Bad Home Cooking

Books to chew on

I've got a lot of catching up to do. In cooking skills. In reading. I don't have the brain cells for much of either these days.

Which doesn't mean I don't have a stack o' books on my floor, many of them having to do with food. The thinking is that if I can plow my way through these, I might have more of a bead on my ongoing attempts at culinary competence.

My Life in France, by Julia Child -- Oh, to be a 6-foot American woman in France in the 50s. Maybe then I wouldn't be so scared of the French. I keep trying to work my way through this book, but I keep coming up against the unpronounceable...

Fork it Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater, by Alan Richman. Funny stuff by GQ's food critic, who, if I'm to believe the first few stories, is a neurotic mama's boy who can't boil water himself.

Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses, by Isabel Allende -- Food, sex. Sex, food. Two of my favorite topics.

Third Helpings, by Calvin Trillin -- The book's about 20 years old, but anything this well-known, very funny New Yorker writer pens is worth digesting.

Letters to a Young Chef, by Daniel Bouloud -- A delicious peek into what it would take to become a world-famous chef...and proof beyond doubt that I don't have it. Still, I'm always one to live vicariously if I can.

Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess, by Gael Greene -- New York Magazine's food critic takes a romp through her days covering the Foodie Revolution, whatever that is. As debauched as Richman is straight-laced.  I wonder if they ever met?

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as a Kitchen Slave...etc., by Bill Bufurd. Editor meets Mario Batali. Editor decides he wants to learn how to be a chef. Wacky hi-jinx ensue.

It must Have been Something I ate, by Jeffery Steingarten -- Vogue's food writer. Bodacious. Blue-blooded. And smarter than you. Fabulously bitchy essays on everything from gourmet salts to Toro sushi.

Tender at the Bone, by Ruth Reichl -- I read this years ago, but it's one of those books I enjoyed so much I keep it around just to relive the pleasure of reading certain passages. One day I may even try her recipe for apple dumplings and hard sauce. And won't that be a hoot?

The Art of Eating, by M.F.K. Fisher -- The Bible of foodie books. The book I should have read years ago. But I keep having to return it to the library. With all the late fees I've paid on this one, I could have bought my own copy by now.

Another book I don't have, but want, even though it's not going to do me any good at all, is Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen.

I pick through all of these whenever I have a minute or two to spare. Something may rub off on me if I keep them piled on the floor long enough. What do you all think? Am I missing some essential foodie tome here?

For you, a nice matzo ball.

Pesach snuck up on me this year, and given present circumstances, a seder of my own can't be managed. I did say, "next year at Greenblatt's" didn't I? I don't know if that will happen either.

No matter. Sit down. For you, a nice matzo ball. Blog roundup, that is.

Erick at the Black Table presents the ultimate How to make the proper Matzo Ball Soup.

Deb at Smitten Kitchen presents her mouth-watering fare here.

Adam Roberts (The Amateur Gourmet) soothes his savage cold with these babies.

Take a breather here and read about the matzo shortage in the New York Times. Such tsuris.

How to make a matzo ball - and why - from Judaism 101.

Ed Levine tells us about the best Passover Take-Out (so far).

Tonight I made the kids something out of a Manischevitz box, which, if you're to believe the stories out there, isn't such a crime after all.  They fell on it like starving people, which was very gratifying. Or maybe they were just hungry. I'll attempt something a little more ambitious, maybe, later this week. We'll see. 

Nisht gegehrlach, nu?

Guilt glop: Bowtie pasta with pesto, sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts

Another Wednesday. I arrive home with both kids in tow from their various activities, a handful of drycleaning and a mouthful of mail. I throw it all on the couch and rush to get the dinner/homework festivities started when my friend Deb drops in.

Naturally we get to talking, and I offer her up some cheese, some crackers, some oranges, and a little wine.

And just as naturally, the rest of the evening is spent drinking said wine, shrieking and laughing and generally annoying the two kids, who complain that they can't hear the movie they're watching in the next room. At about eight they inquire about dinner. Dinner? I wave them off. "Just eat some cereal!" I tell them, and return to my conversation. I never even ask them about their homework.

Bad mommy.

The next day, full of remorse, I go to Trader Joe's with the intent of buying some favored something for their meal - a real meal - that night. The guy at the sample counter was whipping up something that smelled delicious and had drawn a small crowd around his booth.

Bow tie pasta with chopped artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes and pesto. Oooh. That could work.

But when I ask him how he made the topping, which was tangy and full of flavor, he shrugs. "I dunno," he says. "You just sorta chop it all up and mix them together."

No no no no. I can't do that kind of thing without a roadmap of some sort. When I press for some basic instruction on how to "just chop it all up and mix them together," I get this advice: "Drain the artichoke hearts first. They come in liquid." Thanks, pal. Nothing further is offered.

Well dang. How hard can it be after all? I buy the ingredients, plus some pasta seasoning, just in case, and proceed home.

The beauty of TJs is they make it easy for you (for you, please note. Not me.) They sell everything in little jars or cans. And so, operating under the delusion that this is a dish so simple even I can make it, I drain my little can of artichoke hearts and chop my little slivers of sun-dried tomatoes from a jar. And things look promising in the beginning.

Then I get ambitious and decide to add toasted pine nuts to the mix, even though, yes I know, pesto has pine nuts in it. I then discover that pine nuts can actually go over, if you leave them in the bag on the counter, as I do.

Scratch that plan. Walnuts! Walnuts are good toasted. Full of flavor and various healthy things.

The thing about toasting walnuts, however, is that by the time you smell them, they're already scorched.

I ignore what the Universe is trying to tell me and turn to my mixing bowl. I throw everything in, and try to channel the spirits of all great home cooks to inform of how much pesto to add to the mix. I dollop in two teaspoons. Then three.

The result: Glop. It doesn't look remotely like what the guy at TJ's made. But it doesn't taste bad. I throw some seasoning on top of it to kick up the flavor. I spoon it over the pasta and serve it to the kids.

To her great credit, the girl eats with gusto and runs off to finish her homework. The boy, however, ingests two bowtie pastas, carefully wiping off the offending glop with a paper towel, and then informs me that he'd had three granola bars at Spanish that afternoon and wasn't hungry.

Lessons from this Wednesday night experiment: Don't experiment. Go with the old tried-and-true. And try not to forget the Two-Buck-Chuck next time. Guilt be damned.

It's a guac: My second attempt at good guacamole

The last time I tried to make guacamole, I was living in New York City and prepping to watch the Superbowl with a gaggle of grad school friends. "I'll make the guacamole," I chirped, "because I'm from California!"

Only a few short hours later I realized that I'd held up the stereotype of the dumb blonde from L.A., by dint of even attempting guacamole in New York in January. The only avocados I could find were $6 apiece and hard as granite. The delicious Superbowl dip I'd hyped with such bravado came up short in every way possible. And I wasn't even a blonde at the time.

Arrrg. Never mind that guacamole is one of those party favors everyone has a secret recipe for, like chili. Also one of those dishes everyone can make. You learn in college, along with English lit and Poli Sci 101 and Partying 210. Once again, however, I did not get the memo. Or the syllabus.

Fast forward some 15 years or so. My seven-year-old son comes home from Spanish class with a little Tupperware container filled with delicious guacamole. "I helped!" he told me, all excited. "Can we make some more tonight?" He hands me the recipe on a little slip of paper. Of course, I chirp again. I love that my kid is enthusiastic about making something in the kitchen. I make a special trip to the store on the way home to buy serrano chiles and tomatoes and cilantro.

The recipe:
2 ripe avocados
1/2 red onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
1-2 serrano chiles, stems and seeds removed, minced
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lime or lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon course salt
dash of freshly-grated black pepper
1/2 ripe tomato, seeds and pulp removed, chopped.

All of this would seem straightforward, written in my native language of English and all. However, I apparently can't see the word "mince." I don't really know how to mince. I have a chef's knife. Two, in fact. But I don't know how to use them. The best I can do with "mince" is "un-symmetrically-chop."

The limes I bought mysteriously don't have any juice in them. Not a drop. I substitute lemon juice from one of those plastic lemon containers and accidentally squirt waaaayyyy too much into the glop.

Also, although I know what happens when you handle chiles and touch your eyes, I don't warn my son strongly enough. He chops two chiles himself (not knowing what mince means either, and besides, he's only 7), then rubs his eyes and face, which then puff up red and cause him to run through the apartment in great pain and anguish, and altogether not in the mood for guacamole and chips. I run after him with a cold washcloth, because I don't know what the hell I'm doing, in the kitchen or in minor medical emergencies.

The end result of this grand second experiment with guacamole: Green goop that's too spicy with big chunks of onion in it. All of our gringo tongues were on fire after a few bites, and nobody wanted anything more to do with it. It sits as I write this in a container in the fridge, destined, sometime this week, for the garbage bin.

Dare I even attempt this most basic dish again? Are there any secrets out there anyone cares to impart to me?

Chocolatey-Goodness: Brownies that worked

I'd like you to tell me how I'm supposed to lose ten pounds if I keep eating brownies.

I wouldn't normally have such rich, delicious, calorie-laden fare at home, but the girl announced she wanted to make fudge, and in an effort to mitigate that potential disaster...I offered to make brownies.

The kids have been swooning. They are taking multiple brownies to school to trade for various goods and services. They want me to make more. Alas, I have eaten several, (as evidenced by my disappearing waistline) I am down to one, which I dare not eat.

I found the recipe in Cook's Illustrated New Best Recipe book. As I've said before, I appreciate the fact that they take all the mystery out of how to make a recipe work. Unfortunately, they haven't quite idiot-proofed it enough for me.

They promised the perfect brownie. Not too fudgey. Not too cakey. My brownies, however, turned out on the fudgey side. Presuming I did everything right (a foolish presumption indeed), we can then only suppose that Cook's and I have differing tastes in brownies. My "perfect" brownie is rather more cakey, with a slight crust to bite though before I get to the chewy, chocolatey goodness within.

No matter. The audience here was the kids, and they fell over themselves at first tasting. And making the things involved my cooking down chocolate and butter in a jimmy-rigged double boiler, which was great fun and made me feel like a pastry chef. I got to use parchment paper as well. Always a thrill at my house. I made a real mess of it.

Here's the recipe: Excerpted from The New Best Recipe (Cook's Illustrated), page 810.

1 cup pecans or walnuts (optional - I was going to use walnuts but my daughter objected)
11/4 cups plain cake flour (I used regular flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 tsp. baking powder
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine
1 1/2 sticks of butter, cut into six or more pieces
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

I'm not gonna explain the parchment paper here other than to say you fold two sheets of it to assist in removing the brownies from the pan later. Figure it out.

Toast the nuts if you're using them.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt and baking powder until combined. Set aside

In a BIG heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (yeah, good luck with this.), melt the chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally until smooth. Gradually whisk in the sugar, and then add the eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly combined. Add vanilla. Add the flour in three parts. Did I mention you need a big bowl? (I had to change bowls twice)

Pour into the prepared 13 X 9-inch pan (spray with cooking oil first, then set the parchment paper inside with enough hanging over the edge to grab and pull). Sprinkle the toasted walnuts on top if using. Bake in the middle rack of the oven for 30-35 minutes at 325 degrees.

There is some persnicketyness about doneness.  Use the toothpick test before you take these out of the oven. If under-baked (the toothpick has batter clinging to it) the brownies will be dense and gummy (I think that's what I did wrong). If over-baked, (dry toothpick), you'll have dry and cakey brownies.

Let these cool on a wire rack, still in the pan, for about two hours. Then remove from the pan, using your parchment paper pull, and cut into squares. You can put these in Tupperware and keep, or you can put them on your table and they'll disappear mysteriously.

Who wants the last brownie?