May 2004 Archives

I had the strangest dream this morning, but I know where it came from. Todd and I had just settled into a booth at some restaurant I don't recognize with the newspaper, planning to order breakfast. Some woman, a manager or something approached us and asked us if we'd be more comfortable at one of the tables at the center of the room. Todd said no, he'd like to read the paper and the booths had the best lighting. She insisted, so we gathered our water and coffee cups and followed her. I was kind of annoyed, and so she asked if anything was wrong. I explained, saying the place wasn't busy and I didn't understand why she was arbitrarily moving us. She turned to me and said, "You knew exactly what you were doing when the hostess seated you," suggesting that we had lied to sit at a booth. It was bizarre, because we hadn't. But it was pretty realistic. What is with the whole seating game at restaurants? Is it just snotty hosts and hostesses, or is there some secret math that only people who have worked at restaurants know? At most places we eat regularly, if the place is empty they seat us at one of the comfortable tables. But at Market Cafe, near Todd's office, the place'll be completely empty and they'll try to give us a table in the middle row, where you're constantly bumped by people walking by, instead of a table along the wall. They always let us sit along the wall when we ask, but why do they always try to stick us in the worst seat? (By the way, the waitstaff there is pretty nice otherwise. Maybe there is some "rule"?)

The reason I had the dream is that a coworker had a weird experience at the new Outback in Chelsea. He went in a little more than an hour before closing and requested a booth in the bar, but the hostess said she could only give him a table, so he accepted. But he got increasingly annoyed when he realized, while some booths were occupied, there were a handful empty. He had wanted a booth, with better lighting, so he could read. So close to closing, why couldn't the hostess accommodate his request? She even stared blankly at him, offering no help at all, when he complained.

When it's a chocolate muffin, what keeps it from being a cupcake? The muffins I made last night, from Mollie Katzen's Sunrise Cafe weren't really too sweet, but they were nice and moist. I have the advanced uncorrected proof of Katzen's newest cookbook, but I think it's time to get a real copy. I've made one stinker from it, but I mostly love the ideas I get: different cooked grains for breakfast, with fun flavorings like Chai, maple or orange, savory and sweet baked goods, roasted or stewed fruit, tofu and cheese scrambles, hashes, veggies like roasted mushrooms or creamed spinach, wild rice pancakes with mushrooms and goat cheese, blinzes.

But I had some ricotta in the fridge I needed to use up, so I made these muffins. It made a huge batch, 12 muffins with a panful of minis made with the extra batter. I mixed the dry ingredients (2 1/3 cups flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, a heaping 1/2 cup cocoa powder and 1 cup each sugar and chocolate chips) in one bowl, then combined 1 cup ricotta with 2 eggs in another. Added 1 1/3 cup milk and 1 tablespoon vanilla to the wet ingredients, then added wet to dry, drizzling in 4 tablespoons melted butter and folding it all together until it was thoroughly moistened. Baked in a 12-muffin pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. They're moist, not too sweet with lots of chocolate chips throughout. When I tested them with a toothpick, I kept hitting chocolate chips, which made me think, at first, that the muffins weren't done, but I kept poking until I just got moist crumbs attached.

Yes I did. Todd was at class last night, so I had a bowl of oatmeal for dinner. I always used to prefer very dry oatmeal, with a rougher texture. I usually use about half the liquid the box calls for (a 1 to 1 liquid/oats ratio instead of 2 to 1). But it seems as though a lot of my food preferences are changing lately, and I even like my oatmeal a little more liquidy these days. The bowl I had last night was so creamy and satisfying.

I started to bring 1 cup of milk to a boil in a small saucepan, but then I got worried the milk would scald so I added the 1/2 cup oats. Brought that to a boil and let it bubble 5 minutes, stirring the whole time. Then I added some brown sugar, cinnamon and blueberries. Let the heat of the oatmeal kind of cook the berries until they were warm and some of them burst, then ate.

Yes I did. Todd was at class last night, so I had a bowl of oatmeal for dinner. I always used to prefer very dry oatmeal, with a rougher texture. I usually use about half the liquid the box calls for (a 1 to 1 liquid/oats ratio instead of 2 to 1). But it seems as though a lot of my food preferences are changing lately, and I even like my oatmeal a little more liquidy these days. The bowl I had last night was so creamy and satisfying.

I started to bring 1 cup of milk to a boil in a small saucepan, but then I got worried the milk would scald so I added the 1/2 cup oats. Brought that to a boil and let it bubble 5 minutes, stirring the whole time. Then I added some brown sugar, cinnamon and blueberries. Let the heat of the oatmeal kind of cook the berries until they were warm and some of them burst, then ate.

These lentils turned out good: firm and flavorful.

I cooked the lentils in a lot of water, the way you make pasta (although I put the lentils and water together in the pot, then brought it all to a boil). Tonight I cooked 1/2 cup lentils (with a crushed garlic clove and a sprig of rosemary for flavor) in perhaps 4 or 5 cups of water, for about 11 minutes (not the 30 minutes instructed on the package; I checked on them often and stopped boiling them while they were still firm). I used green lentils because that's what I had on hand. Drain and let cool. Meanwhile I made a mustard vinaigrette (heavy on the vinegar) and dressed the spinach and quartered grape tomatoes separately (the original recipe didn't have tomatoes). Added dressing to the lentils to taste, then assembled the salad.

The recipe for this was actually a peach-blackberry cobbler, but Todd brought such big, beautiful blackberries home that I had to use all of them (more than the recipe called for). I cheated, too, and used one of those refrigerated pie crusts. I will never perfect pie crusts from scratch as long as I can buy a pretty decent unbaked crust at the grocery store (to my eternal shame).

I mixed 2 cups sliced peaches (from a bag of frozen) with 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch, a couple squeezes of lemon juice and some finely chopped ginger (not enough, though, because I couldn't really taste it in the finished product). Then I folded the blackberries in (2 cups), being careful not to crush them. Left that to get juicy while I prepared the lattice top.

I unfolded the crust and brushed it with egg white, then sprinkled it with sugar, cinnamon and a few grates of nutmeg. Cut it in strips, then poured the fruit into the gratin dish and wove the strips on top (I only used about 1/2 of one crust; I baked the rest as ice-cream garnishes). Baked in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes. Let it cool a bit, then serve over vanilla ice cream (it's especially good when it's still warm, and the juices run in with the melting ice cream).

Around lunchtime, people in my office start asking, "What's for lunch?" We'll coo over the ones who were good and packed something from home. There's even one guy in our office who recently started the South Beach Diet, so we'll congratulate him on how good he's managed to make his diet food look and smell. Then the rest of us will go out and come back with something sort of mediocre that cost at least $5 and often closer to $10.

So City Harvest's plea to New Yorkers to skip lunch tomorrow (Wednesday, May 12, Skip Lunch, Fight Hunger) and donate their lunch money to city kids who don't have enough to eat has the potential to really pay off. Can you imagine if all those expense-account lunches went to City Harvest for just one day? Then add to that all of us peons who spend a measly $7.

I love this organization. What they do makes so much sense: Turn what seems to be waste into something that's an absolute necessity by picking up leftover food from businesses throughout the city and giving it to organizations that feed people who don't have enough to eat. What could be more obvious than that?

Around lunchtime, people in my office start asking, "What's for lunch?" We'll coo over the ones who were good and packed something from home. There's even one guy in our office who recently started the South Beach Diet, so we'll congratulate him on how good he's managed to make his diet food look and smell. Then the rest of us will go out and come back with something sort of mediocre that cost at least $5 and often closer to $10.

So City Harvest's plea to New Yorkers to skip lunch tomorrow (Wednesday, May 12, Skip Lunch, Fight Hunger) and donate their lunch money to city kids who don't have enough to eat has the potential to really pay off. Can you imagine if all those expense-account lunches went to City Harvest for just one day? Then add to that all of us peons who spend a measly $7.

I love this organization. What they do makes so much sense: Turn what seems to be waste into something that's an absolute necessity by picking up leftover food from businesses throughout the city and giving it to organizations that feed people who don't have enough to eat. What could be more obvious than that?

I bought a quarter of a watermelon the other day, and have thoroughly enjoyed having it all to myself because Todd does not like watermelon (which is so improbable to me that I actually bothered to ask him why - futile). It reminded me, though, of a salad someone made for supper club. I remember being quite skeptical as she started pulling together the two main ingredients: watermelon and feta. But it was really wonderful, the salty feta contrasting beautifully with the sweet, wet watermelon. I have a theory that in one bite it creates and quenches a thirst in you. Nigella Lawson has a recipe in Forever Summer that has a bunch of other stuff: olives, parsley, red onion, lime, mint, pepper. I can't remember what Sam's had, but I do think tossing together a little lime juice, some cubed or crumbled feta and some chunks of watermelon would be yummy. Maybe I'd add a little ground cayenne or chipotle for heat, although that may be going too far.

I bought a quarter of a watermelon the other day, and have thoroughly enjoyed having it all to myself because Todd does not like watermelon (which is so improbable to me that I actually bothered to ask him why - futile). It reminded me, though, of a salad someone made for supper club. I remember being quite skeptical as she started pulling together the two main ingredients: watermelon and feta. But it was really wonderful, the salty feta contrasting beautifully with the sweet, wet watermelon. I have a theory that in one bite it creates and quenches a thirst in you. Nigella Lawson has a recipe in Forever Summer that has a bunch of other stuff: olives, parsley, red onion, lime, mint, pepper. I can't remember what Sam's had, but I do think tossing together a little lime juice, some cubed or crumbled feta and some chunks of watermelon would be yummy. Maybe I'd add a little ground cayenne or chipotle for heat, although that may be going too far.

I should have known that it would take a rainy day to get me in the kitchen again. Beautiful spring days call for street food, ice cream, maybe the very first spring produce. They're not really cooking days. But the whole way home on the subway Monday night I was thinking how nice it would be for Todd, shaking the rain from his umbrella, to follow the warm, spicy smell of chili down the hall to our apartment door.

So I made it. I like using ground chuck for chili, because I have this theory that the extra fat keeps the beef from clumping, that it helps to break it down into even, small pieces and it helps it to cook evenly. Of course, then you have to drain off huge amounts of melted fat, which I do by spooning the cooked beef into a paper towel–lined bowl, then pouring off the fat into a jar I keep in the freezer (I'm always afraid the temperature contrast will break the glass, so I let the jar warm a little at room temperature, and let the grease cool a little bit). Then I cooked chopped onion and bell pepper in the same deep skillet, and added a couple cans of tomatoes with the juice, one diced and one whole (which I smashed up with a wooden spoon). I added lots of cumin and ancho chile powder, and a little bit of chipotle powder for heat. Salt. Then let it bubble until Todd got home. We shredded Cheddar over the top, and ate it with some leftover bicuits.

Normally I would've added the spices before the tomatoes, to toast them a little, but I'm out of practice and I forgot. I'm not sure it makes a huge difference in the finished product, but I did have to add way more of the spices than I thought. I kept adding and tasting, adding and tasting, until it almost seemed there.

David is my friend's husband, and the second-least-active member of my cooking club. Todd's the least active. (David, no offense. You're dabbling a lot more.) Inspired by all of us cooking all the time (I like to think, although I bet it's mostly Julie), David made Julie tacos for dinner the other night. I love this, because he used the box and the seasoning packet, just like my parents used to do when we were kids. It sounds like David's formative food experiences were a lot like mine. Anyway, here's what he says:

I’ve never cooked. Before meeting Julie (a friend of Kim), pre-packaged and/or fast foods were what I ate, punctuated by bowls of cereal for breakfasts and the occasional “dinner out” at nights. Sure, I’ve boiled water for pasta, scrambled eggs here & there, blended a few smoothies, made mashed-potato paste and even botched a stir-fry, but seriously I’ve never cooked. Growing up, our family foraged in a similar way – eating out, ordering in or grazing on pre-packaged foods. My step-mom made lasagna twice yearly or so, and my dad would roast chickens sporadically. He also made tacos when friends slept over, whereupon we’d engage in taco-eating contests. I loved tacos as a kid; it was fun to build them, to mix and match the various ingredients. Each ingredient would be so neatly compartmentalized – a bowl of grated cheese, of lettuce, of salsa – it all made sense. It may have been the empowerment I learned from such “taco-nstruction” that had me believing I could easily prepare tacos. So I got some ground meat and followed the directions on the seasoning packet. The store-bought shells weren’t crispy and the canned refried beans needed softening, so I heated the beans in a pan and crisped the shells in the oven. Surely this qualifies as cooking since both the oven and range were used simultaneously. The other ingredients, which included grated cheese, shredded lettuce, sliced olives, diced tomatoes and salsa were prepared and placed in bowls beforehand (mise-en-place, I’m told). Unfortunately, I used store-bought pre-grated cheese, which gave the tacos a junky edge. Additional ingredients could have included chopped onions, sour cream, guacamole and maybe tilapia instead of beef, but I kept it simple this first try. The bowls were arranged on the table, and we sat down to begin construction. Though they weren’t as tasty as dad's, they were just as fun.

David is my friend's husband, and the second-least-active member of my cooking club. Todd's the least active. (David, no offense. You're dabbling a lot more.) Inspired by all of us cooking all the time (I like to think, although I bet it's mostly Julie), David made Julie tacos for dinner the other night. I love this, because he used the box and the seasoning packet, just like my parents used to do when we were kids. It sounds like David's formative food experiences were a lot like mine. Anyway, here's what he says:

I’ve never cooked. Before meeting Julie (a friend of Kim), pre-packaged and/or fast foods were what I ate, punctuated by bowls of cereal for breakfasts and the occasional “dinner out” at nights. Sure, I’ve boiled water for pasta, scrambled eggs here & there, blended a few smoothies, made mashed-potato paste and even botched a stir-fry, but seriously I’ve never cooked. Growing up, our family foraged in a similar way – eating out, ordering in or grazing on pre-packaged foods. My step-mom made lasagna twice yearly or so, and my dad would roast chickens sporadically. He also made tacos when friends slept over, whereupon we’d engage in taco-eating contests. I loved tacos as a kid; it was fun to build them, to mix and match the various ingredients. Each ingredient would be so neatly compartmentalized – a bowl of grated cheese, of lettuce, of salsa – it all made sense. It may have been the empowerment I learned from such “taco-nstruction” that had me believing I could easily prepare tacos. So I got some ground meat and followed the directions on the seasoning packet. The store-bought shells weren’t crispy and the canned refried beans needed softening, so I heated the beans in a pan and crisped the shells in the oven. Surely this qualifies as cooking since both the oven and range were used simultaneously. The other ingredients, which included grated cheese, shredded lettuce, sliced olives, diced tomatoes and salsa were prepared and placed in bowls beforehand (mise-en-place, I’m told). Unfortunately, I used store-bought pre-grated cheese, which gave the tacos a junky edge. Additional ingredients could have included chopped onions, sour cream, guacamole and maybe tilapia instead of beef, but I kept it simple this first try. The bowls were arranged on the table, and we sat down to begin construction. Though they weren’t as tasty as dad's, they were just as fun.

This may strike everyone reading this blog as remarkably obvious, but every now and again, I'm struck by how easy cooking can be. I'm not talking fancy cooking here, I'm talking about one step up from takeout. And that's an important step.

Last night I was faced with a mixed bag of ingredients in the fridge and neither Kim or I had much inclination to cook. But Kim had thought ahead and planned quick fajitas using some leftover chicken from Boston Market (yes, we've been eating more takeout of late.) Within a few minutes she'd chopped green peppers and onions and I sautéed them with some chipotle powder, chili powder and cumin plus a little salt and black pepper. A couple of minutes on low heat and the chicken Kim shredded was ready to go in. Flour tortillas wrapped in aluminum foil go in the oven on low heat. A few more minutes and we're chowing down on chicken/onion/peppers wrapped in a soft, warm tortilla.

It all seems so easy since at I write this I realize all I did was shake the skillet a few times. Now, coming up with the menu - that's hard. I leave that to Kim.