Dirty Sugar Cookies

Monkfish McNuggets / Black Bottom Pumpkin Pie

2007-12-19T11:29:00.000-08:00

I know it’s been a while since I hollered at you. I’ve had a pumpkin pie dogging me since the day before Thanksgiving, when I figured, “Hell, woman, you think these people be hurting for your pie recipe now? Them forward thinkers been pied up since Martha Stewart started polishing her ceramic turkey-shaped place card holders, mid-October. Besides, don’t you have something better to do than type out the back of the Libby’s canned pumpkin can with the minor addition of some bittersweet chips? You can't declare a new Malibu Stacy when all she's got is a new hat!”

And if an extra-guilty pumpkin pie hanging over my head and clogging up the works isn’t enough, I’ve been struggling to pump out a novel in a windowless basement, a task that’s going so well, I spent all of last Friday watching a skip-prone DVD of The Wire, praying that Greg wouldn’t arrive home unexpectedly to discover my shameful secret. (My newfound allegiance to The Wire may explain the attempt to tap into some street lingo a la your average HBO drug dealer...)

Sounds like an ideal time to indulge in some fast food.

Monkfish McNuggets

Purchase a couple of orders of Chicken McNuggets, carefully trace their outlines, scan this pattern into your home computer and print several copies of the template onto sturdy cardstock. (Hint: Look for festive holiday colors!) Reserve one of the templates for cutting your monkfish filets to regulation size. Customize the others using scallop-edged craft scissors, rubber stamps, and photographs from your summer vacation, and use them as gift tags for the home-baked goodies you’ve wrapped in raffia and bright dishtowels as seasonal surprises for neighbors, teachers, personal assistants, and other “helpers”.

Or, skip that step, and hack a half pound of the world’s most unsightly fish (poor man’s lobster!) into morsels of iconic size.

Dump them in a bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil, a tablespoon of melted butter and a fistful of bread crumbs. Give it a preliminary stir and then…

Chop up a couple of cloves of garlic and a quarter bunch of Italian parsley. Chuck that in there too.

Hit ‘em with a couple flourishes of the pepper bunny and line 'em up on a foil lined broiler pan.

Broil them for four minutes. Turn them over. Broil them for another four minutes.

If you think your children could be fooled into eating such a thing, double the recipe. If not, it’s Salmon a la Sven Holmberg and no complaining.

∞

Damned if that pumpkin pie isn’t still hanging over my head like a butterfucking anvil.

Listen, I’d be much obliged if you’d absolve me of this crushing ain’t-posted-nearly-as-much-as-I-said-I-would guilt by making my chocolate bottomed pumpkin pie for Christmas. Just think, if you like the recipe, you can make it again come Thanksgiving.

Anyhoo, today, you’re getting a bonus recipe. Think of it as a tagless Christmakkwaanzukkas treat wrapped in a metaphorical dishtowel and a whole slew of high calorie New Year’s Resolutions*.

Chocolate Bottomed Pumpkin Pie

Buy a can of Libby’s Canned Pumpkin.

Make a homemade pie crust.

Follow the pumpkin pie recipe on the back to the letter except where it calls for evaporated milk, substitute sweetened condensed milk, preferably Longevity Brand. (It has the best label and any excuse for a trip to Chinatown…)

Scatter a generous handful of bittersweet chocolate chips over the piecrust before pouring in the pumpkin mixture.

Bake according to corporate standards.

∞

* I resolve to be a more faithful blogger starting in January, when I will again find myself with time on my hands in some parental holding pen whilst the children participate in officially enriching after-school activities.

Also to write a novel, play the accordion, and polish off the children’s Halloween candy before 2008.

[McNuggets] [Fish Recipe] [Monkfish]
[Pumpkin Pie] [The Wire]

Chicken Wings (the next best thing to Wild Boar)

2007-10-31T06:49:00.001-07:00

Man, I been sitting on these wings since July, but don't worry! They're still good! Spoiled meat is no treat, not even as a Halloween trick. Actually, I once heard Inga Muscio tell a roomful of aspiring activists how a carefully placed piece of raw chicken can wreak time released havoc in an objectionable corporate chain store, but do you really want to fight your way through those crowds on Halloween? Go tomorrow when the candy's all half-off...

Obelix, here, has asked me to tell you that he does not consider chicken wings food. Wild boar is food. Whatever you say, boy. Why don't you go take your plastic pumpkin and see if you can hunt one down on Atlantic Avenue...-
Now then.

Chicken Wings

Way ahead of time, like the day before or, if you think a pan of these with all the homemade blue cheese dressing you can drink will be just the ticket after escorting a passel of jacked-up, candy-crazed kids around the neighborhood, right now, boil up your marinade:

1 & 1/4 cup of soy sauce
1 cup of water
12 scallions, brutally clubbed for maximum flavor and pre-holiday stress release
10 cloves of garlic, ditto (get those homemade costume-related aggressions out while the kids are in school!)
10 slices of ginger, ibid (Watch your fingers. You'll need them to fasten those emergency safety pins)
and 1 & 1/4 cup of sake (or white wine. Maybe even cooking sherry. Honey, how are you going to have time to run to the liquor store when you haven't finished hot gluing the feather to Paula Revere's hat? (photos to follow) Use what you got.

Simmer this for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, rinse, drain, and separate 4 pounds of chicken wings. Good lord, that's a lot of flying power. If you've never separated a chicken wing into the miniature drumstick / V-shaped combo, perhaps you would like some advice from an erstwhile massage therapist. Use a big heavy knife, the kind young Michael Myers used to whack his parents in Halloween, and crunch down right at the joint where the drumstick joins the V-shape.For some reason, it's easier if the bulge-y side is facing up. You'll get a feel for it after one or two, after which it's just another gross-out serial procedure.

Arrange your wings in a shallow vessel, pour the slightly cooled marinade over them, cover with cling-wrap, and place in the fridge for poor, freaked-out Jamie Lee Curtis to find. She's probably used to it by now. Who would've thought she'd turn into such a good role model? Unlike the majority of her Botoxed-out-the-bahooty celebrity peers, I can totally see her shambling along behind her kids, carrying cast-off Obelix wigs, and then collapsing on the couch with a bucket of blue cheese dressing and a six pack of Magic Hat. Uh...she's not in recovery or anything is she?

When you can wait no longer, preheat your oven to 500☠ (sorry, it's been so long since my last post, I forget where the degrees symbol is).

Line a cookie sheet with foil, and arrange the marinated wings in a single layer.

Roast em for 40 minutes, turning halfway through. You can even baste them with the marinade, unless you think that's unsanitary, exposing them to something their raw bodies have been soaking in, when they're well on their way to being cooked. It doesn't bother me, but then I'm the type who bastes with whatever paintbrush the kids used the last time they were assaulting our dining table with their ill-conceived crafts. (Also, where is all this red synthetic hair coming from?)

You can eat them right out of the oven as is,but I'm a traditional sort, and I flew without wings for a long time, so now that I'm back to crunching the (humanely farmed) bones, I want my wings served proper, i.e. with cut-up celery stalks and blue cheese dressing. You can whip this up in five minutes, and now that you know what's in it, you'll probably never order blue cheese dressing again. Might as well eat a can of Crisco:

1 cup of mayonnaise
1 cup of sour cream
6 ounces of blue cheese
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
and a 1/ 2 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper

Whisk it all together, but be prepared to have your whisk all gobbed up. Have a poking implement on hand. Speaking of hands, I can't think of anything more finger licking good than big old bowl of blue cheese dressing! Come on, you're too big to be scared of a little stink.

∞

Oh by the way, for those who were following along on my Diet-to-Go, I got a nice letter from one of their employees asking me to "play nice". Don't worry, not in the legal sense. I reckon I got my point across though, so rather than continue beat a flat, indifferently assembled sandwich and wormy, air-freighted apple to expense-justifying death, I'm going to take it out with a few photos. If they'd valued me any more, they probably would have slipped a razor blade in there...

[Halloween] [chicken wings] [Jamie Lee Curtis] [Obelix] [homemade costumes]

Mortifications of the Flesh: Dieting By Mail II

2007-09-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I find myself harboring a vegetable bin full of imported bottled beer, a bunch of cookies, and a far too tempting assortment of delicacies from Sahadi's. The only way to stop myself from doing something I'll regret is to remind myself of what I went through on Diet-To-Go.

Some of the more the more sensitive-stomached among you argued strongly that I should give it up after that odious Cioppino Seafood Medley, but I was not only determined to see it through, I promised that I'd drag all of you down with me. Welcome to hell.

I can't express how pampered I felt when I saw that the anonymous Diet-To-Go worker who prepared my turkey sandwich had apparently gone to the trouble of lowering her ass on it before flash freezing it. That's the sort of attention to detail Diet-To-Go prides itself on. They're too modest though! They shouldn't call it Turkey Sandwich! They should call it Ass Panini!

Look at that. The last time I saw that, I was kneeling on the bathroom floor, holding my hair back, and there was no broccoli.

That broccoli was like eating a goddamn dowel, its stalk ends were so woody. My children had been served broccoli that night too, tender, non-shitty broccoli that had never been inside of a freezer or a UPS truck. Rather than appreciate her comparative good fortune, Inky tried every trick in the book to get out of eating her portion. Milo ate his without complaint, but also made a point of screaming that my dinner smelled disgusting.

Which yeah, it did, but, really, the visuals were so much more repellent. That belongs in a toilet bowl, not my good china from Target!

That yellow mess is "creamy polenta", and given that there's no attempt to divide the various components of the frozen entree-n'-sidedish brick, it ended up being more of a creamed corn sauce. I was so demoralized that I thought I loved it maybe a little bit.

Also, I was pissed because I had misread 'snapper' as 'salmon' and when I saw that firm, white, and definitely far from fresh flesh, I felt like I'd been had not once but twice! The first time was when I signed up and the second time was up the heiner with no grease. Everyone knows salmon isn't white. Even, as it turns out, the fine folks at Diet-to-Go.

Ah, now here's some salmon, in burger form. Anything that shitty should really come with a Happy Meal type toy. That way you'll have something to play with in the hospital, other than the tube in your stomach. Assuming you don't die in the ambulance, that is.

On a related note, how much did I pay to have that can of V-8 overnight air freighted? I was so mad, I nearly substituted a tall glass of complimentary New York City tap water. I was all like, "I'll show them! I'm not going to eat their stupid chips. What kind of nutrition expert puts potato chips in a diet meal? I'll pack them in Milo's lunchbox to show my contempt."

Except that while these vengeful thoughts were taking shape, I accidentally managed to eat them all. I didn't realize what I was doing until they were all gone.

Has anybody else seen Shortbus? I loved everything about that movie, but one of the things I loved most was the way the decadent, deep-as-a-dingleberry model boy was shown breaking tiny shards of a single potato chip and eating those as casually as the rest of the general populace horks down our great honking fistfuls .

I know you're getting stomach cramps, so I'll take it out on a high note. It looks like French Toast, but it's really turkey-ham (I'm beginning to suspect Diet-to-Go is a front for the American Turkey Lobby) and cheese. I'm so ashamed that I'd never realized the nutritional value of processed American cheese. It's like celery, apparently. It actually takes more calories to burn than it contains. Were you aware of it? Neither was I.

Tell, you what, though, that apricot pudding wasn't the worst thing in the world. If I was going to sign up for another week of this hell, I'd request that they substitute extra helpings of that for everything else they were planning to send me. And then I'd eat it all in one sitting.

∞

Can you stand one more round? Because the finale was really gnarly. Stay tuned.

[Diet-to-Go], [weight loss], [regrettable food], [barf]

(UPDATE - the original title of this post has been changed at the increasingly desperate requests of the fine folks at Diet 2 Go, who didn't want the nasty opinion of some blog-on-ice to be the second thing search engines reached for when telling potential customers about their services. No key money (or thank Christ, Key Food) changed hands, and since they weren't asking me to alter the content, I figured I could be a sport.)

Danger and The Amateur Gourmet

2007-09-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, around the time Dirty Sugar Cookies came out, The Amateur Gourmet, (also known as Adam Roberts) and I threw down some vegetarian dim sum in Chinatown so he'd know who the hell I was when he hosted a pitstop on the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour. In between assorted treasure balls and monk dumplings, he told me how he was writing a book. Then we went to my favorite restaurant supply store and looked at rat traps and a wok big enough to stir fry a toddler.

Well, now that book has been published and it's a real corker, complete with recipes, celebrity appearances and, the author takes care to note, Asian lesbians! It's titled The Amateur Gourmet, after his blog and I'm thinking a tv show and a line of salad dressing can't be too far behind! Read it to relive the sensual, saucy, fire-fuelled awakening that laid waste to your culinary virginity, then pass it on to a friend who can't tell the difference between a kitchen timer and a vibrating egg.

Lest I mislead you, this book is also clean enough to lay on your Lutheran granny, Asian lesbians and all. (As far as I can tell, Adam has nothing but respect for them, in a chaste and non-objective sort of way that acknowledges their individual strengths, weaknesses and kim chi preferences.) Especially if you're granny's a timid-in-the-kitchen type who needs to bust out a bit. Right off the bat, Adam airs his numerous failed dishes, as if they're nothing to be afraid of! Rock on! The man's got a good handle on the the kinds of things that can freak even an experienced amateur way the fork out:

Knives. Farmer's Markets. Cooking a big holiday dinner for parents who are accustomed to dining out every night.

I decided that rather than discuss the perils of publishing, I'd ask Adam to delve deeper into the dangers lurking in the average home kitchen. This approach unleashed a bloodbath of traumatic memories that won't get me hired as an interviewer any time soon (mostly b/c the lion's share of the memories are mine...)

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Adam Roberts, The Amateur Gourmet!

DSC: You devote an entire chapter to knives and I must admit, I do fear my uneducated knife work may lead to injury. My worst gash thusfar came from a tomato juice can. I couldn't tell what was blood and what was juice and it was spraying all over the place.

I also have fond memories of the time one of Greg's predecessors had bought himself a new set of cheap knives that came glued to a sheet of cardboard. He was trying to pull them off the cardboard and one of them flew off and gouged his finger pretty good, just as the pizza delivery man rang the bell. It was quite a frenzied scene, and in retrospect, I probably looked like some sort of spattered, wild eyed lunatic when I yanked the door open for the delivery guy, who took his money and fled. After the wound was bandaged and the blood mopped up, we sat down to eat and I was like, "Damn, he forgot the beer!" So, I call the restaurant and tell them that their delivery guy forgot the beer, could he please bring some more? About twenty minutes later, the doorbell rings. I open the door and there's nobody there, just a six pack on the door mat. I bring it inside and that is when I see the original six pack on the floor, where the delivery guy must have abandoned it in his haste to flee the murder scene.

How about you, Adam? Any bad knife stories? What should we look out for besides tomato juice lids?

TAG: It's really hard to one-up that story!! Luckily, I haven't impaled myself with a knife just yet. Like you, I did cut myself on a can just the other day. I was making a coconut cake and I opened a can of cream of coconut and cut myself on it. Not too bad, though, the Band-Aid stopped the bleeding. And the blood gave the cake a nice beefy flavor.

DSC: Let's talk about scaldings. I have a fear of that too, but thankfully no first hand experience. The closest I've come is a friend from college who caught her nightie on a pot of boiling water and it spilled all over her and the wet flannel wrapped itself around her and... oh man, I don't want to go on, but that just reminded me of another friend from college who was making spaghetti with her pet bird on her shoulder and her best friend, who was kind of loud and theatrical said something in a loud and theatrical way, startling the bird, who fell to his death in the pot of boiling spaghetti water. What a way to go, even for a pasta lover. Have you ever scalded yourself?

TAG: Ayun, following these stories is like following The Beatles! A bird boiled in spaghetti water?? My God. I haven't really scalded myself either. But I will tell a story about killing pets. When my family moved to Florida from New York in 1990, the coolest thing about our new house was there was a beautiful aquarium in the kitchen. Without question that was the new house's best feature and I was stoked to fill it up with fish. So, once we moved in, I dragged my parents to the pet store where we bought all these cool looking fish, plopped them in the tank and my brother and I delighted at our first and only pets. Then, after a week or two, it started to smell. Really bad. We cleaned the tank but it didn't matter. Our kitchen smelled like a sewer. So dad, an enterprising spirit, did what any college-educated dental professional would do: he poured a tablespoon of Chlorine into the tank. "It won't hurt the fish," he promised us. "It'll just get rid of the smell." We watched as the syrupy blue substance permeated the tank and then we started screaming: the fish's skin started melting off, and other fish flipped upside down and started zooming to the surface. It was a great fish massacre--fish around the world still talk about it--and my brother and I were forever traumatized.

DSC: No hot oil mishaps, I hope. When I was 3 or 4, I was helping my grandmother make pancakes and before she could stop me, I reached in to flip one the way I'd seen her do with a spatula, except I had no spatula. I still have a small circular scar on my back of my hand, though in full disclosure, it's sort of like my invisible friend. It exists but very few people besides me can actually see it. Tell me about yourself. Any burns? Any scars?

TAG:Same kind of story (and I tell it in the book). My mom was making eggs with me when I was very little and I stupidly reached up and burned my knuckle on the side of the pan. It all happened very fast but I remember how freaked out I was. Years later--in fact this very year--I was making onion rings and I added too many at once and the oil started to boil over. That was FREAKY: I remember Mario Batali saying on TV that was the most dangerous thing that could happen because the oil could ignite as it spills all over your kitchen, burning everything down. But I quickly moved the pan away from the flame and carried it to the other side of the counter saving the day and earning the title: Apartment Hero.

DSC: Ever had a kitchen fire? I've had a bathtub fire, but the only time I had the kitchen in flames was when I left a popcorn pot unattended and that wasn't too tough to get a lid on. (And once I was a bit hasty in calling 911 when the neighbors' barbeque grill reflected off their second story sliding doors in such a way as to make it look like the whole building was on fire. I think I may have lay on the floor until the firemen went away.)

TAG:No kitchen fire to speak of, except the one I mention above. I do, however, remember going to the Hard Rock Cafe with my high school debate team and one of the girls on the team had long frizzy hair with lots of spray in it and it was her birthday. We got her a cake with candles and as she was leaning over to blow them out, her hair ignited and we all enjoyed smacking her on the head to put out the flames. That's a fond memory.

DSC: Let's move on to food poisoning. Those who've retained their Dirty Sugar Cookies know I had listeria while I was pregnant with Milo, thanks to my good friends at Boar's Head, as best I can figure. I don't think I've ever gotten sick off of something I actually cooked myself. You?

TAG:No! And it's pretty incredible. And I don't want to jinx myself, but isn't it crazy that in almost four years of food blogging---eating all kinds of weird food in weird places and cooking things I don't know how to cook--I haven't gotten sick? Ok, now I'm giving myself what Jewish people call a kanuhura. I'll probably barf up the sushi I just had for lunch.

DSC: Have you ever lost a friend because of something you did in the kitchen?

TAG:Remember that story I told about my dad and the fish? Well I had a really dirty friend and I put some chlorine in her sherbet. I'd tell you more, but I don't want to incriminate myself further.

DSC: Thanks for giving all us dirty folk nightmares!

TAG: Thanks for having me!!

[The Amateur Gourmet] [food poisoning] [kitchen fires] [knife accidents] [chlorine] [blog tour] [kitchen mishaps]

Dieting by Mail - Cioppino Seafood Medley

2007-09-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

Many women resolve not only to shed a few pounds in anticipation of bikini season, but to keep them off until Labor Day, when the pools and beaches officially close. I, on the other hand, start bikini season bulging like dough that will just keep rising until I am tan enough to enter myself in the bread competition in the Indiana State Fair's Homemaker's Barn.

I spent the first six weeks of summer living it up at the summer palace (mojitos, s'mores, ice cream, beer and all sorts of grilled recipes that I will endeavor to share with you once your grill has been mothballed for winter).

Then we went to Alaska and that was mighty good eatin' too, because in addition to all the salmon (which ain't all that appetizing once you've seen 'em spawning), there's an abundance of cheap Asian food in restaurants catering to the cruise ships crews.

I was bustin' out all over by the time the kids and I returned from Juneau. Greg stayed behind to midwife his new musical, Yeast Nation. I decided that given my temporarily husband-less status, I could kill many birds (you know, in that lapsed semi-vegetarian, responsibly farmed, metaphorical way) by signing up for this diet meal service a friend of mine recommended. (No, not The Zone. Though the friend may or may not have been Jennifer Aniston.)

Let's review my thinking:

1. I've got a lot on my plate given the ratio of little monkeys to big monkeys from September 1 – October 15.

2. The kids don't like to eat what I eat and the feeling is mutual. What I wouldn't give for one of those wonder children who's like, "Mommy, mommy, let's eat in Chinatown every night! I love chipotle peppers!" If Greg were here, I'd be cooking for 2 and 2, which, of course makes four, but I'm not really into cooking for one, when all things considered, I'm cooking for three.

3. My pants don't fit anymore.

4. Jennifer Aniston said Diet-To Go's food was good! She started sampling her husband's portions and liked them enough to order some for herself. No, her husband isn't Brad Pitt. That's Angelina Jolie's husband (by Hollywood standards anyway.)

5. If I pay for it, chances are good that I'll eat it, not cheat it. (Hey kids, let's all lose some prepositions along with some weight!)

Now before I introduce you to your meal plan for the next week or so, let me state that I'm all for a big, juicy woman, size-proud, sexy and sassy! But, I'm in no position to buy a whole new wardrobe, and even my bras were starting to pinch dewlaps into my back. If you don't feel good, you don't look good.

Interestingly, I often feel good when I don't look good, but this wasn't one of those times.

So, I went on Diet-To-Go's website and ponied up for a week of flash frozen meals. They're shipped from Virginia in a big Styrofoam cooler packed with dry ice that I always wanted to give to the kids' science teacher, because my science teacher used to do nifty things like dry icing bananas until you could use them as hammers and hurling dry-iced hoses at the wall to watch them shatter. I think her dry ice was liquid though, and mine was a big chunk that came in a plastic bag printed with warnings about touching, tasting or otherwise handling the contents.

I realize that not everyone has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on weight reduction, the way the Anistons and I do. Rather than fan the fires of class envy, I thought I could share a week's worth of celebrity meals with those less fortunate than myself.

So without any further ado, let's put our hands together for Cioppino Seafood Medley!

Doesn't it look delicious, folks?

It's accompanied by a "petite grain roll", some suspiciously "lite"-tasting chive cream cheese and a Dixie cup's worth of chocolate pudding! Yum! Chocolate pudding, unlike banana pudding was always a favorite of mine in the school cafeteria. (For more on banana pudding, read Dirty Sugar Cookies, the book. Amazon's got it priced to move.)

Here's what it looks like after I heated the roll in the toaster oven and the cioppino in a pan. You're really should have a microwave when you're dieting-to-go, but for the appliance-challenged among us, the alternate heating method is on the right side of the label: Pre-heat conventional oven to 325, remove meal from plastic tray, and heat for 15 - 20 minutes if defrosted in the refrigerator, 40 minutes if still frozen. The directions for heating never vary, though I might humbly suggest that they should.

Mmm! Tastes just like something you might have gotten on an airplane, back when the airlines actually comped their ticketed passengers meals. If I was on an airplane, I would have given up after a couple of bites, but given that this was actually my second week of Diet-to-Go, I ate every morsel, because I was so damn hungry. Also, I knew that a half bag of chocolate chips was not the option it used to be. If in a moment of weakness, I horked some down, I'd be squandering my girlish figure, along with the family fortune.

Speaking of chocolate, I bet you want to hear about that pudding! All I can say is, the experience was greatly enhanced by eating it whilst reading Judith Thurman's New Yorker article about her visit to a fasting spa. Now, I'm a fast reader, but obviously, any New Yorker article is much, much bigger than a tiny specimen cup of pudding. The part of the article that I was reading while actively engaged in eating the pudding was the part about colonics. Ah, delicious irony. You want to know the worst part? Judith Thurman makes sure to tell her readers that she is naturally skinny. Her only reason for visiting this super deluxe-o fasting spa was that she was on assignment for the New Yorker. That irony is not quite so delicious.

And that's just the beginning! Are you ready for a Turkey Sandwich and a Mexican Style Burrito? mmm-MMM!

[weight loss], [Diet To Go], [Judith Thurman] [Jennifer Aniston] [seafood cioppino]

(UPDATE - the original title of this post has been changed at the increasingly desperate requests of the fine folks at Diet 2 Go, who didn't want the nasty opinion of some blog-on-ice to be the second thing search engines reached for when telling potential customers about their services. No key money (or thank Christ, Key Food) changed hands, and since they weren't asking me to alter the content, I figured I could be a sport.)

Watermelon Basil Margaritas

2007-09-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

With the possible exception of Butternut Squash Plugged With A Bottle Of Grain Alcohol, I really can't think of a more perfect fall cocktail. Because I don't know about where you are, but back here in Brooklyn, it's as humid as the inside of a dog's mouth, and seedless watermelon remains widely available, if not in the farmer's markets, at least in some of the less discerning bodegas and fruiterias. Can we, in the name of refreshment, agree to temporarily forget about what that long-distance trucker once told me about the horrorshow inside his rig after 3 days of hauling strawberries coast to coast? Because it probably applies to watermelon too. I should've posted this back in July, when I was at the summer palace, but I was too busy drinking Watermelon Basil Margaritas and overlooking the fact that Inky was doing her mandatory homework packet. (I thought it was one of those optional mandatory type of deals.) Any parent who makes their kid do homework in the summer is either way more compliant than I am, or severely lacking in the Watermelon Basil Margarita Department... Anyway, if I delay this recipe until next summer, I'll forget to publish it at all, and then I'll owe myself a kill fee, which, however large it is, will not be sufficient to cover the price of a seedless watermelon in Cape Cod.

Watermelon Basil Margaritas

Rather than coming home from the grocery store in a timely manner, push it by swinging by a nearby thrift store you had somehow never noticed before, in the 15 years you've been coming here. Your choice will be justified by a barely used electric juicer, still in its original box, priced to move at a mere 5 bucks. Arrive home an hour later than expected. Remember, if you want to find that juicer, it's essential to leave the children at home with their father. Don't forget to buy an armload of dying plants for a dollar a pop, and schlep them and your new juicer down route 6A on foot. (Given your conviction that you will accidentally manslaughter someone every time you get behind the wheel, it's best to leave the automobile in the grocery parking lot, and only drive it when you absolutely have to, like when you have to get $230 dollars worth of groceries home. Told you them seedless watermelons ain't cheap)

Denude the basil plant you've been babying since your first trip to the grocery, the day after you arrived. If you did not bother to transplant it to a bigger pot, you will have just enough. If you are one of those who immediately moves your basil to a cast-off bathtub or an abandoned truck tire so that it will bush out, 30 or so leaves should do you.

Put the leaves and 2 teaspoons of sugar in the bottom of a pitcher, and muddle the holy pesto out of them with a wooden spoon. I feel you that 2 teaspoons of sugar seems a tad on the skimpy side when you've spent half the summer drinking mojitos at four tablespoons a pop, but don't worry. You'll still manage to pack ten extra pounds into your bikini by summer's end.

Bravely pour three quarters of a cup of tequila, and one quarter cup of triple sec into that pitcher, even though you generally oppose Sarah Jessica Parkered-up takes on classic cocktails. I swear on a stack of Bibles, this is an entirely different animal than a chocolate martini or a green apple Rob Roy.

Now, haul out the juicer and feed that watermelon, rind and all, into its freshly assembled maw. Just kidding about the rind. Reading instructions all the way to the end is an important part of comprehension and compliance, or so Inky told me. She redeemed herself after the Summer Homework Debacle by being one of the two kids who turned her paper over instead of starting to follow the elaborate instructions outlined in an earlier step of a 10-step "quiz", the 10th step of which was "Do not follow any of the instructions in steps 1 – 9. Turn your paper over and wait quietly for your teacher." She was rewarded with a piece of candy, and, maybe even the possibility that her mother will forget to make her do next summer's homework as well.

Don't despair if you don't have a juicer. Your child can still do well on a 10-step faux quiz and you can still have Basil Watermelon Margaritas! The thing about the blender at the summer palace is, it's only good for using as a pitcher. If you plug it in and turn it on, the only thing that happens is it smells like burning. Those of you without juicers must have blenders, yes? If not, the thrift stores are full of blenders! Or go to the discount store and get a cheap one. You don't need to spend a hundred bucks on an Oster Contemporary Classic Beehive unless you're married to me and it's my birthday and I want it in orange. It's too overqualified to liquify watermelon. I could liquefy a watermelon with a marshmallow! However you do it, if you're not using a juicer, you'll need to strain it through something – a strainer, some cheesecloth, your husband's pantyhose – in order to have that Shirley Temple pink, sweet, clear juice.

Moisten the rim of four glasses – one if it's just you, Billie Holiday and your loneliness – with something, a rag dipped in watermelon juice, your tongue, your husband's pantyhose... I would say a lime, but these margaritas don't call for lime juice! That's great news because the only thing more expensive than seedless watermelon out there on the Cape is limes – 2 for a buck at the Orleans Stop N Shop. This is why all visitors to the summer palace must bring me limes and lots of them.

Pour the watermelon juice into the pitcher.

Dip the rims of the glasses in a saucerful of decent salt, not Mortons or those little packets you take home from the airplane. Add some ice, and divide the contents of the pitcher between them.

Promise your friend, Mrs. Big Sarah X, that you will not scandalize her Waldorf community by publishing a photo of her drinking alcohol while her children are Angelic Forest Sprite In The Moss knows where!

Next up: The chicken wings devoured by a certain Waldorf parent, who shall remain not only nameless but pseudonymless as well. (Photos available on request.)

Got any good ideas for my juicer? Lay 'em on me!

[ juicer], [ margaritas], [margarita recipe],
[Sarah Jessica Parker]

Your Pancakes Are Coming!

2007-09-09T06:03:00.001-07:00

Thanky kindly for your patience while I took the long, hot summer off.
(Actually, I was in Alaska. It was cold and rainy, but I did inarguably take it off)

Anyhoo, in between purloining my children's rubber food to sew on my red 40th birthday dress and trying to see this novel I'm writing all the way through to the end (spoken like someone who's on chapter 4), I'm reckoning it'll be a recipe or two a month, starting with the greatest hits of summer. And please be sure to reserve a table on September 26, when The Amateur Gourmet swings by on his virtual book tour. (If you've got a question for him, lay it on me now).

Who wants a watermelon basil margarita before the second week of school???

Who wants pie?

2007 art parade
Originally uploaded by editrrix

Slivered Snowpea and Chicken Salad

2007-05-25T06:39:00.001-07:00

Milo’s teacher thinks there may be a chance that the little mule will do his homework if I set a timer and ignore him, saying that I have work to do too. We both get a half hour. Unfortunately, it’s the half hour in which I was planning to sprawl on the couch with a good book, but once a temp, always a temp. I still remember how to fake it. Milo doesn’t even bother. He just hopped up and wandered away, bitching to beat the band. I’m afraid if I look up, I’ll see that someone else has helped himself to my couch. Oh wait, he’s back. Better look busy before Big Daddy comes and yells at us both.

Slivered Snowpea and Chicken Salad

Poach a pound’s worth of boneless, skinless chicken breast in half a box of organic chicken stock. Does anybody else think that seems a tad cannibalistic? Like serving Titus Andronicus a stew seasoned with his own chopped-up children? Oh well, steer the course. You too, Milo. Ten minutes ought to do it for the chicken, and I’m sure there are certain high-achieving little girls in his first grade class who could bang out all their Word Wall words in half that time, but my boy appears to have skipped ahead and is now cutting something out with scissors.

Idle hands are the devil’s work, so let’s quit staring into space and wash and string a pound of snow peas. This is probably what those mainstream family magazines have in mind when start in to yakking about fun kitchen activities in which the whole family can be involved. Unfortunately, I’m not much of a one for unsolicited advice…and by the time I go begging for it, it’s usually too late. Say, has anyone else noticed that those mainstream family mags are starting to tank at an alarming rate? I just received obituaries for both Child and Nick Jr. Family Fun. (Uh, anybody want to buy a service article about Six Super Ways to Keep from Killing Your Kids in the Former Yugoslavia?) What could this signify? Is it time for the freaks to take over the world? Because my timer hasn’t gone off yet.

Let’s look at this problem another way.

Q: If Mommy’s kitchen is three feet wide by six feet long, and she has zero helpers, how long will it take her to string a pound of snowpeas without drinking half a bottle of wine and turning into a creature that’s two-parts Bitchmother, three-parts Grounds for Divorce?

A: Back to that bed of nails, you!

If you’ve followed instructions carefully, you should be ready to drain the chicken. Reserve the stock for another purpose. (Other than that, Mr. Andronicus, how did you like the stew?)

Don’t feel bad if you’re still stringing snow peas, because we’re ten minutes shy of resetting that timer for our third time. If you finish before we do, stack them up, and slice them into matchsticks. It’s a mindless activity, but one I find oddly therapeutic. Also, that’s the way you’ll need them later on, so might as well get a jump on it.
Speaking of which, this salad isn’t going to dress itself. No, I’m not going to dress it for you. It’s your salad. You dress it. And don’t whine. For all the time you just spent whining, you could have been done by now. What do you mean you don’t what the ingredients are!? Oh, for the love of…here!

3 tablespoons of rice vinegar
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
and 2 tablespoons of your favorite nut or seed butter. (My favorite’s whichever one the kids refuse to eat, before it goes rancid and I have to throw it away. Almond butter worked great. Sunflower Seed butter was nice, too, even if it was a couple of warm days shy of joining Child and Nick Jr. Family Fun.)

Mince a couple cloves of garlic and a tablespoon’s worth of ginger, and stir fry them in a teaspoon of sesame oil in a big pan or wok.

Sorry to veer off topic, but Heaven help me, I’m on the verge of biting my tongue in half, that’s how dearly I’d love to feed this child the answers. Anything to put an end to this hellish exercise! Just between you, me, and the snowpeas, it’s the Cat in the Hat.

Oh right, the snowpeas. Throw them in the wok now, before the garlic has a melt down on you. Stir them around for the minute or two it will take Milo to write the letter C. You don’t want to be serving dinner at midnight, after all.

Throw the snowpeas into a bowl with the dressing and the shredded up chicken breast, toss in a couple of slivered almonds or whatever and let’s eat before that infernal timer goes off a fourth time. There’s no reason why this should have taken you more than thirty minutes.

∞

In other news, doesn't THIS look delicious? I'm not sure how long it will keep, though, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to cook it...

[mouse problem] [homework problem] [homework solutions] [chicken salad] [snow pea]

Long Time Comin' Chipotle Chicken Quesadillas

2007-05-11T06:16:00.001-07:00

If you’re at pains to understand why anyone would drag a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce all the way from Brooklyn to Budapest, bang out a couple skillets of these fuckers and you’ll have your answer.*

Chipotle Chicken Quesadillas

Take one of those big knives they won’t let past security anymore, and work out your aggression on a bunch of scallions and an innocent clove or two of garlic. Goddamn! Every time I try to type “clove or”, this melon farming laptop changes it to “clover”. Which would probably taste just fine, but it’s a little too close to the recipes in the The Sarajevo Survival Guide, an amazingly defiant, hilarious, and sad-making document of what came to constitute “ordinary” life during the three year siege. Pray you never need your clover, and don’t ever let me catch you taking the availability of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce for granted.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat, dump in your scallions and garlic, and season with salt, pepper, and a half-tablespoon of oregano. I know you won’t let them burn after that guilt-making reminder of the privilege and plenty in which we – or at least I – all too often forget we dwell.

After four minutes or so, you can add a pound of boneless, skinless chicken titties and two cups of chicken stock. All hail America, where it comes in a box! Throw the lid on and simmer for ten minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate, let it cool and shred it into reasonable pieces with your super sanitary fingers.

If you really want to wallow in no-war-here convenience, you can skip that step by snagging yourself a pre-cooked bird off the grocery store’s rotisserie! Or hell, give yourself a break and use last night’s leftovers! You’ll still need some chicken stock, but not so much. How much? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… I’m sorry, I’m still getting reacquainted with these American keyboards. In Croatia and Bosnia, the Y has been relocated to what we in the Land of the Free think of as the Z position, which is kind of discombobulating where your name contains two of them. I’m not even going to discuss the lengths to which I had to go to make the @ symbol. Suffice it to say that I really hate coming off like a dithering, technically challenged matron in front of the cool expat boys who know how to do things like set themselves up with live video feeds of their hometown hockey games and get their Internet bar a glowing plug in the New York Times...

So, let’s say, like, a cup and a half.

Dig around in your backpack for that can of chipotles, crack her open, select two fit-looking specimens, and chop them up fine.

These go into the stock along with a cup of canned tomatoes, and by canned, I mean canned and diced, because, what is this? The Dark Ages? (Did I mention that I spent the last three weeks doing our laundry in the sink, like some old hippie woman hunched over her tailgate in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert, cutting potatoes into a hot pot plugged into her cigarette lighter? Actually, that woman was probably a decade or so younger than I am now…I wonder what she’s up to now.)

Let that simmer for twenty minutes or so unless you want your quesadillas to have the consistency of gazpacho.

Add the shredded chicken and let the simmering continue unabated. Crack open a beer and thank your lucky stars for the relative peace and prosperity in which we live, where protein and delicious, smoky peppers can be procured on the free market with the local currency by those with a hankering to recreate the plate-licking dish they ordered the last time Rolf Potts breezed into town, always a happy excuse for local travel writers to flock to the Half-King for brunch. (Hell yeah, I’m a travel writer! Or I will be when Gourmet sends me to Serbia to do a story about that seventh generation bee keeping wine maker!) Those of us who can’t be bothered to cook it ourselves can live secure in the knowledge that no one will try to shoot us as we stroll toward 23rd and 9th to satisfy our cravings. Or if someone does, that’s just proof that no matter how many Disney stores you put in Times Square, it’s still New York Fucking City!

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Dios mia, we almost forgot the guacamole. This you must make fresh. That green paste next to the sour cream in the refrigerator case tastes like what I imagine military meals-in-a-pouch must be. Do swing by that aisle for a tub of sour cream though. My paternal grandmother, after she moved to Arizona, made a point of taking a drink from every water fountain she passed. I try to make it a point to never pass the dairy case without picking up some sour cream. I think it’s important to honor our ancestors in whatever way we can.

So, you know how to make guacamole right? Good. Let’s see you put your money where your avocadoes are.

Right, then, Henry Ford, let’s fire up the production line. You will need a package of queen-size tortillas, your prepared chicken mix, sour cream, the guac’, and 12 ounces of pale grated cheese (You’re sitting pretty if the label says Queso, but if Monterey Jack’s as Mexican as your grocery gets, es no problema, Gringo, Hombre!

Don’t forget a cookie sheet, a big skillet or griddle, a spatula, a couple of plates, and plenty of counter space.

To make one unit, you’re going spread less chicken filling than your big eyes are telling you you want on a tortilla, sprinkle it with cheese, top it with another tortilla, and carefully slide it into the hot skillet you’ve got fired up on the stove. Press the spatula on top of that sucker and pray that you’re not going to have a situation on your hands come flipping time. You’ve got two minutes to gird your loins, and then you’re going in. Do the best you can. If some filling leaks out, harness whatever potty-mouthed self-loathing rises to the surface and use it to push that filling back in. Don’t forget to smash this side with the spatch too. It activates the cheese’s adhesive properties. Take a minute to compose yourself, and then slide it out onto a plate with a big, Second-One’s-Bound-To-Be-Easier grin. No matter what it looks like, it’ll taste best warm, so put it on the cookie sheet, and slide it into a 200˚ oven.

Repeat, repeat, repeat (don’t rinse, just repeat.) When you’ve got a big old stack, get out the syrup, wait, don’t, that’s pancakes…

When you’ve got a big old stack, cut it into wedges with a knife, or more impressively, a pizza cutter! Fan a tortilla-and-a-half’s worth on every diner’s plate, along with the generous blorps of guacamole and sour cream that are the key to winning hostessly accolades.

∞

*Sorry. Jet lag makes me terse. I should be over it by now, but Milo keeps sneaking into my bed at two in the morning, and when I relocated to his recently vacated bottom bunk, so I won’t wake anyone up during my insomniac perusal of the four New Yorkers that piled up in my absence despite a vacation hold order, the little maniac somehow gets wind of it, and tails me there, arriving just as I’m beginning to drift off. It’s taken me nearly two weeks to type this up. But in the meantime, I’ve started writing a novel! I think I may even finish it! But even if I don’t, it’s a helluva lot more fun than teaching the kids how their brand new heelies are supposed to work. There’s probably a tutor for that, right? Oh that’s right, I spent all my money on sour cream.

[Quesadillas] [jet lag] [chipotle recipes][Deadheads] [Balkan conflict] [Western Privilege]

Back from Whogoslavia

2007-04-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

Doberdan, my fellow eaters!

We're back from Whogoslavia? and slowly leaving jet lag behind for my customary state of regular old lag.

I'll be back in the kitchen tomorrow, but first thought I'd share some culinary memories from a month in the Western Balkans:

Best eats: Cevapcici at Konobo Sadrvan in Mostar,Herzogovina

Runner-up: the little fried fish at the place next to Pizzeria Castro in Gunduliceva Poljana, Dubrovnik Croatia

Loveliest setting for eats: Inat Kuca (House of Despite, Sarejevo, Bosnia

County with best pizza: Croatia

Country with worst pizza: Everywhere else

Most disturbing pizza description: "Pizza sauce, cheeze, maize, brussels sprouts", Legenykert Restaurant, Budapest, Hungary

Reason we ate so much goddamn pizza:

Best supermarket name: The Croatian chain Konzum

Best ice cream flavor: Chestnut

Best unexpected discovery in a bar: The newborn kittens in a crevice of the rock outcropping above Buza, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Thing my brother-in-law ordered that I then wished I had ordered: Squid stuffed with ham and cheese, Lobran, Croatia

Best picnic food: Prsut from the little grocery in Stanjel, Slovenia

Most awesome-looking snack: Bobi Party Mix

Best unclaimed porn star name: Bobi Party Mix

Restaurant I wished we weren't eating in when I saw the prices, but then liked because Milo ate a complimentary tuna bruschetta and my salad (spinach, prsut, funghi, and olives) was good enough I'm going to try to recreate it here in Brooklyn:
Trattoria Fellini, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Best Orange Fanta Knock-off, from a packaging standpoint: Pipi

Best cooking implement provided by a self-catering apartment: Cappuccino Machine, Apartment Silak, Ptuj, Slovenia

Essential cooking implement most frequently missing in self-catering apartments of the Western Balkans: Dishtowel

Best complimentary breakfast: Guest House Halvat, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Complimentary breakfast engendering such a positive response from the picky-eating set that it somewhat redeemed an otherwise shitty hotel experience: Hotel Tabor, Sezana, Slovenia

Complimentary breakfast that was every bit as shitty as the hotel in which it was served: Hotel Putnik, Novi Sad, Serbia

Best Communist era hotel dining room, especially the mod-for-1974 chandelier: Hotel Putnik, Novi Sad, Serbia

Most endearing logo: Zdenka Cheese

Best Museum of Beekeeping and Wine Cellar: Family Zivanovic's Museum of Beekeeping and Wine Cellar, Sremski Karlovci, Serbia

Place I'd love to visit on Gourmet Magazine's nickel: Salas 137, Fruska Gora, Serbia

∞

All in all a glorious, grueling trip, even if I did eat too much freakin' pizza. Send me your cevapcici recipes!

And if you find yourself at loose ends in NYC this Thursday, May 3, with 35 bucks burning a hole in your pocket, skip dinner and come to The Decameron a food-and-trickery themed benefit for the Debate Society, featuring me and nine far-worthier readers and storytellers. Hear some hot Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook action. Buy a raffle ticket and you may just win yourself an autographed copy of Dirty Sugar Cookies to supplement the one you already own!

Grateful Coconut Pork

2007-03-15T04:20:00.000-07:00

Holy fucking cranberries, Batman! I just sort of assumed nobody was reading this rag, because I never got any comments. I must confess, it monkeyed with my momentum, especially lately – my gentleman friend’s been in Alaska and we’re scrambling to get our heiners to Budapest in two weeks, without leaving anything essential un-turned in, un-packed, un-paid, and/or un-purchased.

Last night, I got around to setting up a blog upon which the kids can chronicle their upcoming Balkan adventures and lo and behold, I see something I never noticed before, a little dingbat that implied I had hundreds of comments awaiting approval. Say what? It was like finding one of those bushels of undelivered mail that were discovered in 1990’s Chicago, tucked beneath postmen’s porches and burning in wooded backlots! Most of my admirers wanted me to introduce me to hot underage sluts or improve my penile performance (I’ve been making do with what the good lord gave me…), but a few of the comments implied that a small portion of my fellow Americans are breaking out the fish sauce and taking these recipes for a test drive!

So, thank you! Thank you all! I’m sorry I never responded to your kind wishes on my blog tour and nice words on the book and queries as to whether it’s acceptable to peanut butter for peanut oil! I didn’t know! I’ll never let you languish like that again!!! (Unless I spend another year forgetting my log-in name and password…)

Brothers and sisters, I feel the spirit of momentum a-buildin’ again, especially since Greg’s taken it upon himself to fix dinner on those rare Wednesday nights when he’s not in Alaska. (He leaves for Pittsburgh on Sunday. It’s okay. He packs well under pressure. Wait, no, he doesn’t! When Uncle Stephen and I showed up at his studio apartment in 1992, to help him haul his worldly possessions into the one-bedroom lovenest in which we would live in sin (which suited Jambo just fine), he was sitting on his unmade bed, eating cereal and reading the newspaper! He hadn’t even unscrewed the dang futon frame…)

Wait, the momentum, it’s building again! Your momentum, I mean. Drop that take-out menu! Homemade coconut pork’s what's in the stars for you tonight, baby.

coconut pork

Coconut Pork
Since the butcher’s still giving you the hero’s welcome he accords all lapsed vegetarians, might as well toddle over and tell him to slice you up a pound of pork tenderloin. Tell him you like it thin, so he won’t get any ideas. (If he himself is thin, cart it home to slice yourself.)

Mince four cloves of garlic! Come on! Small and wild! Get all Benihana on it!

Now without slicing your thumb, or starting a fire, slice a thumb-sized hunk of ginger into matchsticks.

Cast the contents of your cutting board across the 2 tablespoons of oil you’ve set to sizzling in the wok. Fling 3 dried chili peppers in after, the little Thai kind if you’ve got ‘em, though their been-sitting-on-the-shelf -so-long-you-could-rub-em-on-your-eyeballs-if-you-wanted-to Mexican cousins will certainly do in a pinch.

I know, seems like only yesterday you were heating the oil and already it’s time to throw the pork in there too. If you wanted a rest, you should have applied for a job at that Kentucky Fried Chicken in the West Village.

Stir-fry the pork until it turns white or some other shade of cooked.

Add 1 teaspoon of salt
4 teaspoons of sugar
and 1 teaspoon of soy sauce.
(By the way, I recently wrote the good people at Kamada International to tell them how much I love their Dashi soy, how I pimp it all over the blog and even mentioned their website in my recently published book, thinking they’d email back something to the effect of, “You know the two cases you just ordered to the tune of nearly forty bucks? It’s on the house.” Instead, I got a little message telling me that they appreciate customer feedback! Like I don’t know that feeling! You think they’d at least slip me a bumper sticker or something…)

Now add a can of coconut milk. Not that suntan-lotion flavored cartilage they make Mai Tais out of! You know better than that. Actually, that would probably taste pretty good in a Hawaiian Tropic, Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, Paris Hilton kind of way.

Snap yourself out of it with some single-malt Scotch while the pork simmers for twenty minutes.

Serve it over rice, with some sliced mango which makes it look less like something you’d feed the dog and more like something you’d want to comment on before you’ve even tasted it!

∞
I don’t know how much more I’ll be posting in the next six weeks, but if you haven’t already, why not subscribe to my Dirty Feed there, so you won’t miss a single opportunity to comment ? And while you’re at it, hop on over to Whogoslavia, and subscribe to that too. You know how kids get a bang out of comments, especially when their parents are dragging them around Bosnia and such.

[coconut milk] [Paris Hilton] [Vietnamese food] [Spring Break] [How to approve comments on blog posts]

Popcorn Cauliflower (Tastes Just Like Popcorn!)

2007-02-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

A paying market that’s a bit more mainstream than my usual beat asked me to submit some tips on making vegetables palatable to children:

Tip #1: Don’t knock yourself out.

Tip #2: Swap your existing children for some of that mutant strain, the ones who eat everything on their plates without bitching, whining, weeping or entering a manic Robin Williamsesque state.

Tip #3: Take a bite yourself, exclaiming, “Wow! Tastes just like popcorn!”

Having tried this dish (under duress), my nine-year-old daughter wishes to inform you that it tastes nothing like popcorn.

Her younger brother gave it a thumbs up, though, once he'd succumbed, consenting to an exploratory nibble after half an hour's goading, in which the suspect vegetable was compared to broccoli’s albino cousin, an alien being that must be conquered, Popeye’s other favorite food, and, of course, popcorn.

Tip #4: When spawning finicky children, choose a playwright mate with a background in improvisational comedy. Make sure he (or she) sticks around for the rearing part.

Popcorn Cauliflower

Chop up or smash four cloves of garlic, depending on whether or not your kid goes apeshit over unidentifiable brown flecks on his or her food. Smashed cloves can be removed before serving. My nine-year-old daughter wishes to inform you that cauliflower could also be removed before serving.

Core a head of cauliflower and make sure the children see. This is what happens to boys and girls who don’t eat what’s on their plates.

Chop it into florets, cast them into a kettle of boiling water fortified with one tablespoon of salt, give them a couple of minutes to get tender but not mushy, then strain.

Fire up your wok, add two tablespoons of vegetable oil, and fry the garlic for thirty seconds.

Add the florets and spend a couple of minutes stirring them around, pressing them gently against the sides of the wok to sear in that popcorn flavor.

Add half a teaspoon of sea salt. Swear to god, I feel like we’re at the movie theater, that’s how close it is to popcorn.

Eat it if you want dessert.

∞
[cauliflower], [popcorn], [picky eater]

Commune Cookies

2007-02-21T11:10:00.000-08:00

Another thing about a small apartment, when the older kid’s having a flute lesson at one end of it, it’s imperative that the jacked-up younger squirt be creatively corralled, if one’s to get one’s money’s worth. Usually, I spirit the little devil off to the Boerum Hill Food Company for hot chocolate and a cookie, but he’d already observed President’s Day by sending a cup of cocoa flying at Housing Works Used Book Cafe (just missing a fellow patron and a display of brand new hardbacks). Plus, there are a lot of brass monkeys out there today wishing they’d had the sense to stay home where it’s warm. Inky and her flute teacher were in the bow. Figured I stood a chance of keeping Milo in the stern if I let him crack eggs, hork down some chocolate chips and fool with the brand new digital timer I bought to replace the one he dropped to its death.

Like that wasn’t home-fucking-schooly enough, I adapted the recipe from a 1970’s kids’ cookbook, Kids Are Natural Cooks, by a Cambridge, Mass collective known as the Parents’ Nursery School, with illustrations by Lady McCrady. It’s my total hippie fantasy. Three-year-olds making their own cheese, butter and pretzels. What am I saying? That sounds like a total nightmare! Anyhoo, I snuck a little white flour into the original recipe, substituted Triple Sec for vanilla (we’re out) and changed the name from Crunchy Cookies to

Commune Cookies

Preheat the oven to 350˚.
Put a stick of butter on the counter.
Read The Boy Who Looked Like Lincoln twice, The Lorax once, and reinstate martial law with regard to those who seek to create a public disturbance in flute territory,

Place 1/3 cup of the now-softened butter in a bowl with 1/2 cup of honey. Begin the stirring process.

Suspend the stirring process to ask the cabin boy if he has washed his hands since disembarking from the subway. Wait while hands are (allegedly) washed. Resume the stirring process.

Add one egg and one teaspoon of Triple Sec or some other calming substance like the pot juice the Parents Nursery School cooperative no doubt substituted when they ran out of vanilla. Stir that up while waiting for your summons to arrive.

Sift in:
1/2 cup of white flour
3/4 cup of wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
Continue stirring. You’ll wind up with something resembling the Peanut Butter Playdough on page 25. Always makes me feel a little woozy, thinking of those little cooperatively-run fingers moistly exploring the nether reaches of nostrils and oral cavities before probing that edible playdough, some of which will be eaten, but some of which will be packaged up for another round of playtime fun.

Prissy, my smelling salts!

When the color returns to your cheeks, you may stir in one cup of chocolate chips and one cup of chopped nuts. I used walnuts. Apparently, there were no nut allergies in 1972. I’d love to see the public outcry that would greet the parent who dared bring in a batch of homemade granola, Chris and Jody’s Nut Bread, or, for that matter, Peanut Butter Playdough to snack time today. Make sure you have clearance before unleashing them on the possibly susceptible (and litigious!) young. Eat them all yourself, if that’s what it takes. But first ------> Bake for 9 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet and cool on racks. I’m all about the racks these days, another sure sign that it’s 2007, and not some mythical, hippie-dippie, Montessori past.

∞
[cookie recipe] [nut allergy] [hippie fantasy] [flute lessons] [peanut butter playdough]

Recovered Chicken Liver and Sage Salad

2007-02-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, I bought this jive ass salad cookbook in a used bookstore. I think my rationale was that increased access to creative salad recipes would induce me to eat more greens, but all it did was up my annual chicken liver consumption by ten pounds or so.

So when, after a three year hiatus, I again started shacking with Matthew Mugg the Cat’s Meat Man*, one of the things I was really looking forward to was a reunion with my beloved sage and chicken liver salad. Only thing was, sometime in the last three years, I must have unloaded that crappy cookbook in a stoop sale. It was nowhere to be found and I know, because I looked, sort of. I could have lost it, could have thrown a tantrum and ordered in thirty bucks’ worth of sub par Thai food, but like hell was I going to waste a pound of chicken livers from Los Paisanos at $1.99 a pound. I unzipped my baggie of fresh sage, huffed deeply, and dusted off my background in improvisation.

What I wound up with wouldn’t win any beauty prizes, but there’s nothing wrong with being Ms. Congeniality, especially if you’re loaded with iron.

Recovered Chicken Liver and Sage Salad

Wash, dry, and tear a head of Bibb lettuce. Boston lettuce? I always. That hydroponic stuff with the root ball dangling off the end like those scary lady-ghosts from Thailand. Oh my god, they’re so freaky. Just this pretty smiling head trailing a mess of internal organs like gnarly sausage links. The stuff one learns reading Giant Robot, I swear.

Slice a shallot.

Chop up some sage. Like a sprig. I don’t know. There were four sprigs in my baggie, one decidedly larger than the rest. I denuded that one of its leaves and chopped them up. Use your discretion, not your measuring spoons.

Melt a tablespoon of olive oil with a tablespoon of butter. Fry the sage and the shallot over medium heat for five to ten minutes.

Remove the goodies, as much as you can. Freshen the pan with another tablespoon of butter and another tablespoon of oil.

Brown the chicken livers. If you’re worried about whatever it is people worry about with undercooked organ meats, think about that scene in Notes on a Scandal where Dame Judi Dench snaps, “Don’t, let’s.” You want them brown on the outside, but not on the inside.

Add
1/4 cup of wine
1/4 cup of orange juice
several big pinches of salt
a big pinch of freshly ground pepper
and restore those goodies.

When everything’s heated through, make like you’re some sort of demented Easter Bunny, tucking chicken livers amongst those tender new greens. So good! Wilt it up a bit by pouring the sauce over everything.

Sprinkle with a bit more fresh sage and a splash or two of sushi vinegar.

∞
*
It’s a metaphor and a literary allusion!

[chicken livers] [phi pob][Dr Doolittle] [sage] [salad]

Adobo Chicken

2007-02-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

This dish is “the hotness”, a superlative I picked up from the celebrity gossip blog, D-Listed, where it is most frequently applied to Charlize Theron (and very little else). The only thing that kept it from being entirely perfect was that midway through the cooking procedure, my six-year-old son received a visitation from the Muse of Craft, and in his fervor, could not rest until four paper lunch sacks had been fetched from the cabinet over the stove, dislodging the glass coffee pot, which exploded all over the counter while simultaneously sending a Pyrex measuring cup to its death. Also, about three hours after my second heaping helping, I started blowing chow like a freaking firehose, but the forensics team has determined that it was a case of the stomach flu that ate Brooklyn, not salmonella, listeria, or some other delicious food borne bacteria. So eat up, secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t the hotness’s fault.

Adobo Chicken

Scrounge around in the cabinets until you come across the store-brand white vinegar you use for infrequent cleaning and Easter egg dying. Combine:
1/2 cup of that
1/2 cup of soy sauce
3 bay leaves
5 cloves of garlic, minced up pretty
A dozen or so hand-strengthening grinds of pepper
& 8 chicken thighs. (I foraging at Han Ah Reum Market and ran across a big package of boneless thighs - as opposed to Charlize’s thighless bones. I’m so glad they didn’t give me food poisoning because they were so cheap and convenient, I’ll pick me up a package whenever a frozen eel run sends me to 32nd street.)

Dump this gloop into your big non-reactive saucepan (or the tattered remains of your big reactive saucepan) , bring it to a boil, then simmer for half an hour, turning those thighs every so often, to ensure that you won’t be having an audience with King Ralph.

Remove the chicken to a plate.

Strain the cooking liquid over a mixing bowl. My condolences on your Pyrex measuring cup. (The forensics team’s latest findings indicate that the four paper bags that started the lethal chain reaction were not needed for a craft project, but rather, for “boxing gloves” for a couple of pre-dinner rounds, father vs. son. No news on whether the champion retained his belt.)

Wipe out the saucepan better than I did, or better yet, break out a new one, fire it up on high, and add 1 tablespoon of peanut oil (vegetable oil, massage oil, whatever).

When the oil is hot, add the chicken, and fry it up on all sides to give it some nice brown polka dots.)

Add the strained cooking liquid and simmer for five minutes. Serve with rice, and don’t blame the chicken if you start feeling barfy. Forget to take a picture. So? It's for eatin', not for show.

∞

[Filipino chicken] [chicken recipe] [Charlize Theron] [food poisoning] [Pyrex measuring cup] [the hotness]

Chinese Ginger Beef

2007-02-09T16:29:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I was browsing in a remainder store called Non-Imperialist, Unoppressive Books and could not resist blowing a fin on this ridiculous little giftie item, thinking it would be a good thing on hand for one of those last-minute invitations to celebrate the birthday of someone I know insufficiently well to determine if her insistence on “no presents” is sincere. How thoughtful of me! Unfortunately, no one in New York City would have any context for appreciating this gift, a Chinese restaurant experience for two, served up in a carry-out container. Presumably, any New Yorker who craves a pair of fortune cookies, a Chinese menu, and some informative paper placemats, can just toddle to Chinatown, or one of the ill-tempered neighborhood take-aways and TCB with a minimum of fuss. Maybe I should send it to my friend Andrea, who, last I heard, was living in a broken-down school bus in a field in northern Vermont. Or better yet, “the troops”, especially if the care package they’re gunning for would contain foot powder and a subscription to Maxim.

Anyway, even those of us with a healthy folder of active Chinese menus sometimes find the craving to dirty our own pans is nearly as great as the one for some:

Chinese Ginger Beef
Get out your non-reactive bowl , or perhaps a bowl-sized, formerly-anondized Calphalon stockpot whose lifetime warranty has been voided due to flagrant repeat abuse.

Add:
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of vermouth (the ill-stocked liquor cabinet’s sherry!)
1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
Many healthy grindings of fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of sugar
and 3 cloves worth of finely chopped garlic

Slice1 pound of beef steak across the grain into thin strips, such as you might find in a dish ordered in a Chinese restaurant. Slide them into that boozily aromatic soy bath. Massage them a bit with your fingers. If it helps, pretend that they’re paying you a hundred bucks an hour for this exotic spa treatment. Then excuse yourself, telling them to concentrate on their breathing, and that you’ll check back in 30 minutes. If you’re really digging on this game, you can spend that half hour bitching about your “client” to the delightfully cynical Polish manicurist. You can do this lolling on your back, or you can curry favor by accomplishing some side work you’re going to have to do anyway, specifically:

Peeling and slivering a couple thumbs’ worth of fresh ginger
&
Slicing six scallions into inch-long sections of pipe. (No scallions? No sweat. Brocolli smells better anyway, at least going in...)

Ding! Time’s up. After a brief squeezing for maximum lymphatic drainage, help the beef up out of its bath and into a terry cloth robe. Give it a magazine to browse while you set up for the next phase of the treatment .

Naturally you will have reserved the marinade, now fortified with your client’s personal juices. To this add:
2 teaspoons of cornstarch
2/3 cup of chicken stock
and 1&1/2 tablespoons of that oyster sauce that’s been hanging out in the back of the cabinet since before the birth of your youngest child, now six.

Retrieve the largest of your battered Calphalon pans, or better yet, your wok, fire up 2 tablespoons of peanut oil to a temperature most infernal, dump in the ginger and the beef and stir like hell.

30 seconds later, add the scallions and the fortified marinade and cook for two minutes, stirring all the while.

Oh mercy, I’m powering down and catching the F train to East Broadway because I can’t wait for the time it’d take to cook me up a batch of this wonderful dish. Or maybe I’ll just stay home and figure out a use for the rest of that vermouth. You, on the other hand, can serve it up over rice, with a twinkling of toasted sesame seeds.

∞

[Ginger Beef] [stir fry] [Chinese Food] [uses for vermouth]

Vietnamese Spare Ribs with Caramel Sauce

2007-01-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Vegetarians may want to avert their eyes. I’m back in the barnyard, and boy, is my butcher psyched.

Why? When? Because of Thing One, a picky eater who hates fish and orders burgers in restaurants every chance she gets. It occurred to me as the tears streamed down her cheeks, a lump of pecan crusted catfish turning to ashes in her mouth, that she’s barreling toward that age where young girls can become very psychotic about food.

It occurred to me that maybe if I was eating the red stuff too, I’d be more inventive in my preparations, and perhaps that would limber up her stubborn palate.

It occurred to me that Greg had encountered plenty of responsible, humane farmers while researching Pig Farm, people who treat their animals well. I swore off of meat and poultry because an interview with the artist Sue Coe convinced me it was immoral to support the industry known as “factory farming”. Click that link and the creators of the Mootrix might have themselves another convert. While you do that, I’ll march my drumsticks on over to Staubitz, Los Paisanos, Perelandra, or the farmer’s market, all reliable sources of responsibly raised meat.

Oh Christ, these ribs are good!!!! But you know, I bet this caramel marinade wouldn’t be half bad on tofu, for those wiggly vegetarians who have no moral qualms about overlooking a quarter cup of fish sauce.

Vietnamese Spare Ribs with Caramel Sauce

Put on your coat, open the windows, and dig the fan out of storage. I don’t want to scare you, but neither would I want you to stink up the joint and set off the fire alarm. This caramel sauce has a tendency to smoke. So do doctors. Just take a look under the awning of your local medical professionals building, if you don’t believe me.

Still with me? Okay, then, Tough Monkey, let’s see you caramelize some sugar!
Put 1/3 cup of white sugar in a thick-bottomed little saucepan over low heat, stirring and shaking all the while so it doesn’t burn. Look alive when it starts to brown up. Turn your back for a second and you’ll have Pompeii in a pan.

When your white sugar could pass for brown sugar, remove the pan from the heat and stir in 1/4 cup of fish sauce. It’ll bubble and spit like evil incarnate, but that’s okay. Don’t feel like a failure if it starts solidifying into chunks of fish flavored rock candy. They’ll dissolve when you throw that pan back on the burner. Try one. They’re compellingly addictive, in an obscure corner of Chinatown kind of way. Better fire that pan back up, lest you’re tempted to eat them all. Three minutes over low heat should return things to a sticky sauce-like consistency.

Remove the pan from the heat and add 4 thinly sliced shallots and a few grinds of black pepper. Voila. Caramel Sauce. Invite a child who annoys you over for sundaes!

Moving on to the red blood cells, tell your butcher man to put his knife to good use by carving that two pound slab of lean pork spareribs into individual ribs. Wait until all the other customers have cleared out before asking him if any of his providers are known for raising and dispatching their stock humanely. The big mook at Paisanos patronized me in the nicest way, and Mr. Staubitz revealed that one of his daughters is a vegetarian!

Treat those ribs like the sacrifice they are by anointing them with a perfumed elixir. There’s no way of telling how such good-smelling anoinment affected the innumerable virgins who’ve gone down the hatches of the world’s volcanoes over the years, but as far as spareribs go, we’re looking at a real finger licker:

The finely chopped lower halves of 2 stalks of lemongrass
4 roughly chopped shallots
4 roughly chopped garlic cloves
2 small, roughly chopped, seeded jalapenos
Grind them into a rough paste in the grinding mechanism of your choice (a pig-shaped mocajete works good).

Stir the spice paste into the cooled caramel sauce and pour it over those pampered ribs, who can spend anywhere from an hour to an entire, romantic night basking in it in an appropriately refrigerated chamber.

As the dinner hour approaches, line your broiler pan with foil and preheat the oven to 350˚. If I was at the summer palace, I’d fire up the grill and skip down the hill to pick mint for mojitos, but actually, the broiler, though less picturesque, is also less hassle.

Scrape the marinade off the ribs, but don’t throw it away, as you’ll be painting that sizzling flesh with it several times before you start gnawing at them bones like Fred Flinstone working his way through a family-sized rack of extra-lean brontosaurus.

Line the ribs up on the broiler pan, but don’t stick it in the broiler right away. Instead, give ‘em 30 to 35 minutes in the oven, basting with the reserved marinade every ten minutes or so.

Then, ten minutes before serving, transfer the pan to the broiler and crank the heat as high as it will go. Flip the ribs at the five minute mark, to give both sides that mouth-watering , fresh-from-the-barbeque-pit glaze.

∞

Too damn good to waste time taking pictures. Just imagine me smiling as I gnaw on a big ol' bone, heedless of a mounting need for napkins and a half dozen toothpicks.

[barbeque] [spare ribs] [lapsed vegetarian]

Bloody Mary!

2007-01-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

I always associate Bloody Marys with New Year’s Day. Like lemon squares, toffee, smoked almonds, incredibly stressful preparations and eggnog, they were an indispensable part of the menu for my mother’s annual New Year’s Day open house.

I also associate them with Buddy’s, a defunct Chicago gay bar, that leavened many a brunch-time hangover with the ridiculousness of the garnishes crowding its Bloodies – boiled potatoes, pepperocini, cross-sections of sausage, big ol’ leafy stalks of celery.

But I wasn't taking three of my college friends, two husbands and seven children to a defunct gay bar, now was I? Not that it would have been any less logical than hosting a crew of that size / age for a New Year’s Day brunch in my 800-square-foot apartment… Fortunately, Gary and Amanda don’t drink, which left more for the rest of us, especially me and Greg, who managed to stretch that pitcher well into the night.

This is my mother’s recipe, tailored to fit the idiosyncrasies of my panty.I mean pantry. What is wasabi, after all, if not green, Japanese horseradish paste?

Bloody Marys

(They’re the girls I love, boom, boom, boom, boom)

See? They’re so easy, I can sing show tunes while I mix them up! Perhaps I’d do well to try something a little more challenging…

Get out your pitcher!

Dump in one 46-ounce can of tomato juice!

Add
2 teaspoons of wasabi
4 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce (now there's a word to f you up in the final rounds of the Nat'l Spelling Bee...)
2 teaspoons of hot sauce
1 teaspoon of sea salt
3/4 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper
and the juice of 3 limes.

Recovered alcoholics and nursing mothers can hang it up right here, but those with a taste for vodka (and adventure!) should keep going.

Now here’s a little trick I picked up recently, over dinner with Sam and Nelle, the cultured palates behind Lunch for Two, a project that strikes me as way too classy for this gutter tip! I don’t know if either of them has actually tried it, but you bet it made my to-do-immediately list. First day of the new year, there I was, pouring cheap vodka into my Brita pitcher, eager to see if it would make it taste all expensive.

And you know? I think it did. I don’t know if it’s because I was so desperate to believe, or what, but I did a little before and after taste test and after seemed much less harsh (possibly because the second sip just naturally goes down smoother at 10am…). Anyhoo, I’ll do it again, especially if some bartender friend is willing to slip me an empty Grey Goose bottle into which I might decant my homemade shine. It’s good to know I can always fall back on bootlegging if this writing thing doesn’t work out.

(Hint: don’t forget to rinse the Brita pitcher and run a couple of quarts of water through the filter after you’ve worked your magic, unless you want the kiddies getting an unexpected bang from their Kool-Aid.)

Back to the Bloody Marys (boom, boom, boom, boom), a couple of minutes before you’re ready to serve them, empty the ice cube trays and as much “Grey Goose” as you see fit into the pitcher, stir ‘em up with a handy, long-armed implement, and don’t pull a Buddy when it comes to the garnish.

∞

In other news, issue 33 of my zine, The East Village Inky is back from the printers and ready to take its rightful place on the back of your toilet tank. Why not subscribe? You'll be glad you did, especially if your bra's been giving you trouble of late.

Hash Brown / Latkes Good To Eat

2007-01-03T23:15:00.000-08:00

Seems like most people who a) celebrate Christmas and b) like to cook plan their Christmas dinners in advance.

By the time we’d unhusked the gifts, gotten dressed and stumped around the misty schoolyard on the wooden stilts that Santa laid on the kids, we were powerful hungry, but wouldn’t you know it? The pantry was bare and the chef felt semi-embalmed.

Many would consider this a neon-sign urging us to honor the Jewish side of the family with a trip to Chinatown, but some stilt-related father-son tension had put a lien on Big Daddy’s limited reserves of holiday cheer. Given Inky’s finicky palate, Milo’s capacity for whining, and Greg’s aversion to crowds, I reluctantly admitted that pushing for this could be a mistake.

But what the hell do you do with a bunch of dried legumes, some frozen shrimp, an elderly head of lettuce, and four Idaho spuds?

As long as no mold has formed in the half-empty containers of sour cream and applesauce quietly living out their shelf lives in the back of the fridge, LATKES, that’s what! The children’s Polish rabbi great-great-grandfather would have been so proud of his godless descendant’s shiksa wife. (Dude, I could just have easily served shellfish.)

I decided to go with the recipe on the last page of Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat,which a friend of my mom’s picked out for the children one year, to balance out Merry Christmas, Strega Nona, which has enough Baby Jesus talk at the end to make Greg's horns curl up. See? Even a faithless interfaith marriage like ours can present etiquette dilemmas! (And then we’ve got to browbeat the young into thank you notes. Thanks … for NOTHING!!!)

No, no, no, I very much appreciate such fairly weighted gift-giving, even if the Greg half is poorly illustrated and not nearly as engaging. That latke recipe’s a keeper, anyway! I modified it a bit because we didn’t have parsley, and even if we did, the goal was to get the children to eat the damn things, not turn their noses up at them. I would never have made latkes at all if Inky hadn’t had some at a party and hated them, but then later sampled a batch that she claimed to have loved (possibly because they were brought into class with much fanfare by the friendly mother of the well-liked new girl).

Mine weren’t quite as big of a hit, but I done my duty. She ate the side of applesauce and that’s saying something. I wonder if she’d give them another whirl if I served some for breakfast, billed as hash browns…

Latkes

Peel three big Semitic Idaho potatoes. I don’t know if today’s child would have much connection to the image of k.p., but I clocked enough Gomer Pyles and Sad Sacks growing up to feel like a genius for realizing I could make light work of this by deploying a vegetable peeler. You’d think the military would spring for a couple hundred of those devices, instead of making our boys hunch iconographically over with paring knives.

Grate them taters then, quick, run some cold water over them so they don’t turn an unappetizing shade of slug. Man, for something so rustic and dumpy, potatoes sure know how to rock the diva behavior. When my friend Martha was volunteering in Columbia under the auspices of the Episcopal church, she conceived of an inexpensive holiday craft project whereby her child charges would carve candleholders out of raw potatoes. Apparently they were adorable, until a few days later when they started to stink like all seven stages of hell. Good thing she wasn’t trying to convert anybody.

Chop up enough onion to yield a quarter cup. Reserve the rest for another recipe, or a candleholder or something.

Beat 2 eggs in a large bowl.
Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons of flour
& one crack of pepper for every candle in the menorah. (That’s eight for those of you non-Jews who didn’t marry into the tribe or study Chanukah in Episcopal Sunday School, like I did.)

Use your hands to squeeze the infant beejesus out of the grated potatoes. When they’re nice and dry, dump them into the bowl and give them a stir.

Fire up some vegetable oil in a skillet set over high heat, then spoon in some potato batter. It’s much firmer than your average pancake, so you can fool with the shape, give ‘em some Goyishe Mouseketeer ears or whatever it is that helps you gain purchase on the tastebuds of the picky young. Brown one side and then the other.

Serve with applesauce and sour cream on the bed, if you’re an adult, or, if you’re a spill-prone kid, that paint-stained Ikea parson’s table that was too small for you last Christmas. (Who cares, as long as it’s in front of the TV!)

∞

[latkes] [hash browns] [potato pancakes] [interfaith marriage]

PEACE ON EARTH, GOODWILL TO ALL.

2006-12-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

Compliments of Kotis, Kotis, Kotis & Halliday

Ring of Fire Dirty Chocolate Chipotle Cookies

2006-12-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all who attended last week’s Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap at Vox Pop! One of the best things to come out of it, besides the formation of a brand new bookstore / coffeehouse band and a heightened resolve to get my recently completed, but as yet unpublished children’s book Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo into the hands of discerning tots, was the recipe for these Chocolate Chiptole Cookies. It's true that the slow-blooming, fiery flavor took a couple of unsuspecting, young sweet tooths by surprise. I do hope, for their mother’s sake that the discomfort was confined to one orifice. Let that be a lesson to those who can’t stand the heat to keep their hands out of my cookie jar.

Ring of Fire Dirty Chocolate Chipotle Cookies

Throw a couple of sticks of butter on the counter when you wake up to pee in the middle of the night, otherwise you’ll forget to factor in the time it needs to soften up.

Whenever you’re ready to take it up a notch, melt a cup and a half of bittersweet chocolate chips in a double boiler, or whatever jive-ass rig you can think to improvise after selling your grandmother’s double boiler for like, a dollar, when you were leaving Chicago. It’s okay. I’m sure that dollar is continuing to give you endless amounts of pleasure! Well done! You can proceed with the recipe while the chips melt and cool, unless you’re in one of those maudlin moods where you’re actively seeking spilled milk to cry over.

Remove the butterwrappers, toss the butter in the bowl, and give it the old in-and-out with your electric mixer. Add two cups of packed brown sugar and one and a half cups of white sugar. Whip that up.

You really need go no further if low-maintenance dessert is what you seek, but those who’ve signed up for the full course should add two teaspoons of chipotle powder and then sift in a cup of chocolate drink mix. When I got the idea to replicate the spicy Mexican hot chocolate I so love in cookie form, I was thinking I’d grind me up a canned chipotle in the blender, but everything I dredged up on the Internet supported the use of powdered chilis. Odds remained good that I’d be the maverick who ruined a half-pound of butter and two packages of chocolate chips with her pig-headedness and a canned chiptole, but then lo and behold, Met Foods has started stocking the powdered stuff. Management no doubt fears that they’ll be shut down and replaced by a combination Starbucks-American Apparel if they fail to keep up with the tsunami of trendiness that has engulfed Smith Street. (Speaking of powder, I’d forgotten to check if I had any cocoa powder before hitting the grocery, which is how I wound up using the store brand Quik I unearthed at the back of the cabinet, behind a jar of ghee I bought in the East Village (before Milo was born, from a store that no longer exists). Now I’m out of store brand Quik, which probably means next time I’ll use cocoa powder. I leave it to your discretion. Just don’t buy Nestles.

Okay, crack in four eggs! How’s that for holiday excess, Senor Fezziwig?

Add a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of vanilla.

Here’s the part where the cheapo electric mixer you publicly claimed would never break breaks. Good thing you didn’t toss all your wooden spoons on the bonfire when you brought that thing home.

Add the melted chocolate and stir, even if you have to use one of those cardboard things from the bottom of a wire hanger. (So crafty!)

Ciombine (that’s a typo, but it looks kind of Italian and foodie-ish, so I’m leaving it as is)
4 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of baking soda
and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Then dump it into the sweet chocolate mixture and honey, don’t go blaming me if your bowl’s not big enough. Use your wok. Use that chamber pot you picked up at the swap meet. (Hey, has anyone tried that litterbox cake from Dirty Sugar Cookies, yet?)

Once you’ve married the moist to the dry, you can throw 2 cups of bittersweet chocolate chips at the happy couple and stir briefly to ciombine. If like me, you’ve got the hots for the hot stuff, sprinkle another 1/2 teaspoon of chipotle powder over the dough before giving it an hour’s respite in the refrigerator.

Is this really necessary? (The chilling, not the chipotle.) I don’t know. I dutifully chilled my dough and then, the second I pull it out, I get a phone call and before I knew it, forty-five minutes had been been sacrificed to my big yapper. Never much of a one for delayed gratification, I decided to forge ahead. It’s not like I was intending to cut them into festive shapes. Just bloop ‘em out at regularly spaced intervals on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Look at them! You know what they remind me of? A zine I saw reviewed in my first ever issue of Fact Sheet Five, called We Like Poo. Just because I never ordered it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten it. The reviewer classified it as “fringe interest” and noted that it had smelled awful.

Yum yum! Hope you remembered to preheat the oven to 350˚.

Bake them for eight minutes, which is four minutes shorter than anything I found in my online research. They should be crusted on the outside, but kind of goopy with all those melted chips oozing through the fissures. Slide them onto the baking racks you purchased the day after a trenchant and public observation that you would do no such thing and then spring them on Hansel, Gretel, Little Red, and others of their trusting, chocolate-crazed ilk.

∞

A frozen little bird told me that these cookies have become a great favorite of the slow loading, corporate sponsored, but absolutely-adorable-in-a-disturbing-sort-of-way elves

Thanks to Lynn, the Wicked Witch of Publishing for turning me on to the possibilities of this corporate-sponsored, slow-loading, but oh so gratifying elfin transformation.

[chocolate] [chipotle] [cookies] [ring of fire] [zine history]

Dirty Sugar Cookies - the recipe!

2006-12-16T05:32:00.000-08:00

To-ni-ight's the night......izzzzzgonna bee-ee alllllllright......

Keep it in your tartan, Rod, I meant the final Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap and Reading of the 2006 Holiday Season. With special (and shy!) musical guest, Reticent Devils, and a possibly ill-advised unveiling of my just completed, available to be published children's book, Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo.

WHAT: Author Reading, Signing and Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap

WHEN: Saturday, December 16, 2006, 7pm

WHERE: Vox Pop
1022 Cortelyou Rd.
Brooklyn, NY
718 940 2084

Each Dirty Sugar Cookie purchase will earn you a free Six Points Craft ale, courtesy of Vox Pop! Sweet! Score a six-pack's worth, why don't you?

And don't forget to bring cookies! It really is a cookie swap...

When I get home from aikido (don't ask) I'm going to rustle up some bittersweet chocolate chipotle something or others, and if they work out I'll post the recipe here tomorrow, but just in case you're at a loss as to what to bring, here's my grandmother's Dirty Sugar Cookie recipe, straight from the pages of book of the same name.

Dirty Sugar Cookies
Preheat the oven to 350˚ except not yet, because the dough's going to have to chill for at least an hour.

Put your Bromwell's Measuring-Sifter (Pat. No 1,753,995) onto a salad plate then pour in:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup sugar

Position the sifter over a big mixing bowl, lose the salad plate and crank away.

Alternatively you may chuck your dry ingredients directly into the mixing bowl and give them a couple of twirls with a meat fork.

Add 1 cup of shortening (or 2 sticks of butter if you're some sort of health nut)

Next, crack 3 eggs directly into the bowl. Do not beat them first. This is how my grandmother did it and quite possibly how they did it in Colonial Williamsburg, as well.

Then add 1 teaspoon vanilla. Knock yourself out with the aforementioned meat fork.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. If you want to pretend it's Pillsbury Slice and Bake, you can roll it into a cylinder before you wrap it up.

At some point, cover your work surface with wax paper. Sprinkle some flour on both the wax paper and your rolling pin. Roll out the dough. Dip the cookie cutters in some flour. Line the unbaked cookies up on a metal baking sheet. Preheat the oven you forgot to preheat earlier. If you want to go for the minimalist raisin eye look, now's the time to press them into the dough. You can also festoon them with colored sugars.

Bake each batch for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool. Transfer carefully so as to avoid limb loss.

Ice as you dare.

Nothing's Cooking but the BUST Craftacular!

2006-12-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

My stapling hand... she is very sore. Tell your friends to hither their heiners unto Warsaw (no, not Poland, you sassypants!) so that I will not have to haul 3 suitcases of books, zines, t-shirts, onesies, magnets and mini-notebooks home on the subway tomorrow night. And don't forget to swing by yourself! I'm going to need beer and bathroom breaks.

I'm too busy rigging a teddy in a Dare to Be Heinie onesie to think about cooking tonight. We'll be having banh mi courtesy of Little Nicky on Atlantic Ave.

Thank you and spank you!

2006-12-05T14:45:00.000-08:00

I honestly thought that I was going to be the only person to show up at Bluestockings bearing baked goods for last night's Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap. I thought I was going to look like the biggest jackass on the planet. Instead, I'm just going to have the biggest ass on the planet because who could resist this spread!?

Here we go, five minutes before the starting gun sounded.Lots of cookies, a pumpkin pie, some Cool Whip and some Diva Menstrual Cups in the background...

Anna Lappé tested our eating IQ with a test that proved both sobering and hilarious. And she didn't even have to beg too hard for audience partipation before attendee Nina bravely took the bait!

Goddamn! I just realized that Anna's mother wrote Diet for a Small Planet! She didn't brag about it or nothing! And she was unduly critical of her scones, which were delicious and still warm from the oven! Dang! She doesn't know what nasty is! (Hint: try the bluefish with apples and potatoes I served last Tuesday night, which caused my friend, Delta, to remark, "Well, Ayun, not one of your best...")

Look at that bounty!!! Look, that's Rachel Kramer Bussel in the cupcake pink sweater! Shoot, from now on, I don't do a reading unless everyone gets cookies!!! Don't believe me? See you at Vox Pop on the 16th! I'm hoping Anna and her quiz will be able to join us too, and a very special, but as-yet-unnamed musical guest has just intimated that he will be lending his stylings to the festivities too. Hot damn.

I'm too stuffed to think about recipes, so I will direct you to A Good American Wife who laid some hot Chocolate Toffee action on us last night that nearly blew my mind! oh HELL yeah!

Cookies With Benefits

2006-12-02T11:45:00.000-08:00

Calling all cookie lovers! Bake or buy a plateful to bring to the First Ever Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap, to be held this Monday, December 4 at Bluestockings Books.

I hereby pledge to contribute the following recipe (unless I run heinously and characteristically short of time, in which case, I’ll just pick me up a package of pfeffernusses at the bodega on the corner and pray some other attendee will disregard the peanut caveat with a plate of buckeyes. I love buckeyes. And I love these. There are days when they might be the most nutritious thing in the children’s lunchboxes.

Cookies With Benefits

Break down and buy some parchment paper. I never have but the last time I was about to throw a batch of these in the oven I realized, hey, maybe the reason the original recipe called for it is so their butts won’t burn, the way mine always do. (Please note that’s “do”, not “does”. There’s almost always a thin layer of black nylon shielding the majority of my butt from the burning it no doubt richly deserves. These cookies, however, are innocent. They’ve done nothing to merit scorched booties, unless one counts being a bit of a production to make. That’s not their fault though. The blame lays with the size of my kitchen and my refusal to buy wire racks because many years ago, I had a half moon shaped rack that came with a long-gone wok, and even though I haven’t seen it in years (probably put it in the recycling bin in one of those rare bursts of organizational frenzy), I’m loathe to shell out for a sure-to-be-seldom-used culinary device when there’s a chance I might still have a semi-practical substitute that’ll work 1/3 as well.)

see the chaos when you fly without parchment and racks!

and voila, the reverse angle...

Stop feeling like the little brown hen & preheat the oven to 350˚.

Break three eggs in a big bowl. Fetch the electric mixer you purchased on impulse from a drugstore where you’d gone to buy toothpaste. Isn’t it funny how you can live with a seriously f’ed up mixer for years, letting it take up valuable cabinet space even though it has a known history of grinding to a halt with a high pitched screaming noise halfway through any job? Piece uh crap wedding present. Then, one day, heading to the register, Colgate in hand, you spy a mixer and think, “You know what? Screw design! Screw brand name recognition! Screw the child-like hope that the wedding mixer is going to get better one of these days. I’m getting that for twelve bucks.” What took you so long!?

And what's a chain drugstore doing with electric mixers? I’ll bet in the five years since that Rite-Aid's been open for business, nobody's ever purchased one but me. Not that I'm complaining! It may be homely and damn near disposable, but that crummy Rite-Aid mixer gets the job done, unlike a certain high strung, stream-lined, pampered German I could mention.

Add
a softened stick of butter
a cup of tahini (because what kid doesn’t love a beige paste that tastes kind of like clay?)
2 tablespoons of vanilla (good lord, that’s like a third of a bottle!)
a cup of brown sugar
and a cup of white sugar.
Marvel at the mixer’s willingness to take on this dense substance! What a good girl! Lick her beaters a little. She deserves to be treated like a princess. (As always, you might want to pull the plug before you start getting it on with something that has the potential rip your tongue out by the roots.)

Enough monkey business! Get out a new bowl. (Don’t get uptight. This one will barely get dirty. You can wipe it out with a dishtowel, slip it back in the cabinet, and none of your guests will know what a slob you are when you serve them salad out of it later tonight. Well, they might, but only if they find a long brown hair lurking amidst the avocado and sliced almonds. Nothing you can do about that, short of a pixie.)

In this "clean" bowl, combine
4 cups of oats
1 cup of white flour
1 cup of whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of baking soda
and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Dump the horse chow into the moist mash, give the second bowl a cursory wiping and tell the mixer to take the rest of the day off. A wooden spoon can take it from here on out. Stir the two substances up just enough to make a rough sort of dough. Throw in a handful or two of chocolate chips. Toss in some walnuts, if it pleases you, unless of course you’re planning on taking this batch to school, like I did. Nut allergies abound. Don’t give another parent grounds for a lawsuit! (For the record, this will make enough to serve 23 fourth graders, with a couple left over for whining family members.)

Remember that parchment paper you bought? You can use it to feel superior to me as you line your cookie tray. I had to make do with tracing paper . God, I hope no kid had an allergic reaction to whatever toxins might have been released at 350˚. I don’t think tracing paper cares much for heat, given the way it curled into a cylinder whenever it got came in contact with one of those tropical, oven-fresh breezes. (On the bright side, I did discover that unbaked cookie dough makes great paperweights.)

Moisten your paws (use the sink) to pinch up a soup-spoon’s worth of dough. Roll it into a ball, then flatten it on the paper-lined tray by pressing it with your palm. Once they hit the oven, these things’ll spread out like ladies in the locker room, so give them plenty of elbow room.

Bake for about 15 minutes – until they’re golden brown. Cool them on wire racks, the counter, a disused barbeque grill, a hastily yanked-down screen window – I’m sure you’ll figure something out.

Now, bake something else for the Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap. Buckeyes, maybe. See you Monday!

∞

Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap
(Plus Reading and Signing)

Monday, December 4, 7pm
Bluestockings Books
172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington
NYC
212.777.6028

[cookies], [author readings], [ electric mixer], [ parchment paper]

Liberal Heathen Cranberry Sauce

2006-11-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

Milo’s class had a harvest celebration yesterday. The kids contributed cylindrical construction paper turkey hats, leaving the culinary hoop jumping to the big monkeys, many of whom were already stressed to the max with impending guests. One woman got roped into cooking a 9-pound turkey!

Not me. I’m too wily and semi-vegetarian for that. I signed up for cranberry sauce– it’s fast, easy, cheap, and repulsive to the juvenile palate, which meant that I didn’t have to take it personally if the kids turned their noses up at it. Not having a recipe, I sought the advice of my friend, Mrs. X, who allowed as how she usually just throww cranberries in the blender with orange juice and honey. I dunno, that sounds kind of nasty (unless that’s what she’s planning to serve tomorrow, in which case it sounds grrrrrrrrrrrrreat!)

Having grown up with canned cranberry sauce, I'm no expert, but it did seem to me that the homemade variety would require some time atop on the stove before it could be considered edible, a theory my internet research supports.

I also learned that cranberry sauce is a great favorite of fundamentalist Christian homemakers. Good thing it’s so goddamn easy to make because I got totally sucked in by the blog of this one woman,a mother of 12 who regrets the way the recent elections went and strongly suggests involving the kids in the cranberry-sauce making process. I must've spent more than an hour poking around in that alien land! I was like, “Oh my god, I bet this is where Todd Solondz got the idea for Mama Sunshine in Palindromes, a movie I loved even more than I love cranberry sauce. None of the first grade parents I (selectively) polled had seen it. Have you?

Liberal Heathen Cranberry Sauce

Rinse two bags of cranberries, which, if you’re working with loose models picked from your backyard bog, is about six cups' worth. Empty them into your wok. This alone will reassure the cranberries that they’re not in the hands of a red state evangelical. Freakallujah!

Add:
1 & 1/2 cups of apple cider
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice
and a teaspoon or two of zest from one of the seemingly innumerable Clementines colonizing the apartment. The kiddies won't eat it no matter what you do, but just in case, mince that zest up fine so the finicky young can’t detect it visually.

Bring it to a low boil over medium heat. Let it pop and fart for twenty minutes or so, then eat some, and put the rest in the fridge for later. Screw holiday tradition! This one begs year-round eatin'!

∞

Please note the total absence of cranberry sauce from these youngsters' plates.

Turkeys...

[Thanksgiving], [cranberry sauce], [Palindromes]

Ravioli with Chestnuts and Sage

2006-11-21T14:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve built up this persona whereby I’m obliged to hate on pasta, but sometimes, like when I need to get something out of the back of the freezer and accidentally forget to retrieve the half box of ravioli I’d temporarily set on the toaster oven, not noticing until morning that it had sat out overnight, my old obligation is supplanted by a new, and more powerful urge to waste not, want not. Greg, who loves pasta, was a characteristic mixture of suspicious and resigned when I served this dish, but it tasted better than any pasta-based product I’ve ever had in my mouth, and more than 24 hours later, we’re both still alive, with all our internals functioning normally, so what's not to love?

(Mr. Suspicious ---->)

Ravioli with Chestnuts and Sage

Okay, Bing, quit singing and roast yourself up nine or ten chestnuts. Feel free to go with that open fire, but I used the oven because, even though our late cat confirmed that the chimney in our bedroom does lead to open sky, one renegade spark on that hearth-less, splinter-y wooden floor and the whole family would be roasted along with them, as would our landlady, her daughter, our downstairs neighbor, a dog, a rabbit, and who knows how many mice and roaches. (I hear that’s a delicacy in some boroughs, roasted roaches…) The best way to prepare chestnuts for oven roasting (without losing a finger) is to make an X-shaped incision with a serrated knife, just like the Red Cross advises in the event of snakebite. No need to suck the poison out, just put them in the spring form pan that’s allegedly reserved for the sole purpose of cranberry upside down cake, and subject them to 20 minutes at 400º. Give them a chance to cool down, then peel them like buck eyes! They’ll be kind of mealy and anemic, but that's nothing to get excited over.

Boil enough fresh ravioli to (kill botulism and) serve two, as per the instructions on the package. I wasn’t kidding about accidentally leaving it on the toaster oven overnight, but keep that on the down low. If word got out, there’d be a long line of elderly Italian ladies from neighboring Carroll Gardens lining up to box my ears. Save the funny stuff for a real culinary emergency. Oh, and speaking of funny, be sure to drain the ravioli over a receptacle of some sort (Pyrex measuring cup, mayhaps) because you’ll be eating it later. The thought of which would have made me (I can't say what I was going to say..it's so gross you'd never eat again) had I no prior knowledge of how toothsome the final dish.

Mince half a medium-sized red onion and fry it in one tablespoon of olive oil for about three minutes. Use a deep soup-making pot to save on dishes later.

Scut work’s not done yet, matey! Three cloves of garlic and a sprig or two of fresh sage await mincing . Add them to the oily onion and fry for a minute more.

Crumble those crumbly, anemic chestnuts into the pot, and take it off the burner while you get all your ducks in a row, with regard to the pasta, the picky children’s alternate meal, the table setting and most importantly, the wine.

When ready, add a cup of freshly grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons of butter
and the reserved pasta-cooking water (be strong!).
Bring it to a boil and add the ravioli, stirring it gently, so that the damn things maintain their integrity as they reheat. Don’t fret if the broth appears to be the consistency of dish water. It’ll taste good and keep the pasta hot, which makes it more palatable.

Sprinkle with more sage before serving. Charge the digital camera. Take a picture. Swear that you still hate pasta. Anxiously interview your spouse to see if he thinks it’s a keeper too.

∞

[chestnuts][ravioli][I Hate Pasta]

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

2006-11-20T10:29:00.001-08:00

Many many moons ago, my school put out a cookbook called Park Tudor Treasures. It was all very exciting, though it pained me to see recipes with cringe-inducing names (B.J.’s Kid Pleazin’ Cookies!) supplied by the subject of my Seventeen fantasy-boyfriend’s mother. My mother took a dim view of deliberate misspellings and dropped g's. (Superlatives ending in a babyish ee-sound ("crispy", "crunchy","velvety") also brought out the culinary mean girl in her.) She was part of the panel who tested recipes for this volume and several of the items she deemed fit for publication entered heavy rotation chez nous, most notably a buttery, sorry, dense brick of bread made with self-rising flour and a can of Bud, and this attractive cake, which tastes kind of cobbler-esque and will gunk your oven up but good if you don’t lay down a protective flooring of cookie sheet. Given Ocean Spray’s strangle hold on the produce aisle this week, it could be a cheap, fast, compliment-garnering addition to your holiday table.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

Melt a stick and a half of butter, and use the wrappers to grease a 9” spring form pan. This is the only action my spring form sees, though sometimes I enlist the bottom as an impromptu pot lid … my own bottom is much too heat sensitive.) Now sprinkle a little flour over Panny's lubricated bottom. Pretend you’re a beautiful Thanksgiving fairy pollinating a spring form pan with your dust. Whatever gets you through holidaze, babe.

Wash two cups of cranberries, pat them dry, and pour them into the pan. This part makes me think of Madonna, who also started out on bottom, but wound up on top. I feel for the woman, what with everybody taking pot shots at her expedited adoption of a not-entirely-orphaned African baby, but that doesn't mean I want her in my cd collection. The cranberries will have to content themselves with The Ramones.

Sprinkle a half cup of sugar over those you-know-who-berries. Gabba Gabba Hey!

Measure out a 1/4 cup of pecans, and break them up with your fingers as you sprinkle them over too. (the pecans, not your fingers)

Bust 2 eggs over a medium sized bowl and beat’em up! It’s not like they didn’t have it coming. At this time of year, those little twerps should be giving thanks they’re not turkeys.
Add 1 cup of sugar
1 cup of flour
and the melted butter.

Scrape the batter out over the cranberries. Use a rubber spatula to distribute it equitably.

Bake in a 350º oven for 50 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Quick! Is that the top crust, or the bottom!? That’s right, bottom.

Quick! Is the bottom of your oven covered in molten black goo that will start smoking like Bette Davis in Now Voyager next time you try to broil a piece of fish? No? Good, you must have read between the lines and laid down a cookie sheet to catch the napalm-like cranberry juice oozing out the seams of the springform. Those things need them some damn O-rings!

When the timer goes off, set the springform on the counter, or more picturesquely, window sill. Give that cake 10 minutes to recover from the punishment of the oven then undo the latch, remove the springform collar and put a plate upside down over the crust. Slip your hand under what little pan remains and flip it so that it’s facing the ceiling while the plate is holding up the works. Insert a knife between the cranberries and the circular metal floor-cum-lid and gently prize the cake free. Ooh, so purty! Purtier still when you top it with powdered sugar, I mean, Thanksgiving fairy dust, and also some fairy sour cream.

∞

No matter what your opinion of the upcoming holiday, you have my permission to print out and affix to your door a copy of young Milo’s festive original decoration which he calls DEFEND OF THE TURKEYS!

[Thanksgiving] [cranberry], [Madonna]
[cranberry cake], [Thanksgiving dessert]

Secular Hallelujah Muffins!

2006-11-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

Praise Ganesha, remover of obstacles, the child ate something healthy for breakfast and liked it. Her anxious father has grown increasingly irritable over her refusal to eat eggs, fruit, or bacon in the morning. He’s refuses to share my belief that the cold cereal she prefers is not that un-healthy. It comes in a recycled cardboard box and

I’ve never been too big on muffins. Granted, I rocked me some Jiffy mix as an undergrad, and the title of a muffin-centric cookbook my mother sent me junior year (“Wild About Muffins”) became an in-house cult joke, but from where I sit there are hundreds, nay, thousands of ingestable substances more deserving of obsession. Loving muffins is kind of insipid, no?

Well, too bad. These fuckers saved my ass. I loaded them up with apples, oats, zucchini, and all manner of horse chow and still she ate them. I offered to name them in her honor, but she seemed underwhelmed, so I decided instead to honor the Sunday morning miracle that took place here today.

Secular Hallelujah Muffins!

Type the words “healthy muffin recipe” into a search engine and wind up on a lot of Christian homeschooling sites. Oh wait, I already took care of this for you, so go ahead and skip this step. If only I’d dropped some cyber crumbs along the path, maybe I could find my way back to show those God-fearing muffin lovers what became of their recipes in my filthy, heathen kitchen. Carrots became zucchini, white became brown, baking soda misread as powder, nuts and raisins cast out of the temple entirely … Mercy me, it takes all kinds, don’t it? Amen to that!

Preheat the oven to 350º

Get yourself a big, mother-trucking bowl and prepare it to receive:
1 cup of white flour
2/3 cup of whole wheat flour
2/3 cup of oats
1 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
and 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

Beat 3 eggs in a different bowl. My eggs were exceedingly medium-sized, a designation I failed to notice on my mad dash through an unfamiliar grocery the other day, though this would explain why they were nearly two dollars cheaper than the others of their kind, a fact I most assuredly noticed.

Add
1/2 cup of canola oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla
and a single serving container of that health food store applesauce that neither of the children liked and even a visiting infant refused to eat. I’d been hoarding the survivors to donate the next time the kids’ school holds a food drive to benefit the needy, but after several seasons in various locations around my kitchen have left them looking a little the worse for wear. Even if I were starving, I’m not sure how psyched I’d be to receive a gummy, soy-sauce-stained, individually-apportioned cup of not-particularly-good-tasting apple sauce. Seems like it might be kind of demoralizing, the equivalent of scrabbling for the handful of coins some wealthy benefactor had flung to the cobblestones from the safety of her carriage. (On the other hand, I know plenty of vegan dumpster divers who would consider my rejected applesauce a real score!) If you are so wretched as to live in a household where applesauce tastes good and comes in family-sized jars, scoop out a half cup or so and use that.

Peel & seed a medium sized apple and grate it.

Grate a medium-sized zucchini too. (In deference to regional variations with regard to perceptions of zucchini endowment, I’ll say that it looked to yield about 2 cups.)

Crack open that can of pineapple that’s been hanging around the premises for more than a year. (Trust me, the poor will be relieved). Scoop out 8 ounces worth – in my case, that meant half a can – and chop it into shards if it’s not crushed already.

Figure out some means of obtaining 1/2 cup of flaked coconut. Surprise, surprise, the limitations of my pantry meant I had to take a non-traditional route to securing this ingredient, but unless you’re familiar with the various oddly-shaped dehydrated foodstuffs on offer in an obscure corner of the Hong Kong Supermarket, it really doesn’t bear going into.

Mix the zucchini, apple, pineapple and coconut into the wet ingredients.

Now mix the wet ingredients into dry ingredients but don’t go apeshit with it, okay? Wild About Muffins! was very clear on this. You over-stir the batter, you wind up with gut bombs the consistency of hockey pucks. Perhaps a better title would have been Necessarily Restrained About Muffins.

Wipe the rust out of your muffin tins, baptize 'em with the greasy substance of your choice, spoon the cups about 2/3 full with batter and bake for 20 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes away clean. (Believe it or not I actually have toothpicks. My mother left 700 of them here after the reality of spending time with her grandchildren forced her to abandon the elaborate craft project she had envisioned.)

∞

[muffins], [healthy muffins], [zucchini muffins]

Alaskan Ratatouille Rolls, the faux-Ulu way

2006-11-10T07:35:00.000-08:00

My gentleman friend recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Juneau,
Alaska. In addition to a board game which has taught me more about whales than I ever would have thought possible or desirable, he brought back a cookbook that seems to have been underwritten by the Great Northern Cutlery Company of Anchorage. Every recipe contains at least one reference to your Ulu knife, a crescent-shaped implement “that has been an important tool to native Alaskans for more than 5000 years.”

Um…Is that a typo in the original source material?

At any rate, these babies are apparently sharp enough to skin moose and seal, but all you’d be doing with one is cutting zucchini. I myself do not own an Ulu knife. I guess they’re sold separately, or maybe it came down to a choice between the Ulu knife and the Whale game. My rickety old chef’s knife got the job done just fine, as far as I can tell. But what do I know? I admit I was kind of surprised that zucchini isn’t considered a specialty item up Alaska-way.

Alaskan Ratatouille Rolls, the faux-Ulu way

Get out your (ulu) knife and prepare to cut a medium-sized eggplant, 2 average zucchini, a small onion and a respectable poblano pepper into cubes of roughly the same dimensions the Jolly Green Giant considers standard. If poblano peppers are hard to come by in your area, you can do things the way they do ‘em in Alaska and revert to green peppers, my all-time least favorite vegetable, at least as far as the lower 48 is concerned.

Mince some garlic with your (ulu) knife.

Fire up the burner / home-cured moose dung charcoal to medium to heat the quarter cup of olive oil you’ve poured into a large skillet. Add the vegetables and garlic, and sauté for 5 minutes.

Chop up a couple of tomatoes and toss them in there too. Don’t be ashamed if you’ve only got canned – that’s what the recipe calls for. Native Alaskans have been using canned tomatoes for nearly as long as they’ve been using their ulu knives. I only used fresh because Greg inexplicably brought some home (from Fairway, not Fairbanks) and I’d grown sick of waiting for them to rot.

Add
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne
& a fistful of basil.
Throw a lid on, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, thaw a pound of frozen, cooked shrimp in a bowl placed under a trickle of cold water. With five minutes remaining ‘til blast off, add the shrimp to the vegetable mix, or the “ratatouille” as it shall henceforth be known.

As the end of simmering time approaches, take your baguette out of your pants and slice the uppermost crust off. This represents one of the few non-ulu-related acts of cutting in the book, perhaps because a serrated knife is one’s undeniable best bet here. Cut into sandwich sized lengths, then use your fingers to hollow out a canoe-like cavity, making sure an unmolested wall remains at either end of the “roll”. Repeat with baguette number two (or live with the idea of squishing as much ratatouille as possible into one baguette’s worth, heaping the rest onto the plate as a sort of duplicate side dish). Put them on a cookie sheet and park it in a 350º oven for 5 minutes.

When the rolls are warm, fill ‘em up with shrimp-fortified ratatouille. Top each with a handful of shredded mozzarella and slide that cookie sheet under the broiler for the minute or two it would take you to clean your (ulu) knife after an average, non-Moose-related job.

∞
Wait, what the hell was he doing in Alaska, other than claiming he didn’t steal the towel the hotel wanted to charge his benefactors 30 bucks to replace? Make a wish upon your (ulu) knife, and if all the stars align, you might just see a production of a certain yeast-based musical in Juneau sometime in the nearish futurer.

Squash Soup That Tastes Like Pears

2006-11-09T19:34:00.000-08:00

You know that old saw about necessity being the mother of invention? Well, sometimes, forgetting an ingredient is the best thing that can happen to a recipe. Not that I’d advocate leaving anything out of this recipe, especially not the pears, which are what make it taste like pears. Truth is, I already saved you that step by spacing on some originally-called-for tomatoes. Now, I couldn’t eat it any other way. In fact, I’ve never eaten it any other way and neither should you.

Squash Soup That Tastes Like Pears

Hit the farmers market for a 2-pound butternut squash, a couple of ripe pears, some garlic and a large leek. If you find yourself in Brooklyn Heights, be sure and patronize the skinny, humpbacked farmer’s stand. A recent count revealed that I’ve escorted nine, possibly ten field trips’ worth of crazed children around that market over the last half-decade, and no matter how many tiny, jacked up hands were laying siege to his produce, that guy always had a smile and some Indian corn to lay on the little monsters. He’s earned your business.

Peel and quarter the pears . Make life easier ! Remove the skin with the same utensil you use on carrots (or, alternatively, hire a scullery maid).

Peel the squash, seed it and cut it into chunks. I won’t lie. This is a much bigger bitch than stripping off pear skin, but it’s slightly more manageable if you cut the neck off, peel that like a giant cucumber, then slice the rounded part into crescents so you can pretend it’s a cantaloupe.

Bisect the leek lengthwise, slice it and rinse as thoroughly as you would your fine hand washables, which presumably do not have sand in them. (Woolite is optional, but not recommended unless you’re casting about for a reason to dial that dishy operator at the Poison Control switchboard.)

Hammer up a couple of cloves of garlic, and put them in a bowl along with the squash, the pears, and the leek. Salt ‘em up with a quarter teaspoon of the good, fresh-from-the-sea stuff, crack some pepper over them, drizzle with two tablespoons of olive oil and dump the whole greasy lot out onto a cookie sheet, preferably one with some sort of gutter or guard rail. You don’t want all your goodies plunging to the bottom of the oven when you go in for one of your periodic stirrings, do you? Say, when was the last time you cleaned that thing? I did mine yesterday, but only because I nearly set off the building’s sprinkler system when the run-off from a recent cranberry confection filled the entire apartment with smoke in less time than it takes to light a sparkler. And just between you and me, I’m not sure how thoroughly I sponged off that Easy-Off, though there’s no denying it got the job done. (“Hello, Poison Control?”)

At any rate, this perp’s looking at 45 minutes to an hour at 400º. Don’t forget to stir every so often, so it gets an even tan.

Meanwhile, dissolve two cubes of Knorr Vegetarian Vegetable Bouillon in four cups of water. Congratulations, you’ve just saved yourself umpteen hours of labor, boiling and authenticity. Can I have my own show on the Food Network now?

Is your blender still working? Good, that makes one of us. Load the old nag up with half the roasted produce and half the vegetable stock. Give it enough of a whiz to wind up with something the consistency of baby food (the kind you’d feed to a six-month-old, not one of your older, toothier models.) Repeat with the remaining stock n’ veg. You could probably eat it now, but let’s just cross our eyes and dot our T’s by putting it in a sauce pan over medium heat for ten minutes, shall we?

Serve with sliced scallions, crumbled blue cheese, multigrain bread and anything else that helps you feel like hearty peasant stock when you dunk it in your soup.

∞

Wonder what would happen if you tried adding some tomatoes…and recharging the battery camera battery so as to have enough juice to capture the finished product, which was a pretty pureed gold.

The Brooklyn Heights farmers market runs every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in front of Borough Hall. Be sure and tell my favorite farmer that he’s burning up the Internet.

[soup][pear][butternut squash][recipes]

Mexican Hot Pumpkin Seeds

2006-11-01T07:44:00.000-08:00

What do you mean you already threw 'em in the trash and put the trash out and the garbage men came? Don't you know you're supposed to reserve them in a carryout container with a little clingy goo still attached and never get around to cleaning them or roasting them and after a couple of weeks when people start asking if that's your kid's science experiment or some sort of DIY terrarium gone horribly wrong, THEN (reluctantly) throw them out? To everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn.

So either carve yourself another jack o lantern (and I mean pronto, Mister) or clip n' save this recipe for Halloween ought-seven.

(dang! I can't get the picture to post and it's in focus too. Until I figure it out, here's a visual aid.

Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

Scoop your pumpkin, adhering to the instructions at the top of this page. Pick and rinse free of stringy goo, then blot dry(ish) with paper towels.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter, combine with one tablespoon of olive oil, and annoint the seeds, to symbolically honor all the labor that has thusfar gone into this quixotic snack quest.

Salt them as mercilessly as you would an avenging slug.

I don't know if you've met my good friend, Pam? My mother always thought she was trashy, but she's helped me out of many a tight spot, so if she wants to get it on with my cookie sheet, I'm like, Pam, honey, you have my blessing.

Spread your seeds across the sheet like some hormone-demented fourteen-year-old boy. (Lucky Pam!)

You have the option to bail out at this point, shove the cookie sheet into a 350 oven, or I suppose, the trash, go to the gas station and get yourself a packet of Uncle Jesse's, but if you've got a sense of adventure, a tendency to fuck things up, and a hankering for Mexican Hot Chocolate, take my hand.

Grate some a bar or tablet of Mexican Chocolate (not the one with the sweet looking old lady on the box - it's owned by Nestle's - and not the whole bar, just enough to sprinkle over the seeds). I used that little plastic doohickey that I bought to grate ginger and it reduced it to a fine powder, suitable for snorting. (Do leave a comment to tell me how that goes.)

Now sprinkle some cayenne over the seeds. A little goes a long way, so this is one not to put up your nose.

Roast them in that 350 oven, stirring every couple of minutes, until they're starting to brown up a bit.

Serve with a beverage or five, but not to my husband 'coz he started hating on 'em after Seed Number Three. I should've married the bunny.

∞

The The visual post-mortem of Halloween '06 continues. I was worried that Inky's costume might offend, but popularity-wise, it rivalled the Recycling Fairy.

[Pumpkin Seeds][recipes]

Fig and Brie Panini

2006-10-31T03:02:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloweenie! (save those pumpkin seeds because tomorrow, Frida's going to tell you where to stick 'em!*)

Bitchmother can find herself getting a bit hypoglycemic when she's trudging along the streets of brownstone Brooklyn, wondering when one of her ramped-up young is going to get knocked off a neighbor's stoop into the flames of a glowing Jack o' Lantern. It leads to much barking and purloining of fun-sized Snickers. My old friend, Grandma Waistband's been harping at me to lay off the chocolate covered caramel calories so I blow all my equity on things that count. Ergo, this afternoon, while Inky, Milo, and their friend Moie are fulfilling Inky's dream of doling out candy to fellow trick or treaters before heading out to collect several pillow cases' worth themselves, I will be chowing down on Fig and Brie panini, to fortify myself for the revels ahead.

Fig and Brie Panini

Let me start off by saying that I know not everyone is so fortunate as to have snagged a "Krups sandwich maker" for 15 bucks at the Salvation Army, so fresh in its original box that it could have gone right back under the Christmas tree and none would have been the wiser. In fact, that's exactly where I put it, but the dang kids, usually so desparate to cook or help cook, wouldn't bite. They must have sensed my big plans for slipping apples, pears, spinach, bananas, and other genuine nutrients into the little toasties I'd envisioned us gaily whipping together out of Nutella or cheese and whatever fast-aging loaf of 15-grains we happened to have on hand. One bite and that sandwich maker was dead to them. Fucker's been taking up valuable real estate in the cabinet over the stove for ten months now. I was just about ready to give it the old heave ho when I got inspired to get jiggy with the figgy. The results were so tasty, I guess it's mine for life. (Why is it that the blender, the electric mixer and the sewing machine croak if you look at them funny but things like sandwich makers are in for the long haul?) Anyways, this is a winning combination even if you have no way to compact it between sizzling metal plates. They're just so autumnal and fortifying when molten that if you can, you should.

Saw the top and bottom off a baguette to expose a toastable surface, then carefully bisect it lengthwise.

Slather the bottom half with fig jam. I got my fig jam at Fairway for slightly less than it costs to fly to Spain, but it's worth every Euro. It makes me feel like a pampered lady of rarified and expensive tastes.

Back to reality, cut some long skinny slices off your supermarket Brie and lay them atop the fig jam. Don't cut the white stuff off! That's where the nutrients are, or maybe the bacteria, I forget which.

Now wash and dry some watercress, and distribute a goodly portion of its tender leaves over the brie. Not so much that your sandwich maker won't close, but you don't want to be skimpy, either. Let's say about as much as you'd feed to a hungry goat.

Put the lid on, and cut it in such a way that it sort of fits in the sandwich maker. You may have to use some muscle to get the latch closed, but as long as you don't pinch the holy infant Christ child out of your finger like I did on Christmas morning of ought-six, everything's going to be okay. Yes, even if you see liquid brie oozing down the sides of your appliance.

You know to oil up your sandwich maker first, right, before you plug it in? I broke the bank at Fairway again, springing for some extra-nice-quality olive oil, and I like to think it makes a difference. (Of course, if we're playing by those rules, I should be fairly convinced that those lemon-scented paper towels Greg brought home, will give us all tumors before the week is out.)

Having tossed the instruction booklet the original owner had been kind enough to include, I don't know what the lights on my sandwich maker mean, so I just kept peeking and praying that the red one doesn't mean danger. After a couple of minutes, the sandwich had been transformed into a panini and hot damn, it were good!

∞

* don't be afeared. It's just the oven.

[sandwich][recipes][Frida Kahlo][figs]

Spice Tea

2006-10-06T18:34:00.001-07:00

As promised...

Here's my mother's recipe for Spice Tea
Please don't let the ingredients scare you off. Be like an astronaut. Take the plunge. This stuff was sort of an aphrodisiac for me and "James", as he's known in Dirty Sugar Cookies' "Courtesy Bite" chapter. Oh man, I get a little flushed thinking about how long it took those electric burners to glow orange, so we could make for the yard, mugs in hand

Spice Tea
2 cups of Tang
2 cups of unsweetened Nestea - buy the generic because you should never use it for anything else.
2 1/2 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cloves
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Now either you're having a party, or this batch'll see you through the romance. Whichever way you swing it, place 2 heaping teaspoons in a mug, add a cup of boiling water and stir.

∞

You can also eat it dry, when you have nothing better to do, but watch out, it burns like smoking Tang-flavored crack.

What To Drink With What You Eat

2006-10-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

Let's hoist a glass for tit, and another for tat. Midway though last June, Karen and Andrew not only hosted a pitstop on the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour they took me out to lunch and even gave me an autographed copy of one of their cookbooks! All I've given them in return is a place to park their own virtual tour bus...and , I guess, the idea to go on a virtual tour, but I swiped that from Andi Buchanan! Well, I've got to say that the pleasure's all mine. I can't tell you how many times I've ruined a perfectly good dinner by swilling grain alcohol out of a poorly cut watermelon, or mixing a spoonful of Kwik into some cheap Australian Shiraz...but no more, thanks to WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT which Karen and Andrew are pimping here today. It's an alphabetically organized, near-dictionary-thick cheat sheet to ensure that the swill in your glass will be worthy of the stuff on your plate, with tips and pitfalls to be en garde against, and interviews aplenty with the kind of experts who generously name names even if many of those names will be beyond your reach, dear readers. (Expert #1 suggests pairing a 1968 magnum of Vega Sicilia> with Roquefort n' Bacon Burgers. Hope he's payin'.) Water, coffee, lemonade, tea and milkshakes put in appearances, but by and large, I'd say this is a book for gorwn-ups who drink (alcohol).

WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea -- Even Water -- Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page

Hi Karen! Hi Andrew! The entire staff of Dirty Sugar Cookies joins me in congratulating you on the publication of your new book. We await your answers to our burning questions with glasses in hand... I mean, handS. Plural. Because why would one person have six glasses in a single hand? Ha ha, no reason. No reason at all.

1. Have you seen the cucumber lemonade recipe in the summer issue of Eating Well? What else can I drink with cucumbers, by which I mean containing cucumbers, rather than accompanying cucumbers? And what should oneI eat with this unholy cuke juice?

We haven't, but we extend our thanks to the good people at Eating Well anyway for doing their part to eliminate the taboo of making refreshing drinks with refreshing vegetables! After all, why should tomatoes have all the fun??

Make a drink with cucumbers? Why not?? In fact, there's a whole world of mixologists (formerly known as "bartenders," many now prefer the moniker of "bar chefs" or "mixologists") who have come up with a world of cucumber-based drinks that would boggle the mind. (We learned this when we learned that many consider our book CULINARY ARTISTRY to be something of a mixologist's bible.)

Take, for example, Kathy Casey's "Cucumber Sake Cocktail," the recipe for which appears on page 131 of WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT. It's an ideal accompaniment for sushi or other Pacific Rim appetizers and entrees.

Oh hell yeah! That looks mighty refreshing. I'm not going to share it here, though, because I want people to buy the book, not just sponge free cocktails off us like some sort of 20-year-old Lower East Side publishing exec! now then...
2. Any blender recommendations because I'm murder on them.

Andrew -- a former chef whom a number of Karen's female friends have taken along with them (instead of their own husbands!) when registering for their wedding gifts -- has two recommendations:

1) Go with a high-end restaurant supply store version, which will be heavy-duty and less expensive; or

2) Go with a cheapo Oster 10-speed ($19.99 at Target!) and just replace it every six months or as needed.

3. What's the gnarliest thing you've ever had to drink? Mine was some awful medicine that my mother mixed with Coca Cola and I remember that it took me a good, tearful hour to get down my nightly low ball's worth.

Karen: I'd rather try that than ever re-sample wheat grass juice, which tasted like lawn mower clippings!

Ayun: Wheat Grass is Cat Grass!

Andrew: Castor oil. If you ever saw the "Little Rascals" episode where they were forced to take castor oil and Alfalfa's and Spanky's hair stood up on end, you should know they weren't exaggerating: it's that awful.

No thank YOU! Last time I had castor oil I went into the most profound intestinal contractions that dovetailed into uterine contractions of the sort that produce a baby after seven hours of pushing. Moving on,
4. Karen, I can't remember. You went to Northwestern as well as worked at Dave's Italian Kitchen like me, yes? Were the Evans Scholars doing beer bongs in the courtyard of Willard when you were there? Ever do one? What would you recommend eating with one of those? Before or after.

Karen: Yes! But sorry -- I have no beer bong experiences to report, from Northwestern or elsewhere. I will admit that my college boyfriend at NU (a senior) enchanted me on our first date (when I was a freshman) by inviting me over for a banana daiquiri he made in his dorm room for me with a blender and nearly-black bananas.

Andrew: Having grown up in the Bay Area in the 1970s, I may have run across a bong or two in my day. I seem to recall that the beverage of choice was not beer but creme de menthe. As for a food pairing, I'd go with chocolate. (Besides, who after a few bong hits in the '70s didn't crave chocolate?)

5. Any memorable drinking with eating scenes in the movies or
literature? I was breaking out in empathetic hives as Paul Giamotti got trashed over dinner in Sideways.

It's amazing to hear from America's best sommeliers the impact that "Sideways" had, and its positive influence on the sales of Pinot Noir. Never underestimate the power of popular culture!

In fact, we wonder how much "The Thin Man" movies of the 1930s contributed to the popularity of the cocktail. One of them included one of the single most memorable drinking scenes, when Nora Charles meets husband Nick Charles in a bar, and this conversation ensues:

Nora: How many drinks have you had?
Nick: This will make six Martinis.
Nora: [to the waiter] All right. Will you bring me five more Martinis, Leo? Line them right up here....

Nora was obviously an early "equal rights" advocate.

Hmm....We don't seem to recall any food involved in the scene, though, unless they were olives....

6. Now, really, what does "oaky" mean? Like, I just don't know. I picture a sort of dignified leaf with an acorn suspended from it, but I've got no handle on how that would translate to wine. Like, I can imagine what "tastes like the underside of the couch cushions" would taste, but oaky seems like the winetelligentsia is trying to corner me into agreeing that the Emperor IS wearing clothes.

"Oaky" simply means that a wine was aged in oak barrels. Imagine if you left a half-eaten pint of vanilla ice cream next to the coffee beans or frozen fish sticks in your freeezer -- it might pick up some of the odors or flavors, right? So you can imagine how much of the aromas and flavors a Chardonnay aged in oak barrels picks up from the wood -- especially after a few months or years!

Ask your local wine store to recommend a big, oaky Chardonnay to you, as well as an unoaked Chardonnay. The unoaked Chardonnay will taste (and usually be priced!) lean, while the oaked Chardonnay will taste (and usually be priced!) rich!

That doesn't mean that oaked wines are necessarily better than unoaked wines. Karen's not big on oaked wines, for example, although she certainly appreciates their pairing prowess when it comes to certain foods (such as butter sauces).

In fact, want a short cut for pairing food with buttery, oaky Chardonnay? Picture any food that goes with butter, and you've probably hit upon a good match (e.g. chicken, crab, cream sauces, fish, lobster, salmon, scallops, veal, etc.)!

7. Wait, wait, back it up, all the way to page 128. Beer and ice cream? I like the cut of your jib, but are you insane? Scotch and ice cream, I'm totally down with, root beer and ice cream, hell yeah, just had me some of that at Philly's Franklin Fountain, courtesy of 2 East Village Inky / Ice Cream fans, but beer and ice cream? What about beer flavored ice cream? That sounds like something a professional chef, such as yourself, Andrew, could figure out.

You've obviously not tried a chocolate stout with vanilla ice cream yet! Or, even yummier, a nice Belgian lambic fruit beer (which literally sings with the flavor of cherries or raspberries!). What are you waiting for??

And one of the best things we tasted this summer was a root beer-flavored ice cream at chef Susan Spicer's Bayona restaurant in New Orleans. We'd get on a plane right this minute for the pleasure of another bite of it! (Though this time we might skip the accompanying 16-cent martini, in celebration of the restaurant's 16th year, which made for a long day....)

8. Lay some fab cocktail on me and I'll pay you back with my mother's spice tea, though I warn you, it has Tang and leads to unreconstituted huffing.

Oooh....If you like spice tea, you're gonna love this Chopin Cider Mill Martini! And we'll do you twice as nice, and share recipes for not one but two of the best cocktails we've tasted in recent memory:

Chopin Cider Mill Martini w/ butternut squash soup shooter

Chopin Cider Mill Martini

2 oz. Chopin Vodka
2 oz. fresh apple puree
2 oz. apple cider
cinnamon
nutmeg
green apple slice and/or cinnamon stick for garnish

To make the pumpkin seed rim: Toast pumpkin seeds and run through food processor. Add sugar and infuse with vanilla bean in a tightly-sealed container. Dampen the rim of the martini glass with apple juice or puree, and gently run the rim through the mix.

Mix all ingredients in a shaker with ice; shake vigorously and pour into a chilled martini glass rimmed with the pumpkin seed mix. Float sliced green apple and/or cinnamon stick, and sprinkle with a touch of cinnamon and/or nutmeg.

Suggested pairing: Serve with a butternut squash or pumpkin soup.

Chopin Chocolate Decadence w/ rich banana-chocolate cake

Chopin Chocolate Decadence

2 oz. Chopin Vodka
1 oz. Chocolate Liqueur (such as Godiva)
1 oz. White Chocolate Liqueur (such as Godiva)
1/4 oz. chocolate syrup
cookie crumbs (blend equal amounts of Oreo cookies and vanilla wafers in food processor; store in a tightly-sealed container)

To make the cookie rim: Pour chocolate syrup onto a plate and run the rim around for a perfect edge. Dip into cookie crumbs. The rim may run into the drink, which is fine!

Mix all liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass prepared with the cookie rim.

Suggested Pairing: Serve with a rich banana cake.

Source: Our "Top 10 Food Blog" at www.becomingachef.com

10. Cheap, Australian shiraz. The big bottles with the kangaroo. Am I a laughing stock? Should I pour it into a pitcher so guests don't see?

It's not always the price -- it's the quality. It's surprising to many to learn that they're not always related. Want two tips for making even an inexpensive wine taste better?

Number one: Good glassware. A nice glass (e.g. made of clear, thin glass, with an appropriately-sized bowl) can really enhance the experience of drinking an inexpensive wine, while the wrong glass (e.g. made of opaque and/or colored, heavy glass, with a too-small bowl) can make the experience of drinking even an expensive Bordeaux sub-par.

Number two: Pair whatever wine you're serving with the right food, and it will elevate the experience! For example, if you pour that inexpensive Shiraz with grilled eggplant (for you vegetarians) or meat (for us carnivores), it will taste a whole lot better than if you served it with delicate fish or shellfish!

11. Are you sick of talking about those Twinkies yet? You will be. Just ask Anthony Bourdain about mussels and swordfish.

Because our new book just came out this week, you're actually the first to mention Twinkies! (For those who haven't seen the book yet, we list a beverage recommendation to accompany a Hostess Twinkie.) Believe us, the research was brutal...but in the end it is recommended with Asti (formerly known as Asti Spumante, a term that didn't age as well as the wine).

12. My mother-in-law gave Greg a big bottle of Veuve Cliquot Pousardin last January and we kept saving it for a special occasion until we forgot about it. It's been lying on its side, right under the ceiling of our top floor brownstone apartment. I'm grateful that the sublettors didn't mess with it, but is it skunked?

Champagne can be pretty hardy, especially in those big, thick bottles, so you might just be surprised. Chill it down, serve it up and find out! And let us get on our soapbox and encourage you and all your readers to stop thinking of drinking bubbles only on special occasions! Champagne and sparkling wines (which is what they call Champagne made anywhere other than the Champagne region of France) are incredibly versatile, and pair beautifully with lots of foods (besides the usual caviar, oysters, and smoked salmon). If it's fried or salty, think bubbles. There's a reason restaurants host "Champagne brunches" -- it also goes well with egg dishes. And don't miss the combination of Champagne and sushi!

Speaking of fine Champagne, we'd love to end our conversation by raising a virtual Champagne toast to you, Ayun Halliday, for so graciously hosting us for this stop on our Virtual Book Tour for WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT here on your hilarious Dirty Sugar Cookies Blog! Looking forward to getting together for a real live toast with you some time soon!

Oh shucks, it was MY pleasure! I'll get that Spice Tea to you (all of you!) tomorrow.

P.S. If any of your readers buy a copy of WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT online and forward the email receipt to CookbookRave@aol.com before October 15, 2006, we're happy to thank them by name on our Web site at www.becomingachef.com/rave.php and in the Acknowledgments of our next book Flavor Matchmaking, due out in Fall 2007!

[cocktails] [wine][authors][drinks]

I'm back with Huevos Rancheros!

2006-10-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

Yeah, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and if apologies if you've been experiencing delays traveling it lately, seeing as how it was clogged like a bad drain with my big ol' carcass.

But I'm back, back from summer, back from the summer palace, back from the Dirty Sugar Tours, both live and virtual. Perhaps the biggest thing that happened to me, while we were absent, one from the other, is I fell a little bit head over heels with Austin, Texas. Not enough to move there - it's more of a Same Time, Next Year sort of deal. I mean I still haven't seen the bats. Can't go quiet until I see me them bats.

I did experience the wonders of the Box Springs Hogs,the best thrift store of my life, and the Austin Motel's sign f'ing the jet-lagged dawn like some giant neon salam'. And oh my lordie, the Mexican food. We don't have such a reliable cornucopia of that here in N Y F'in C. It's a crying shamethat I can't reproduce me El Sol Y La Luna's chori migas w/ vegetarian chorizo for your dining pleasure. (I would've said it's un petit mort, but for all I know that's a single entendre phrase, & I don't care to be corrected on ma francais, the way I'm corrected on the proper way to cook eggplant.) All I can do is offer up the Huevos Rancheros I've been meaning to post since late July, when I prepared them for Little MoMo to buck her up after a year of motherhood.

Huevos Rancheros

First you got to Refrito Some Frijoles, hombre, so tie on a couple of margaritas and get cracking the night before by tossing

1 & 1/2 cups of dried black beans
1 teaspoon of salt
1 dried red pepper
1 tablespoon of olive oil
and 1/4 cup of chopped onion

in your 2 gallon iron sombrero with enough water to cover them. Simmer for hours, enough hours to watch The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which is deserving of a Special Lifetime Achievement Award for former teen star Melissa Leo's seated, non-airbrushed, gloriously flabby 40-year-old nude scene! That girl is seated at the right hand of Kathy Bates, About Schmidt's hot tub heroine! Don't get so caught up in this gloriously real display of female flesh that you forget to check on your beans. You've got to water them every half hour or so, maybe salt them up a bit, and let em cook for another 30 minutes after they've gone all softy on you.

Hit rewind and heat a 1/4 cup of olive oil in a Texas-sized heavy skillet
Add
3/4 cup of onion (i.e. the rest of the onion)
and a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic

After 3 minutes, introduce them to the remains of a finely chopped tomato.
Chaperone that party for another 5 minutes, after which you can either
a) turn the fire off and go to bed
or
b) keep going by Adding the drained beans to the skillet a cup at a time, mashing them with the back of a wooden spoon, or the heel of your boot, or some other such unyielding implement with the capacity for mashing.

Now then, amigos, let us hithee ho toward The Sauce!

Wash 4 dried ancho chilis, then drown them in some agua caliente! (No, not vodka! Save that for yourself! A cup of hot water's good enough for the likes of those withered donkey foreskins!) Let them soak for half an hour while you lay down with a cool cloth across your eyes to recover from the Deadwood-like vulgarities of your guide.

When the chilis are soft, relieve them of their seeds and stems and subject them to the blender, along with:
a big, undrained can of tomatoes
a clove of garlic, smashed or coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon of oregano
and another cup-sized onion, as recommended by the National Onion Council.
Give em a whiz biz biz.
Or don't. I did a bad thing to my blender at the summer palace this summer. It smelled like burning. As a result, I had no choice but to go lumpy which is fine because that's just the way I like it!!! Just chop a little finer, if you're going that route.

Heat a two tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet, a heavy one, because that's how me and Melissa and Kathy like 'em!
Add your sauce
a little salt
a little pepper
a handful of chopped cilantro
and a tablespoon of red wine vinegar or really, any damn vinegar you can rustle up from the depths of the cabinetry, with the possible exception of raspberry.
Stir attentively for five minutes or you'll be calling your stovetop Freckles.

Mercy, is it Time To Assemble? Already? We've only been working on this for what? Two months? Feels like just under two hours. My how the time flies when you're recommending movies you should see again yourself, just to be sure.

Everybody gets a corn tortilla that you zap, front and back, on the burner so it gets floppy and warm, like my same sex lover, Melissa Leo!

Everybody gets a big spoonful of bean mix spread on top! (Reheat it if assembled the night before. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult your intelligence, but if I'm not mistaken, you were going to correct me on my French.)

Everybody gets a fried egg on top of that! (My, but it's convenient the way eggs come packaged by the dozen, because this recipe should yield enough to make 12 of these huevo-stacks. (which in my humble opinion serves three.)

Everybody gets a spoonful of (not cold) tomato sauce!

Don't eat it yet, because everybody gets a thin slice of cheese! Queso or Monterey Jack! Think pale, but not Dutch!

Bring it on home with some avocado and a lime wedge.

(Homegirl inhaled them huevos so rapido, the only breakfast table portrait available for publication is one shot the following day, when I tanked her up on leftover brown rice, simmered with coconut milk, brown sugar, and bananas.)

∞

Thanky for your patience while I was playing hooky! I can swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'll be back by October 5, when the tables turn and it'll be my pleasure to host a pitstop on a virtual book tour for a book I didn't write, the extremely necessary What To Drink With What You Eat by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. (If you're in need of a quenching right now, they recommend Champagne, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc for washing down Huevos Rancheros).

(on the left is what Little MoMo's been working on for the last year.)

[recipes][Mexican Food][breakfast]

Scallop Rolls with Homemade Relish

2006-08-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

(I'm back in NYC and the dial-up issues that prevented me from posting instructions on how you too can gain the five pounds I gained last month are no longer an issue. Over the next few days I'll be posting recipes from the summer palace)

It’s been fifteen years since Greg and I merged kingdoms, fifteen summers of making the trek to the summer palace, and fifteen years of total befuddlement at what people will pay for the fried garbage of the sea, served on a hot dog bun! I do have a special place in my heart for fried clams, the exotic treat of my childhood. As much as I dreaded long trips in the family car, I couldn’t get enough of lunch at the Howard Johnson’s in Vincennes, Indiana, the fried clam capital of the United States, or so I thought for the first ten or so years of my life. But great leaping Jesus, eighteen dollars is a little too dear for something that gets handed out the same window as soft-serve ice cream, even if it does come with French fries and a Dixie Cup of coleslaw. Plus, I am no ordinary tourist, but the wife of a native, who must every year hear that the bellies of the clams are smaller, and less sweet than the specimens he enjoyed throughout his boyhood, presumably at less expense. Every year, I break down and ante up for a paper plateful, or at the very least snitch some off my indignant husband’s plate and they always leave me feeling greasy, flabbed-out and broke!

This creates a conundrum because a great pleasure of the summer palace is hosting some of our fellow aristocrats, who make the trip from the city with visions of fried clams dancing in their heads. Would that it was raw oysters, which I would happily eat by the bucketload! I knew that Uncle Monkeybutt especially, would be looking forward to horking down some of this crap, and how could I disappoint him when he had traveled the furthest to bask in our company? My only hope lay in improving upon the formula, by cooking up at home, where there is actual crockery, no mark-up, no long lines, and the only whining children are the ones who issued from my own loins. The results were highly praised by Uncle Monkeybutt, who got his clam roll two days later, on the drive home from my favorite local attraction.

I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me! We’ll be eating dinner in about an hour and I’ve got two hundred dollars of groceries melting in the trunk!”

He was like, “Bitch, you just dragged me around Stop N’ Shop for two hours. I’m getting my clamwich and I’m getting it now!”

Anyhoo.

Scallop Roll with Homemade Relish

Soak five or six bamboo skewers for ten minutes or so. Skip this step if you are grill-less. If you already bought the skewers, you can play pick up sticks or express your frustration over this needless expense by stabbing something.

Meanwhile, make the relish. What? Make relish? Is that not a task better left to the condiment professionals? Fear not and relish this: A primary ingredient of homemade relish is non-homemade relish. It’s not brain surgery. It’s more of a Zen koan.
Homemade Relish
Chop a tablespoon’s worth of parsley, a carrot curl’s worth of lemon rind and an eyeball-sized shallot and combine with:
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup of mayo
a tablespoon of ketchup
1/2 teaspoon of mustard
a teaspoon of lemon juice
a squirt of hot sauce
and a tablespoon of pickle relish (it’s not going to lead to some sort of condiment Mad Cow situation, I swear, though you will end up with more relish than you’ll end up using on four scallop rolls. I had some on a veggie burger the other day and it was D. lish, even though it’s been what, three weeks since Uncle Monkeybutt graced us with his presence. Ah, the miracle of refrigeration.

Melt a tablespoon of butter, give it a minute or two to cool off, then toss it with a pound or better yet, a pound-and-a-half of sea scallops that you’ve rinsed and patted dry. Toss them with salt, paprika and a couple of cranks of fresh ground black pepper. Thread the scallops onto the skewers and grill them for five minutes or so, turning once.

Split open four hot dog buns and grill them for a minute, too. You heard me. I’m instructing you to ruin god-knows-how-many-dollars-worth of scallops with half a 99-cent package of grocery-store brand, nutrition-free weenie buns, the kind that make you think you’re a bad mother when you feed them to your children. Honey, just be glad it ain’t lobster. Ooh, bet that would be good. Anyway, one taste of the fully assembled final product, and you’ll be like, “Hell, yeah, I’m eating me a hot dog bun at every meal!”

Oh, speaking of assembly, all that remains to do is assemble and eat, so do that now. Don’t skimp on the relish.

∞

I Scream! You Scream! Mexican Chocolate Gelato!

2006-07-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

Last summer, I found an ice cream maker at the summer palace’s rather pathetic excuse for a thrift store. Greg remained suspicious of it, even though I was barely lying when I told him it looked like it had never been used. (It looked like a fondue pot or a novelty waffle iron, which is to say it looked like it was a Christmas gift that had been used once and then retired.) I spent a happy month fooling around with the ice cream recipes printed in the instruction pamphlet the original owner had thoughtfully included, but at the end of the summer, I bestowed the ice cream maker on our friend and neighbor, Mo, because I felt guilty that we’d inadvertently lost her grill top at a beach fire…and it wasn’t hers to lose because she was renting!

Shortly after we arrived this summer, Mo, now the queen of her own summer palace, invited us to dine with her family in their digs. I would’ve brought a grill top, but since they already have one, I volunteered to bring some homemade ice cream. “Didn’t you give us your ice cream maker last year, though?” her husband Matt asked, in a way that makes me suspect that it’s probably doing another tour of duty in the crappy little thrift store.

“Yeah, but I brought a new one with me,” I told him. The one that my mother gave me six Christmases ago, that I used exactly once. Now I’ll either have to haul it back to NYC, or buy another one for the winter palace, because this is a recipe that needs making more than one month out of the year. Perhaps there’s a way to make it without an ice cream maker. Pour it in Popsicle molds? Drink it like a milk shake? You try it, and let me know how it goes, preferably before July 30, so I don’t get stuck needlessly hauling this albatross of an appliance round trip.

Mexican Chocolate Gelato

Whisk 1/2 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
& a pinch of salt in a big heavy skillet.

(Cornstarch always makes me nostalgic for the days when we’d go on illegal midnight publicity runs, plastering every lamp post in lower Manhattan with promotional flyers for our late night theatrical activities. We called it wheat pasting, but it’s actually corn starch pasting. You boil up a boxful with enough water to make a gel, and you’ve got yourself a glue that can withstand both the elements and Mayor Giuliani’s Quality of Life goons! Just make sure you let it cool before you go dipping your paws in it.)

Now turn on the flame to medium-high and slowly add 2 cups of milk, whisking to dissolve the cornstarch. Keep whisking (in a lazy, desultory fashion) for the six minutes or so it’ll take to get all thick and pudding-y.

Remove from heat and whisk in 5 ounces of bittersweet chocolate. I used about half a bag of Ghiradelli’s bittersweet baking chips, which, I know is more than the recipe calls for. You see, I’ve got the little kids who hang around the premises with their hands out and I have to give them something to make them go away. If you’re using a chocolate bar or something, you should chop it up a bitsy for easier dissolving.

Okay, here’s an important step and I wouldn’t have thought so until I tried to save myself some labor by pouring directly from the skillet into the ice cream maker, which then squandered all its mystical freezing properties on rendering a warm liquid into a cool liquid, rather than turning a cool liquid into a frozen solid. Pour the chocolate mixture into a medium sized bowl and suspend that bowl over another bowl filled with ice water. Give it at least fifteen minutes to blow off some steam.

THEN pour it into the ice cream maker. (If you’re just getting around to slitting open that box that you unwrapped three Christmases ago, consider this fair warning that you’ll need to stick the freezing cylinder or whatever it’s called in your freezer overnight before embarking on this mission.) To deploy a little classic ice cream recipe language, “freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions”. In my experience, this is usually about 25 minutes, though let’s not forget I wound up with something the consistency of a slushy due to my inability to play by the rules. Believe the manufacturer over me, but if you find yourself in a position where the original owner neglected to enclose instructions before carting this fun culinary burden to the thrift store, aim for 25. Don’t be afraid to go longer if a visual check reveals something soupier than you prefer. (Don’t try the finger test, unless your guests enjoy the metallic tang of frozen blood...Alternatively, you could turn off the machine before poking Pointer into the thick of things, not that such a prudent thought would occur to me until it was too late. Actually, that’s not true. My Uncle Charlie owned an ice factory, and once, when he was surveying the line, he noticed that a couple of cubes had become stuck, thus blocking production. I’m not sure what his reasoning was – perhaps the ballpoint pen in his pocket seemed a less sanitary nudging device than his second and third fingers, but at any rate, Uncle Charlie was always a big hit with the kids at our early 70’s family reunions. We couldn’t get enough of the way he’d flash us that stubby peace symbol! His experience colored my own. I may stick a knife in the toaster now and then, but I’m super safety conscious around anything with whirring blades.)

Before I go off on a tangent about that Haley’s Comet ride on the midway of the Indiana State Fair, the one that whirls around and around until you’re stuck to the wall by sheer centrifugal force, at which point it rises above its base above the whirring blades of the enormous fan that powers it - did some kid in Ohio really get chopped up when he managed to unstuck himself or is that just urban legend? – let me advise you that you can add stuff during the final minute of freezing, chocolate chips, m&ms, chopped up fingers, whatever you want. My favorite was a crumbled Heath Bar, though I’m spoiled because I didn’t use a Heath Bar. I used Sweet Bapchi’s Caramel Toffee,a ridiculously luxurious confection that some houseguests bestowed upon us (Karen! CJ! When are you coming back and what are you bringing us?) The kids, little philistines, turned up their noses at it, despite the fact that it contains Pink Himalayan Sea Salt that was probably hauled down the side of a mountain by sherpas! Given that the kids weren’t clamoring for their fair share, my rate of consumption was cause for concern, given that I spend an inordinate amount of time in a bikini whilst in residence here at the summer palace. Rather than hog it all to myself, I decided to hack it to bits to share the high-caloric wealth with other fans of the sweet and frozen. (Gone are the days when we adults could keep the kids in the dark by speaking in such euphemisms.)

Scrape it out of the ice cream maker, into a rinsed out yogurt container or some other such vessel, and put it in the freezer for another couple of hours, if that’s any sort of option.

∞

Muttar Paneer

2006-07-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

Muttar Paneer

Greetings from the summer palace, where I've resumed cooking and writing about the results, after more than a month of balls-to-the-wall publicity, rehearsal, end-of-school celebrations and parading around dressed like a pirate. First up is the Muttar Paneer I made a few weeks ago, on one of those rare evenings we had the Silverback home for dinner, to remind us of our happy, aimless wanderings around the Indian sub-continent, when we were young and pretty and Greg wore a Speedo. I made it again a couple of nights ago, to justify hauling a frozen block of paneer all the way from Jackson Heights, Queens to the back woods of Cape Cod (not that the ingredients situation hasn't improved in the fifteen years since I started making the trek to my gentleman friend's childhood home - you can get lemongrass, fish sauce and Pilates balls at the Stop n' Shop in Orleans, and Provincetown has more Jamaican goods than East Flatbush, a reflection of the folks who've stepped in to fill the seasonal jobs the college and town kids now pass over for Washington and Wall Street internships.)

Muttar Paneer

Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a big skillet, preferably something that doesn't look too preppy.

Cube an 8-ounce block of paneer, fry it, remove from the pan and drain on paper towels. I got my first paneer from Patel Brothers and it came pre-fried, so I skipped this step. My second paneer came from Kalyustan's. It was not pre-fried, but I skipped (forgot) this step, anyway and still wound up with a plate licker. If there are no paneer-wallahs in your town, you'll have to get some cottage cheese and some cheesecloth, do an Internet search and make it your ownself. Sounds like a pain in the heiner, I know, but then so does taking the subway to Jackson Heights. Really, it's not that much harder than buying cheesecloth.

Chop 2 onions and fry them up in the butter. Wondering if you'll need more butter after frying up the paneer? Honey, ask someone who takes the time to fry his or her paneer.

Mince four cloves of garlic and a thumb-sized cube of ginger and add them to the onions.

Then add:
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon of coriander
1 chopped jalapeno
1 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes, preferably fire roasted
and some salt.
I must confess, I said the F-word in front of the children when I realized that though I had remembered cheap wine and comic books, I had forgotten to pick up a can of tomatoes, which, I might add, was my own innovation knowing that the fresh ones called for in every recipe I unearthed on the Internet last May would be mealy and cost a fortune for at Met Foods.) Fortunately, my sister-in-law had left behind a can of Hunts Tomato Sauce when she sojourned here last Memorial Day weekend, so I dusted that off and dumped it in - tasted fine, but had a slightly negative impact on the texture.

Remove the pot from the heat and stir in 3 ounces of yogurt or sour cream. I've used them both and would not recommend one over the other as far as this recipe goes, though if you're looking to fortify yourself with a spoonful of something midway through your task, sour cream is the obvious, nay, only choice.

Return to low heat, add the paneer and a ten-ounce packet of frozen organic peas.

Add 1 & 1/2 cups of water and bring to a simmer.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of garam masala. The first time I prepared this dish, I mistakenly believed myself to be in possession of garam masala and when I found that I was not, I substituted a teaspoon of this lovely yellow curry powder I'm partial to, not least because it matches my living room walls. It worked out so well, that this time, I couldn't bear the thought of not adding some, even though I had borne a vial of freshly purchased garam masala to the summer palace, feeling like the Fourth King of Orient Are, or possibly a well-mannered houseguest bringing myself a thoughtful hostess present.

As for the 2 tablespoons of fresh coriander one is expected to add at the end, I have never done so, though I imagine it would be quite nice. Once when I got it into my head to make Habla Channah in rural Vermont, I went out in the field, picked a few tufts of clover, (It's okay to eat the kind with edible heart-shaped leaves, unless you pick them from behind a bench in Tompkins Square or something), and added them. Perhaps next time I'll try that little trick, though I expect that by now, even the bait shop on route 6 probably carry the stuff.

∞

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 30

2006-06-30T03:58:00.000-07:00

Candy Blog was still abed, with visions of the Chewy Spree she ingested the day before dancing in her head when I hit the non-cyber highway, bound for the summer palace (and glory!)

Thanks to all the Dirty Sugar Heads who followed the Virtual Tour, which lives in perpetuity in the sidebar at right.
Thanks to the 30 bloggers who let me park on their cyber lawns!

If you can't get enough of that Virtual Book Tour Flavor, my Mamalamadingdon tour commences August 1 - there will be a side bar on this blog, and you can sign up for daily directions to the blog du jour.

Hungry? Dirty Sugar Cookies morphs back into a pumpkin, next week!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 29

2006-06-29T03:53:00.000-07:00

Hungry Magazine said there'd be no crossing the finish line unless cyberspace was again subjected to my Hoosier accent and wandering anecdotes! I shudder to think that that voice will be permanently archived with those of Chicago's great chefs (some of whom must come from Indiana).

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 28

2006-06-28T03:53:00.000-07:00

The Girl Who Ate Everything got me going on my favorite places to procure cheap food in New York City and wound up with a martini-soaked tail of long time love in an expensive setting!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 27

2006-06-27T03:43:00.000-07:00

The Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour tour bus rolled into Mama Cooks bright and early this AM, to be greeted with the following diagnosis:

"Based on her writing, I think Ayun might be manic."

Amen to that, sister!!!!!!! I had to laugh because I've been us since 4:30, hammering away on publicity related matters, so I can spend the day cleaning for the sublettors who arrive in two days, entertaining my visiting mother and stepfather, and horsing around with Milo's classmates at the kindergarten picnic.

I'm off to make the first of the several dozen cappuccinos I will have to drink today, lest I conk out mid-act on Pig Farm's opening night!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 26

2006-06-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

Today's stop on the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour finds Bookseller Chick wondering what in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks one asks a woman who dares to be heinie... and figuring it out with flying colors in the very next paragraph! She must dare to be heinie too!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 25

2006-06-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

Fisticuffs Q. Weighstation has a mind like a steel trap and the inside of my throat must look like Brenda Vaccaro's from all that screamin' yesterday. The Northwestern voice teachers who failed to rid me of my Hoosier accent would most definitely not approve.

the mer-mateys!

2006-06-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

One-Eyed Stephen and Two-Eyed Milo

Stephanie Fishnets and Drag Tail Lindsay-Abaire.

Chloe Bones, Missing-School Moie and Inky Three Thumbs perched upon what passes for a rock on our urban shoreline.

Arrrrrrghhhhh, you cut my throat, matey, then I'll cut yourn!

Stephanie Fishnets and Corncob John

Obedient Izzy's parents, Joyce and Fred, secret themselves 'neath the black hearted child's official crew umbrella, knowing that soon it's walking the plank they'll be!

"Arrggh," says I to One-Eyed Stephen T-Shirt, "A Nancy Hot Pants sandwich twill go nicely with our margaritas."

the mer-mateys!
Originally uploaded by eatsdirt.

whooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 24

2006-06-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

Now THAT was one FiNE Mermaid Parade.
My brains is so scrambled, I will probably never again achieve semi-coherence, let alone recall the titles of the culinarily notable movies that I dispensed like fuggin' gumballs when I was Reading in Bed & Elsewhere.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 23

2006-06-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

I come home from traveling and I"m jet-lagged. Amy comes home from Barcelona and immediately suggests that we should eat our way around the globe, then forage in each other's pantrys and come up with recipes. Meet us at Cooking with Amy for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus the Cinderella-like transformation of the shambles in my cupboards!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 22

2006-06-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Today, the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour reveals to Sugar Savvy the number of degrees that separate Ferrara-Pan Jawbreakers from Ronald Reagan waking up without his legs.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 21

2006-06-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

Today, the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour presents a handy excuse for Gastrochick and I to wax nostalgic about durian, mud pies and offal.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 20

2006-06-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

I'm was incredibly touched that Daily Gluttony baked a cake to welcome the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour, baked it right off of page 22! I wasn't sure if anybody would try that one...

Take a look, and take a sec to post a comment while you're at it, wishing her a very Happy Birthday tomorrow! I hope someone bakes her a cake as nice as the one she baked us!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 19

2006-06-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

I knew the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Bus would have a smooth ride on the Written Road when editor Jen (pictured above) sent me her interview questions, each blank that I was to fill out followed by a ready-to-go exclamation on her end, such as "How interesting!" or "So inspirational!"

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 18

2006-06-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

Oh, my god, I think The Gurgling Cod just nominated me for a Nobel Prize!

Happy Father's Day!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 17

2006-06-17T04:13:00.000-07:00

Before the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour rolls up to the blog du jour, perhaps we should educate ourselves as to just what in the Sam Hell a Parabasis is. Apparently it's the point in an ancient Greek play when all of the main actors leave the stage and the chorus gets to address the audience directly on a topic completely irrelevant to the subject of the play. Yeah, that sounds about right. Hera only knows what Isaac and I said into the little Radio Shack tape recorder he propped between us at the Boerum Hill Food Company, but it's a podcast now!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 16

2006-06-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

I've got to hand it to Pasta Lover Foodie NYC, for not holding my hatred of the stuff against me or the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour. Instead, he offers up a recipe for Curry Seared Scallops with Mint Tapioca and Green Onion Sauce as "an interesting substitute"! That sounds like crazy talk, but I'm not scared!

Not only that, but I'm also a superhero. I swear. Why else would the hee-larious Young Adult author E. Lockhart invite me to take her Fly Survey? Because I can fly! Duh!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 15

2006-06-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

When I asked Mrs. Deedop if she and Chopper Dave would be up for letting the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour swing by Belly Timber, she said sure, her cat could write a review for me. I've got to say, from what I've heard of this cat, there are more than a few parallels with the late, great, undeniably awful Jambo, and much as I loved that little bastard, he's the last person (cat, whatever) I'd want reviewing my book or any book, really.
Mrs. Deedop immediately switched to Plan B, a plan so nutty, I wonder if the cat had a hand in it.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 14

2006-06-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

Imagine my pleasure today on the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour, when Karen and Andrew of Becoming A Chef announced their intention to lunch me up live at Franchia, "a tea shrine in another space and time". And they laid one of their awesome looking cookbooks on me too! Oh HELL yeah!

If your physical reality places you in the Bourough of Kings tonight, why not swing by Bookcourt? I'll be waddling in to give a reading at 8pm.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 13

2006-06-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

Today, the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour peers through the window of the Vegetarian Dim Sum House, where
The Amateur Gourmet and I are discovered gorging ourselves on Monk Dumplings, Rice Flour Rolls with White Fungus and Golden Mushroom, & Treasure Balls with Assorted Flavor.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 12

2006-06-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

Break out your earphones because Milo is making his (uncharacteristically laconic) podcast debut on the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour. Sufficiently tanked up on sugar from Leora's birthday party earlier in the day, we toddled over to
Eat, for an audio double-date with Leland and his mom.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 11

2006-06-11T16:36:00.001-07:00

Much to our delight, Finslippy and I discovered that we'd completed our interview for the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour before we even got around to doing the interview! Cinchy! Memoirs are dangerous business, but there's always a chance that a flower can grow up through the sludge of misunderstanding and hurt feelings ... unless of course, you're commenter #3! Go get 'em!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 10

2006-06-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hell yeah, Life's a Picnic, but the topic of the day on the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour is breakfast...which our host du jour is enjoying at some fancy B&B his lovely wife sprung on him this weekend, so he posted a day early...

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 9

2006-06-09T07:38:00.000-07:00

Today the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour revels in a Coney Island of the Mind (and Stomach), at the behest of my fellow Mermaid, Alice Ayers.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Tour Day 8

2006-06-08T07:11:00.001-07:00

Brandon Eats, but the eerie similarities between our lives don't stop there! Tune in today to the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour as she reveals all, and perhaps even then some, as I notice she's designated her entry "Part 1".

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour Day 7

2006-06-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

Moorish Girl not only agreed to host the nightmare that is the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour, she wisely steered clear of the labor-intensive, high concept ideas my crazed brain kept coming up with (Mad Libs!!! One Book Cover Rendered Five Different Ways!!!!) in favor of a straight forward (for me) explanation of how and why you should start a zine.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour Day 6

2006-06-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

Today, the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour finds the editors of Cupcakes Take the Cake actively promoting their pro-cupcake agenda during the course of a seemingly innocuous interview!

(insane cupcake appears with permission of its unhinged creator, Ms. Natalie Dee!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour Day 5

2006-06-05T06:06:00.000-07:00

Day 5 of the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour finds CulinaryFool wondering what my favorite chapter is and how I came by my superhuman powers of recall!

I'm also appearing in the flesh tonight at Galapagos as part of a performance series called Smut, so if thine heiner is available, please hithee it to Williamsburg, the non-Colonial one.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour Day 4

2006-06-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

Today, the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour enters the kingdom of the Pie Queen to see what Her Majesty learned when she spent a couple of hours communing with us peasants in our squalid hut in Brooklyn.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour Day 3

2006-06-03T06:24:00.000-07:00

Before I start pounding the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour’s tent pegs intoVagablogging’s fertile ground, permit me to observe that, unlike yours truly, editor Rolf Potts actually lives up to his hottie author photo! Anyway, he got me reminiscing about Thailand, and this cake I baked for a new friend’s 21st birthday and from the way I carried on, you’d think I was writing No Touch Monkey! all over again. Wish I had me some Tiger Power.

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour Day 2

2006-06-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

Today the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour visits
The Accidental Hedonist, whose insightful line of inquiry led me to denounce my mother’s oxtail warmer!

Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour Day 1

2006-06-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

Rabbit, Rabbit, my friends. (I had this teacher in theater school who maintained that those should always be the first words out of your mouth on the first of the month. Beats me why, and lord knows two hundred some first of the months have passed me by with nary a rabbit, rabbit…Just think, maybe if I’d remembered, I’d be a star of stage and screen. Rabbit! Rabbit!)

Even for those of us who forgot to double our rabbits upon waking, today is still an auspicious day, as it is the first day of the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour! Yay!!! YAY!!!! 30 blogs in 30 days and boy are my arms tired, though I don’t have to worry about whether there’s a sesame seed stuck between my teeth or any of those other authorial concerns that plague one on a non-virtual book tour. Every day, a fellow blogger will let me park my virtual tour bus on their cyber lawn, in celebration of my new book, Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste. That’s the itinerary to your right, as well as a link to an email notification list that’ll keep you abreast of the blog du jour before self-destructing in a shower of candy on June 30.

Today’s Special is hosted by Beatrice, who’s persuaded me to wag my tongue a bit more than the royal Spin Doctor would prefer, but come on! Who doesn’t have pet peeves with regard to the food memoir genre?

Culinary Road Trip: Fairway in Red Hook

2006-05-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe it's been a week since Mrs. Lindsay-Abaire and I took a road trip to the new Fairway in Red Hook. As much as I hate cars, I love parking in full view of the Statue of Liberty! I had lots of thoughts regarding Fairway's brocolli (wiggly), signage (excellent) and fig jam (who cares how much it costs?! lay that shit on me!), but before I could get around to interviewing myself, someone had the call to scoop me by getting in contact with Mrs. Lindsay-Abaire, who betrayed me by taking time out of her busy schedule, rehearsing what she's going to wear to the Tony Awards, to answer this media jackal's hard-hitting questions!

Hello, i'm a very important journalist researching a very important
article for a tremendously influential publication.

What's the best thing you bought at Fairway?
mmmm. . .My Thai young coconut perhaps? I was taken also with the Fairway Thai shrimp and scallop soup -- tho' I needed to add broth. The olive bar was a hit for me too, with those wee peppadew peppers. I have a hopeful feeling about those sorbets, too.

What do you regret not buying at Fairway?

That long-ass squash you were wielding in the produce aisle.

Can you tell us a little about the prices, Ma'am?

Honestly, hit and miss -- $2.50 organic milk is big draw and they had some stands devoted to super-low priced specials, But frankly how am I getting through 3 boxes of Raisin Bran for $5 with Mr. Smoothie and Mr. Egg-in-a-Nest under my roof?

I noticed you partook of some free samples, and even demanded a free
sample of something that had not been set out for the general public's
complimentary consumption. What items would you suggest making
available to Fairway shoppers as free samples?

To contextualize my admittedly edgy demeanor at the cheese counter: My only visit to the UWS outpost of Fairway included a stop at their "Cheese Cave" where it was routine practice for the cheese monger to offer a sample of any cheese even inquired about. I was caught off-guard by our mongers reticence and worried my pal Ayun would be sold hefty-price-tag blue (which I bullied her into considering) without the first taste for free.

I would love it if they would set out some free samples of the many different hummus-esque spreads and dips that are available -- each sounds great, but boy have I been burned by laying out the green for school-paste that I am then stuck with because I don't want to waste it by throwing it out, but can't bring myself to eat or foist it on guests.

Is there room for improvement at Fairway?
I'd love a place to buy a coffee at about the half-way point in my shopping journey. Also, I'd like to not have to double-back to get to the parts of the store I miss. They kind of present you with a road to Oz-esque fork situation.

Why come you took so long in the checkout line?
First of all, my receipt is longer than my arm, so personal consumption played a role. Also there were some produce identification issues which will probably resolve over time.

Thank you. I look forward to including your uncredited research under my byline.

∞

In other news, the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour commences tomorrow! Check back every day in June for a link to the blog du jour! Or better yet, sign up to have your daily reminders sent directly to you!

Look at what this BITCH PEAR did to my basil plant!!!

2006-05-28T04:04:00.000-07:00

Mothertrucker! I've had that plant for five years! Bitch Pear leapt off the window sash and landed on it! Stupid pear.

Baked Salmon with Shallots and Corn Salsa

2006-05-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

Just because my union is celebrated in the The New York Times, doesn't mean I'm not a Pig Farm Widow. As far as dining en famille goes, we're down to Mondays, at least until the show officially opens on June 27. This being the case, we strive to make it a pleasant, non-complain-y affair, which is why I smiled and said, "why, no, not at all" when Greg asked if we could listen to Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" album. (in the name of"theatrical research". (He'd already spun the platter once in its entirety, while I was cooking, and rather than appreciate my patience, had remarked, "Boy, Bill Clinton really runined this song.) When I suggested that, as long as we were scrapping our usual French-Afro-Cuban dinnertime fare, perhaps we should give The Pretenders's "Night in My Veins" a twirl, he shot me right down! That's the thanks I get for teaching him the phrase "good old-fashioned sweat-tittied bitches of rock n' roll"!?

Domestic strife not withstanding, the evening's entree felt good, alright, even if it was just the night in my veins.

Baked Salmon with Shallots and Corn Salsa

Lay a couple of salmon fillets on a large rectangle of aluminum foil. If you've seen Supersize me, and are a reformed (or current, and I'd imagine broke) smoker, you'll know exactly how big to make those fillets. (i.e., a quarter pound, but slightly bigger, because hell, you only live once.)

Season with salt, pepper and paprika.
Slice a shallot and layer that on too. Gave me a powerful hankering for onion rings, for some reason. Must be the season.
Melt two tablespoons of butter. Spoon that on. Keep hankering for onion rings.
Fold the foil up over the dressed fish to form a nice little packet, that will spend 20 minutes in a prerheated 350º oven, preferably yours.

Remember that you forgot to buy the g*d d*mn jalapano. Dash out to the corner bodega. Run into a neighbor who spontaneously offers to have the children sleep over the night that Pig Farm opens. G*d bless Jalap*no peppers.

Boil a cup of fresh or frozen corn until just done. I use Cascadian Farm brand frozen, even if they didn't come off so hot in that recent New Yorker article. Drain and cool. (Or in my case un-cool. Tasted just fine hot. Better even, not that I have anything to compare it to...)

Quicly now, like, simultaneously even, squeeze half a tablespoon's worth of lemon juice into a small bowl.
Follow that up with
Half a tablespoon of cider vinegar
salt & pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes
and 1/2 a jalapeno of freshly purchased jalapeno.
Mix it all up, dump in the corn, and call it salsa.

Spoon the salsa over the shallot-topped salmon. Serve with a lemon wedge, if you're feeling fancy.

∞

What would you say if I grabbed the kids and absconded to Dublin for a goodly portion of the summer?

We'll have a gay old swine!

2006-05-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

You know all those things you keep meaning to do, but somehow never get around to doing and then it's too late and you've missed out entirely? Don't do that with Pig Farm. Keep food in Greg's children's mouths.

Mr. Johannsen’s Righteous, Righteous Yucatán Fish

2006-05-16T13:47:00.001-07:00

I clipped this recipe out of the New York Times the summer that Finding Nemo hit the theaters. The flames of Nemo-mania were fanned with the bootleg tape I purchased in the back room of our corner bodega, just before the entire shop went out of business with no warning. Jeez, what if I inadvertently hipped the Feds to video speakeasy by writing about it in The East Village Inky? Well, anyway, as kid’s movies go, I think Nemo’s pretty righteous. The the only thing I felt critical of was the surfin’ sea turtle. If he’d have been toking away on a big old doobie, I would have loved him to pieces, but without some tasty bud to shore up his character, he was just annoying. (After ten or so viewings, I’ve made my peace with the bias against overt stoner references in children’s films and now look forward to the way Crush screams, “Righteous! Righteous!” when the East Australian Current grabs him.) Dang, if only every movie had such a memorable cast! Greg’s favorite is Bruce the Great White Shark, Inky has pledged allegiance to the seagulls, and Milo digs the nameless barracuda who eats Nemo’s mother and all of her eggs. As for me, I’ve got a special place in my heart for Mr. Johannsen, a flounder who’s pissed that the kids won’t stay out of his yard. He’s only in one scene, but I just love the idea of a character who’s doomed to a life of constant frustration because he’s only got eyes on one side of his head. Like, he always ends up looking the wrong way.

So, you can make this recipe with any flat fish– last night I used gray sole – but I named it in honor of Mr. Johannsen because the first time I made it, I used flounder. Look, children, we can extend our enjoyment of the movie even further, by eating the flesh of one of our favorite characters! Originally, the recipe called for cilantro and grape tomatoes, but I’m just laying down the basics because that Nemo anecdote puts me at risk for carpal tunnel.

Mr. Johannsen’s Righteous, Righteous Yucatán Fish

Slice 5 cloves of garlic and fry them in two tablespoons of canola oil in a heavy little skillet over medium-low heat. Everything will work out like it’s supposed to if you treat it like popcorn. Shake it back and forth, lift it off the burner every now and then, and the second you think it’s done, remove from the heat, and sprinkle with salt (and pepper, which is not very popcorn-y, unless you think of it as black salt.) Now that I think about it, there’s nothing to stop you from eating it like popcorn, though you’ll probably want more than five cloves. The finished product should be a nice, crispy Coppertone tan. Set it aside.

Oh and speaking of garlic, do try the garlic fries the next time you find yourself drinking beer at Mo Pitkins. You’ll never want to eat anything else.

Now put 2 more tablespoons of canola oil in a big heavy skillet and give it a second to heat up on medium high and it’s Adios, Senor Johannsen! A pound and a half ought to do you for four people. To save time, pick skinny fillets. They need to cook in a single layer, so you may just need two skillets. For god’s sake, it’s not a crime! Toss in a couple of dried red chilis and tend to your limes. Do not attempt to flip Mr. Johannsen. There’s nothing you can do for him now. Haven’t you done enough, already?

Actually, no you haven’t. Did you forget about your limes? Let’s go! Squeeze them! Both of them! (That’s right, both means two!) Pour all but a couple tablespoon’s worth over Mr. Johannsen and put that spatula down! There will be no flipping tonight. If you need something to occupy your hands, turn the flame down to medium, or toss in some grape tomatoes.

When the fish (I can’t bear to call him Mr. Johannsen any longer. All he wanted was to be left alone to live a quiet life with no dang kids in the yard.) is cooked through – you’ll be able to tell because the flesh will be white and depending on how thin it is, possibly even pulling apart, transfer it to the serving platter. You can put some cilantro in the pan juices before pouring them over, but no need to. Perhaps you don’t even like cilantro! Distribute the reserved lime juice and the crisp-fried garlic (unless you ate it all while you were watching Finding Nemo for the forty-zillionth time).

∞

F*ck the DaVinci code! Like that guy doesn’t have enough publicity? My new book,
Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste snuck onto the shelves this week. If it hasn’t hit your local indie bookstore yet, by all means request a copy (or ten)! Why should Amazon hog it all to themselves? Speaking of Amazon, a popular question seems to be, “Where should I buy the book in order to give you the most benefit?” My answer is, you buy it where you want to, and then, if you like it, please take a moment to post a positive customer review on Amazon. Come on, I know you know how to use a computer, I think you know how to read, and it’s only a matter of time until the folks who considered No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late a blight upon our country’s reputation figure out that I’ve got a new baby for them to bash!

∞

And furthermore!
Looking for Friends With Benefits? Or maybe just someone who can help you navigate modern high school sexual mores? My friend, Mrs. Lindsay-Abaire is only TOO happy to help! Tune into Law & Order SUV, excuse me, SVU, tonight to see her strut her stuff as school pyschologist, Barbara Collins. That's a pocket warmer in her pocket, by the way, though I'm sure she would have been happy to see you, had she noticed you ogling her from the other side of the tube.

Sexy Mushroom

2006-05-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

Dare to be Heinie!

It's a girl...

I'll endeavor to post the recipe tomorrow. Until then, let us join this sexy mushroom in wishing Mrs. Lindsay-Abaire a very happy birthday.

Campbell’s Cream of Poblano

2006-05-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really. It’s a purely reflexive modifier, owing almost entirely to my upbringing. No way I would have touched this stuff in 1970's Indiana, but you can take that as an indication of how good it is.

Feliz CINCO DE MAYO!

Cream of Poblano Soup

Blister the hell out three poblano peppers. If you’ve got gas burners, you can lay them right on top, though best to alert the household what’s up, or someone’s likely to call the fire department. Those things pop! I guess I would to, if someone tried to lay me on a gas burner. Good luck to you, if yours is an electric stove. You’ll probably have to build a bonfire or something. When they’re charred all to hell and back, seal ‘em up in a paper bag, and forget about them for 20 minutes.

Chop 1/2 a red onion nice and fine. You call that fine!? Mince me up a clove of garlic, Private, and when I say fine, I’m talking Chantilly lace!!!!

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter over low heat, add the onion and the garlic, and for pity’s sake, try not to subject them to the same cruel fate as the poblanos. They like a man with a slow hand, capiche? They like a lover with an easy touch. Three minutes and they’ll be eating out of the palm of your hand, provided you don’t eat them first.

Add 2 cups of milk and 1 cup of vegetable broth and by vegetable broth, I mean a little brown lozenge the size of a cough drop, dissolved in 8 ounces of water. (Remember 1974, how the powers that be insisted that it was only a matter of time before our system of weights and measures became obsolete? My poor parent’s were riddled with anxiety about it! I was like, “Don’t worry, Daddy, it’s all divisible by ten. I can show you what a centimeter is!” Talk about a tempest in a teapot. Or maybe it’s just a very slow implementation. Give the old people time to get used to answering machines and automatic tellers before we spring the deciliters on ‘em.

Whisk half a tablespoon of cornstarch into a half-cup of heavy cream. If you’re watching your waistline, I feel it’s my civic duty to inform you that that “light” cream is only 20 calories less per tablespoon (teaspoon, whatever) and no doubt goes to the same aerobics class as that hideous low-fat cream cheese that makes me want to run screaming into the arms of Dr. Atkins.

When your milk soup has attained a gentle simmer, dribble in the cornstarch mixture, whisking all the while, and if you could use a good hand job joke about now, scroll down to the homemade mayonnaise I made earlier in the week, because I only work blue when I’m in the mood.

Release the poblanos from their papery prison and slice them fine (I’m counting on you to know what that means by now.) Add them to the soup, along with:
1/2 cup of fresh or frozen corn kernels (I favor me the Cascadian Farm brand)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
& some fresh ground pepper

You know your kitchen's too dang small when you start storing honeydews on your burners.

Let it simmer for 15 minutes, before bowling it on up with some crumbled feta and chopped cilantro.

∞

Finicky children will be punished with strawberries.

food & drink

Free Mangosteens!

2006-05-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

My pals over at Perceptive Travel, would like to treat you to a Dirty Sugar Mangosteen with an optional side of Monkey Brains.

If you're down with the juicy flavor you'll find there, you can pre-order another couple hundred pages worth, in anticipation of the Dirty Sugar Cookies Virtual Book Tour, coming to a blog near you this June!

Asparagus and Smoked Fish in Homemade Mayonnaise

2006-05-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

I discovered the maiden issue of Edible Brooklyn in a drop box on Atlantic Avenue last week. Apparently, Brooklyn is but the latest entry in a whole slew of edible cities (and peninsulas). I’m not sure if features on the contents of John Flansburgh’s refrigerator will turn many low-budget hipsters into subscribers at $28 for four issues, but I’m hooked, and will continue to pick it up as long as they keep dumping complimentary copies on the corner of Court and Atlantic. (This neighborhood is a veritable cornucopia of free reading material! Lately, there’s been a gratis stack of Paper Magazine amid the piles of Cobble Hill Couriers and Brooklyn-Queens Parents littering the windowsill at tatty old Met Foods. Back in the day, it seemed to pride itself on exclusivity. I applaud the circulation department’s brave decision to bring a Max’s Kansas City sensibility to the proletariat and live in hope that soon, amyl nitrate will be available for purchase in the gumball machines, so the produce boys and I can fully experience the glam lifestyle.)

Speaking of insiders, Edible Brooklyn’s editrix is on the payroll of NYC’s Greenmarkets, which is good news for organic farmers, neighboring beekeepers, makers of artisan cheese, stalwart seltzer sellers and (who knew?) a smokehouse in Greenpoint, all of whom received favorable mention alongside, if not actually in, Herr Flansburgh’s fridge. Those looking for recipes should visit some of the blogs listed at right, because Edible Brooklyn keeps them to a skimpy two pages. The three they do publish look pretty tasty, though Neanderthal that I am, I had to ask my friend, Mrs. Lindsay-Abaire what “green garlic” is and she said, “Oh, it’s some kind of garlic you can get it at the farmer’s market around this time of year.”

For shame, Edible Brooklyn! How many free fiddleheads is that organic garlic farmer slipping in your string bag, to get you to compromise your journalistic integrity with such glaring product placement? I was like, “You know what? No. I’ll try your recipe but I’m using regular garlic." For all I know, that daffodil-like stem that's beginning to shoot up from the head I bought last week is green garlic! Also, I used way more smoked fish than recommended, an inadvisable amount of sage and cooked my supposed-to-be-raw asparagus because I know my husband’s limits. And I’d do it again, if only to guzzle some homemade mayo that didn't quite set up right! To get Edible Brooklyn’s take on things, you can subscribe, or drag your carcass to one of their designated drop-off locations.

Asparagus and Smoked Fish in Homemade Mayonnaise

Mince a couple cloves of regular old garlic, unless the green garlic lobby has you by the short & curlies, in which case, one stalk will allegedly do you.

Mince one scallion. (Is that the same as a spring onion? Maybe I’d know, if I was in the pocket of Big Organics! As it is, I'm having difficulty distinguishing between scallions and green garlic, as pictured above.)

Combine the garlic and the scallion with a lemon’s worth of lemon juice in a ceramic or glass bowl.

Add 2 tablespoons of water and 3 egg yolks, reserving the whites for some other purpose. (Like scrambling for a low-cal breakfast the next morning. Slather ‘em up with a heaping helping of that leftover homemade mayo and you’re in for a treat!) Whisk only to combine. Preserve your wrist strength for the next step, the one that made me think of that lover’s lane hand job scene in Animal House,where Babs, the icy sorority girl, ("Greg, honey, is it supposed to be this soft?") peels off her rubber gloves with an audible snap. (Or maybe you have a food processor.)

Add olive oil, one drop at a time, whisking all the while. How much olive oil? Fuck if I know, Babs. I ran through a fifth of a bottle or so, and never quite achieved that Hellman’s like consistency, though as viscous sauces go, my semi-solid mayo ruled. It did drive home just how fattening the stuff is, but I try not to dwell on such matters.

When you can’t whisk no more, add salt and stick it in the fridge.

Go into the wild, catch a trout, smoke him (or deliver him unto Greenpoint), remove the bones, skin & head, and chop the meat into whatever size chunks you like to eat with asparagus and homemade mayonnaise. Alternatively, my friends at Fish Tales will fix you up with a pre-killed, pre-smoked speciment that’ll eliminate most of the grunt work for a mere six bucks.

Steam a bunch of asparagus. Greg got a pained look on his face, asking “Al dente? in such a piteous tone of voice I couldn’t help but return them to the steamer until they were still bright emerald, but lacking in crunch. When they’re cool enough to handle, cut them into bite-size segments and put them in a bowl with the trout. Dress with as much mayo as you see fit.

Grate a radish. (I swear to god, I have no idea what to do with the other dozen radishes I was forced to buy to get this one. If I weren’t such a dunce with the digital camera, I could try my hand at recreating the cover of Robyn Hitchcock’s Invisible Hitchcock) Salt it, dress it up with some sliced fresh herbs (I used half a smallish bunch of sage, which I incorrectly thought wouldn’t be too much, as long as I fried it in olive oil, forgetting that every last drop of olive oil had gone into the mayo. Moderation is key here. Maybe skip the radish and herbs all together, but if you can’t bear the thought of that, mix ‘em up with a spoonful of mayo and use this to decorate the top of the delightfully still-warmish salad.

∞

Following my cholesterol-rich breakfast the next day, I figured I’d better see about putting myself on a leash, given my desire to not entirely disgrace myself in my tail, come the Mermaid Parade . Accordingly, I both emailed and phoned Mrs. Lindsay-Abaire to see if I could lay some leftover homemade mayo on her when we picked the boys up from kindergarten, but damn her hide, she’d gone incommunicado on me. No matter. As the kids were getting their after school ya yas out, pushing each other down the slide, I found myself engaged in a pleasant chat with a neighbor woman I’d heretofore exchanged only garden variety pleasantries with, and after about fifteen minutes, I decided to offer her the precious gift of my leftover mayonnaise. She was only to happy to accept, once she’d ascertained that my reasons for wanting to rid myself of it had nothing to do with spoilage. Of course, I ran into Mrs. Lindsay-Abaire as I was exiting the schoolyard. I informed her of the terrible cost of her inaccessibility, and she retaliated by ringing my doorbell with these exquisite leftover Portabello enchiladas! Despite the professional packaging (also leftover), these babies were home cooked and you bet that was some good eatin’, Girlie Sue. I’ll have to write Gourmet to see if they might be able to persuade the chef to share her recipe. In the meantime, let's indulge in a fantasy whereby everybody cooks up a storm on Monday, then earns a busman’s holiday by exchanging leftovers on Tuesday.

∞

PS - The beautiful cartoon at the top of this post comes to us courtesy of Natalie Dee! All rights reserved, as well they should be.

A Good Forkful of Fennel and Sprouts

2006-04-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

Our duties to the feral young ensure that we rarely check out happening restaurants at the height of their heat, but every once in a great while, we find ourselves inexplicably in with the in crowd, as was the case last Friday when the loan of a car helped us overcome the transportation-related inertia that had kept us from darkening the door of The Good Fork, a recently-opened Red Hook eatery owned by our friends, Ben and Sohui. Let me tell you, these guys are something else. Last year they staged a full-length pirate play in their backyard, and the previous October, they turned the yard into an ersatz Hofbrauhaus, complete w/ Extreme Apple Bobbing, a hotly anticipated potato carving contest, beer, kraut and sausages galore. (In addition to my own offspring, I was escorting an unrelated six-year-old, who bypassed the good grub, feeding exclusively on marshmallows inserted into hot dog buns, while I mulled over how her parents' would have reacted, had they known I'd be spiriting her to the nether regions of Red Hook, after dark, on the bus.) (Perhaps some day a baby will come along to rain on Ben and Sohui's parade! It's a mitzvah!)

Okay, back to The Good Fork. Even if you have to take a plane to the subway to the B61 bus, you should get yourself there, but for cod's sake, make reservations if you want a table. They're reeling 'em in with their bare hands and deservedly so. I can't say enough good things about the food, the decor, and the appeal of opening a business half a block from home where you can commune with all your (childless) friends who've been hired to staff the joint. It gave me such a warm feeling to see Sohui's happy head tied up in a bandana in the kitchen (still attached to her body, of course, moving around) and Ben, swanning about the dining room he himself designed, clad in something that might have been the bottom half of his pirate costume. Even the children relished what they were served. I was particularly taken by the cakes - crab and molten, flourless chocolate - but their presentation was so beyond me, I decided to try my hand at ripping off a supporting player, instead. This slaw-like salad was probably plated to give back up to the crab cake, but dang, it were good!

My version was - surprise, surprise - sweeter, and also used totally different ingredients, but it got my friend Little MoMo all jacked up chez-nous a few nights ago, so at her request, I'm prepared to share my trade secrets with the unknown rabble.

Ayun's Good Forkful Salad-Slaw

Slice a bulb (or whatever you call that cardiac looking thing) of Fennel. You'll end up with 3 distinct shapes in your bowl:
* Slawlike ribbons
* Penny-sized circles you can string like beads, owing to a fetching central hole.
* & Feathery sprinkle-herbs (not too many of these though, or things will end up like the edge of the pond come pollen season.)

Wantonly festoon with a handful of brocolli sprouts (I'd never seen them before, but there they were at Met Foods, looking like something you'd expect to see unfurling from a Chia Pet. Given the chance, these babies will kick cancer to the curb, if the Poindexters over at Johns Hopkins are to be believed.)

Toast some sliced almonds, and sprinkle those over the proceedings, too.

Make yourself a nice little Asian-inspired dressing (I cribbed this one from my friend, Jesse, who cribbed it from a recipe published by his famous ex-employer, the one he ordered me never to name):

1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar
1/8 cup of sesame oil
1 tablespoons of fish sauce
1 minced shallot
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
& a lively spritz or two of lime juice.

Dress up and you'll be good to go (to the Good Fork at your earliest convenience!)

∞

[fennel], [recipe]

Perfumed Fish

2006-04-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't worn perfume since I ran out of the bright purple vanilla-musk hippie oil for which I abandoned Love's Baby Soft, but I'd resume the practice in a New York minute if I could find a product that'd make me smell as good as this fish.

... actually, he smelled kind of fishy until I'd had my way with him.

Perfumed Fish

Soak 1 Thai dried chile in a half cup of warm water. Alternatively, tell a Mexican chile you're going to take it to Thailand just as soon as the damn divorce comes through, then before it knows what's what, toss it into the teacup for a good soaking! Suckah! When it's somewhat more flexible than it was (20 minutes?) chop off the stem and reserve the soaking water.

Trim and mince 1 stalk of lemongrass. Remove the tough outer leaves if you don't want to rupture a tendon in your hand.

Chop one small shallot.

Scrape the freezer burn off the coriander roots you've been squirreling away like a lunatic and hope that they'll equal a tablespoon when chopped. (I think you'll do just fine without them, if you're just starting your frozen garbage collection. Don't let yourself get too hung up on what you don't have. Concentrate instead on what a good person you'll be, if, like the Native Americans, you use every piece of every bunch of cilantro you ever buy. In my experience, it will take you about a year to store up a tablespoon's worth, but only because sometimes, the sinful grocer trims away those roots, not knowing or perhaps even caring about the wastefulness of such aesthetic barbarism!)

Squeeze half a lime.

Haul out the blender, throw all of the above ingredients into the jar and grind it into something that true, might not be equal to attaching a pair construction paper bunny ears to a paper plate, but nonetheless resembles paste.

Cube 3/4 pound of basa fillets. You know what they call "basa" in Vietnam? Catfish. Anything with firm white flesh (rules me out!) will do.

Pour the perfumed flavor paste over the fish cubes and mix it up.

Then add a 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce (my perfume! my beautiful perfume!)

Chop a couple of scallions (save the white bulbs for another use. Earrings. I don't know.) Add them too.Wait, save a tablespoon's worth to sprinkle like jimmies over the finished product.

Denude the poor basil plant on the windowsill of yet another half dozen leaves. shred them and chuck them in too.

You do have a bamboo steamer don't you? If not, you can rig something up, can't you? I used to upend a teacup in a stockpot, then balance a cereal bowl on top of it...and let me tell you, am I glad those days are over. For this recipe, I put the fish in four plastic rice bowls - yes, the ones the children will eat their cereal out of a few hours later - and distributed them between 2 bamboo steaming baskets, stacked atop a medium sized pot.

Steam for 40 minutes.

Serve over rice, garnished with the scallion-jimmies.

∞

I'm having a helluva time reading Julia Child's posthumously published memoir, My Life in France. She just described an older female acquaintance as being "as vigorous as a pirate". Let us all resolve that tomorrow, we, too, shall be vigorous as pirates.

Marinated Cukes w/ Asian Flavor

2006-04-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

This is so simple, it barely qualifies as a recipe.
I just want to make sure y'all have a nice side ready to go for the Perfumed Fish I'm gonna lay on you tomorrow.

Marinated Cukes with Asian Flavor

Take 2 or 3 cukes, halve them lengthwise, and tongue 'em out good with a spoon to remove the seeds. If you're feeling decorative, you might take a vegetable peeler and give the rinds some alternating stripes. Toss in a bowl. Oh man, did I have the perfect bowl just when, wouldn't you know it, the camera battery revealed itself to be as dead as the dodo?

Add
1 & 1/2 tablespoons of rice vinegar
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
a pinch of salt
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of chili pepper flakes
and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil

Mix it up good and that's it!

∞

Dag, man, if you ever needed a justification for a little cuke patch out back, this is it.

Mango Scallops with Poblano and I Don't Know What All

2006-04-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

After a few days of hospital food (routine testing for a chronic condition - no worries) (except for the cuisine), I reckon a stir-fried sock would taste good, but I decided to up the ante a little more with a scallop recipe that had caught my eye in a recent cooking mag. Unfortunately, I didn't have the recipe with me when I went to the store, nor could I find it when I started rummaging through the back issue stack at around 7pm last night. Well, in the immortal words of Mehitabel the alley cat, "Wotthehell, wotthehell and toujours gai!" Sometimes you've just got to blunder through with what you've got. I'd do it again and here's the recipe as proof.

Mango Scallops with Poblano and I Don't Know What All

Rinse a 1/2 pound of bay scallops, pat them dry and send them off to play 30 Minutes in the Closet with
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne
and 1/4teaspoon of turmeric

Seed and chop a medium-sized poblano pepper, a small red onion and a large mango. (Dig how festive, tricolore & blurry things look on the counter! Man, even that sponge looks good enough to eat!)

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high, add the onion and the poblano, stirring so they don't burn. When most of their pretty brightness has been leached away by the ravages of the pan, add the mangos and marinated scallops and stir for 2 minutes or so.

Now it's time to banish dull care with a splash of white wine. I used pinot grigio - a big mouthful's worth.

Give that pan a mouthful of coconut milk too.

Chop up a handful of cilantro, stems and all!

Pull some leaves off the basil plant!

If I'd' had a lime, I'd have squoze that sucker over the proceeding, but I didn't have a lime (which is why we couldn't make margaritas when Greg volunteered to fetch some tequila later in the evening)
(Instead, I substituted an ounce of salmon roe, which doesn't taste anything like lime juice, but is as pretty as those red beads Hunca Munca finds in the dolls' pantry in The Tale of Two Bad Mice. I was a picky picky eater as a child, but damn, what I would have given to eat those beads!)

Serve over a modest amount of rice ... (Leaning to hard on the white stuff is a one-way ticket to Blandsville, dig?)

∞

Green Cashew Curry

2006-04-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

Look, either you suit up in your winter coats to witness firsthand the aural miracle of the Hungry March Band serenading the Polar Bear Club on the beach at Coney Island as Astroland officially opens for another fun-filled season or you spend a precious day of your dwindling life expectancy restocking the pantry like some kind of automotan housewife!

Just look at those naked shelves!Like, what, we're going to eat a rock shaped baked potato, seasoned with raisins, rancid quinoa and ear medicine for a dead cat? Sounds delish. Maybe we should order out. But wait, there's that green curry recipe I'd been ogling in that little Readers Digest-sized cooking mag at Ms. Lindsay-Abaire's house, the one she emailed to me under the subject heading "What an asshole!" as if it was her fault I forgot to take it with me as I was frog-marching my wailing son downstairs after a "too short" 3 hour visit. Wait, you don't think she's calling me...

Fried from the day's festivities, I wasn't counting on anything more vivid than merely servicable, but this speed-easy sauce turned frozen cooked shrimp, plain rice and steamed baby carrots (I told you, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel) into something I can't wait to eat again! Whoa, Nelly!

Green Cashew Curry
Peel a 1/4 in. thick, finger-length slice of ginger and chop it into tiny pieces with a blender
(If the height of your cabinets mean that you store your blender with its lid's detachable plastic knob in the blender jar, make sure your appliance's power button is set to "off" before you plug it in, because otherwise, your poor wiping-out skills may put you at risk of eating something that's probably harmless, but looks an awful lot like ground glass. I'm not being rhetorical here. I don't know what it is with me and the blender lately. Last month, I attempted to grind a half a cup of peanuts without bothering to put the lid on at all. Goobers gone wild.)

Pour a scant cup of roasted raw cashews into a dry pan and roast em and toast em but don't burn em.
The whiz all but two tablespoons of them until it looks like your blender's full of sand. Observe blender-appropriate safety precautions at all times.

Now add:
1/3 cup of plain low-fat yogurt
1/4cup of packed cilantro leaves & stems (Lindsay-Abaire is on record as thinking this sounds stingy)
1Tablespoon of brown sugar
sea salt to taste
& 1 teaspoon of curry powder (Stingy, says Lindsay-Abaire, who suspects the magazine in which this recipe was published in its original form to be geared toward culinary low-brows who couldn't deal with the idea of ever using more than a teaspoon of the stuff. I might add that I think my success with this recipe can be traced in large part to this wonderful medium-spicy, aromatic curry powder blind luck bade me purchase from a bulk jar at Aphrodisia, this little store on Bleecker that's one half amazing herbs, spices and other pulverized essentials and the other half nosegays, potpourri and country cottage-shaped ceramic teapots that make me break out in hives.

Rock that hot blender action for a minute or two, then spoon it onto whatever lame excuse you're trying to pass off as dinner, sprinkle with the two tablespoons of reserved cashews and blush fetchingly as they slather you with their honeyed words.
∞

PS - Upon leaving the boardwalk at Coney Island, we decided that we could no longer let hearsay determine the best pizza ) in NYC and hoofed it to Neptune to see if Totonno's is really all that. It was and is, and just as I was warming up to the deliberately less-than-gracious service, the waitress cast off the shackles of long habit and bestowed a smile on young Milo. Hope her face didn't ache the next morning. I know he's kind of hard to see, but, believe me, all you Soprano fans are going to want to put your hands together for the guy in the next booth!

Nobu's Signature Dish Reworked for Cletus and the Rest of Us Slack Jawed Yokels

2006-04-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

My mom gave me Nobu Matsuhisa's Nobu Now for my birthday, a very thoughtful present that I'm hoping means she'll never waste her hard earned money on another expensive but matronly linen garment that makes my ass look like forty pound of potatos in an unbleached sack. (I created a monster when I introduced her to the concept of wearing socks with Birkenstocks twenty years ago.)

Speaking of hard earned money, I've only made it to Nobu once, and then only because it was my friend Jeanne's birthday, as well as NYC Restaurant Week and also, I figured it was my reportorial duty to check out this famously fashionable scene in case I some day find myself wanting to write, I don't know, The Bonfire of the Vanitiesor something. I knew that the scolds on Chowhound held a universally low opinion of Nobu's sushi, but something compelled me to order it anyway. There was nothing wrong with it, I just lost sight of the fact that I'm one of those who gets the most pleasure from sushi served in a bustling, proletarian setting, like Taro Sushi, Geido, Sapporo East, or, for that matter, the Tsukiji Fish Market. In retrospect, I should have taken the opportunity to try Nobu's signature Black Cod with Miso.

Back to the cookbook. Its photographs are so mouthwatering and elegant, it's a shame that they're destined to be maimed by my waterlogged countertop and splatterific cooking style, but the recipes themselves seem dictated by the incredibly rarified, divorced-from-reality Emperor of Cathay, as portrayed by Mick Jagger in Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theater. There are casual references to fish my fish store guys have never heard of and Japanese hot plates that stump my Japanese friends and all manner of gilded exotica ingredients-wise. Most of them just made me howl, but the Black Cod with Miso did seem within reach, so when I was shopping for my crab the other day, I also picked up some Chilean Sea Bass (I'd call it the Poor Man's Black Cod if it wasn't so damn expensive.) Did I mention that this baby flips a big birdie to conventional wisdom by marinating for a minimum of 48 hours? So, as soon as the dishwasher was loaded with the pots and pans of one dinner, I had to turn right around and start preparing another. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to buy the sake that's one of Nobu's few indispensible-sounding ingredients. How cruel when a fish that's going to be stinking up the fridge for two whole days forces you to venture into a torrential rain storm at 10pm. Got to get me to that liquor store!

Nobu's second crime is supplying measurements near exclusively in terms of ounces. What's 10 1/2 ounces of miso paste look like? You tell me. If it hadn't been for that vintage Weight Watcher's scale I found on the curb a couple years ago and now use for calculating postage, I could have found myself flushing fifteen bucks worth of Chilean Sea Bass down the toilet! ("Oh my god, what have I done?! Fetch me the plunger, Pa!") All that weighing made me so crabby, I decided that Nobu could shove his Yuzu Miso Sauce up his ass - if I'm going to haul it back and forth to the East Village in search of exotic perishables, I expect to make more significant use of them than just the aesthetic ("dot the plate with the Yuzu Miso Sauce, varying the size of the dots"). I remained open to the the idea of covering the fish with a heat resistant shield of "daikon skin", except that I forgot to buy a daikon and I was still brimming with resentment from my last-minute, inclement sake run.

In the end, though, I have to hand it to Nobu. Even when near-totalled by my ommissions, substitutions and approximations, his original recipe turned out beyond delicious - and as Heloise might say, getting most of the work out of the way 2 whole days before company comes, is a real ring-a-ding hint.

Two Day Miso Sea Bass
(formerly known as Black Cod with Miso)

Combine 3 & 1/2 ounces of mirin (That's midway between 1/3 and 1/2 cup, Cletus)
with 3 & 1/2 ounces of sake
Bring to a boil and "allow the alcohol to evaporate" - which I interpreted as let it reduce itself by half.

Reduce heat to medium and add approximately 3/4 cup of white miso paste in several installments.
(If you want to go postal with it, you can dick around until you've got 10 & 1/2 ounces of the stuff, but don't forget to weigh your battered measuring cup first, so you don't count its weight as part of the final sum. Nobu would have you believe that the dish will be ruined if you're just half a butterfly's wing over the called for amount, but unless you're expecting him to be ringing your doorbell in 48 hours, I think you'll be safe eyeballing it with a measuring cup)
Stir all the while you're adding whatever size dollop of miso you've settled upon - if you were going to spend the next 48 hours marinating in something, wouldn't you want it to be silky smooth, as opposed to lumpier than yesterday's oatmeal?

Jack the heat back up to high, and stir in 1/2 cup of sugar (delivered in several batches).

(Resist the temptation to stick your finger in for a little taste because, speaking from experience, this shit has napalm-like properties.)

Remove it fromthe heat, let it cool for half an hour or so. then pour it into some sort of oven-proof vessel that isn't going to create a total real estate nightmare in your fridge. I used a white ceramic pie plate. Nobu uses "a tray for marinating". Dump in (Nobu's words, not mine, I swear) a half pound of black cod or Chilean Sea Bass or some comparable meaty, expensive ocean filet. Baste it tip to tail in the miso sauce, cover with plastic wrap, refrigerate and spend the next two days reassuring your dining companion that hardly anybody dies from botulism anymore.

When the big night arrives (if you forget and accidentally stuff yourself w/ pizza on what was supposed to be Black Whatever with Miso night, it's no big deal, as 72 hours of marination only deepens the deliciousness), scrape all the miso out of the "tray" and off of the fish, and put it in a preheated 400º oven for ten minutes.

When the timer goes off, plop it into a skillet over medium for like 5 minutes. I know I sound kind of vague, but believe me, Nobu is even worse. I'm thinking this is just a step to make the dish look and smell even prettier than it already does (and keep emergency room visits to a minimum)

Serve with rice, pickled ginger, and a couple of size C batteries in lieu of yuzu sauce.

you know...

2006-04-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know where Time Magazine gets off publishing a cover story about global warming when it's SNOWING in Brooklyn on April 5.

Vietnamese Crabmeat Soup with (Elderly) Asparagus

2006-04-05T02:54:00.000-07:00

You know, I don’t think I’d ever cooked crab before last night, unless you count the crab cakes I occasionally purchase for our reheating pleasure when we repair to the summer palace. I often find myself getting misty over the 25 cent crabs Greg and I used to buy on the beach in Nha Trang. They made such an impression on me, that now I am constitutionally unable to bask on sand without at some point remarking, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if there was a lady in a conical hat carrying a can of boiling water and a can of crabs slung milkmaid-style on a pole across her shoulders, and after she’d cooked them and served them to us with some salt and a wedge of lime, she’d squat a few feet away, waiting to carry the empty shells away?” (Hardly seems fair that the crab ladies are the ones to get stuck with a fine when some pampered, indecently-dressed Western tourist litters the beach with their gnawed-on remains.) No doubt those Nha Trang crabs owed much of their magic to the setting in which they were prepared, but I’d be willing to fake me up a facsimile if only it didn’t involve boiling a living creature to death. That ranks high on my list of awful ways to go, a subject that’s obsessed me since childhood. I was more than able to stomach the delicious results of the murder-by-scalding to which I’d been a not-so-innocent bystander on the beach in Vietnam, but I don’t think I could bear to be the executioner in my Brooklyn kitchenette.

Fortunately, last night’s recipe called for lump crabmeat. For someone who prides herself on the freshness of her ingredients and her moralistic stance toward factory farming, I had very little trouble convincing myself that the plastic tub I brought home from Fish Tales contained nothing more than the salvageable odds and ends of creatures who’d washed up on the beach, after the seagulls had gotten a chance to work them over first.

And don’t ask me where I get off claiming freshness on the part of my ingredients. That white asparagus had been mouldering in the fridge for over a week and a half, yet another impulse purchase fallen victim to both travel and pre-existing plans to dine out. White asparagus is much too highly prized by the gourmet crowd to just chuck in the trash, however. I had to find some way to justify its existence in my home, even if that justification involved crab. Only when I was knee-deep in preparations did I read the recipe closely enough to realize that it called for canned white asparagus, like it’s the sort of item one can expect to find stocked at Met Foods between the California olives and the creamed corn. It may well be, for all I know. I don’t have much truck with the canned vegetable aisle.

Vietnamese Crabmeat Soup with Elderly White Asparagus
Break out your minimum-of-3-quart soup pot and add
4 cups of water
A couple of Knorr bouillon cubes (I used one fish & one vegetable & next time, I think I’d rethink that fish)
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
& 1/4 teaspoon of salt
Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer.

Chop 6 shallots and 2 cloves of garlic.
Fry them in a big skillet in1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, stirring all the while so you don’t disgrace yourself by burning them in front of the white asparagus crowd.

Just when things are starting to smell nice, it’s nice to stink things up by adding
1/2 lb of fresh or canned lump crabmeat
2 teaspoons of fish sauce
& fresh ground black pepper as you see fit.
Fry it up for another one minute and I’ll tell you, I would have been content to stop right there, because that was one fine tasting mash! Start slapping that shit on crackers and you could easily polish off the whole pan in the time it takes to watch a couple of episodes of Arrested Development. Or, if you’re really gung-ho to see this recipe through to completion, set it aside for now.

Bring the soup back to a boil. (Hey, wouldn’t it be great if a lady in a conical hat came along, carrying a can of boiling water and a can of crabs slung milkmaid-style on a pole across her shoulder, to make you a little snack as you’re making dinner?)
Dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in 2 tablespoons of water and whisk it in, stirring gently until the soup becomes clear(ish) again.
Give an egg a sort of half assed beating and add that too, stirring all the while.

If you’re using fresh or formerly fresh asparagus, peel the tough part of the stalks away, cut it into inch-long sections, lightly steam it in a tiny bit of water and add both it and its water to the soup. If you’re using Jolly Green giant, just chuck it in as is, juice and all.

Follow it up with the crab mixture, assuming there’s any left after Old Man Triscuit’s had his way with it.

Heat it through and serve sprinkled with a sliced scallion and a handful of shredded cilantro.

∞

aspirant crab ladies ----------->
(Hey kids! Stay tuned for Nobu’s miso marinated black cod, which, much to Greg’s native Cape Codder horror, must fester for a minimum of forty-eight hours in its marinade.)

Faux Fish Pho

2006-04-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

Three excellent things about this dish in its original inception:

1. A fine excuse to drag out the bridal tureen

2. Tasted near identical to the pho we ate for breakfast in the streets of Saigon and the pho we ate for dinner in that strip mall south of Argyle St. in Chicago

3. Made Greg very nervous even though the recipe insisted that an application of boiling broth would “cook” the raw ground beef at the bottom of the tureen.

I missed this dish and it only took me three years to figure out that diced salmon could probably stand in for ground beef. The light bulb over my head picked a serendipitous time to turn on, given that there was some lemongrass approaching middle age in the vegetable bin and Fish Tales wouldn’t close for another 45 minutes or so. It still filled up the tureen, tasted as good as I remembered and most rewardingly, made Greg a bit squirmy at the top.

Salmon Pho

Skin and dice 1/2 pound of salmon – the fresher the better. What you don’t want is the joke so beloved to my nasty boss at Showstopper costumes, the one about the blind man who, passing by the fish market, doffs his hat and calls out, “Mornin’, girls!”

Combine it with
1 small minced onion
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
and a reasonable amount of fresh ground pepper
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge.

Soak 1/2 ounce of rice vermicelli noodles – bean thread noodles, glass noodles, whatever you want to call them, just give ‘em a tepid water bath for 20 minutes.

Grate enough fresh ginger to yield 1 teaspoon – if it helps, I’m 5’7, weigh something in the neighborhood of 140 pounds and one of my thumbs is equivalent to the amount of ginger called for in this recipe.

Get out a big saucepan – like 4 quarts big – and heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Toss in the ginger and 1/3 cup of long grain, uncooked white rice. Stir for a minute or two until the rice puffs up a bit and smells good. (If it starts to turn golden, don’t wait around for it to puff up, because odds are it won’t – no biggie.)

Add 7 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, throw a lid halfway on, and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, thin-slice enough lemongrass to yield a tablespoon. Forget about thumbs, if you strip off the tough outer leaves, the bottom third of a stalk ought to do you.

Mince two large cloves of garlic (which, I totally interpret to mean three.)

Heat another tablespoon of vegetable oil in a small skillet, and fry the lemongrass and garlic over low heat for a minute or two, just enough to release the fragrance and give it the beginnings of a tan.

When the timer sounds, add the lemongrass mixture to the broth, along with
3 tablespoons of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt.
Drain the rice vermicelli , chop it into 2-inch lengths, and throw that in too.
Bring it back to a boil.

Transfer the marinated salmon to the bridal tureen.
Pour the boiling broth over the salmon. Wait, aren’t you going to cook it!? Hell no! Now be quiet, or I'll get distracted and scald my arm off.

Naturally, you will have budgeted your time in such a way that you’re not running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to pull together a garnish plate consisting of
2 tablespoons of roasted peanuts, chopped fine
2 thin-sliced scallions
A handful of shredded cilantro
And some sort of hot sauce, though yesterday, I found I preferred it without.

Yields six servings, which was the perfect amount for me and Greg.

∞

Little fool thinks the adults’ food is “nasty”. Of course, he also said a certain female classmate is his favorite because she gives him “nasty” kisses, so I’m a bit stumped as to the math, here.

Here's wherefrom I got the original:

Chili of the Sea

2006-03-28T10:07:00.000-08:00

Every time Greg goes out of town, I get big ideas about making good on my threat to paint the office a bright shade of snow pea or subject my temporarily single self to that crazy Master Cleanse fast where the only thing you get to “eat” is lemon water flavored with cayenne pepper and grade B maple syrup. Just imagine the expression on his face when he traipses in from LA or London or wherever to find me bouncing quarters off my abs and the Mac drizzled a nice spring-y green. I must be getting old because this trip, I couldn’t even get it together to apply the purple Manic Panic I purchased on a whim the day after I left. (The sales boy offered to teach me how to bleach out the brunette before laying down my grape streaks, but it wasn’t necessary as nature has already taken care of that step.) A lot of stuff piled up on the table, but not much of it was edible.

I just couldn't get it up to cook anything more involved than mac and cheese on plastic plates, though I did manage to delay the children’s dinner & alarm the neighbors for a good half an hour by balancing on the arms of my beloved 40th birthday chair, photographing a few items I couldn’t resist picking up en route to the Vegetarian Dim Sum House. I'm a slave to art!

And, you'll notice, a green papaya salad, which only set me back five bucks at the Bangkok Grocery. It came packed with peanuts, salt, and a little rubberbanded baggie of chili oil that made me totally homesick for Thailand, until I unwisely upended it over the whole kaboodle, forgetting my gringo origins. To quote Bumblebee Man, "Ay! No me gusto!" Well, actually, I did kind of gusto it, but I'm not sure it was worth the bleeding ulcer it tore into my stomach lining.

Hey, would you just look at the size of that wooden spoon! Milo tried to confiscate it for some yet-to-be-disclosed evil, but I was like, “Take a number, bud.” I got it at this truly amazing restaurant supply I blundered into on Bowery – they had rat traps stored next to mah jong sets and these enormous cast iron woks more equal to the task of stir-frying your average three-year-old... It's called Hung Chong Imports, 14 Bowery. You can even get you one of them waffle iron thingamajigs that makes those mini egg-cakes at once, though why bother when there's a guy selling them 20 for a dollar just up the block?

Well, anyhoo, he's back in town, just in time for me to split for North Carolina, but we did manage to squeeze in some seafood chili. I know, it sounds industrial strength grody, but you don't eat it with your ears, so simmer down. It makes me yearn to be sitting under a palapa out Mexico way and if I could say something in Thai here, I probably would.

Chili of the Sea

Heat 1/8 cup of olive oil the big stockpot that is the sole piece of bridal Calphalon to survive a decade (oh hell, a couple of months) of your cooking with its anodized finish intact.
Add a bay leaf,
2 chopped up poblano peppers (seeds removed),
a small yellow onion, also chopped up,
a tablespoon or so of minced garlic,
1/2 tablespoon of thyme (or whatever that green stuff is that you stuck in an unlabeled babyfood jar last year and eventually started to call Herbes de Provence),
a 1/2 tablespoon of oregano,
1 teaspoon of cumin,
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne
and 1/4 cup of chili powder (you heard me)

Wrest your wooden spoon from one of the small elves infesting your apartment, open a window and stir that edible sawdust for a good 3 minutes.

Stir in a couple of soup spoons of tomato paste and cook 3 more minutes.

Add 1 & 1/2 cups of fish stock (which in my book translates to 1 & 1/2 cups of water and a Knorr fish bouillon cube)
the juice of one lime
a cup of canned black beans (rinse the unspeakable slime off first0
a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes (if you're feeling gourmet, pay a little extry for the fire roasted kind)
and about ten bucks worth of seafood (This go round, I chopped up a fillet of tilapia, and tossed it in, along with a small container of bay scallops and half a package of frozen salad shrimp.

Get busy with the salt and pepper, then bring the whole shebang to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 10 minutes over low heat.

Garnish with sour cream, sliced up scallions, a plastic fireman's helmet, whatever says chili to you.

This'll serve 3 adults, all of whom want seconds. If they're still hungry after that, they can start spreading sour cream on whatever they pull from the cabinets, a la Greg.

∞

What's he so happy about?

Salmon and Taters with Dijon Broth

2006-03-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

Things just ain't the same without Daddy. For one thing, we don't eat nearly as well. Not that I don't enjoy a temporary vacation from the drudgery of the kitchenette, but just because I canuse his absence as an excuse to sup on nothing but edamame, cheap Spanish red, and the dregs of Halloween candy, doesn't mean I should.

Jesus, he's only been gone two days. He'll come home to find my bleached skeleton, picked clean by the feral young.

Anyhoo, the last meal we shared was a very satisfactory adaptation from this month's Bon Apetit.

Salmon and Taters with Dijon Broth

Boil 3/4 pound of little red new potatoes for about 12 minutes, until you can pierce them easily with a fork. Drain, return to the pot to dry, then cut 'em in half.

Melt a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of canola oil in a heavy skillet over a high flame.

Season up a couple of half pound salmon filets with salt and pepper, then lay them in the skillet, after four mintues, turn 'em over and let 'em swelter for another two minutes.

Transfer the cooked salmon to a baking dish and surround them with taters.

Slice a big shallot, and boil it in a heavy saucepan with a table spoon of apple cider vinegar and a cup of pinot grigio. Let it boogie for the ten minutes or so it will take to reduce itself to a half cup's worth. Breathe in those pleasantly alcoholic vapors and meditate on Anthony Bourdain's comment that the one of the few differences between a professional chef and a talented amateur is the amount of shallots they go through in a week. I think that's what he said. My mother ran off with my copy and when I went back to Zionsville this past Thanksgiving, I noticed it permanently ensconced between Maeve Binchy and When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. (I like to think that when I am an old woman, I shall wear leather and enjoy the company of men some forty years my junior, but there's no accounting for literary taste.)

Pick up your mental machete and prepare to start bushwhacking away from Bon Apetit's preordained path with 3/4 cup of vegetable broth courtesy of a Knorr bouillion cube and slightly less than a tablespoon of dried rosemary, because Jim and Andy's, the old man produce market was unexpectedly closed (I hope this doesn't mean what I think it might mean) and Pacific Green may be the only game in town to stock poblano peppers but apparently, fresh tarragon is an unknown commodity there, and once you've hauled it 2 blocks over and 5 blocks over, closer now to home than Met Foods, do you really want to retrace your route? Hell, no. Rosemary's great. Wouldn't it be awesome if your old dried-up Christmas tree was really rosemary? Every January, you could sweep up another lifetime supply.

Oh right, the broth and the rosemary. Add them to the sauce pan.

Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon? Good, add a 1/2 tablespoon of that to the saucepan, too, and bring it just to a boil, then pour over the the salmon and the taters and put that baking dish in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Five minutes before your timer's due to go off, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy skillet, chuck in a container of baby spinach and stir fry it for a minute to wilt, then divide between two shallow serving bowls. (The only kind of salmon my children will entertain is a la Sven Holmberg, so I only made two portions, but you can double, quadruple, hell, octuple as you see fit.) Top each bowl with a salmon filet than share out the potatoes and broth and for god's sake, don't go prissing things up with a tarragon twig. Don't even wipe the rim of the bowl!

∞