live in bottles to flavor my food.

Yes. Pretty, huh? Sweet (kale) dreams are made of this:

1 bunch kale, rinsed & dried, then chopped into 1- to 2-inch strips. (Some people cut out the rib/stalk thingy that runs through the leaf, but I've found it cooks down just about as quickly as the leaves, and that I like the different texture that the stalk brings.)
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
red pepper flakes
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup crumbled feta
salt & pepper

Cook the garlic in the olive oil on relatively low heat, for about 3-4 minutes, until they get just golden & a little soft. Add the kale. Enjoy the crackle it makes in the pan when the teeny water droplets that refuse to be dried off the leaves hit the oil. (Wonder if you're weird for seriously loving that sound.) Saute for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. You just want these to wilt down and for the stalks to soften. (Taste test often.) Salt generously and pepper, uh, normally, and add red pepper flakes to taste (I'm trying to up my tolerance of spicy things, so I kinda went to town this time). Add the lemon juice, making sure to get some over all the kale, and the pine nuts. Stir to combine, and leave the heat on (still low-ish) so the lemon juice cooks down a little bit and the pine nuts get a little golden & toasty. Turn off the heat and transfer to a big-ass bowl, adding the feta on top. It'll melt a little bit but keep some of its tang. And you will be very, very pleased with yourself.

So these are just glorified garlicky greens, right? Nothing special, nothing exotic. But they're tangy and kind of deep, and though kale is good in lots of forms, though always cooked-down and looking sort of ragged-yet-self-satisfied, in this version it seemed optimistic, too. Bright, because of the lemon, and dressed up with feta and pine nuts. Like daylight savings wasn't an inconvenience but instead a sign that our shabby winter faces would soon be looking at longer days.

Gra, SJ

2009-03-01T17:51:00.005-06:00

A few months ago, I learned that my good friend Joe from college was living in Chicago. He had come to town after finishing the Jesuit novitiate and starting seminary at Loyola, and when we met up shortly before the holidays, we hadn't seen each other in at least a year (probably more, now that I think about it). In catching up, it was discovered/established that we both enjoy as much time as possible in the kitchen, and subsequently agreed upon that we should get together and cook soon.

Once dinner-week arrived, Joe and I tried to nail down some kind of a menu. Joe invited his entire residence to join us for dinner, and we ended up getting about 12 signups in addition to the news that our pals and newlyweds Jordan and Megan would be joining us. So this was... bigger than a standard dinner party, to say the least. Though most of what I had already mentally flagged for menu candidacy was relatively easy to throw together, if not something I had already done in some incarnation or another, it became even clearer once we had our numbers that this might not be a good time to bust out the newest scheme from the Frankengra Idea Station that is my kitchen these days. I needed dishes whose components I knew well enough to delegate, but ones that also worked together in a (somewhat) cohesive flavor scheme.

So we had:

The tried and tested prosciutto-wrapped whitefish. ("Wrapped in prosciutto and looking elegant," by the way, is quite possibly the best headline ever. And, really, a state of being which, once achieved, should never be abandoned, no?)
Herb salad - that is, mixed greens with heaps of fresh basil & parsley - with honey balsamic vinaigrette and shaved parmigiano
Penne with roasted butternut squash and homemade ricotta
Lemon-roasted red potatoes

The first two items here are pretty straightforward: Bittman's recipe is totally genius and so perfect on its own, I wouldn't even know where to start if someone forced me to alter it. And you are le smart; you can imagine what-all goes into that salad. The other two, however, are things that I'm happy to share here, though I still can't claim full credit for either.

The penne was not only familiar but remains one of the crazy-easiest fall/winter pasta dishes to make, and the fun was really in showing people, once again, that YES, you can make ricotta all. By. Yourself. FO RELLY RELL. Joe's friend RJ was really, really... really excited to be making cheese. Enthusiastic stirring and staring. Just what you want in a helper.

(Also, some technical notes about the ricotta: We did the tested and proven 10 minute drain [always a pleasure], AND we handled the whole thing WITHOUT a thermometer of any kind. [Actually, I did this on Christmas Eve as well but I think when I wove that tale I might still have been looped on French 75s and not wholly recalling of every last holiday glory.] What you're looking for is the telltale mini-curds that start to float to the top of the milk... Obviously, they're pretty easy to recognize once you've made the cheese once or twice with a thermometer. So I guess what I'm saying is: Go textbook, then you can go rogue.)

For the butternut squash, we just lathered it up with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and let it turn to happy squashy goodness in the oven at 350... I think this was about an hour, but don't quote me on that. What you want is to be able to poke the squash with a fork and meet with little to no resistance all the way through. Then, when you're making this for 15 people, you're going to grab an enormous steel lunch-lady-style mixing bowl, dump your 2 pounds of drained pasta in, and add the bite-size pieces of squash as you scoop them out with a spoon (or, if you're worth your lunch-lady salt, a melon baller). Once that's all done, you throw the pile of ricotta on top, being careful to scrape down the cheesecloth because you want ALL that cheese, then combine with enthusiasm. Salt and pepper to taste, add nutmeg if you've got it, and fresh parsley if you've got that. For as simple as this one was, I think it was sort of the sleeper hit of the dinner. Maybe the boys were impressed by the ho-made cheese, maybe everybody loves a nice squash.

The potatoes weren't on my original list of ideas for the dinner, actually. Earlier in the day, over a (mildly hung over) lunch with Anna and Jered (of Chocolat Brown... link coming soon, I hope!), I presented some of my more vexing menu ideas, one of which was roasted winter vegetables. Now, don't get me wrong - winter vegetables of any kind, and in any form are a delicious treasure - but Joe was already completely sold on the penne & butternut squash, and I also felt like the consistency and weight of the vegetables would sort of muscle up to the relatively light fish dish, and probably win. In response to this problem, Jered, in his infinite wisdom, simply said, "You know, you don't have to wow them with root vegetables." (Somehow I feel like that's something I could get tattooed on my arm and not regret it for at least 20 years or so. That's saying something for an offhand food quote, don't you think?) We then talked about some other starchy side that wouldn't compete with the penne OR the fish, and I remembered some amazing lemony roasted potatoes I had had from a dinner catered by Black Rooster (aka Jerry's Sandwiches, wouldn'tcha know) and Jered came up with something that turned into this little ditty...

We took about 3 pounds of little baby red potatoes and scrubbed 'em up real pretty. (Color is unimportant here, really; I just liked the idea of red potatoes contrasting with the white and pink and green fish and the pretty green salad. Use whatever you want - just make sure you cook them for long enough so that they're soft - you want the bite to come from the lemons, not an underdone potato.) Cut them in half and put them in a big lovely (again, lunch-lady-style; I mean, this was, for all intents and purposes, an industrial kitchen) roasting pan. Then made a little sauce from olive oil, the juice of one lemon, salt, and LOTS of pepper. Poured it on, massaged the taters to make sure everyone was good and slick, and roasted in the oven for about an hour. Once they were out, added an extra dimension of lemony-roasty goodness and threw together a "dressing" of: the juice of a(nother) lemon, the zest of that lemon, a bit more salt & pepper, some fresh parsley, and a little bit more olive oil (not much; they were already nicely coated and what you don't want is to "water," or, I guess, oil down the dressing so much that the lemon is undone). This dressing idea was really what set it off for me. I loved the first incarnation of those lemony potatoes I tasted once upon a time, but the dressing for this version (or any sort of condiment that's custom-made for a dish) was this really lovely kind of actualizing factor - like, "Yes, sweetheart, this is lemon you're tasting."

For this dinner, presentation was... less of a priority than I'd normally try to make it. When you've got a huge tray of potatoes ready and you're still waiting for fish to cook through, you use that steam table and you like it. But at a certain point I sort of gave up the OCD ghost and saw that folks were really enjoying the food and each other's company. We ate and drank wine and talked about Facebook ("Jesus of Nazareth has invited you to play Texas Hold 'Em..."), translating American slang into ancient Greek, rotund Chicago cops with quotas and a whole lotta time, and the feeling that one is being casually watched by one's neighbors (or, in the case of my old apartment, actively watched by no less than 30% of total CTA ridership).

Hopefully we'll do another one of these dinner parties again soon. (I'll work on my timing, too, so that we're not eating a full hour later than promised... oops.)

Meanwhile, come to Soup & Bread this Wednesday! Jack is cooking!

SOUP! AND! BREAD! SOUP AND BREAD!

2009-02-19T20:42:00.007-06:00

(My high school's colors were blue and red. And our cheerleaders came up with some... pretty special cheers. One of their/my favorites was: "BLUE! AND! RED! BLUE AND RED!" followed by a couple of tight-elbowed claps. So I woke up yesterday and among my top five coherent morning thoughts was a similar cheer, just... for Soup and Bread.)

So I FINALLY went last night. And, just as you might have suspected, it was utterly lovely.

I mean, the Hideout is already a great place. Homey, friendly, always good music, always nice people in the crowd. So add to that like five or six gleaming crock pots of homemade soup, all the bread you could want, and a donations bucket for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and you just feel warm and wonderful and glad all over.

And full. Holy hell. I don't know who made what, but whoever put together the Chick Pea, Kale, and Merguez soup was... well, someone I want to get to know very well. Mercy.

And a Very Special Mark Your Calendars Note!!: I'll be among the soup-makers at the Hideout on Wednesday, March 18. I've got a few ideas, but any suggestions are welcome. So excited! (I'll probably post a reminder as well, closer to the date.)

Slapdash.

2009-02-19T20:40:00.004-06:00

You guys? I can't stop making things with beans in them.

And this last time, I didn't think my creation would even be that good. I slapped it together using techniques that weren't particularly graceful, and ingredients that didn't necessarily, at least in my imagination, immediately call one another to mind. All I knew was that I wanted to make some more beans, and put them into a soup this time.

You might remember my first foray into the wonderful, if not very wide, world of dried legumes at my local grocer. So this time I assumed my options were limited from the get-go.

Arriving in the dry goods/fountain of homeopathic remedies aisle, though, I spotted a few more bean varieties than I had on my last visit. Maybe I missed them before; maybe The Paycheck was broadening its stock. Regardless, this time I was able to get my claws on a hefty pound of black beans, and immediately, I remembered one of the first recipes I used when I started cooking in college...

It was black bean soup, and one of those "Fake It, Don't Make It" recipes in Real Simple magazine.

Hush up. We've all gotta start somewhere, and for a time in my life I was a devoted subscriber to Real Simple (and actually might still be, were it not for the fact that they often claim that investing in an Hermès bag is a legitimate move for someone wanting to keep it real... and... simple). For a beginning cook, in fact, their FIDMI (whoa!: "feed me"? Okay, I'll stop) recipes are a really nice way to get into basic techniques/ingredients and still feel like you've made something a real person would gladly eat.

So the other night, a pound of black beans humming away in some water (using Mark Bittman's "short soak" method for beans, which, I can now attest, does indeed work just as well as a 6-hour soak), I slipped on my beat-up moccasins and shuffled down the block to the second-nearest convenience shop (the first-nearest, a place whose roof I can see from my kitchen window, only accepts credit cards for purchases over $20. Selfish). I figured, since I was using high-quality/-class ingredients for the rest of my soup, I could go with whatever dirty, processed salsa I could find at the shop, which turned out to be... Tostitos. It was either that or Pace, which, though just fine and perfectly suitable for dirty microwave nachos, I feared might be too chunky for a soup.

Shuffling back to my apartment, I tried to think of what-all else beyond the original recipe ingredients I could/should use. My hoard wasn't quite to SFMF-levels ("I have... a potato of indeterminate age, three spinach leaves and 1.5 pieces of bacon. GO!); in fact, I had the opposite problem of having gotten a little excited at the store a few days back, resulting in some items whose futures I hadn't planned in very much detail. But again, my driving inspiration was just. To make. Some more. Damn. BEANS.

I'm not particularly proud of some of these methods and quantities. It was, as I said, a rather slapdash endeavor, and there was a lot of indiscriminate dumping and a few inefficient cooking sequences. And though I won't go so far as to say I'm ashamed of them, I also don't want you to make the same missteps, so I'll narrate a bit and point out where things could stand a bit of refinement. Here's what happened:

I yanked 1/2 an onion out of the fridge, diced it, and cooked it for about 10 minutes in a bit of olive oil.
Added a diced red bell pepper. Cooked for another 10 minutes or so... to the point, you know, where I could have just added some pasta and been happy. But I didn't.
Instead, I added about 8 very thin slices of pancetta I had in the freezer. This, I realize, is a departure from the traditional ham-hock or whatever it is that's supposed to flavor black bean soup. But pancetta is what I had, so there.
Also threw in about 3 cloves of thinly sliced garlic, and some red pepper flakes and cumin. Shameful to say, but my spice collection is still rather (read: embarrassingly) small. I'm working on it, but for now the theme is still pretty solidly Mediterranean with a few token exotics, which is usually fine, but of course falls short when I venture too far into other cuisines. But again, it's what I had, and for a first try, it worked out pretty well.
I let the pancetta finish crisping, then dumped in the jar of That Dirty Salsa. A note here: I suspected, almost immediately, that whatever simmering the salsa was gonna do up in that pot was going to pretty much kill any nice crispness that the pancetta had acquired by that point. But, on the plus side, the salsa would pull up any tasty crispy bits on the bottom of the pot, which I kind of live for. So... that was a draw. (It occurs to me in writing this that this whole process might have been better served with either a. another pot/pan for the pancetta or b. an extra beginning step in which the pancetta could be crisped up, then set aside, then the veggies & salsa & spices would assume their positions in the same pot. Or, I suppose, c. I could have acquired a ham-hock from somewhere and done my meating in the other pot with the beans.) (See what I mean when I say that this whole procedure was rather less than sophisticated, and that there's infinite room for improvement/streamlining?) (Yeah, "meating." You know, like, meat, the verb: to meatify something. I meat, you meat, he/she/it meats. Okay, enough.)
Meanwhile, I had peeled and diced a sweet potato, put it in a shallow bowl with a bit of water, covered it, and steamed it in the microwave for about 10 minutes. Once it was finished, I shimmied that into the pot too. Along with...
An **ill-advised** entire pound of frozen corn. Here's the thing, guys: I bought the corn shortly after a lovely trip to Door County, WI this past summer, during which my friends and I enjoyed some pretty fabulous local produce, including fresh corn. Inspired by my then-recent eatings, I picked up some frozen corn in hopes of replicating the experience in the coming fall months. Not only did that, clearly, not end up happening, but every time I opened the freezer I found myself confronted with the evidence of my silly late-summer visions (really just good intentions, but still. Unacceptable). So yes, my emotions got the better of me and I made the rather sweeping, perhaps irrational call to throw the entire thing into the pot, just to use it and get it out of my life.
While the corn thawed and mingled with the other vegetables (I gotta say, I had a fairly colorful collection happening up in that pot), I got to work on the beans, which had finished cooking by this time. Now, I drained them almost completely. I'm not sure whether this was the right thing to do, but I knew I wanted to add chicken and vegetable stocks to all this to give it a more complex flavor, and if I was also dealing with bean-water, I was afraid I'd have too much liquid on my hands. So anyway: Drained the beans, put them back in the pot and added about 2 cups each of chicken and vegetable stock.
Busted out my stick blender and went to TOWN. (Rosellen calls this the "outboard motor," which is funny on a few levels, but mainly because she's so not an outdoor person, so the fact that she's nicknamed this after a part for a fishing boat is just kind of great). This bean 'n stock goop wasn't totally pureed - I still like a bit of texture but of course the busted-up beans make things nice & smooth too.
Finally, added the vegetables to the "soup" and heated it all up together.

So yes, it was chunky, and busy, and the meat-y flavor was quite distinctly pancetta and not hammy, delicious, cured ham hock. BUT: It was complex and reeeeally satisfying. The corn, sweet and still a little crunchy, was a good move - maybe not so much next time - and adding a combination of chicken and vegetable stocks also felt like the right thing to do. It was perfect for a late-winter soup, and there was a LOT of it, which always makes me and my fridge/freezer swell with kitchen-mama pride.

It would be here that I would normally post a picture of the finished product, and it would impress you and make your mouth water and your eyes go wide. However, I must tell you the truth: I was so done with this soup by the time I finished that I just divvied it up between two containers, put one in the freezer, and one in the fridge, did my dishes, and bolted out of that kitchen as soon as I could. (I did have legitimate social plans, mind.)

Also, it was... not a pretty soup, per se. I mean, it was colorful. But... all that corn. And... the dark, thick soup base. Well, I mean, I'll just... leave it at that.

On an unrelated note: I apologize for the long hiatus. I have nothing to say for myself. I've been lazy yet busy, and the only things to come out of my kitchen in recent weeks have been various SFMFs and peasant breakfast for dinner. And I've already told you about those things. And you're over them.

Looks like it's time for a fresh start. See you back here soon.

Magic. And beans.

2009-01-23T18:48:00.005-06:00

Wow. I had heard it was true but I never bothered to test it until the other day.

I'm talking about beans, friends. Dried beans.

NOPE. Stop right there. Do not walk away. I am for so much serious and you will thank me when we are through here.

So. I had just about had it with my cannellinis when their little skins would just shrug off and be untasty and not play well with the rest of my dish. Hard skins, soft beans. Something didn't seem right. When something is sold cooked, one hopes/expects it to be cooked consistently, na? I also disliked rinsing away the... bean-water (or whatever I'm supposed to call it). Not that I found it delicious or enticing (it certainly smelled like... a can), but its consistency and the fact that the beans had lived in there for most of their little bean-lives made me think it'd be useful for something. The whole thing just seemed wasteful and less simple than I like my doings to be. You know?

("Oh yeah, gra. Totally feel you. I spend no less than 2 hours a day lamenting the state of my relationship with beans.")

(Be quiet. You know you've thought about it. Anyway. Moving on.)

Don't get me wrong: I love a cheap pantry item. And I certainly love a bean. Seasonless, versatile, filling, AND TASTIER THAN YOU HAVE EVER IMAGINED IF YOU COOK THEM YOURSELF.

Okay, I'll calm down. Let me back up. It started a few months ago when I was reading some blog/column/thingo (I have just spent the last 20 minutes trying to track down the actual posting to no avail. You'll just have to be with me on this.) in which the writer waxed downright romantic about plain ol' beans cooked in water. Something about how even the "broth" that was created by cooking them (oh yes, they do mean bean-water. See?!) was tasty and complex. Something s/he couldn't stop eating. So a seed was planted. But I think it was summer at the time and the last thing I felt like doing was soaking a pot of beans then boiling them into oblivion. I was busy judging then saying hi to Vince Vaughn on a bike on the lakefront path. True story. I'll tell you sometime. Anyway.

Then, of course, this came out and it was all over. When MB tells me to jump, I not only ask him how high, but also whether he'd like me to pick him up a sandwich or something on my way back down. (Fangirl much? I know, I know.) I was also just tired of feeling like a rookie foodie: I mean, I make my own cheese, my own stock, my own roasted peppers and my own pesto. What was I doing eatin' beans from a can still?

I also like having a legitimate reason to store things in old glass jars.

So off I trotted to the Whole Paycheck to find me some bulk beans. I figured, Obscure Food Mecca that it is, that the Paycheck would, on offer just for me, have several of those big plastic silos full of lovely beans from which to select.

You can imagine, then, my more-than-mild disappointment when confronted with only three bean varieties: garbanzo, kidney, and navy. Ew.

(I mean, no, not ew really. But no white beans? Really? Rachel Flippin' Ray gets dried cannellinis at her "growsher" up in the Adirondacks! [Not that she uses them. But I won't go there.] Why does my Snooty Food Emporium in the center of all things new-agey and progressive, home of everything from bulk wheatgrass to the stinkiest, moldiest, most delicious runny-ass cheeses this side of Marseilles [I've seen it. It lives in a small dome-like structure for maximum display-gloriousness. Someday I will buy it.] NOT have simple dried white beans? Not even in a bag? I will tell you what.)

But then again... navy beans, eh? They're white... and just a little smaller than what I'm looking for. Actually... they're kinda cute. And more importantly, I have no use for tons of kidney beans unless I'm making chili, nor for chickpeas, unless I'm making hummus.

So navy beans it was. I bagged 'em up, brought 'em home, sat 'em on my pantry shelf, and sort of looked at them for a few days. It was a friendly staredown, but I realized that soaking and cooking them was a process for which I'd need sufficient time and focus. (Only because it was the first time, mind; not because it was hard.)

Finally, on MLK Day, getting back into the swing of city things after three of the most surreal-yet-real days ever, I put those beans in their place.

Yep. In for The Big Soak. A bit later I cooked them up. The water began to thicken with the starches from the beans, and somehow, through what I can only assume is some type of Bean Magic, the pot began to smell like A Meal. Something more complex than just beans. Something like... soup. With chicken (but not). And vegetables (but not). Then, once the beans approached done-ness, they began to taste like A Thing Worth Eating On Its Own. Not just a bean - sorta starchy, proteiny, beany (which, as it turns out, is just Essence of Can) - but a Bean. Yeah, I get that I'm doing a whole signifier-Signified thing here but dudes: I wouldn't rope Lacan into this unless there was simply no other way to explain what was happening here. Thus... we do not have beans. We have Beans: what small-b beans could only ever aspire to be.

I couldn't stop dipping my spoon into the pot to figure out what had happened in the final 10 minutes or so to make all this taste so wonderful.

And yes - I even got a spoonful of just the bean-water/broth/whatever and you guys... it's delicious.

Okay, so, for reference, here's what I did:

adapted from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything," Revised Edition.

Rinsed about 1 1/2 pounds of dried white beans in a colander.
Threw those beans in a big pot and covered them with water by about an inch.
Put the pot in the fridge for 5 hours.
Went about my business.
Took the pot out, rinsed the beans again, put them back in the pot, and covered them with about 2 inches of fresh water.
Brought the whole pot to a boil, then turned the heat down to low-ish.
Simmered (you do want intermittent, tiny bubbles [ah, RIP Don Ho!] as this cooks) for about an hour and 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
At about 70-80 minutes, started to check for texture. Once ideal texture was achieved (that's pretty mushy for me), I threw in a healthy grip of salt and some pepper and began tasting for... uh, no particular reason other than that it was delicious.
Froze half, fridged half.

Again: I can't tell you how great this tasted. For dinner that night, I just put some of the fresh beans in a bowl with some fresh parsley, and drizzled olive oil over the top with a bit more pepper. That was it.

I realize I will probably always keep a couple cans of beans on-hand just in case; I'm not saying I'm going totally native here. But this is definitely one of those situations where, if you've got the bit of extra time to do so, making it from totally-total scratch is really worth it.

It's a comfort...

2009-01-19T14:49:00.000-06:00

... doing mundane things when recent days have been... otherworldly.

I don't know how much time my grandfather spent in the kitchen. I don't know what sorts of distractions he sought in sad times. In fact I might venture to guess that he didn't seek distractions, choosing instead to confront the problem head-on.

Though, now that I think about it, grief isn't necessarily a problem remedied by action or confrontation. In general, it's overcome with time and patience. In my family, it's addressed collectively and vocally, with stories, gestures, looks, and old photos, repeating who is related to who, who married so-and-so, whose cousin defended who on the playground. Paesani, cumpari, cugini, fratelli. Retelling, again and again, even in the same night, these little tidbits that, as of now, can only be carried on once committed to our memory. Rote anecdotalization by chant. Catalano, Caponigri, Scarpelli, Falcone, DeMarco, Falbo, Zumpano. Accent the penultimate syllable. Pictured: Great-grandpa Charlie on the moon with two lady friends. Pictured: Great-grandpa Charlie with Great-grandma Rose. Fast-forward: On Christmas Eve, we realize Rose's wedding ring is sitting on the third finger on my left hand. Pictured: Great-grandma Marietta with sister, Adalina, and Adalina's husband Nick. Fast-forward, though not too far: Nick and Marietta pass away. Adalina marries Marietta's husband Carmen, Nick's brother. Fast-forward, decades now: Grandma Dalina gives us long-john donuts and cold milk in her kitchen off Harlem. She has a small, yappy dog named Queenie. She is my grandfather's stepmother and sings songs that even we small kids recognize, though we're not sure from where.

Every time we relive and retell these stories over and over and work them, painting, moving backward into the stories we learn from the very old pictures, we rejoin and fortify this line. Every time we repeat them, like prayers, around a table, we build and rebuild this memorial. We can't not do it; we're in the pictures. My cheekbones, my sister's mouth, my brother's eyes.

Coming back to my apartment last Sunday, these pictures just behind my eyelids, I thought of two steel pots: One from Grandma Eleanor, one from Great-grandma Dalina. Grief, in my apartment, is to be faced, apparently, armed with broth. Two kinds. And cannolis.

I remembered the first time I made chicken stock on my own, needing something new and constructive to do as I went into mild panic mode in a new, utterly disorganized, underdecorated apartment. The one thing I knew was the kitchen, and the one thing I knew would set me at ease was a straightforward job like stock. Unwrapping, untying, dismantling, sorting, stirring, then letting the pot drive on its own while I figured out where the hell to put the couch. It was 80 degrees at night and I stood in my quasi-galley kitchen making chicken stock.

Last Sunday, same apartment: Mentally numb though sort of throwing off sparks with anxious-exhausted energy, it was time once more to make Big Pots of Hot Stuff. Food. Stock. Whatever.

Pot 1: Chicken. Unwrapping, untying, dismantling, sorting.

Pot 2: Vegetable. Rinsing, peeling, chopping (crying), sorting.

Together: Stirring, smelling, walking away. Stirring, walking away. Smelling, watching, walking away. Tasting, seasoning, stirring, watching, pretending not to watch, watching, walking away.

(Let it be known: In good times and in bad, I tend to babysit my stockpots.)

The temperature outside hovered around 8 degrees, the windchill factor so indecent it does not bear repeating. I expected my windows would steam up, as this is what happens whenever anything spends more than five minutes on the stove. However, the appearance of steam-cicles streaming down my kitchen window, turning the Uptown skyline into a sort of ghoulish winter funhouse, was a strange surprise, and a surprising, if strange, comfort.

I love a list.

2009-01-07T10:31:00.003-06:00

No seriously. I do. Lists, scripts, directions (though not really recipes, strangely)... for as bossy as I might be sometimes, I reeeally kind of like being told what to do. Especially if it's by someone who knows what they're doing.

So leave it to our homeboy to put together something handy and super-real:
The Minimalist's Latest Must-Haves for the Pantry

Haute Med Lo

2009-01-04T09:19:00.015-06:00

More so than any other past holiday season, I think Hurlidaze 08 will forever be characterized by The Totally Rando Things I Made/Ate/Drank.

I mean, everyone does this to a certain extent around the holidays, right? We give fancy dinners as gifts (or, I do). We go out for pizza the day after Christmas because the thought of any more of that rosemary-garlic-rubbed roast makes us feel downright despondent. We roll up to hometown burrito joints after drunken reunions with old, old friends. One day we want haute cuisine, the next day we just want a hot dog. Clicquot, cava, Cook's.

(FYI: I'm still getting used to having the camera at-hand for my adventures [culinary or otherwise], and since many of the holiday's foodie quests took place in environments where photography seemed rather gauche, I will use this moment to promise you that pretty food pictures will appear in future posts. Get excited.)

So without further ado, I present to you: Dear Diary, I Am Really Full...

December 21, 3:00pm: Make these with Caracita. Burn first batch, eat what is salvageable; claim glorious victory over second batch, eat what is simply slightly malformed. (Note: 5 dozen? Total horseshit.)
December 23, 7:00pm: Snowstorm. Glad I thought of using my hiking backpack instead of a rolling suitcase. Arrive at the family homestead and set to work on triple-batch of ricotta for Christmas Eve stuffed shells.
December 24, 8:30am: Realize even triple-batch isn't quite sufficient to stuff two pounds of shells. Drive to Dominick's in cutoff sweatpants, sweatshirt, and biker boots (snowstorming still) to fetch more ricotta. Totally wipe out on some melted slush by express checkout. Ass-bruise remains. (Price of glory.)
December 24, 12noon: Brunch dishes cleared. Egg nog liberated from fridge. Whiskey liberated from pantry. Dad has one on the rocks, I spike my nog. Dad makes 3 apple pies, I stuff 8001 pasta shells. David Bowie plays on kitchen stereo.
December 25, 7:00pm: Yuletide bliss! Spinach balls unveiled, once more, as legitimate holiday dinner item. I forgo filet. (Priorities, you see.)
December 29, 6:30pm: Shit from my fridge, Runnin' On Empty Edition. Penne, a few hardy surviving stalks of kale that I "flash-cooked" (thank you, Santa, and Mark Bittman), ricotta from the ri-do, a can of italian tuna, and pine nuts. Surprise! You're delicious!
December 30, 7:30pm: Schwa with Stew. Favorites: Sunchoke bisque, the duck course, and warm taleggio with candied prosciutto and honey glass (and wooden spoon).
December 31, 5:00pm: Awake from disco nap, throw together MORE spinach balls (it's like they're a theme); proceed to launch them into eternal fame at the Monkey Suite.
January 1, 1:47am: Gleefully lighting a bummed Marshall McGearty's Oriental Rose cigarette over a stove burner, realize somewhere in inner-secret-sober brain I have met my match in the French 75. Beginning of what will hopefully be a delightfully boozy, probably dramatic, and most certainly beautiful relationship.
January 1, 9:45am: Best. New Year's Day morning. Ever. Big cashmere wrap sweater, lots of Advil, late 90s SATC on DVD, peasant breakfast in bed. Thick slice of sourdough, layer of gorgonzola, some bacons, sauteed spinach & grape tomatoes, olive-oil fried egg. Still hung over, sure, but rested and sated and happy.
January 1, 3:30pm: Fry up some fancy hangover snacks with Cara. Attach the entire length of my torso to her living room radiator.
January 3, 8:00pm: Multi-course heaven with Ed at Anteprima. Grilled polenta with spicy rapini; various cured meats with fig and cherry mostarda; tripe (yeah, believe it); swiss chard and ricotta ravioli in brown butter; the steak-iest scallops ever with cauliflower puree, wild mushrooms, and red wine reduction. OH, AND: Hey, lemon panna cotta, what say you and me and the Moscato over there have a little three-way...? Call me.
January 4, 12noon: Gossip and chilaquiles at Kitsch'n with Jill. I'm not even hung over. They are that good.
January 4, 3:30pm: Crushed pistachios and demerara sugar (left over from 12.21's cookie venture) atop chocolate ice cream. "Slutcandy" is born.
January 4, 6:00pm: Roasted parsnip bisque, courtesy of a Hearty Boys cooking class I took last year. (Technically the theme was "Thanksgiving Sides." It lives in my memory as the Night of Many Dairies.)

Aaaaand I'm exhausted. A happy, lucky, wondrous 2009 to all.

Eheheheeheheheee

2008-12-17T10:47:00.003-06:00

I know everyone's out there making Christmas cookies and other sweet treats, but let's not forget about the joys of that old holiday standby, The Gift Basket of Processed Foodstuffs, particularly, the venerated Beef Log.

(This one's for you, Cortney. Chicago misses you.)

Ri-cotta Ri-do

2008-12-15T11:27:00.006-06:00

It had been talked about from time to time: reapproaching ricotta. The last time we made it we were, admittedly, a little nervous about the new venture and so crafted our inaugural batch of ricotta with a healthy dose of caution. We probably cooked it for a few minutes more than it needed; squeezed it a little harder than necessary; let it drain for a full 15 minutes instead of 10 or 12. We were left with some decent ricotta that, though on the harder side, at least I found suitable for putting with pasta and hot sandwiches, finding that the heat from the rest of the dish helped to smooth out the cheese. The flavor was fine, not divine. The texture was okay, but not anything that even the hardest-core ricotta addict (hi, Mom) would delve into with a spoon. Like I said - it worked okay as a dairy-based addition to otherwise respectable dishes, but probably couldn't have stood on its own merits.

And so, Sunday. We had pretty much isolated the texture issue, identifying draining-time as the culprit for a dry cheese (naww, really?). We figured we'd do everything the same - right down to the lab thermometer, whose red slidy tab-thingy (yes, that's the technical name) I dutifully adjusted to 175 so that we could marshal the pot right off the heat as soon as the curds were ready.

Like clockwork, the milk got hot (though we did sort of obsessively hold the thermometer in the pot from almost the very beginning... but I promise, the rest of the procedure was much more relaxed), the curds formed, we flicked the burner off, and dumped it all into the cheesecloth/colander. This time, remembering our relatively dry product last time, we drained it for exactly 10 minutes.

And it.

Was.

PERFECT.

Creamy, soft, super mild (we did put a bit of salt in during the cooking process; to be honest, I'm not sure how much of an effect it had). Better than any store-bought or deli-made ricotta I had ever had, though I imagine part of that might have come from the fact that our product was like super-crazy-fresh, not to mention still warm. BUT STILL. If you weren't inspired by my tale of the first attempt, please please PLEASE think about making ricotta now. Right now.

To celebrate our achievement, we used it in an improvised version of something like this, topping with a generous scoop of the ricotta. (Then we totally watched Foul Play, continuing what's shaping up to be a sort of perfunctory Chevy Chase Film Festival.) (Shut up. It's winter in Chicago. We make up projects & pursuits where we can.)

Okay but on the real: Go make some ricotta. 10-minute drain. I'm telling you.

Oh hey, guess what!

2008-12-15T11:18:00.005-06:00

New camera. Coming my way. December 25.

You know what this means: Pretty food/cooking/kitchen/restaurant/city pictures.

But, you know... act surprised. (Immortal yuletide words from my mother.)

Shit from My Fridge: Ol' Dirty Casserole Edition

2008-12-02T08:49:00.011-06:00

Editrix' note: While I was busy eating Peasant Breakfast for a solid two out of my three daily meals (even foodies get lazy, it seems), Ms. Klein was busy being responsible and creative and putting together the following SFMF. Due partly to pesky formatting issues that made this look like less than the piece of aesthetic perfection it should be, and partly to my apparently newfound hobby of being a worthless layabout, I present this to you now-- a solid fortnight after its birth. Think of it as an early Christmas/Hanukkah gift.

I am a soul adrift. My refrigerator – not to mention my sink, counters, and oven - is a disaster. This year Mike and I decided to be brave and to host our first Klein-Davis family hurliday and, while it was a lot of fun, MAN is it a lot of work! Growing up you approach holiday feasts with reckless abandon shoveling in your allotted 6200 calories worth of mashed potatoes, funneling 8-10 cups of gravy onto your turkey and bulking up to approach the dessert spread. I now have a new respect for the men/women who put those spreads together while the rest of the family watches football and catches up on the details of their second cousin's recent divorce and subsequent relationship with the neighbor's estranged pool boy. Not only was the cooking/shopping/table-setting a production, when my 19 guests walked (read: did the Bailey's-Kahlua stumble) out my front door I realized that the work had just begun. I had laundry and leftovers to contend with.

So last night, a full four days after the initial triptophan-laced encounter, I went to my saran-wrapped disaster area of a refrigerator to see what was left of the wreckage. I found the following items that either needed to be thrown away or dealt with immediately: an onion, left over from the stuffing; two potatoes-- the only ones that were salvageable from my rotten 10 pound bag (lucky I didn't do a post a few days earlier entitled SFMF: Lasers Coming Out of My Eyes Edition); some milk-- I don't drink milk, like, EVER; and three random slices of ham. And now, to all ye judgers of the stalwart Midwestern hot-dish: You will hush up because the jam I whipped up cleared an entire shelf of space in my fridge AND was damn tasty.

I present to you: Ham & Blue Cheese Gratin

1 1/4 cups milk (I used 2%)
1 heaping tbsp flour
1 pat of butter (probably about 1/2 a tablespoon)
1/2 a small onion, chopped
1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles (I strongly suggest putting this 3 pound wheel of heaven on your Christmas list. Not kidding.)
2 medium potatoes, cut into thin slices
1 1/2 cups thick sliced ham (chop the slices up into medium sized cubes)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the milk and flour, add about a teaspoon each of salt & pepper, and set aside. Heat the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. When that's melted add the onion and cook for about 3 minutes, or until tender. Add the milk mixture and bring it all to a boil for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly, or until it thickens slightly (sort of like a roux). Remove from the heat and add about half of the cheese. Stir until the whole thing is nice and smooth. Layer half of the potatoes on the bottom of your cutest little baking dish (mine is approximately 4x8 and has a cow on the bottom of it). Pour half of the cheese mixture over that, then the ham. Layer the rest of the potatoes, the rest of the cheese sauce, then sprinkle the whole thing with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese. Cover with foil & bake for 45 minutes. Then, remove the foil and continue to cook for 30-35 minutes (the top will be bubbly and browned). Insert your fork and prepare for unbridled ecstasy.

Also, you will be pleased to note that this heavenly hot dish does not contain Velveeta or a can of Campbell's condensed soup. Stereotype busted.

(Peasant) Breakfast for Dinner

2008-11-29T19:42:00.005-06:00

Ooof.

For the last two nights, I have had no choice but to fall asleep on my side (or, as my sister and I coined: "aggressive side," a hybrid side-stomach position where one attempts to fold oneself into the couch/bed/floor by lying/leaning/teetering on one side of the tummy. It's actually much more soothing than my sub-par description suggests). Now don't get me wrong: Thanksgiving was a lovely time this year and I've returned to my city home rather refreshed and laden with mom-sponsored treasures. But we all know that the body goes into Early-Stage Hurliday Insurrection Mode shortly after Turkey Day and begs you for nothing but basics for about a week straight.

Luckily, my tummy's silent protest has coincided quite nicely with the fact that fridge/pantry levels hovered around Next to Nothing upon my return. Too tired and turned off by the prospect of anything too complex, I took a good hard stare at what I did have and put a few pieces together for a new/old favorite:

Peasant breakfast (just... for dinner this time).

Ms. Klein introduced me to Peasant Breakfast the first time I came down to see her in her St. Louis palace and I haven't really been the same since. By which I mean, if I ever have the opportunity/materials to slap some cheese on a thick piece of toast, then put some type of green atop that, then put a soft-fried egg on top of that, I take it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner; it don't matta. Spinach, kale, arugula; whatever. Colby, feta, brie; fine.

So today I made a nice pile of the following:

a thick slice of sourdough bread, toasted
some triple-creme I had left over (from god knows what. How had I failed to find some kind of vehicle-- jesus, even a lowly tortilla chip would do in a pinch!-- to finish that off like the priceless goodness it is? Sometimes I escape even myself.)
the end of a bag of baby spinach, just-barely-sauteed (not the bag, the spinach) in a spoonful of chicken stock & salt & pepper
a lovely fried egg (incidentally, I have been honing my egg-frying skills lately and I think I've figured it out. Try this: low heat, a bit of olive oil in the pan, crack your egg into it, salt & pepper if that's what you're into, then cover it and leave it be for a few minutes. The last few times I've tried this, I've gotten a fully-cooked white and a still-runny yolk, and minimal stickage in the pan. Don't say I never gave you anything.)

And listened to "Womanizer" remixes on Hype Machine (...what?) and watched Gosford Park. With subtitles, for crying out loud-- it's like the entire content of that movie is contained in the layers upon layers of asides and whispered conversations. (Dear Clive Owen: God bless you for always having been so damned dashing, even as a manservant. Or, I suppose, especially as a, er... manservant.)

Ahem. Anyway. I feel a little better after three straight days of gluttony. Huzzah, recovery!

Boyohboyohboy

2008-11-27T19:30:00.008-06:00

Happy Opening Day of the Hurliday Season, folks.

It was a rather traditional (read: dirty) Thanksgiving at the homestead, the table groaning under the Biggest Turkey I'd Ever Seen, about five casserole dishes, 2 bread baskets, and butter in quantities perhaps last seen at the Thanksgiving table of one Paula Deen.

I can't. Eat. Anything. Ever again.

Least not until about 10:00 this evening when I hit that spinach casserole so very, very hard.

In the spirit of sharing (and being too lazy to throw anything original on here), I give you two of my favorite holiday treasures. One, the recipe for The DeMarco Girls' Spinach Balls (yeah, chuckle away. You can thank me later when you taste them)... you can also throw this in a casserole dish-- a la Midwest, bien sur.

1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed & (really) well-drained. I spent some quality time over the sink with this today and turned my hands green. Weee!
1 cup herb stuffing mix (did I tell you this was dirty?).
3 eggs
1/2 cup cheese-- we dig parmigiano, but romano could be nice, or some other hard cheese
1/3 cup butter

Dump everything into a bowl. Mix it all up with your hands. Use a spoon if you must (i.e. if you're a pansy), but know that it won't do nearly as good a job at making sure the spinach is distributed throughout the mixture evenly. Hmph. And anyway, squishy food is fun.

Roll into little balls or slap into a casserole dish and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Die and go to heaven.

And two, this gem.

All the season's best, dear ones!

Dear Rice Pudding: Wow.

2008-11-16T18:50:00.008-06:00

I just made. The best. Rice pudding.

Ever.

Backstory: I spent about 23% of my total childhood sneaking slices of my grandmother's chocolate cookie dough. The woman knows desserts. Simple desserts, though. Eleanor loves a Fannie May turtle. A bowl of vanilla ice cream. A nice nut cup. Pizzelles. So I wasn't entirely shocked to hear that she had a recipe for rice pudding in her arsenal. I was, however, a little shocked to hear how simple it was to make.

Fast-forward to a recent lazy Sattaday lunch hour(s) in my grandparents' kitchen. We're nibbling on the last bits of our sandwiches, fishing out little bread scraps from the basket; excuses to have one more piece of salami, a little corner of provolone. The oven beeps and takes us by surprise-- we didn't even know anything was in there. Grandma gets up and buzzes over, shoving her jeweled hand (emeralds, I think) into an oven mitt and plucking out a pan of spice cookies. Of course. We should have known. "Oh, you know me. I'm always baking something." My grandpa nods knowingly. She puts a few cookies on a plate and brings it to the table before my mom can remind her of the rice pudding she's brought for our dessert. There's some well-meaning bickering-- "No, you should save them for you and Dad!" "No, no, Annamarie can bring some back with her." "No, save those and bring them for Thanksgiving." "I'll make more for Thanksgiving!" My grandfather, my sister and I munch silently, our eyes wide and mildly entertained, darting between the debaters.

It's resolved: Grandma will bring more for Thanksgiving, and we'll have these cookies today along with the rice pudding my mom made (a win-win, clearly).

So, over dessert, we discuss how good the rice pudding is and what went into it. My mom is much more of a savory person than a sweets person (the apple didn't fall far...), but she's pretty good at improvising desserts and using handy shortcuts when the time calls for it. For her rice pudding, she just used rice, Jello vanilla pudding, and some cinnamon. Pretty simple. And yes, it was some good pudding. (Especially for me, since I so rarely make desserts... I'm easily impressed.) My grandmother asks if she put an egg in there. My mother, quizzical, says no.

Grandma proclaims that she's also got a recipe for rice pudding, but it uses an egg. We ask to hear this recipe. When she gets to the end of her explanation and my mom realizes no Jello products were mentioned, she is concerned: "Wait... what about the pudding?"

I won't lie: Anyone born in or after the Baby Boom would ask that, at least in their heads if nowhere else. The massive advent of convenience and packaged foods/ingredients eventually eclipsed the very idea that Everything Can Be Made From Scratch. (Because cracking an egg into your Duncan Hines brownie mix does not equal "from scratch.") I'll also admit that my grandmother's recipe, in all its wholeness and simplicity, seemed almost too good to be true. But it turns out the secret is definitely in that one egg. This is how we do it, Montell Jordan:

Eleanor Scarpelli's Rice Pudding

1 cup rice. I used basmati-- not because I was trying to go all new-age on Eleanor, but only because it seemed to be the only acceptable rice available to me at the Whole Paycheck this evening. I rarely make rice otherwise so I wasn't exactly in the market for a 30-lb. sack, you know? The basmati worked really well, though, of course.
8 cups milk. 8 c. is about a half-gallon, for those of you following along at home. I used 2%. It was real. (I think you need at least a little fat in the milk for this, though I feel like going all the way to whole milk could be overkill.)
3/4 cup sugar. Seriously, that's it.
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cook the rice in the milk and the sugar for about an hour, or until the rice is soft and the liquid is fairly thick, though not too gooey. You'll want to stir this once every 5-10 minutes (me: "So, how often should I stir the rice? Every 10 minutes?" Grandma: "Well, yeah, 10 minutes at a stretch is fine. But, every 5 minutes is better. I mean, you might as well if you've got nothing else going on." Damn it, Eleanor, you know me too well.) (I was actually making chicken stock and OHMYGODTHIS at the same time, so I just sort of camped out in the kitchen for a while). If you're like me, you'll stick your face over the pot at several points in time to feel/smell the warm, sweet steam coming up, and then you'll wonder why you're uncomfortably warm and have rolled up your sweatpants like some kind of crazy street ninja and changed into a tank top in the middle of November. Once the rice is about finished, turn off the heat. Crack the egg into a bowl, whisk it up, and add the vanilla to it. Then add a little of the rice mixture-- maybe a tablespoon-- to the egg and whisk it, repeating 2 or 3 more times until you see/feel that the egg mixture is pretty warm. (When you do this, you're tempering the egg so that when it gets added to the super-hot rice, it doesn't instantly turn into scrambled eggs.) (What's with me and adding raw egg to hot goo lately, anyway?) Stir in the egg completely-- it sort of pulls the whole thing together and gives it that distinct smooth pudding-y texture.

And congratulations! At this point, you've got a basic-- and INCREDIBLE-- rice pudding. I added a teeeeny bit of cinnamon and fresh nutmeg; just enough for the flavor to suggest that there might be some in there, but nothing obvious.

So now I've got an enormous pot of rice pudding sitting on my stove. I've dipped my spoon in there at least seven times in the last three hours. Eventually I got real and just sat down with a little bowl of it. Now, I'm not really much of a dessert person. To be sure, if there are chocolate chip cookies lying around, I'm on it. If you bring me a chocolate bar, I will contemplate not sharing it. I will never not love ice cream. But making a dessert entirely from scratch (short of maybe tracking down a precious whole vanilla bean, I suppose) and meeting with sheer victory is something to celebrate. I stuck my head over the pot one more time, inhaled, and then I'm pretty sure I hot-dogged around my kitchen, end-zone style, for a good 30 seconds. Before I realized the people in the building across the street might be able to see me. So then I did it a little more.

I miss you, summer.

2008-11-11T21:36:00.005-06:00

All I could think of today was a spinach salad with pine nuts, feta, and olive oil. A little salt. Maybe pepper. It's a variation on a classic, acid-less salad (vinegar or otherwise) introduced to me about a quarter of a century ago by my grandfather. Because when the olive oil is good enough, you don't really need much else*.

*Except, of course, for sunshine and temperatures somewhere above 65 degrees.

So apparently I'm having seasonally inappropriate cravings. (Somebody call Barbara Kingsolver: Is there some kind of support group for this?)

Because it's too damn cold for that salad now; we're well into the Season Where All We Want Is an Enormous Bowl of Steaming Baked Glop. In case you missed it, it sleeted today. The outdoor temperature was a consistent, soul-wilting 37 degrees (33 in my office before the radiators kicked on. Thanks, well-respected yet hopelessly antiquated institution of higher learning!). Even my tangy nicoise at lunch, despite extra mustard in the dressing and a subsequent (though temporary) clearing of sinuses, didn't quite seem to cut it.

So I came home this evening to some questions. The first two were unrelated to food, but important in a gra's life: 1) When are jeans without pockets on the butt acceptable? I've spent years decrying the devastating strain of Sad-Butt Syndrome (SBS) caused by the regrettable absence of pockets to give much-needed shape to the rear. Turns out it's all okay if the jeans feel great otherwise and were $20. Shut up. 2) Am I a bad person if I don't do laundry tonight? Yes.

The next, rather ironic question went something like this: How far am I willing to go to not leave my apartment again tonight? The weather outside was relatively frightful for a Chicagoan whose blood hadn't thickened up to, well, a seasonally appropriate consistency, and my radiator and overpriced soy candles are so delightful. So I went to the fridge to see what kind of (probably SFMF-worthy) creation I could throw together so I could a) pretend I wasn't chilled to the bone, b) do my laundry and c) watch my ill-fated 00's family sitcom on DVD in peace/sweats. (What?) However, I was greeted with... well, let's say it was like opening the door to a surprise birthday party thrown for me by Narcoleptics Anonymous. "Zzzzz.... Oh. Uh... oh. Hey. Hi. Uh- Surpri... zzzzz." Wow, guys! Dying, bitter spinach! A slice of colby jack! Some chicken stock! Pesto! Wow. Really. You shouldn't have!

So I didn't. I folded. I noticed a coupon for a whopping $5 off any delivery order from my favorite Indian place (hey, how else do you think I afford nice things like $20 plain-butt jeans? [in my defense, they are rather trouser-esque]). What did I order? That's right: An Enormous Bowl of Steaming Baked Glop. My first, and completely unoriginal Indian love: chicken tikka masala. Whatever, it's a classic. (And garlic naan. Pshah.) Was it warm? Of course. Satisfying? Yes, if by that you mean to ask if I'm bordering on achingly full.

But so what? I mean, yes, there's something to be said for an EBSBG (I am making up stupid acronyms like it's my job. But looking at it, I actually feel like "EBSBG" is sort of catchy. Am I wrong?). But still, tonight, I'm thinking about that salad. Fresh spinach. Crumbled feta. Some pine nuts-- toasted or not. Olive oil and salt. That's it.

I miss August. I miss squinting into the sun, not scowl-squinting into the sleet. I miss crisp, cold food. No, wait. I miss wanting crisp, cold food. I miss coming home to a basil plant that, after a little water and about 10 hours of indirect sunlight, looks like it went through the makeover/shopping montage in Pretty Woman, just without the shoulder pads. My plant is, actually, miraculously, dutifully, still producing nice little green leaves for me. But I feel like she's just doing it to put on a brave face.

Hopefully this winter won't be the stone-cold bitch it was last year. But I can't pretend like I don't look forward to spring and summer, when my salad is just so perfect.

Meanwhile, we work with hardier produce. Stuff that can sit on the pantry shelf for like a month, before, still smiling and unblemished, we call it into service and bake it away in a toasty oven in a toasty, bright kitchen.

Stuff like, say, squash. Stay tuned.

Carbonara a la Gra, or: Upscale (Yet Somehow Reeeally Dirty) Shells & Cheese

2008-11-05T18:40:00.010-06:00

Sometimes I have a grand plan to blog about a particular food item/concoction prior to its actual creation in the Nest Kitchen. And sometimes I make (or revisit) something so incredible, something that makes me so happy, something that, in its various incarnations, has pleased so many friends, that I realize, as I cross my eyes in sheer glee at the first forkful, that this is Seriously Something That Requires A Tribute. (And, apparently Something That Requires a Really Long Post Title.)

I first made pasta carbonara in my old, old apartment down on Waveland (perched one floor above the notorious Daddy Donut and his smelly dog[s?] and truculent children), and have been refining my own version ever since. The traditional version is very simple-- pasta (usually spaghetti), some kind of cured pork item (guanciale is preferred; pancetta is usually what is in my fridge. Assignment: somebody go find me some guanciale and I'll make an even more glorious carbonara for us), and a sauce/glue of cream, raw eggs, parmigiano, and pepper. I say "glue" because once the eggs hit the warm pasta, the heat cooks the sauce and it all turns into a lovely, rich, quasi-stuck-together symphony of, well...

Fats.

But whatever. As I recently told a friend, I do eat normal-person food most of the time (or, glorified normal-person food [see: every SFMF]), but the things I end up wanting to talk about are just... kinda dirty.

The trick, though, with carbonara, and what makes it (at least in my mind) especially impressive despite its meager yet solid ingredient list, is pure ninja magic: you pretty much have to have your eye on two things at once while your hands do another thing, and the final maneuver of the recipe requires sophistication and a good eye for consistency-- that is, you walk a fine line between the noted symphony of fats and, well, something like scrambled eggs.

So last night, somewhere between a desperately needed 2-hour nap, residual tears of joy (shut up, I'm a sucker for a good montage), and drinks with a new pal, I decided to bow down even further to the gods of indulgence and revisit carbonara after about a two-year hiatus. The last time I had made it I was standing in a kitchen about 20 feet from the brown line, trying to impart the wonders of Dago cooking to a theretofore innocent babe. This time, only the ingredients were the same... I was about 50 feet above street level, armed with a new, enormous, stainless pan, and cooking to impress only myself (and my tupperware) (if it wasn't clear before, let it be said: I'm an old lady and Nana likes her tupperware).

As I mentioned, I usually use pancetta because that's what's around. I skip the peas that you might find in other versions and add portobello mushrooms instead. Because seriously-- adding peas "for color" or "nutritive value" to a pasta dish is a pretty f*cking stupid thing to do if your sauce consists of nothing but heavy cream, egg yolks, and cheese. I have news for you: The peas will not make a damn bit of difference. Also, and on a less expletive note, I only really ever want carbonara in the fall & winter months, which is THE time to hug it out with your deep, woodsy mushroom cravings. The other ingredients-- eggs, cream, parmigiano, pepper-- are pretty standard. (Side note: You should stop reading now if you have a green Kraft canister anywhere in your house. We are not friends.)

Once you've amassed these things, there are three separate concoctions you must prepare. Each thing takes roughly 10 minutes to do once the pasta hits the water (and they all have to be ready at the same time without overcooking), so a gra's gotta be quick on her feet:

Pasta in (heavily) salted, boiling water. This time I used just a half-pound of pasta, and went for the dark horse candidate... shells (a fact to which we will return shortly).
Pancetta-- I prefer it thinly sliced and then roughly chopped from there-- and some portobellos hissing away in a really big pan with a little bit of olive oil, over medium-low heat. I skipped the garlic this last time and sort of loved the milder result.
One whole egg and two egg yolks, a hefty splash of cream, as much parmigiano as I felt like grating (it ended up looking something like 1/2 cup), black pepper, and-- in a surprise move-- a little red pepper flake, all whisked together in a bowl.

(Incidentally, and before we go too much further, this sort of thing is where a big old skimmer thingy comes in serious handy.)

Once the pasta is done, get it into the pan with the pancetta as soon as possible (see? Skimmy thing). You'll want a little bit of the pasta water to get in there too (see? Skimmy thing) so that it can break up/unstick the bits of pancetta & mushroom goodness on the bottom of the pan. Once the pasta is all in there, QUICKLY give 'er a good toss to make sure everything-- bits included-- is combined. You want to lose as little heat as possible in the process. Grab your bowl of fat (spade = spade), give it a final whisk, turn OFF the heat below the pan, and pour the mixture onto the pasta. Stir for a while: Everything will get coated rather quickly, but you want to make sure you make use of all of the residual heat in the pan to get the egg cooked. If it's still a teeny bit runny after a good stirring, that's okay-- remember you've got cream in there and the whole thing is still warm, so liquids are still acting like liquids.

When I finished this meisterwerk and tried it, it was another one of those situations where I sort of couldn't stop just eating it straight out of the pan. (Remember this?) And as I stood there, thanking the sweet lord above that I lived alone so no one could see my ludicriously, if rapturously contorted face, I realized that the richness of the sauce, though made from entirely natural ingredients, reminded me a whole lot of something very decadent from my childhood. Something reserved only for very special Friday nights when the order of the evening was TGIF and dress-up. That's right: Kraft (Super Dirty) Shells & Cheese.

Oh stop it. You know you ate it and you know you LOVED IT. Flicking your tongue through a pasta shell to root out entire colonies of pasteurized processed cheese food. Hearing that weird Martian translation of snap-crackle-pop as you drove your fork through the bowl. Wondering exactly what sort of cow made a cheese so smooth, so radioactively yellow-orange, and so devastatingly delicious.

So the good news with carbonara is that it's all that, but better (and minus the weird cheese). It's savory and deep, thanks to the pancetta and mushrooms, but heart-wrenchingly (literally?) silky due to the eggs and cream. The familiar black pepper gives it a comfortable dimension and the red pepper flakes, as I'm finding more and more, give it the sort of mysterious afterglow that I always associated with restaurant food but couldn't, until recently, figure out what it was.

The bad news, of course, is that it's something that should probably only be consumed once every other year.

See you in 2010.

(Glorified) Shit from my Fridge: Fall Deelights

2008-11-02T21:11:00.004-06:00

Editrix' note: In editing this post, I realized that, though the recipe KK shares with us here is indeed lovely and pretty real, the ingredients are maybe not shit the average gra (lady or dude-- boys can be gras too) has lying around in her fridge at any given time. HOWEVER: Every gra's gotta throw together a piece de resistance once in a while and I think the beauty of some of Kristy's creations is that they are sort of elegant but deceptively simple (as long as you've got little time this time around to supplement the shit from your fridge with truffle oil and golden raisins).

As I mentioned in my inaugural post, one of the most obvious changes in my living-with-a-dude diet has been the fact that MEAT makes an appearance in almost every dinner concoction. Don't get me wrong: I am down with the people and enjoy the occasional hunk-o-beef... I just worry that eating it every day will make me less of a lady and lead to purchasing Kraft singles and claiming they are real cheese.

Last Saturday Mike was out of town for a football game so I decided to reclaim my inner lady by hosting a girl's night at the house and whipping up a vegetarian delight. Like many gras, I derive great pleasure from my relationship with seasonal ingredients, and as I made my way into Trader Joe's, I heard the Chairman's voice in my head (because my life is one long Iron Chef episode; didn't you know?) proclaim: Battle Squash!

On Friday at lunch I enjoyed Lean Cuisine's (I know, shut up) rendition of butternut squash ravioli and, while it wasn't terrible for a Lean Cuisine, I knew that I could do worlds better. Not finding myself in the mood to make ravioli I decided on a lasagna format, incorporating ingredients that would complement the squash without overpowering it. (Despite its sometimes ungainly shape, squash is a delicate petal and we must respect it.)

1/4 cup flour
2 cups evaporated milk (fat-free is nice, but then again so is regular. You make the call.)
1/2 cup ricotta
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup grated parmigiano (for the love of God, please use the real stuff)
salt & pepper to taste
a few drops of truffle oil (optional but AMAZING if you can find/afford it)
9 lasagna noodles, cooked al dente (since you'll be baking them in goo later)
1 pound butternut squash, peeled & cooked. (Trader Giotto's has butternut squash in its produce section, all cut up into chunks in 16 oz. packages. Delight! Throw it in a 400 degree oven for half an hour and they'll be ready to go.)
1 cup shredded mozzarella
2 of those mini boxes of golden raisins
a couple spoonfuls of pine nuts

Preheat your oven to 350. Put milk in a saucepan over low heat and slowly whisk in the garlic and flour. Stir until it starts to thicken to a sauce-like consistency (about 15 minutes). Add the ricotta and stir until smooth. Remove from heat and add parmigiano, salt & pepper, and truffle oil.

Spread 1/4 cup of the cheese sauce over the bottom of a 9x13 pan (this will be a very thin layer). Top that with three lasagna noodles, followed by half the squash, and another 1/2 cup of the cheese sauce. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of mozzarella and one mini box of raisins. Then do that whole dance again for another layer. Cover with the last three noodles (you might want to smash the whole thing down a little at this point) and the remaining cheese sauce. Sprinkle with the pine nuts and 1/2 cup of mozzarella.

Bake until the top is bubbling around the edges and is a little bit brown-- this was about 30 minutes for me.

In the spirit of the season, I also put together a little boozy apple cider: a gallon of apple cider in a pot on the stove with cinnamon sticks, brown sugar (about 1/2 cup for a gallon of cider) and a spice ball or cheese cloth full of allspice, nutmeg and cloves. Splash a bit (or a lot) of spiced rum, bourbon or (gra favorite) applejack whiskey into the bottom of a mug, ladle the cider on top, and sip. Heartily.

I realized that one of the best side-effects of this meal was how fantastic my house smelled afterward. Kind of like a far superior (not to mention 100% homemade) version of the cloying/nauseating tripe that Bath & Body Works attempts this time of year.

Shit from My Potluck

2008-10-29T21:21:00.006-05:00

Surprise! It's still me! Fear not: the real SFMF column is certainly not defunct. I hear tell that Ms. Klein is working up a nice little piece. But in the meantime, I'd like to weave you a tale.

Once upon a time (last Sunday), a relatively swarthy yet utterly enchanting maiden found herself in quite a state. Home at last in her perch above the gentle Uptown bustle after a fortnight's peregrination hither and, much to her weary disdain, thither, she concluded she had so missed her fond band of scalawag city cronies and had a mind to invite them to a grand feast in her tower. Flying to her refrigerator to see what delights could offer themselves to the evening's convivialities, a crushing look of dismay landed upon her flushed face. The proverbial cupboard, it appeared, was practically bare. Half a bag of baby spinach here, a heel of asiago peppercorn sourdough there... To market, then! But, glancing at the clock as swiped her bike helmet from the kitchen table, it became clear there would not be nearly enough time to acquire the proper materials for this true-jam feast.

To Gmail, then! And the maiden composed a letter to her crew offering abundant wine and a charming dining location in exchange for a dish and the treasured company of each friend.

As the guests arrived and uncovered their dishes, it was shaping up to be a glorious evening. The maiden unveiled her store of wine with a grin and surveyed the procession of treats filing through her doorway: A platter of scrumptious nibbly things, a pot of pleasantly spicy chili, a bubbling eggplant parmesan, perfectly cooked salmon, a potato-fennel gratin layered with gruyere and indecent amounts of cream, and a charming apple custard tart with cinnamon gelato. With one guest set to arrive, it was hard to imagine what could possibly make the meal any lovelier.

Which kind of ended up making sense because the maiden was shortly presented with a pound of raw sea scallops.

No accoutrements, no garnish, no nothing.

(In his defense, the scallop-bearer arrived directly after a work shift, and hey-- scallops are scallops.)

At this point the maiden thought quickly of the few items languishing in her meager store. Aha! she thought: Some pancetta! That spinach! But... but, when we sear these babies in the pancetta bits and then sort of want to wilt the spinach without burning it to death, whatever will we deglaze with? A major stumbling-block, since the maiden so loved the satisfying sizzle and ensuing light pan-sauce produced by a good deglazing. The maiden peered on the shelves of the refrigerator door for a suitable liquid... red wine vinegar, half & half, vanilla soy milk, some of this... Curses. But wait! White wine vinegar?

Yes, yes... I mean, it would certainly do the trick with deglazing. But wouldn't the tartness of the vinegar overpower the delicate scallops? Damn. Maybe. But listen, sister: It's either that or water.

Decision made. We'll just make sure to let the vinegar cook down to a more gentle pH before letting it out of the pan.

And so here is what I/we did (in a relative jiffy, I might add):

In a teeny bit of olive oil, since the pancetta will give off its own fat, browned about 4 very thin slices of pancetta, roughly chopped. (Of course, this was concocted during some pretty lean times so if you've got more sitting around, it couldn't hurt. You just don't want this to turn into a "some scallops with your pancetta?" situation. Or... maybe you do.)
Seared the scallops-- there were about 8 of them-- in/on the pancetta bits. This will only take about a minute per side if the heat is cooperating. In this case, if you can't get a perfect sear (I never can), you'll want to err on the side of under-searing it since it will be sitting for a few extra minutes in...
A hefty splash or two (or however many it takes to just cover the very bottom of the pan) of white wine vinegar. Make sure to rough up the bits on the bottom of the pan so they join everyone else on the dance floor.
Once the vinegar reduced by about 1/2, tossed in some fresh spinach and turned the heat down pretty low. You want the vinegar to continue to reduce a little but you also don't want to freak the spinach leaves out completely.
Once the spinach wilted and the liquid looked like it had come pretty well together (i.e. looked nothing like vinegar), we put it all on a big plate and joined the crew in my dining room/living room/office/bedroom.

And pals: It was GOOD. The liquid did retain a bit of its tang, but it also picked up the pancetta-scallop-spinach goodness and lost some of its acidity in the cooking, so it ended up being a rather nice choice (under duress, of course, but still-- aren't you glad I test these things so you don't have to?). Also, since I fear equally the prospects of overcooked AND undercooked seafood, the presence of a liquid in which to sort of semi-poach the scallops ended up cooking them perfectly-- they were seared a little bit on the outside but were still moist inside and not at all rubbery. Because really, rubbery seafood is just a shame on so many levels... waste of time, money, emotional investment (that last one could just be me).

Moral of the story: Necessity (or... a desolate refrigerator) is the mother of improvisation.

Theeeee End.

Delinquency

2008-10-27T15:46:00.002-05:00

Gnashing of teeth. Flailing of arms. Collective glaring and pouting.

My friends (no, my real friends, not my swing-state voter "friends"), I apologize deeply for my delinquency in the last week or so. The Scarpelli wedding rendered me useless for a good 48 hours, and then, just when it felt like the right time to tackle the butternut squash in my cabinet and explore the more imaginative applications of my circa-1977 Crock Pot (judge not, lest ye find yeself hungry, cold and lazy in this bracing fall chill), other things made annoying, yet necessary demands on my time.

Like you, I'm frustrated. I've spent far too much time being sociable and/or responsible and, indeed, far too little time cooking and not wearing pants.

Tonight, and every Monday for the next 8 weeks (or more, if I am once again seduced by the spirit of Boogie McClarin), I will, alas, be wearing pants but having a grand old time breaking it down here, so I can't promise you instant gratification (unless you count visions of me popping and/or locking as such... which I welcome you to do).

But I will be better. I promise.

Maybe, in the meantime, folks can post comments about the stuff they've been whipping up lately...? Perhaps a recent tale of a potato-fennel-gruyere gratin, ahem? Or a true-jam Shit from my Fridge from any new-ish foodies/cooks?

Damn, gurl. Don't hurt 'em.

2008-10-20T15:28:00.004-05:00

(d-d-d-d-d-don't hurt 'em.)

IF you find yourself at the Green City Market, and
IF you happen to locate the good folks from Westby, WI's Nordic Creamery, and
IF you feel yourself drawn to their goat's milk cheddar, and
IF you bring that cheese home and happen to have a little of this lying around...

You would be well-advised to shred, generously, the former over a hot bowl of the latter and have yourself a TIME. There might even be dancing.

The Sweet Table

2008-10-20T15:13:00.003-05:00

I have consumed more sweets/pastries/desserts in the last four days than in the last four months combined.

I had them for breakfast. Otis Spunkmeyer double chocolate-chip muffins in my parents' kitchen. Yes, the dirty kind you can get in a single-pack from a vending machine. Or a 12-pack from Costco. Dirt. Eee.

I had them at lunch. Caputo's lemon cookies, chocolate spice drops, chocolate-edged boomerang-looking nut cookies (that got dipped into the next morning's coffee), and Grandma Eleanor's biscotti.

I had them after dinner. Because you are not a bethrothed Italian unless you have committed no less than 15% of your overall wedding budget to The Sweet Table. Mini-tiramisu, chocolate dipped fruit, berry tarts, pine nut cookies, lemon cookies... and the eternal classic, the requisite Enormous Cannoli Shell Giving Birth to Thousands of Mini-Cannolis.

It was all just rather scandalous.

Gimme another day to recover and I'll be back in the kitchen, good as new.

Reporting from the Burbs, Where There is Cable

2008-10-17T11:01:00.004-05:00

Today, Paula Deen is "celebrating her deep fryer" on her show.

Paula Deen: American Hero. (Slash-arch-enemy. Slash-but-for-real-hero.)

Shit from My Fridge: Cheap-ass Edition

2008-10-15T22:40:00.004-05:00

Like the aftereffects of an unfamiliar gym routine, I think more and more of us are starting to feel the economic crunch in weird places we didn't know existed. (Dear Honeycrisp apples: Why are you $3 a pound?) This week, Kristy gives us a tasty way to be a cheapskate.

I am feeling a little bit broke these days. Though I don't really think that my spending habits have changed recently, it seems that the checking account is getting closer to empty at an earlier time each month. I will admit that this might be a delusion brought on by constant economy talk (i.e. "We're all gonna die!") on NPR, CNN, etc. The lowering of the funds could also be a result of my attempts to 'de-bachelor' our home and create a nest where both man and woman can dwell comfortably. Regardless of why it's happening, the result is that I have been paying closer attention to what goes in my grocery basket and doing my best to use up leftovers or the half-cans of this and that hanging out in the fridge. (Of course, one could go for all-fresh ingredients for this too, but then it wouldn't really be a SFMF... more of a SFFM [Shit from the Farmers Market].)

One of the best ways that I have found to do this: Pizza. SFMF pizza is a jam for a number of reasons:

Endless combinations of SFMF ingredients mean that you can be as healthy (or unhealthy... heh) as you want.
It's a little bit lighter than dumping all of the same ingredients into SFMF pasta.
It makes great, portable leftovers.

Keep a couple of pre-made crusts on hand and the refrigerator is your oyster. My crust of choice is the Whole Paycheck Organic Whole Wheat crust. What I love is that they're thin enough that you don't feel like you're eating only bread but sturdy enough to hold a substantial pile of ingredients without dumping everything onto your plate/lap.

So the other night my pal Michelle and I whooped up one of these creations. Here's how it went down:

Whole Food organic whole wheat crust
1 Whole Foods spicy Italian chicken sausage from the meat counter… casing removed, cooked and drained. (Can we actually talk about this for a minute? [Gra note: Yes, we can. This needs to be said.] Why do they insist on preparing all of their sausages with casings? Am I the only one who wants to use these for something other than a simple toss on the grills? Does a girl really have to go through the TRAUMA of squeezing a sausage out of its casing? Do they realize how disgusting that is? [OooohgraIknow! That is some sick shit. Unpleasant all around. Though I haven't yet found casing-free chicken sausage, I have found bulk Italian sausage at Trader Ming's for like $3 a pound. One could also just buy some ground chicken or turkey and season it up while cooking, though that's slightly more labor-intensive.]
Thinly sliced red onion
About half a can of diced Italian style tomatoes
Half a can of artichoke hearts chopped up
6 lovely little mozzarella balls all sliced up
Italian seasoning
Red pepper flakes

Pre-heat oven to 400 and pile everything nicely onto the crust, mozzarella slices on top (brush that baby with olive oil before the piling begins). If you are interested in making things a bit more interesting you may want to try caramelizing the onions and maybe even cooking down the tomatoes along with them before adding-- I was in too big of a hurry and wanted things to be a bit crispier. Let that sucker BAKE for 12ish minutes until things look crispy and the cheese looks bubbly. Add seasoning/pepper flakes to your liking and serve.

Served up with Michelle's salad of romaine, walnuts, blue cheese and pears (seasonal AND yummy!), this was a perfect Thursday night meal.

Keep in mind that the ingredients in this really don't matter-- use what you have and you may come up with a combination that surprises and delights. That being said, and in order to prevent a culinary seizure, I would advise against any more than 5 ingredients.

One other thing to note is the purposeful absence of sauce- I don't like using tomato/pizza sauce as I think that it takes over the meal, covers up the flavors of the ingredients, and can make for a potentially soggy pizza.

And the last thing about SFMF pizza? It goes great with your favorite cheap-ass bottle of wine.

Slight departure.

2008-10-15T09:00:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I saw today's Sartorialist and had what was probably one of the most magnificent mis-reads of all time.

Real headline: "The Sartorialist & Gant Party This Thursday!"

What I saw: "The Sartorialist & Giant Panty This Thursday!"

...which sounds like it could make a great name for a band. I'd like my stage name to be Giant Panty (or... not).

Soup of the day*

2008-10-14T21:23:00.014-05:00

*And by "day" I mean several days. Two different batches in one week. Obsessed.

So I'm kind of predictable in some ways, especially when I have a new treasure. I will get way way WAY under it to the point of exhaustion (for me and for Treasure) and then get way over it, moving on to something else that's shiny. New jeans: Wear them out in 3 months. New t-shirt: Dingy in 2 weeks flat. New shoes: We shouldn't talk about it.

So when I roasted some peppers-- Shameful True Confession Alert: for the first time ever-- the other night, I was pretty much instantly hooked. They emerged from the oven blistered and moody, skins shriveling the moment they so much as caught a waft of 70-degree air. I sat them in a bowl, covered the bowl with a towel, and watched the first bit of Waiting for Guffman (Dear Netflix: If I never leave my house this winter, I plan to blame you). Came back to the bowl to peel and seed my now-thoroughly-defeated peppers, which slid, goopy and pouty, onto my cutting board-- like the kid in the cereal aisle lying on the floor doing the "I have no bones in my body" trick when informed that Count Chocula is not invited into the cart (see also: me at age 5).

After eating almost a whole roasted pepper with just my fingers-- hey: I said almost-- I realized that I needed to put the rest of them to a worthy, yet sustainable (read: probably freezable. I was leaving town in 3 days) use.

Answer: SOUP. (Obvi.)

So here's what I did.

Diced a yellow onion. Nothing too fine/fancy-- just as small as you're able to manage before blinding yourself with onion-tears.
Also sliced up a couple shallots, some garlic. They were around.
Let those things sit around in some olive oil in a big pot for what felt like waaaay too long-- but in the teasing, low-flame way that means the onions are turning into somethingvery sexy.
Poured in the juice from the roasted peppers. It was just sitting in the bowl, smelling great. I couldn't toss it. It ended up deglazing the pot a little bit and pulling up some garlicky bits, which pleased me. (Dear pepper juice: You are more than just a pretty face.)
Chopped up the roasted peppers, which had been peeled and seeded. (This is really easy to do once they've steamed themselves into a coma under that towel in the bowl. The skins should just peel right off, and the stem usually helps pull out most of the seeds. You can cut it open and just scrape out the rest.) Added them-- AND a hearty sprinkle of red pepper flakes.
Let all that cook down for another few minutes.
Added a big can of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes and the juice. I squished the tomatoes in my fist before dropping them into the pot. It was... satisfying.
Added some chicken stock and water (I didn't want it to taste too chicken-y. Just rich.)
Busted out my immersion blender, or what Rosellen likes to call "the outboard motor." Pureed the bejeesus out of it.
Added a parmigiano heel. (If you're not in the habit of saving these-- or buying for-real Parmigiano Reggiano cheese-- you should. They add a certain je ne sais quoi to stuff that you might simmer for a while: soup, pasta sauce, etc. The heat breaks down the proteins in the rind and it almost fortifies the soup, in a way.)
Simmered all of that for, uh... as long as it took to finish Waiting for Guffman.
Took out the heel, added some half & half.
Died of happiness.

Okay, except not really on that last part. Because if I did I wouldn't have MADE IT AGAIN 2 NIGHTS LATER. Yeah, I know-- I said I was leaving town. But apparently not before I made another batch, this time with some adorable, bright red-orange Cubanelles I found at the farmer's market last weekend. I put it all (or... all-minus-one-substantial bowlful) into the freezer to stumble upon, all hidden-treasure-like, in the bleak midwinter.

(Photo credit: my MacBook's PhotoBooth function. Shoddy? Maybe. But is it the thought that counts? Yep.)

This just needs to be said.

2008-10-14T10:38:00.003-05:00

I know. I need a camera. I have an old digi, b. circa 2002. It's... unwieldy.

I know.

But worry not, friends. A digicam is first (and pretty much alone) on the Christmas List. Until then, I invite you to continue the use of your imagination (except for when we get lucky and I dine/post in the presence of camera-equipped pals. Rare treat!).

Gratefully,
Gra

We're gonna make it after all...

2008-10-11T14:43:00.005-05:00

Friends! Good news!

The Green City Market will be open all winter long!

Get your snowshoes ready.

Stock Smackdown

2008-10-10T10:43:00.005-05:00

It's fall, and that means one thing.

Okay, actually, that's dumb. Everyone says it and no one means it. Fall means a lot of things to a lot of people. At the Nest, my scarf menagerie comes out, I attempt to roast every food item I can get my hands on, I go out of my way to step or run my bike tire over crunchy leaves, and I begin-- reluctantly-- to wear socks. But whatever.

Fall also means CHICKEN STOCK.

As far back as my fall memories can go, there's a very tall man in a high-ceilinged kitchen, standing over a very tall stock-pot and a mangled bird carcass, separating viable meat from mysterious poultry skele-bits. (Weeee, graphic!) If there was a roasted chicken for dinner the night before, Dad made chicken soup. If it was the day after Thanksgiving, Dad made turkey soup. The bird would spend some some time in the stockpot, thinking hard about what it had done. Often this reflection time started under a sturdy lid in a November garage-- partly, I suspected, to get it out of the way while we cleaned the kitchen and called it a night, and partly so that the water could spend some extra time absorbing the bird's flavors. The pot then returned to the kitchen, "got the crap boiled out of it," and then once the stock tasted less like chicken-water and more like, well, stock, it was time to take out the bones & debris and add the vegetables or rice or pasta or whatever else we had lying around. Et voila: homemade chicken soup.

Chicken stock is one of the few things I can think of that is, categorically, inescapably, unquestionably, always-- always, always, ALWAYS-- better when it's homemade. And I wish I could back this up with hard data from, like, my hardscrabble days of working at Super Steve's Stock Packaging Plant or something so I could identify differences in the quality or processing of ingredients. But I don't. I only know that the homemade result is superior. (But hey, you could also count this as a vote of confidence in your skills as a home cook, for I am 99% certain that you can do a better job than Super Steve and his broth-house).

"But gra, how do I even make chicken stock?? Don't I need, like, fresh herbs and vegetables and powdered unicorn horn and the Pope's blessing?" No gra. You need a chicken carcass and a pot. You need to barely cover the bird with water and you need to bring all that to a boil. Then you need to let it simmer away for as long as you've got, covered or not (depends on how much water you feel comfortable losing through the miracle of steam). Then you need to salt & pepper to taste. Then you need to pat yourself on the back.

(You could go all textbook and add vegetables and other things too, if you wanted, and they do give the stock a more rounded flavor. But truly, they are not a necessity.)

These days, I value a good chicken stock for several reasons (or beef, or, you know, because I'm a big deal: veal) (not really... I mean, I know it's like, kitchen gold and that restaurants [and Bitten contributors] cook with it, but I just don't know how I feel about making my own veal stock, considering my inability to afford a veal cutlet, and my vague ethical misgivings about veal in general. But that's another post). But aside from its more obvious virtues as a soup base and deglazing agent/tasty reduction component, I think I can boil (hah! boil! see that? hah!) the rest of my admiration down to, I will admit, a rather folksy, homespun notion, but one that just makes sense and has stood the test of generations for good reason:

Waste not, want not. Now, you might be saying "uh, well, I don't normally waste a chicken carcass because the day you see me roasting my own chicken is also the day I start making my own soap and, like, hah, using lemon juice as deodorant." You laugh. But really, roasting a chicken well-- and simply (though you, enlightened reader[s], probably know that the two often go hand in hand in the kitchen)-- is not hard to do. There are a zillion and one sets of instructions out there-- pick your favorite and go with it. The alternative is, of course, getting one of the (relatively) freshly-roasted ones from the grocery. Anyway, at the end of both of these paths, you will stand before a lovely roasted bird with two things to gain: tasty meat (that you can and should save and/or freeze) and SHEER POTENTIALITY. By using the parts for priceless stock, you not only save yourself the money you'd otherwise be throwing away on the pathetic excuses for "broth"/"stock" at the supermarket, you're truly using the whole item you purchased in the first place. And you'll get a quick anatomy lesson. And your whole house will smell lovely.

Remember: chicken stock comes from chickens. Not a box. So have at it! You'll be glad you did and you probably won't ever go back to the box*.

*But if, heaven forbid, you do find yourself thinking longingly of boxed stock, maintain at least a modicum of self-respect and see if you can't get your hands on this brand. Admittedly... it is pretty damn good in a pinch.

Also...

2008-10-08T16:37:00.000-05:00

Shit from My Fridge: A Love Story

2008-10-08T16:05:00.013-05:00

A weekly guest post from GraFriend Kristy Klein, extolling the wonders of culinary spontaneity-- i.e. throwing something together using only, well, the shit from your fridge. As you'll see both in this post and in the general tone of this blog, SFMF doesn't have to be a "fix"... eventually, if your goal is to keep things real, it becomes something of a lifestyle.

It was late Saturday afternoon at my boyfriend's bachelor pad in St. Louis, miles away from my trusty extra virgin olive oil and herb cupboard. We had just returned, exhausted, from a lovely afternoon of laughing and frolicking (most likely somewhere uber-chic like Home Depot) when Mike turned to me and said, "So, what are you making me for dinner?" Panic set in. Like any true gra, I desperately wanted to impress with a sophisticated culinary masterpiece… but discussions of circular saws had rendered me too dazed to drag myself to the store. Not wanting to let the panic (or Imo's pizza or terrorists) win, I swallowed my pride, took a deep breath and headed towards the potential biohazard that was the fridge to figure out what might work. Pause here for one shocking side note/little known fact: I like nice things and am kind of a snob. Why does this matter? Because at the point in my long-distance relationship where many people would leave a toothbrush at their home-away-from-home… I left a bottle of good balsamic. That's right, I marked my territory with vinegar… and it was a brilliant idea. So I did it. I made a meal that is now often requested by Mike… and is lovingly referred to as Shit from My Fridge:

· Oil (preferably olive. Obviously)
· Chicken breast tenders- enough for 2 people
· A few tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
· 1 Red bell pepper (cut into strips)
· ½ onion (sliced)
· 4 slices of bread. If you're lucky you'll have something other than Wonder bread or hamburger buns… if you're not lucky you should at least toast the Wonder bread.
· Cheese (Whatever you have other than Kraft singles. Sick. My preference is blue cheese crumbles)

Heat oil in skillet. Season chicken with salt and add to skillet, cooking until lightly browned (about 1 minute on each side). Add a couple of tablespoons of balsamic and cook until chicken is done and vinegar is syrupy. Transfer all of that to a plate and keep it warm. Clean off the pan (remember, you only have one pan in this house) with a paper towel and return to stove top and heat up more oil. Add peppers and onions and sauté until tender but still a bit crispy (5ish minutes). Add salt to taste and a couple more tablespoons of balsamic and cook about 1 minute. Arrange the chicken and bell pepper mixtures on two of the bread slices and top with cheese. Plop on the other slices of bread and place something heavy (I'm pretty sure I used a dictionary on top of foil) on the top to mash the Wich's together and make sure the cheese melts before serving.

When it comes to cooking and to life, sometimes it's important to Just Be Real. Forget about being fancy (read: snobby), forgo the best and make do with the lessons that you learned from your mother, grandmother (mine worked in the Kellogg's test kitchen: REAL) or intuition. For me, life has changed a quite a bit since that Saturday just over a year ago-- my throw pillows and I moved into the bachelor pad and brought our olive oil and herbs with us. Over the past few months I've had to learn to incorporate someone else's dietary preferences (MEAT!) into my cooking and, surprisingly enough, it's worked out just fine. Because sometimes shit from the fridge turns out to be superior to-- not to mention more personal and comfortable than-- anything you could have unearthed in the New York Times Cookbook.

Judicious (un)use of stock, or: Pragmatic Subversion

2008-10-07T08:43:00.012-05:00

Mah.

Just as I'm polishing a kickass post about chicken stock, Mark Bittman does one about a stock-less risotto, bless his minimalist/Minimalist heart.

The best part: that recipe is REAL. MB points out the refreshing (if obvious, though I'm not sure anyone was like, wailing it from the mountaintop before now) point that, if you're already using substantial, flavorful items for the risotto-- he uses a load of onions and some dried porcinis-- those items build their own base in the simple process of getting cooked. Also, there is almost nothing I love more than a big pot of onions sauteeing & sizzling away, turning sweet and dark and a little goopy... so I suppose I just have to shut up and make this sometime very soon.

Just as well. I can save my chicken stock for stuff like what I made for lunch today (a classic example of shit from my fridge):

chicken sausage with roasted garlic, spinach, and fontina
that ricotta I made the other day
fresh spinach
some pesto I had just made (my basil plant was starting to feel the seasons change, and it showed. I harvested about 2/3 of the leaves to put it out of its misery)
some plain, cooked penne left over from making this last week

Since this particular (and most, I think) chicken sausage comes already cooked, I sauteed it for just a few minutes with some olive oil and beat it up a little in the pan to let some bits get nice and crispy. Then, deglazed with a substantial amount of chicken stock, since I also needed it to serve as my sauce/coating for the pasta and the cooking liquid for the spinach. Tossed in some ricotta and the pasta, let the liquid reduce a bit more, then turned off the heat. Put in a handful of spinach, stirred it into the mess. Walked away and watched 1/2 an episode of Flight of the Conchords (#6: Bowie. Faaaaavorite!). Came back, spinach was wilted nicely: still a bright green but cooked enough so that it clings to the pasta/sausage. Threw all that in a plastic container, put a few blobs of pesto on top, shook it around, put it in the fridge.

Today my boss-- a fellow foodie whose fondness for wasting University time often surpasses even mine with talking about new restaurants and farmers markets and, more often than feels normal, roasted salmon-- confessed sincere jealousy of my creation. Hm. Superior.

But freals. Upcoming post: chicken stock.

OMG HB (+ new GraFriend)

2008-10-06T11:14:00.006-05:00

Early in the summer Jack and I took a cooking class at Hearty Boys, taught by the "Boys' " good friend and current owner of HB-Home Bistro (formerly the Hearty Boys restaurant before they made it [quasi?] big and won the Food Network's first season of The Next Food Network Star. Now their company does catering and cooking classes so they have time to be [quasi?]famous. I speculate on that last bit). Our exec chef-teacher-- and newly-initiated graFriend (he has yet to be notified) Joncarl Lachman, was not only super-lovely and an intuitive, encouraging instructor, but he recognized me from a few months back when I brought my parents to HB for my mom's birthday. (It was 5:30 on a Tuesday evening. We were the only ones in the restaurant. You couldn't miss us.) Jack and I chatted with him for a bit after the class-- we were also the most enthusiastic/hands-on(/dorky) people in the group, for which I think Joncarl was grateful, as it was his first time teaching-- and he instructed us to come together to the restaurant and see him sometime.

Joncarl: So, are you two, like, together?
Jack & me: [unison] Oh, no, no. we're just...
Jack: We're friends from high school...
me: What? Uhh, try junior high.
(Under-breath quibbling. Elbows.)
JC: Mmmhm. Whatever. I want you guys to come in together to the restaurant.

Ugh. Force me to come in and eat your delicious, lovely, unpretentious food and even let me bring my own bottle(s) and don't charge me a corkage fee. Life is a real struggle.

So a few weeks later we went in for brunch (oh, don't worry. I brought a nice bottle of light, sweet white. You know, brunch-appropriate). Now, as far as I can tell, the restaurant has about 3.5 front-of-house staff-- three delightful gentlemen and Joncarl, who, though he is also delightful and a gentleman, also works in the kitchen when it's busy, hence the .5. That morning was rather calm at the restaurant and Joncarl came out to say hi and ask how our food was. And of course, omg, obvi, it was beyond.

A few weeks after that, when I sat down with another friend for brunch...

JC: [smiling] Where's your date?
me: He's not my date.
JC: Uh-huh. Where is he?
me: I dunno. Around. But hey, Joncarl, this is my friend Jill!
Jill: [confused.]

A month later, a party of 10 or so sits around a table to celebrate my birthday...

JC: [just out of the kitchen] Oh hi, lady! You look lovely. Happy birthday! Where's your boy?
me: [sighing] He's not... ugh. He's out of town. But here, meet the rest of my friends!
friends: [collective swoon.]

He's like a well-intentioned, if slightly misguided Yente. You can't say he's not enthusiastic.

Okay, I digress. Because OMG HIS FOOD.

Last night, Jack and I went to HB for a reunion tour, especially since we hadn't had dinner there together yet. Here's what we ordered (and you can too):

An amazing creation they were calling something like "dutch mustard soup." They were out of the creamy tomato, which was fine-- I mean, I'm sure it would have been lovely and I love a good cream of tomato & basil as much as the next gra, but if it's something Progresso makes too, I'm unlikely to swoon and/or give points for uniqueness. Hopefully, for your sake, they'll put this on the menu on the regular because it. is. divine. Pureed roasted vegetables, vegetable stock, a touch of mustard (which you can definitely taste but it's not at all overwhelming) a little cream, and caraway. The caraway totally makes it, in my opinion (though this is coming from the girl who has had a very long love affair with seeded rye bread). However, it is also the one thing that is stopping me from attempting to replicate it right away at Gra HQ. See, there were no discernible caraway seeds in the soup, which leads me to believe there's some type of magical (expensive?) caraway extract or caraway oil (like truffle oil?) available to those who are superior to me. (anyone wanna find this out for me? Leave a comment for mama.) I won't even post a picture of the soup because it looks so simple & unassuming in the bowl, and the lighting, a sort of horrid marriage of candlelight and fluorescent rays coming from the 7-11 across the street, did not help matters at all, despite our numerous and gallant strategic lighting campaigns.

Artichoke & edam fritters with roasted garlic aioli. (Grammarienne's note: aioli is defined as a garlic-based condiment, so claiming something is a 'garlic aioli' is sort of redundant and begs for my judgment. However, because I have deep love for HB and I'm pretty sure they were simply aiming to point out that the garlic in this particular [DELICIOUS] condiment is roasted, I feel alright about it.) Okay, so fritters are like babies-- everyone knows where they come from. No rocket-science there. The genius in this starter was the flavor combination of the artichokes & edam cheese. The carciofi were super mild and went perfectly with the cheese, which was maybe just particularly well-paired (and pungent, I have to say, for an edam), or maybe I'm just making stuff up because I'm so in love with these because they're just a higher-rent version of standard deep-fried goodness and I'm just projecting my lust for boutiquey, handpicked ingredients that present themselves to me as if the whole history of the world were really just buildup to this culinary apex. (Or maybe, option C: I need a shrink.) And really, anything served with aioli is something I want to spend considerable time with.

The special: local bratwurst over white beans with sauteed heirloom tomatoes. I have no words. Again, this is something that is exactly what it sounds like, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to put it together, but it does take talent to make something so simple taste so perfect and evoke, all at the same time, summer in my parents' backyard (grilled sausages), fall in my city kitchen (any warm pile of beans + vegetables), and classic european cooking. Jack and I agreed that what HB does so much of the time-- and does so very well-- is european comfort food. Like what your grandmother would make you if your grandmother was a Dutchwoman named Margrietje who, after a lifetime of travel and adventure, just kind of pottered around a Subzero-stainless kitchen making soup and fritters and sausages and...

Brandied plum bread pudding. There are few things for which I am an unmitigated sucker and fool: "Midnight Train to Georgia" at karaoke, men with beards, deglazing a well-crusted pan (yes, it's fond, I know, but thinking of it as crust makes the de-crusting so much more satisfying), my dad's stories, and bread pudding. For those who know me, this might seem a little anomalous, because my impatience for desserts that dare exclude chocolate is pretty well categorical. Except for bread pudding. I can't say exactly what it is that drives this, but I think it's the same kind of abiding fondness I have for a "wet" italian beef sandwich, a quiche, or any kind of bready casserole; a little gooey, a little spongy, (dare i say juicy?) and comforting. Except the bread pudding, accourse, is sweet. Now, when a lot of people do a bread pudding with some kind of Very Special Liqueur (I don't quite get it... I will drink my gin and eat my sweets. Don't booze up my dessert. But whatever), the VSL is overwhelming and makes the dessert a cloying, boozy monument to, uh, we'll charitably call it overenthusiasm. This is what happens to so much of the tiramisu that I've come to know (and hate, for that very reason, aside from its annoying ubiquity. Like pretentious-posing-as-unfussy nouveaux small-plate restaurants. But that's another post). But HB's bread pudding was glorious. Moist enough but not soaked. Traces of brandy flavor I tended to (blissfully) forget were there. Thinly sliced plums that were lovely and sweet and just adorable, layered over and under the pieces of bread. And topped with freshly whipped, barely-sweetened cream. It was so good that we almost forgot to get a photo.

Oops.

Lovely.

2008-10-04T18:50:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Kristy & Mike. Nothing says forever like a family diamond and a majestic moped queen-seat.

Stay tuned for Ms. Klein's upcoming weekly post: Shit from My Fridge.

Write it on the bathroom wall: ricotta is easy.

2008-10-04T00:10:00.004-05:00

You can make cheese at home.

I'll let that sink in for a second.

Because seriously. You can.

A friend texted me the other night and asked, really, the question that's on everyone's mind these days-- yes, even bigger than trivial blather like Will the bailout pass? Will Sarah Palin quit winking at the camera already? When will I get a pony?...

"Have you ever made ricotta? I want to try but I'm scared."

There, there, pallies. We simply fear what we do not understand. And as it turns out, ricotta-makin' is easier than you'd ever think.

So here's the gear:

a gallon of whole milk (the fresher, the better)
a quart of buttermilk (again, fresh. Seriously. This cheese tastes exactly like where it came from so if you're trolling the Jewel discount case right now, get the hell out.)
cheesecloth-- lots of brands you'll find are reusable and easy to wash & dry to use for your next batch. You know. Because you'll make this all the time.
a colander
a cooking thermometer (or one purloined from a university physics lab and duly disinfected. I mean... what? Who does that?) (FYI, I'm normally rather disdainful of measurement tools and the thermometer is up there as One of the Most Annoying Kitchen Devices Ever, whose presence in the instructions is usually enough to kill any yay-new-recipe mental boner I might have worked up. But in this case, you actually do need it to ensure safety.)
A big heavy pot. And, right, for those of us who have never registered for kitchen wares, perhaps a good-quality soup-pot or the like is not necessarily easy to come by. So, yeah, use whatever you've got. (But if you can hit up Nana for her Le Creuset, your life will change. And not even just when you're making cheese. Though, again... that'll happen all the time. I know, totally.)

Put the colander in the sink and lay four layers of cheesecloth over it (the four layers shouldn't be a problem-- the package that I worked with had plenty to fold over). This will lie in wait for a hot, curdy mess.

Dump your milks into the pot and crank it up to high heat. I'm not kidding. Stir continuously and after a while you'll see little curds coming up. While you're stirring, be sure to scrape the bottom of the pot so nothing scalds (scalded cheese = grody). Once you've got a good crop of curds up-- they'll be small, not like cottage cheese or anything-- and the liquid (that'd be whey) looks sort of cloudy/grayish (ew, don't worry, that gets discarded), bust out your thermometer and see what she says. Once the mixture gets between 175 and 180F, turn off the heat.

Toddle over to the sink with the pot and ladle the contents into the cheesecloth/colander. If you're like me, you'll get impatient about halfway through this very important (read: silly) ladling process and elect to pour-- carefully, of course-- the rest of the goop into the colander. This will be fine.

Let that stuff sit and drain for about 5 minutes. DO NOT SQUISH IT DOWN. You'll dry it out. And I will judge you. Then, gather up the corners of the cloth and tie 'em up with a rubber band/hair clip/scrunchie (shut up, you still so have one)/clothespin/seriously, whatever, you get my point. Let that drain for another 10-15 minutes: this part comes down to your personal preference in texture. I-- and my mom, a true epicure who enjoys ricotta by the spoonful-- kind of prefer a creamier ricotta, in which case you'll want to start checking on the baby around minute 10 and monitor the draining from there. If you want a drier ricotta, let the bundle nest peacefully for a full 15 minutes. Another thing you could do-- since this thing yields about 4 cups-- is remove half once it's reached a creamy texture, then leave the other half to drain further for a firmer cheese.

No matter how long you've let it sit, it needs to go into an airtight container pretty much right away.

Unless you're gonna eat it NOW. Which I'd recommend, on some bread with a teeny bit of salt, maybe some fresh black pepper, and some decent olive oil. Or switch the olive oil out for some honey and maybe a few nuts.

Or, if you're Rosellen, go get a spoon and have at it.

GraFriend: You Zaxie Thing

2008-10-03T17:17:00.002-05:00

Wow! The first GraFriend feature and it's not even really about food. But I'm over it-- are you? Sweet. Because aside from being one of the most devoted and enthusiastic foodies I know (read: the only person who i can dork out with about stuff like imported pasta rolling machines [he has one. I don't. Jealousy]), Jack C. Newell is also my favorite local independent filmmaker.

Jack: But, I'm the only local independent filmmaker you know.

me: Well right, but, you know, even if I knew others, --

Jack: ...

me: Shut up.

Ahem. I present to you: Zaxie Films. Enjoy!

"I want to move in with this salad," part deux: Le Nicoise

2008-10-03T11:58:00.002-05:00

Another salad that is a true jam: The Nicoise.

Once upon a time I'd look upon this and think, "Random assortment of boiled and brined vegetables. Plus tuna. Hm. Undesirable." But I've since become quite fond of certain olives (except those gnarly black ones from a can, actually... are my tastes so subconsciously ensnobbed that I simply don't desire anything that doesn't come to me from the Whole Foods fresh bar? Maybe. Sue me.), and really, I never met a baby potato I didn't like. Also, the thing is easy to prepare, easy to transport, and sort of fun to eat... you get to pick and choose what combinations go on each forkful.

So for those who are resolving to bring lunch to work more often, or those who aspire to franco-epicurean greatness (but don't feel like going so far as to make their own mayonnaise), I present The Nicoise a la Gra:

Throw some eggs and a few of those tiny potatoes (usually reds are best for quick cooking... and they're pretty) into a big pot with room-temp water, enough to cover everything comfortably. Let it all come up to a boil and remove the eggs when they're hard-boiled. Toss in some french beans (eh, haricots verts) and cook for a few minutes. While the beans are cooking, fill a bowl with some ice water and throw those in the bowl when they're just tender (the ice water will shock them, keep them crisp and make them pretty and green for the rest of their days). By the time you've submerged the beans in the ice water and stirred them around a bit to show them who's boss, the potatoes will probably be ready too. Stick a fork in one to test it out, and if it's a pretty easy stab, then they're also good to put into the ice water (to retain the pretty color. Slave to aesthetics). Once all that is drained out and patted dry, this is what should get assembled on your plate/in your tupperware:

1 hard-boiled egg
2 little potatoes
a small handful of haricots verts
a few strips of roasted red pepper
a few kalamata olives (or nicoise, if you can find them. i actually like the kalamatas better-- they've got a sharper flavor)
tuna*
dressing**

*Okay, the tuna. you can do a lot with this idea. In fancypants restaurants, if you get a nicoise, you'll get probably a sliced seared tuna steak, which is pretty lovely. If you're like me and go to fancypants french places four times a year and only because your work is paying for the meal, you probably won't be searing up tuna in your galley kitchen (or your regular-size kitchen, if you are superior to me) unless you're trying to seduce a pescatarian or something. So if you're making this jam at home, you can do one of the two following things:

Whip up a very minor tuna salad. No celery, mustard, etc necessary. Just some decent canned tuna and a little mayo or olive oil, and some black pepper should do the trick. And remember that this is going into your mouth accompanied by other highly flavorful things (or a lovely, creamy potato), so the tuna alone doesn't have to knock your socks off.T
Track down some italian tuna packed in olive oil. The only kind I can ever find-- which is fine because it's fabulous-- is the 'Genova Tonno' with a gold/brownish label. It's a little more expensive than regular canned tuna, but it's super tasty. (You also don't have to do a thing to it, most of the time.) I've found it at Trader Ming's, Whole Foods, sometimes Jewel has it... if you're ever lucky enough to venture to a Caputo's market, they'll have them for cheap. (They'll also have lemon cookies and prosciutto di parma for like $8/lb. so you may feel like you've got better things to create than a schlep-friendly nicoise.) (You will also call me if you're going.)

**Dressing. If you're working with the italian tuna, you may find that the olive oil it's packed in, combined with the brine from the olives & peppers is enough of a dressing for you. Same goes for the tuna salad method. However, if you're like me and "pretty good" isn't really good enough, you can whoop up the Easiest, Tastiest Dressing Ever (IN A ZIPLOC BAG, NO LESS. If you're planning on transporting this, that is. NO WHISKING NECESSARY). Check it. You need:

a blob of mustard. anything but the yellow stuff. if you see it or have it, i've been totally loving Trader Joe's garlic mustard aioli.
a splash of white wine vinegar
a splash of extra-virgin olive oil
maybe some fresh black pepper, if you feel like it

Put all of those things directly into the corner of a ziploc bag, twist the bag so that the dressing components have their own little territory, and seal the bag. Shake that shit (holding the twisted part of the bag so everything stays relatively contained and you don't have rogue mustard bloblets heading for the northern border and bailing on their dressing duties). Done.

So, you know. Do that one up. I'm sure there's a world of possibilities for variations with sun-dried tomatoes, perhaps a cheese selection (feta?), chicken instead of tuna (though with whole pieces of chicken I think it totally changes the soul of the dish. But then again, tupperware probably does too).

"I want to move in with this salad."

2008-09-15T13:58:00.002-05:00

10:21 AM Kristy: ooh gra. i am up at the kaldi's coffee shop!

me: oh haaaaay!

that's nice gra!

10:22 AM Kristy: yes gra

i look forward to the hour when it is an appropriate time for lunch

because they have a salad that looks like a JAM

10:23 AM me: wow

what is it?

10:26 AM Kristy: gra.

it is grilled zucchini

sundried tomato

grilled indian corn and yellow corn

and some type of seeds

over romaine

10:27 AM with sundried tomato bluecheese vinaigrette

optional addition of chicken for $1

me: WHOA.

11:29 AM

Kristy: (side note: i want to move in with this salad)

this. zucchini.

is. buttery.

Ah! Seasonal treasures! Tomatoes (which constitute one of my life's greatest quests! [Overcoming the Gagoots!])! Zucchini! Corn! I am thinking that these things alone could make a pretty real dish. I love a lettuce-less salad. I would also like to bathe in that vinaigrette.

Eat it.

2008-09-12T18:12:00.002-05:00

So.

Like any lady, I like nice things, and because some of the nicest things I've ever encountered were edible (friends included), this is a blog primarily about food. I make a lot of food, I think a lot about food, and I really really like to talk about food. So that happens here.

I don't really cook with measurements, and nor, though I think you all (all 4 of you, I'm sure) are lovely, will I contrive any for the sake of talking about what I make. Because I think you're all probably pretty smart and can guess what goes into something like "chicken sausage with shallots and spinach over polenta" (teaser? maybe). There will be rough amounts, is what I'm trying to say. What I will also share are things that I've learn(ed) from experience, my mom, my grandmothers, or the Voice of Reason. Posts will center around a current obsession or newfound edible treasures, good places to find them, and ways to use them. Maybe a restaurant review (you know, for my burgeoning food-critic career). Sharing via comment is encouraged.

Salut, pals.