Cooking Misc.: February 2004 Archives
So I'm always feeling a little bereft when I read about some famous chef, like Jacques Pepin or Anthony Bourdain, who grew up around great food, soaking up all this information when their brains and taste buds were like little sponges, learning from toddlerhood from moms and dads who could cook. I grew up on frozen fish sticks, chicken nuggets and pizza, tuna salad, spaghetti from a box with sauce from a jar, rice and pancake mixes, condensed-soup casseroles, canned peaches over cottage cheese. Mmmm, it makes me nostalgic just thinking about it - but it also makes me a novice about what makes for really good food.
So you can maybe understand how excited I was when the intros to two of my new books both revealed that the authors kind of fell into an interest in food relatively late in life, and both lament for a moment their non-food beginnings before going on to either 1) impart a huge amount of information on how to identify fantastic ingredients or 2) share recipes for homey, delicious, beautiful bistro-type dishes. There's hope for me yet.
So I'm always feeling a little bereft when I read about some famous chef, like Jacques Pepin or Anthony Bourdain, who grew up around great food, soaking up all this information when their brains and taste buds were like little sponges, learning from toddlerhood from moms and dads who could cook. I grew up on frozen fish sticks, chicken nuggets and pizza, tuna salad, spaghetti from a box with sauce from a jar, rice and pancake mixes, condensed-soup casseroles, canned peaches over cottage cheese. Mmmm, it makes me nostalgic just thinking about it - but it also makes me a novice about what makes for really good food.
So you can maybe understand how excited I was when the intros to two of my new books both revealed that the authors kind of fell into an interest in food relatively late in life, and both lament for a moment their non-food beginnings before going on to either 1) impart a huge amount of information on how to identify fantastic ingredients or 2) share recipes for homey, delicious, beautiful bistro-type dishes. There's hope for me yet.
Don't do this to yourself! I ordered three food-related books from Amazon.com (thanks Mom and Dad for the gift card) and I spent all last night jumping from one book to the other, just soaking them in.
It made me realize that I almost never pick out cookbooks for myself. I find things on the giveaway table at work or coworkers bring cookbooks to me, or friends and family buy them for me as gifts. I could only name one cookbook on my bookshelf, the Betty Crocker cookbook, that I specifically asked for. With all these cookbooks pouring in, it feels wasteful to buy one for myself. But this time I couldn't resist.
The first one I picked was Solo Suppers, which I read an article about in the food section of an Atlanta paper Todd brought home from a business trip. I have at least two nights a week when I cook just for me, so this book will get a workout. She seems to understand small-scale purchasing and prep.
I browsed on Amazon a bit and settled on two other books: Bistro Cooking at Home and Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating, which was much bigger than I thought it would be (hooray!). After I placed my order I saw Bistro Cooking in a bookstore and got really excited about getting my order. There are at least three recipes in there that use foie gras (Todd's mom gave me some and I haven't known what to do with it).
I had never eaten, nor prepared, an artichoke. I've had canned and bottled artichoke hearts, marinated and not, but I'd never eaten a fresh, whole one: pulled off the leaves layer by layer, dipping them in mayonnaise, melted butter or vinaigrette, scraping the fleshy part of each leaf with my teeth, until at last you reach the inedible choke and the payoff, the heart. The people who describe it to me are usually rapturous or nostalgic with the adventure of wading through all those rough leaves to find the delicate, and appropriately named, heart.
Having steamed and eaten my first artichoke (with both garlic butter and lemon vinaigrette for dipping), I'm ambivalent. I enjoy the adventure, the big messy pile of leaves that overtake your plate as you eat down, down to the end, but I'm not entirely sure about the flavor. Green and mild, the flavor of the flesh was kind of masked by the accompaniments. Todd started eating them plain, which was a better way to actually taste spring in it. As we reached the center, the tips of the leaves became entirely edible, revealing the satisfying texture that we would find at the heart, firm but without a crunch. I think maybe after all the work for so little payoff, the heart feels like a motherlode.
We just had a sneak peek at the new Whole Foods in the Time Warner building (which is about 8 blocks up from my office, so I was curious), and it was a zoo.
I guess I'm kind of ambivalent because of all fuss (it is, dare I say it, just a grocery store). But they do have nice selections of cheese, fish (sea scallops for $7.99 a pound, which seemed like a decent price to me), produce, meat, olive oils (they have their own brand, which is pretty decent, and then have added a red seal to other brands they like) and prepared foods (sushi, Jamba Juice, soups and lots of prepackaged foods like samosas, summer rolls, potato pancakes, falafel, plus they'll have Thai, Indian and Mexican food bars soon). I have to go back and peruse the cheese more carefully, and I noticed they have a lot of smoked and cured fish I'd like to try: smoked trout, whitefish and salmon, salmon "candy."
And, oh, the produce was pretty: Baby white eggplants and green and purple cauliflowers, a trio of colors of tight, squeaky-looking cabbages, piles of clementines. They also have a chocolate-dipping station, where they can dip anything, a bakery, other confections, a special wine shop.
It's hard to tell from here whether I'll become a regular shopper. Eight blocks is so near, but in NYC it's also just far enough away that there are closer options. The selection will probably draw me back, though.
It must be the season for these because I've been seeing them everywhere. They're really very striking-looking, and don't taste very much like oranges. In fact, I kind of find the taste a bit insipid, like cherry flavor or fruit punch. From the outside they look like orange, some like oranges with a blush. I think the red flesh is beautiful but would rely on something else for flavor. (Although maybe if you reduced the juice you'd end up with something surprising.)
It must be the season for these because I've been seeing them everywhere. They're really very striking-looking, and don't taste very much like oranges. In fact, I kind of find the taste a bit insipid, like cherry flavor or fruit punch. From the outside they look like orange, some like oranges with a blush. I think the red flesh is beautiful but would rely on something else for flavor. (Although maybe if you reduced the juice you'd end up with something surprising.)
My parents sent six Omaha steaks for my birthday, and Todd and I had a little bonfire on Saturday night while making them. We had thawed two bacon-wrapped filet mignon, seasoned them, then put them on a piece of foil on the broiler pan. When it was nearly time to turn them over, I went to the kitchen and saw flames shooting up from the steaks. I yell, turn off the broiler and start to pull the broiler pan from the oven. Todd comes in and wants to douse it with baking soda, but he doesn't know where I keep it, or put a pan lid over the flames, but all the lids are stored in the bottom drawer under the oven so we can't get to them with the oven open (besides, I read recently that you're not supposed to do that). Slapping the fire once with a wet oven mitt only made the flames get momentarily bigger (it wasn't really a very big fire). As we argued about what to do, the flames got smaller and smaller until they went out. All the fuel (the melted bacon fat) had been consumed. We're convinced it happened because we lined the top of the broiler pan with foil, which collected a pool of ignitable fat. The thing that disturbs me now is that neither of us thought to use the fire extinguisher, which is in a very convenient spot in a side cabinet.
Of course, if we had we wouldn't have been able to eat the steaks, which were really tender. Someone at work had said that Omaha steaks tend not to have much flavor, but the bacon wrapped around these made them flavorful, too. And perfectly cooked, believe it or not, pink in the center and juicy and tender all over. Also roasted potatoes seasoned with a new spice rub (another gift) and some Brussels sprouts (which Todd decided really aren't that bad).
I have a coworker, Greg, who is from Kentucky and always regales us with tales of the exotic fare one can sample there. His childhood home is relatively near Owensboro, which is known for its barbecue, particularly its mutton. For my birthday this year Greg called up Moonlite Bar-B-Que and ordered a gallon of burgoo, a soup he had mentioned that I had never heard anything of.
It arrived frozen solid, in a gallon-size plastic jug, and took two days to thaw. It's primarily mutton, but also contains potatoes, tomato paste, cabbage, corn, ketchup, spices, worcestershire sauce, chicken, beef, onions and vinegar. There's a little bit of heat, a little bite from the vinegar, but what you mainly taste is the mutton, a rich, meaty, almost but not quite gamey taste (it was originally made with squirrel, so the literature included in the package goes). The soup's been cooked so long the mutton's in tiny shreds that hold together the thick juice, but the corn must've been added later because it's fresh and plump. We ate it with cornbread, although Greg says they usually have it as a side to Moonlite's barbecue. (I'm amused by the idea of this meaty soup, almost entirely meat, as a side to more meat.)
I have a coworker, Greg, who is from Kentucky and always regales us with tales of the exotic fare one can sample there. His childhood home is relatively near Owensboro, which is known for its barbecue, particularly its mutton. For my birthday this year Greg called up Moonlite Bar-B-Que and ordered a gallon of burgoo, a soup he had mentioned that I had never heard anything of.
It arrived frozen solid, in a gallon-size plastic jug, and took two days to thaw. It's primarily mutton, but also contains potatoes, tomato paste, cabbage, corn, ketchup, spices, worcestershire sauce, chicken, beef, onions and vinegar. There's a little bit of heat, a little bite from the vinegar, but what you mainly taste is the mutton, a rich, meaty, almost but not quite gamey taste (it was originally made with squirrel, so the literature included in the package goes). The soup's been cooked so long the mutton's in tiny shreds that hold together the thick juice, but the corn must've been added later because it's fresh and plump. We ate it with cornbread, although Greg says they usually have it as a side to Moonlite's barbecue. (I'm amused by the idea of this meaty soup, almost entirely meat, as a side to more meat.)
