Bad Home Cooking

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?

Cookin' up a banner...

The talented, brilliant (and stunning!) Elfini and I are trying to work up a new banner for Bad Home Cooking. One that looks sorta professional. But you know. These things take time, and several efforts.

Patience, my darlinks. And you will soon be rewarded.

Refrigerator follies

Messy bed, messy head. I read that adage somewhere, and it stuck. I must say it makes great sense, although somehow I suspect it promises more than it delivers. I mean, my bed is often the neatest part of my house, and still my head is a mess.

If you want a glimpse inside my head, join me downstairs in the kitchen. Now take a deep breath and open my refrigerator.

OMG WTF!

If you're thinking something died and went to hell in there, you'd be right. What exactly expired, however, I can't exactly say. Because it could be any number of things, including one of my four half-used jars of jam or the tomato paste I used a tablespoon of six months ago and forgot all about. 

In my refrigerator, my desire to be thrifty collides badly with my suspect short-term memory and my lack of follow-through. When the kids don't finish their lentil soup, the remains go into storage in the refrigerator. When there's some tomato sauce left, it goes into the refrigerator. When I buy too many interesting vegetables or herbs at the farmer's market, in they go, until I can figure out what to do with them.

Except that I never figure out what to do with them. And there it all sits. Mulching. Liquifying. Growing penicillin, until the smell becomes such that I am embarrassed to open my refrigerator in the presence of non-family members. That's when I am forced to take action. Usually.

Is this TMI? I reveal this to you because it's an allegory for my life. Or maybe it's just an excuse. I am lazy and unfocused, with a heaping dollop of low self-esteem. Throughout my life I've been told I could have real talent, really create something special, if only I paid attention and followed through. Music, art, dance teachers, editors, all have echoed this exact sentiment. By all accounts, I am a fraction of what I could be.

I rationalize this by reminding myself that nobody likes a winner. And everybody would hate me if I were an organized, upbeat, can-do sorta gal with screen credits and clear skin. A strong marriage, a large home on a horse property, well-behaved children (or dogs) all sound keen on paper, I suppose, but it makes for boring copy. Why blog if you can keep on top of it all? Where's the thrill in that?

So if my head, like my refrigerator, contains too many half-eaten meals, dark jars of forgotten provenance, and adventurous cheeses gone green, I suppose that's a condition worth embracing. And meanwhile, I still have all that potential.

Tony keeps trying to help me reach that potential. He beat me to the punch this weekend and took it upon himself to make my refrigerator sparkle and shine. I keep trying to tell him that other old adage: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, but he won't hear any of it.  And indeed, it was the salt-cod he bought me, for another try at cod-cakes, tucked deep into the vegetable crisper and avoided for weeks, that was mucking up the place.

Food porn

I came downstairs to find the flamenco guitarist sitting in the kitchen, engrossed in a magazine.

"What'cha reading there, handsome?"

He looked up at me, startled, as if he hadn't heard me come in. He put the magazine down quickly and wiped his brow. "Nothing. Nothing. Um. What do you want to do for dinner tonight?"

I picked up the magazine. It was my new issue of Bon Appetit.

"Why are you reading this?" I asked. "There's nothing in here for you."

Tony shrugged. "I'm...just reading the articles..." he said.

"Uh-huh." I shook the magazine lightly so that it opened to the page where it had last been clutched. There it was. A double-truck spread with photos of a Greek-inspired feast. Dried fig souvlaki. Roasted garbanzo beans with garlic and Swiss chard. Sun-dried tomato and garlic crusted rack of lamb.

I looked at my flamenco guitarist. "This is food porn," I said.

He shook his head, looking at me like a deer caught in the headlights. "...I..I don't know what you're talking about..."

I tore through the magazine now. He tried to grab it, but I snatched it away. I wanted to know the truth. I needed to look it in the face. The words, the recipes, the photos, oh the photos! They lay bare before me, brazen. Wanton. Fettuccine with brown butter and sage. Grilled bread with lemon confit and olives.

"You mean...you'd really want this stuff?" my voice started to quiver. "It's not real, you know. They fake the food. And they airbrush it. Real food doesn't look like this."

Spiced fresh orange and honey sorbet. Bittersweet chocolate pudding pie with creme Fraiche.  Caramel-banana bread pudding?!

"This is obscene!" I cried. "I can't believe you've been looking at this behind my back!"

"But Julie, I'm just a man!" Tony stood up and spread his hands apologetically. "I have needs! I'm weak!"

"I suppose my Tortilla isn't enough for you."

"No! It's perfect!"

"And, you know, I make a pretty decent paella, I think. But it looks like you want the professional stuff."

"Querida! It's not true! I love your cooking! You know I do!"

He sidled up from behind and held me close.

"But sometimes," he whispered in my ear, "sometimes, I fantasize about something more, it's true."

I gasped, outraged.

Hear me out, he says. "Why can't you try something a little more daring? Something a little more...complicated?"

"Like what?" I snarl.

"Like....what about that roasted garbanzo beans with garlic and chard? That looked pretty good. And you do good with garbanzos, yes?"

Well yeah, I nod. "OK. Maybe I could try that one."

"Or what about that rack of lamb? Look at the picture. Look at it!" He holds the magazine before me and I reluctantly look up at the juicy chops. "Isn't that gorgeous?" he says. "Think of what it must taste like. Can't you try it just once? For me?"

I admit that it looks beautiful. I admit that if I closed my eyes and had the recipe read to me, slowly and deeply, I could experience...oral satisfactions of the sort that can't be described in a family blog. I admit that maybe I've been too tame in my attempts to cook. Maybe I should try to be more...adventurous. More open-minded.

"But I've never cooked rack of lamb," I say. "I wouldn't even know where to buy rack of lamb. And what's trimmed and Frenched mean, anyway? Is that like a Brazilian wax?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I don't know either. Maybe you'd better start dating a chef."

"Baby, don't say that."

We sit pouting in silence. I am ready to concede defeat in this arena. I know that just about everything between the glossy pages of Bon Appetit is beyond my abilities, and who am I, a bad home cook, to even deign an effort.

But then a little voice inside me says:

Think of the blog fodder.

Damn it. I'm so weak. Stay tuned.

Do you tofu?

Let's all be honest with each other. Nobody really *likes* tofu, do they? Nobody smacks their lips at the thought of eating a moist, quivering slab of tofu, like they would perhaps a delicious, tangy slice of feta cheese? Even the name tofu is an exotic masking of the unpleasant truth: What we're really eating here is fermented bean curd.

But we all want to like tofu. It's healthy! One of the most versatile foodstuffs around. And so Zen!

And yet, tofu has never worked for me. I ambitiously buy blocks of the stuff, intending to make economical and tasty dishes my kids might eat, such as stir fry, but too often I push 90% of the block into the deepest recesses of my fridge, where it turns into that-which-cannot-be-named, and I must use tongs to throw it out.

I have had some pleasant experiences with tofu. There was a vegetarian Chinese restaurant in San Francisco that made a delicious duck dish, (starring tofu as the duck), and in most better sushi bars they'll happily let you sample the tofu they make themselves; often it's creamier and tastier than what you can find in the stores. My mother-in-law in London marinates thin slabs of tofu in something or another before frying it up and making it actually sort of tasty, although I have never been able to recreate this result for myself.

I was once a vegetarian, and I have many vegetarian and vegan friends. They insist (often voraciously) that tofu is marvelous. I can live on beans and rice until my dying day. I will happily agree that salad can be made delicious. I could easily agree to never put another piece of meat in my mouth. But you can't convince me about the tofu.

In the end, tofu mocks me for not being up to its challenge. And I am resentful.

In a twist of irony, however, both my children seem to like tofu, especially when it's in small chunks floating in miso soup. Sometimes they come to blows over who gets more pieces. They have asked me what the brownish lumps in my stir fry are and because I can't think of a better lie, I admit that it's tofu. And they still eat it. Sometimes they ask for more.

Clearly they don't yet understand what tofu actually is. I am not going to be the one who informs them. Don't let me catch you ratting me out, either. Or I'll come over to your house and cook you dinner.

Julie's Sorta OK tofu stir fry

Get your wok out. Or a wide frying pan.

Buy a block of extra firm tofu. Cut one-third into little cubes, best you can. Wrap up the remaining two-thirds and put in the back bottom shelf of your refrigerator.

Pour soy sauce over the chopped tofu. If you've planned ahead, marinate this for a few hours in the fridge. If, like me, you don't believe in planning ahead, "marinate" for a few minutes before throwing it into the wok.

Get two tablespoons of peanut oil good and hot. Saute some garlic, a little ginger and a a couple of chopped green onions. Toss in your tofu.

Throw in some chopped veggies that are Chinese-ish in nature: Snap peas, red pepper slices, water chestnuts and those little baby corns you can buy in cans. Saute this for a few minutes.

Keep stirring. Add a tablespoon or two of soy sauce. Saute some more.

Serve over rice with kid-friendly chopsticks.

Yeah well?

Here's a contest idea: Make the Bad Home Cook like Tofu.

The winner gets the dubious honor of having me cook, botch, and write up your recipe on this very blog.

C'mon. Show me what you got...

 

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.

The temptations

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

Dare I apply?

Meat and greet

It goes without saying that I am a feminist. But there are some jobs that are just better suited to the menfolk. BBQing is one of them.

Tony brought down his "smoker" for my last BBQ, and it's been sitting on my patio since then. So when my mom friend Lynn suggested getting together for dinner and a playdate the other day (our sons are in the same first grade class together), I readily agreed. "Maybe we can BBQ some hamburgers," she said. And then she gave me that look.

"Can we do that, do you think?"  I asked.

She paused. "I don't know. Maybe. Heck, I don't see why not. Have you ever BBQ'd before?"

"No. You?"

"No."

And we looked at each other.

"Well hell," I said. "We're smart, capable women. How hard can it be?"

So Lynn arrived Thursday afternoon with her two kids, all their Pokemon cards, a salad and a dozen CostCo frozen hamburgers. I had washed the grill, emptied the last of the easy-light charcoal into the bin of the smoker and thrown a few matches in, hoping they would catch. To my delight, they did. I was greatly pleased with myself. This would be a cinch.

As the fire burned down and the coals turned gray, we poured some wine, got the water on for the corn on the cob, and started making the salad. Then we sat and watched our kids playing, and drank some more wine.

An hour later, we realized maybe it was time to grill those burgers. Maybe it was more than an hour. We found the grill not as hot as it should be. In fact, it was downright lukewarm. Whoops.

We made several off-color jokes about how if only we had certain adult toys that can't be mentioned by name in a family blog, we might not be making these stupid mistakes.

But being women (and mothers), we pressed forward, determined to do our best with what we had. We put the hamburgers on. Ten minutes later, they still hadn't cooked. We called Tony for a consultation. "You let the coals go too long, he said. "Put the top on, but just for a minute. It'll give the burgers a nice, smoky flavor."

We put the top on. The hamburgers sizzled and dripped fat onto the coals. It seemed like it was taking an awfully long time. We finally started turning them and proceeded to drop one through the grill and onto the charcoal. We fished it out with tongs and washed it off. "I'll take that one," said Lynn.

We watched. We waited. We drank some more wine.

"I don't think it's supposed to take this long," I opined.

"No," she said.

The burgers finally cooked. The kids, who had filled up by this time on corn on the cob and cookies, each ate half of one.

We ate all of ours. It was the least we could do after this pathetic show of masculinity.

We positively glowed with estrogen, though, when it came to the salad. Lynn brought her kick-ass glazed pecan salad. Here's the recipe:

GLAZED PECANS

1T Butter
2T Sugar
2 tsp. Water
1 C. Pecans (whole or pieces) lightly toasted
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Add the sugar and water, stirring to combine.  Cook until the sugar is dissolved and becomes bubbly.  Stir in the pecans, coating well, cook until mixture browns and caramelizes.  Remove from heat and spread onto a baking sheet to cool completely.

BALSAMIC V. DRESSING

3 T Balsamic Vinegar
6 T EV Olive Oil
1 large clove garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp dry basil
1/4 tsp pepper

Throw this over a salad of baby greens. Add sliced pears and cranberries for extra tangy goodness.

Lesson learned: Next time, use fresh meat for the burgers. Don't drink so much wine. Pay more attention to the coals. And don't forget the strap-on.

Bad graphic designer

Forgive me. I'm trying. Really. I want this blog to look nice for y'all. And I dipped into it today aiming to achieve that very goal. Tragically, much like my cooking, I really, truly suck at graphic design. Several hours of trying to find just the right font and a better shade of puke color, I gave up and went to ballet class to sweat out my frustration.
In other words, gentle readers, stay tuned while I continue to futz with BHC. I'll get it right eventually.