Bad Home Cooking

Next week's challenge: California-style Paella...

I have one word for you:

Yeah, right.

Sorry, that's two words.

But that was my response when the flamenco guitarist sent me this article in today's Food section of the Los Angeles Times. "I know you don't care for paella, but take a look at this..."

Wow. The instructions for a California-style paella that the writer, Leslie Brenner, swore was easy enough to make. Although I'm not a huge paella fan, I have to say that her excitement and vim had me salivating.

Paella is a Spanish dish that usually, but not always, includes a variety of seafood, including shrimp, which I can't eat because it makes me break out in hives. It's basically a rice and saffron-based meal cooked slowly in a signature paella pan.

I've had paella twice. Once my friend Javier made it for me, because I'd spent two weeks editing his scholarly paper on the ancient Elemites. That he and his wife spent all day making it on the crappy two-burner electric stoves our student family apartments came equipped with made it all the more impressive. And yes, it was very tasty. And I even ate the shrimp, to disastrous results.

I had it again in Spain, where I found it entirely too salty.

Up until now, I've viewed this traditional dish as something with way too much pomp and history for me to be interested in. Never mind that it always seemed vastly beyond my abilities to attempt. I can't even say paella correctly. Pie-ay-a?

But now the gauntlet has been thrown. The flamenco guitarist says he'll even get me a paella pan this weekend. And buy the ingredients.

I'm doing this because the recipe in the Times' article did sound tasty. And because I do like a challenge, when I'm up to it. And because Tony is always on me to cook him something Spanish. And because, frankly, think of the blog potential here.

Wish me luck, folks. And stay tuned.

Lemon love

When life hands you lemons, forget the lemonade. Make Lemon lentils! Lemon lentils are creamy and tangy at the same time. They are good for you. Spoon them over rice and they are a complete protein. Plus they give your kitchen that come-hither aroma.

Lemon Lentils will always make you happy.

When they turn out, of course.

Lemon lentils are not unusual. You can find dozens of recipes on the Internets. This one, however, was bestowed upon me by an unlikely source: A Mormon couple with four kids who lived in our student family housing compound at Berkeley. They were very smart...and very devout. They also had a thing for home-cooked Indian fare. For some reason this struck us funny, as if conservative folks can't have exotic tastes (which we know isn't true. Just look at Pastor Ted Haggard). Every time our courtyard had a potluck, this couple would trot out some delicious Indian fare or another. A favorite was the lemon lentils.

After much nagging on my part, they gave me their recipe. Here it is, adapted from The Best of Craig Clairborne cookbook. This recipe serves 12, I usually halve everything when I make it for dinner for my family.

Limbo dal (Lemon Lentils)

1/1/4 cups peanut, vegetable or corn oil (peanut oil gives this the best taste, I think)

2 onions, halved and thinly sliced (about 1 1/2 cups)

4 (2-inch pieces) cinnamon sticks

2 pounds red lentils (the kind you can find in bulk at Indian food stores). Rinse and pick over until water runs clear.

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger

5 cups fresh or canned chicken broth (Trader Joe's version is good here)

5 cups water

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon cayenne

juice of one lemon plus pulp and shell (I cut it in half and squeeze, and cook the two halves in the dal)

1/2 cup chopped onion (for topping)

1 garlic clove, finely minced

1 hot green chile, chopped, with seeds (I omit this usually)

4 bay leaves

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat 3/4 cup of the oil in a large saucepan and add the sliced onions. Cook to wilt, and add the cinnamon pieces and the lentils. Add the ginger and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes. Add the broth, water, cayenne and salt to taste. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the lemon juice, pulp and shell and cook for about 50 minutes longer, stirring often.

In a separate skillet, heat the remaining 1/2 cup oil and add the chopped onion, garlic, chile and bay leaves. Cook, stirring, until the onions are browned. Add this mixture, including the oil, to the lentils. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve hot.

This goes great over basmati rice, cooked with some butter or ghee.

Learn from my past mistakes: Make sure you use chicken broth. Vegetable broth will make it taste gross. And make sure you STIR often. Otherwise it starts to clump and it won't turn out creamy.

The temptations

The American Egg Board is looking for the Worst Cook in America.

Dare I apply?

Mistakes were made: Spaghetti cacio e pepe (with cheese globs)

Practice makes perfect, yes? Except maybe not in my case. Better advice for me might be: Quit when you're ahead.

The April 25th L.A. Times Food Section featured a simple recipe that caught my eye. Spaghetti with crushed black pepper and pecorino cheese. It sounded just right. The writer, Leslie Brenner, raved about its delicious simplicity.

So I tried it on myself, to impressive results. I ate it out of a big bowl on the couch in front of the TV one night. And it was good. But if you make and consume something delicious by yourself, does it count? Do you get credit for having made something extraordinary? If a tree falls in the forest.....

No way, baby. I wanted credit for this superb new pasta dish of mine. I have a great need for almost constant validation.

Enter Tony, my ever-willing guinea pig.  A little gun shy around spices, I showed him the article before embarking. I've made it before, I told him. And it's a lovely, creamy, cheesy, elegant pasta dish with a little kick of pepper. Tony nodded happily. He was starving, he said. And game. 

First mistake: Never boast. Not when you're a Bad Home Cook. It merely attracts the attention of the Kitchen Gods, who then collect above your stove, waiting for the fun to start. By feeling cocky in my ability to recreate this dish, I'd already set the stage for disaster.

Here's the recipe: From the new cookbook, Lidia's Italy: 140 Simple and Delicoius Recipes from the Ten Places in Italy Lidia Loves Most, by Lidia Matticchio, who apparently now has a cooking show of similar description.

Salt for the pasta water

2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns or more to taste

1 pound spaghetti

1 1/2 cups freshly grated pecorino cheese, or more to taste.

Bring a big pot of slated water to boil. Meanwhile, grind the peppercorns very coarsely, preferably crushing them in a mortar or spice grinder.

Warm up a big bowl for mixing (you can apparently use some of the pasta water for this...?) Cook the pasta until al dente, then quickly lift if from the pot with tongs. Let it drip briefly, then transfer into the warm bowl.

Immediately scatter a cup of the grated cheese and most of the ground pepper into the pasta, and toss. As you toss, sprinkle over spoonfuls of hot water from the cooking pot to moisten and amalgamate the pasta and condiments.

Could this be any easier?

Alas. There were ominous signs that this wouldn't reach its full potential right from the start. No sooner had I started to pull out the pasta with the tongs than I realized I'd forgotten to salt the water.

The kids were running in and out. Tony was telling me something about work. The kitchen iPod was playing something fun. All standard Monday-evening fare. But apparently I can't hold a conversation and cook at the same time. Not even something simple, like pasta. I didn't even have a glass or two of wine to blame.

I plopped the pasta into a big bowl I hadn't bothered to warm because, frankly, I didn't know how. I threw in a tablespoon of crushed peppercorns and 3/4 cups of grated cheese.

Second mistake: Get fresh ingredients. Black peppercorns and grated pecorino and Romano cheese from Trader Joe's are arguably better than table pepper and Kraft Parmesan in a can, but they're no match for the real, whole foods. I could have gone to Bristol Farms and bought a $7 bottle of peppercorns to grind in my mortar, and an $10 wedge of imported pecorino. But would it have improved the end result? Not in my case.

Tony tucked into his bowl. "Ooh. Peppery." He's a wimp when it comes to this sorta thing, so I tried a swirl myself. Ouch. Peppery.

"Sorry about that," I said.

"No, no, no problem," he said, taking another mouthful.

He chewed. "Well, it's got a real kick, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, that's a kick all right."

Third mistake: No sense of proportion. My proportions are always off. I didn't cook a pound of pasta, per the recipe, so the other measurements were off. I used too much pepper. And not enough cheese. Or maybe too much cheese. Who the hell knows?

He coughed a little. He cleared his throat. Finished the water in his glass. Looking like a man who's taking it like a man, he raised his fork for another go. Then he stopped short.

"What is this?" Tony pointed at a lump in the bowl.

"It's cheese."

"I thought it was a piece of chicken or something."

"No. There's no chicken in this dish. Just pasta, cheese and pepper."

"Oh." He put down his fork.

Crickets.

We sat quietly. Each of us carefully inspecting the table in front of us. 

"I guess some of the cheese didn't melt right," I admitted.  "So. I guess that's just a cheese globule. Or something."

"Oh."

Fourth mistake: Learn how to make a decent cheesy sauce using hot pasta water and the cheese you've sprinkled over the pasta. This can't be hard. It's just basic chemistry. This is probably one of the first things they teach you in Italy.

Silence had descended on my kitchen. Nobody was eating anything. I had completely botched the simplest recipe in the universe. Again.

"Look," I said. "I can just boil some more water and make you plain pasta with some sauce."

Tony shook his head violently. "Oh no! No! Really. I'm almost full."

"But you were starving when you got here."

"You know, honestly? I'm eating lighter these days. This is fine." He dabbed his lips with his napkin and pushed the bowl away.

I thought about offering him him some of the microwaveable butternut squash cubes I'd made my kids eat earlier, but thought better of it.

More bread? Tea? Rolaid? He looked at me almost in relief. "Some tea would be nice, thanks."

With lots of honey, to coat the pepper.

Fifth mistake: Always have a backup. If I'd made that tortilla Espanola like I'd considered doing that afternoon, I would have had an effective and pleasant way of saving face. As it was, I've decided that I'm NOT going to be discouraged. I'm going to be pissed off enough to try this simple, three-ingredient dish again. And again if necessary until I get it down.

But I think I'll need another guinea pig.

Kitchen Goddess Three

This is the second in a series of profiles of the Kitchen Goddesses: Friends who cook and can coax major culinary experiences out of a handful of fresh produce and a few utensils. Each of these women over the years has inspired me in some way. If I can't exactly follow in their footsteps, then they've encouraged me to gimp along behind as best I can.This is the second installment of Kitchen Goddesses; Interviews with friends who can cook who have inspired me.

They say sex sells. And this is indeed a very saucy pic of my friend and Kitchen Goddess Audrey. She doesn't always dress like this, but this one of her in her Halloween costume does sort of sum her up nicely. 

I met Audrey only a few years ago when we moved back to SoCal, but in that time she has influenced me greatly with her skill in the lost womanly arts.

I admit that I didn't hold cooking, baking, sewing and other householdry arts in the highest esteem until I became a mom myself. Now I find myself in awe of them, mostly because now I know what they entail.

Audrey can not only bake a cherry pie, she will can you some persimmon jam, design and execute a renaissance faire costume for your kid you'd pay hundreds of dollars for elsewhere and keep a troop of girl scouts engaged for years at a time. She's also a fully-trained artist and designer. The Gap needs to hire her now.  I've always described her to folks as Martha Stewart, if Martha had gone to art school and was cool and funky. I admire her every ability. Audge is always encouraging me, sending me new recipes, watching my back. When I cook something she loves, I am elated.   When she invites us over for a meal, we drop everything and get there as fast as we can. She's also the gold standard when it comes to mommy-ing. "Audrey makes her kids pancakes during the week," say my kids, throwing down the gauntlet. Oh yeah?...

My favorite food memory with Audrey? That would have to be last summer, when she invited me over for her home-made, garden-grown gazpacho and crostini on her sunny, flower-covered deck. All I needed was a foot massage and it would have been Spa Audrey.

What's the first dish you remember making by yourself?
Seasoned grilled hamburger patties.

What's your earliest kitchen memory?
Writing and drawing in my journals, and making ABC books while Mama cooked dinner. I also remember my mom teaching me how to eat "like a lady" by serving me a slice of sweet potato pie and instructing me in the proper way to use a knife and fork at the table.

Who inspired your love of cooking/baking?
My mom loved to cook "Gourmet-style" meals about 10 times a year. The rest of those days were usually "diet" food. I was not a big fan of those special meals as they typically included cooked mushrooms, wild rice (which I hate to this day) or wine sauce, blehh! The baking she did on these special occasions was highly anticipated, primarily because they included fats and sugar. I completely lost control when the ingredients for these items were in the house, seeing as I was deprived of things like butter, cream, chocolate, and real table sugar 350 days out of the year.

What's your favorite dish to make right now?
I still love to bake desserts. It makes my husband feel pampered and appreciated, and I can't help but feel that he is slightly proud of himself for hitchin' up with a woman who can cook.I also love a good soup too. nourishing, warm comfort food. Served with lots of warm and crispy bread or homemade rolls... yummy!

Are you a bread person or a pie person?
Like making pies, love eating bread.

Describe a dish you botched badly.
One Christmas when I was 9 or 10 my mom gave me a book filled with crafts, games and recipes. It was illustrated with reproductions of Victorian pen and ink Christmas images. Among the recipes were how to add pizzaz to an ordinary sandwich. My mistake was trying to incorporate all the suggested ingredients at once. Ham, cheese, onions, and mustard on raisin bread just wasn't too good.

Your favorite cookbook of all time?
Fanny Farmer

If you could be anywhere in the world, eating anything you wanted, where would you be, and eating what?
Sadly, I have not traveled enough to have a satisfactory answer. Give me another 30 years and maybe my experiences will be able to compete with the fantasy meals floating around in my imagination. Although for 20 minutes I wouldn't mind going back in time to that kitchen counter and enjoying a slice of sweet potato pie with my mom.