Tag Cooking

Sugar, slice, and a couple things nice

Michael 13 Comments

It’s that time again. The dustbin of my brain needs emptying. Needs to be emptied? Whichever, it’s time to write out all those random thoughts and make room for new dreck, err, information. This time, though, we have some nice thoughts.

Let’s start with the spicier stuff! Spices.

Last week I made one of my favorite dinners. Oh, let’s be honest with each other. If it has a protein, a vegetable, and a starch, it’s one of my favorite dinners. Let’s call this one instead, one of those dinners I don’t often make and thoroughly enjoy whenever I get around to it, which might be once or twice a year – blackened catfish. When I need a blackening seasoning, I start with a commercial Cajun seasoning and add paprika, black pepper and thyme. As I was mixing my new blend I inadvertently grabbed a jar of “fish crust” instead of thyme. Fish crust is a proprietary blend used and sold by one of the local restaurants. I realized my mistake when greenish granules fell into my mix rather than the expected tannish dried flakes. Uh oh! I looked at what I was holding, glaring at the bottle that so looks like the one holding my dried thyme and asked what it thought it was doing, jumping out of the rack into my hand when I clearly called for thyme. “Dude, chill,” the traitorous container said, or so I imagined, “I got your thyme in me along with some parsley, cilantro, lemon, garlic, and salt. So it might be a little salty when it’s all done with what you’ve already out in there. Add an extra squeeze or two of lemon before you pull the fish out of the pan. Sheesh, do I have to think of everything?” And the bottle was right. It all worked out in the end and was extra yummy good.

Something else happened last week that wasn’t so fishy. Thursday I was working on the ROAMcare Motivation Moments that will hit the Internet over the next couple of months. I was stuck. I had a whole day with nothing to do but write as much as I wanted, and I couldn’t put two words together. I ran out of motivation to continue. You may remember not long ago I wrote here in the RRSB post Motivating the Motivators that I had worried that might happen some day. “There was a time when I thought that eventually we would run out of motivation. ‘Who is going to motivate the motivators?’ I would ask.” But then I confidently followed that up with, “but that thought was fleeting.” Fleeting my eye. Where were all the thoughts now. So I did what I usually do when I need a little extra oomph. I went off to read some old Motivating Moments. Sure enough, I found one to work for me in that moment. Two actually, one right after the other. The first reminded me that, “A good day isn’t just about hitting the high points. It’s about making it through the low ones too!” By gosh by golly, I had done a lot that day. I was just in a low point. I could climb out of it, or just hang around there and do something else until my brain re-opened for business. And if I didn’t, well, I had done a lot of work and there will be motivating moments still for weeks with what I’d already put in the can. And just as I was about to close that window in the computer, another Moment tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Psst, hey buddy. Look at me.” It nearly screamed at me across my screen, “Make the time to remind yourself how good you are.” By golly by gosh, we were right again. A slow point doesn’t make for a failed day. For every day’s disappointing minute, there are 1439 other minutes available to be better. And a few of those minutes, and a bowl of ice cream later, we were back in the writing business.

Shifting gears to something not motivating at all, to one of my favorite gripes – pickup trucks with an extra serving of testosterone. I was in my little roadster stopped at a traffic lights as red as the Miata itself. With all that red, you’d think even a dim witted macho man would know to slow down. A question I ask myself every now and then when I take the little convertible out is should I be wearing a helmet?  The state used to require it of motorcyclists but they ones now who don’t have pretty hard heads anyway. Usually I only get that thought when I’m in a parking lot next to a “look how big my pick(up) is” truck and then it goes away as soon as I encounter intelligent life again. Well at that light, I heard the rumble behind me and saw a monster of a truck coming in down the hill and there I sat, frozen in my seat, looking in the rear view mirror and not seeing the truck’s grill, not seeing its front bumper, but seeing its undercarriage and front end suspension bits! It was lifted so high off the road, it literally could ride right over me!! There was no shoulder to my right and oncoming traffic to my left. And that left me three choices, sit, pray, or get out of the way.  That’s when I shifted gears and red light or not, pulled forward into the intersection, made a quick check to the left, then one to the right, that a glance at the medal clipped to my sun visor that says, “Never drive faster than your Guardian Angel car fly,” apologized to my ever-present but unseen companion, and flew! I was across the intersection and safely on the side of the road when the monster truck hurtled by. I said a quick prayer of thanks and pulled back onto the roadway to continue my leisurely drive. About 2 miles down the road, Mr. Macho was looking down out of the cab of his metal manhood at the top of the nice officer’s head handing over his license, registration, and insurance. Who says prayers are never answered?

Okay, that’s it for this week’s random thoughts. Tune in again next week for another exciting episode of “What will he come up with now?”

Hey, while we speaking of spices, that reminds me about condiments. Did you know people are like condiments? We explain why we think so in the most recent Uplift! It only takes 3 minutes to read. Go ahead, click that link!

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The case against the chef knife

Michael 6 Comments

Yes, you read that title correctly. We are boycotting, rejecting, protesting the use of, and generally shunning chef’s knives, or just as appropriate, chef knives. Chef knives out, I say! Except for me, because like so many Americans, particularly the unvaccinated, unmasked, and uninformed of which I am none, I’m special.  Please keep in mind I have no formal culinary training, no background in knifeology, sliceology or dicematics, and no experience as a professional cutter. But like those who have no medical training and very little common sense who insist on making up their own facts while still believing the pandemic is a hoax designed to get microchips implanted in every human by way of the vaccine, not knowing anything about knives is no reason not to spread my truth about knives.

Chefs, particularly famous, celebrity chefs much more so than the relatively unknown celebrity chefs and definitely the ones who if they don’t sell knives at least use knives, all say if they were stranded on a desserted island, not to be confused with a deserted island, and they could have only one thing in all the world, they would want to please be allowed to keep their chef knives. Of course, if they were on a dessserted island they would need their knives to prepare something sweet. If they were on a deserted island the one thing they would want would be a ticket back home, price is no object. That’s what I would want too. Anyway, getting back to the desserted island, personally I believe I’d want a whisk because whipped cream goes best with sweets, and there is just no way you can slice or dice heavy cream fast enough to make it light and fluffy. Again, just my opinion.

Those who really know how to use a chef’s knife, the chef, can go ahead and use it to their heart’s content. They don’t tell you that they are big, heavy, sharp, and unwieldy to wield if you haven’t been trained in their use. They then compound it and say to get the most out of your chef knife you need a big one – a 12 incher, or at least 10 inches.  Even the girl chefs, hmm women chefs, umm, even the chefs who identify as anything other than male with male parts down there will argue that size does matter. They flash their foot long 4 billion dollar carbon steel machete on television where the camera angles deftly screen from view most of the blood, then when you try it at home where you don’t have a staff of twenty doing the real work, you find yourself plucking the tips of the fingers of your non-dominant hand out of the stir-fry ingredients.

Save yourself the embarrassment of yet again explaining to the EMTs where to find the cooler and zip top bags for ice for the trip to the emergency room and stick with a Homecook’s Knife, also just as appropriate, the Normal Knife. I think with a well balance, well sharpened, reasonably priced utility knife, you too can prepare meals your family will think are just dandy. If you happen to be exception at home cookery, like I am (again, just my opinion – no, that’s a fact), you could step into the world of responsibly chef knife ownership.

You see here my personal knife collection. That’s it and I make almost every meal I eat. No, seriously, really I do. So far this year I have eaten other people’s cooking about 24 times and it is September. That’s a bunch of meals prepped.

Knives

So then, this is my working cutlery. I use a short, 8 inch chef knife when I get all cheffy and decide to use it and then it is mostly for fine dicing, there’s nothing better than it for chopping green onions and chives, and I like mincing herbs and smushing cloves of garlic with it. Sometimes I put extra garlic in things just so I can pound the living daylights out of them with the side of the…. umm, but I digress. I’m sure somebody who owns 6 restaurants would laugh at it but then I actually know how vaccines work because I really did go to school for that. Below that is a 7 inch utility knife, the workhorse for my cutting and slicing, something you will never see on a televised food competition. Both of those are Vitorinox and they get honed after each use and sharpened only when needed. With the utility knife I can cut most anything from produce to poultry and with its thin blade I can even skin and filet fish. The paring knife is another frequent visitor to the cutting board and is an OXO product. The serrated knife is by El Cheapo and almost never comes out of the block but every now and then I need those teeth.  The whole kit and kaboodle, including a good honing steel and kitchen shears cost less than $150, about half of what the famous guys will spend on their one necessity for Dessert Island. Which reminds me, maybe next week we’ll talk about whips. Balloon whips for whipping eggs and cream for crying out loud! (Sheesh)

Now that we’re done with stuff I don’t know nothing about, on Tuesday I will be getting my vaccine booster shot because I am immunocompromised. If for some ridiculous, completely unscientific reason you are unvaccinated, and you don’t intend to ever at all vaccinate, would please be so kind as to wear a mask while you read my blog posts. Thank you very much. Big chef knives were sent here by aliens.

Farm to Fable

Michael 3 Comments
Now things have gone too far! Oh, hi. Sorry. I seem to have started in the middle. Let me back up.
 
As I approach the Doddering Years I have three joys. A good long chat with a dear friend, Sunday dinner – cooking and eating – with my daughter, and a few hours spent each week fondling ripe produce. (Fondling ripe other stuff is pretty much now confined to unconscious sleep time activities and with much thanks to dreams that forever live in the pre-doddering years.) [Sigh] Now where was I? Right, doddering.
 
Phones calls, text messages, emails, and a video now and then contribute to maintaining contact with those not with you during this time of not allowing those to not be not with you. I don’t know what others think but I find the art of phone calling rebounding. For a while text messages and direct contact through the various social platforms seemed to have phone calls going the way of pay phones. I believe the desire to hear another voice is driving an increase in calling minutes. Regardless of how much we’ve retreated into a world of contact by social medium, social media isn’t all that social. But the tone of a familiar voice, the lilt of emotions not requiring emoticon augmentation, or the thoughtful pause of reflection contribute to the experience of communication that go so much beyond “on my way, there in 10.” Even isolated I continue to experience the joy of a good long chat with a dear friend.
 
For some time now every Sunday my daughter packed up her dog and his toys, occasionally added an onion or select chicken parts to her parcels, and made her way to me for a day of cooking, eating, and reporting of the previous week’s activities and upcoming week’s plan. Although we have both been careful with our contact with everyone just about to the point that there is almost no contact with anyone, we have suspended these food fests for the duration or until whenever we say “oh enough of this already!” But still she brings me groceries every 2 weeks and we still cook a big meal each Sunday in our own kitchens and share our results electronically. It’s not perfect but it works for us and keeps some version of Sunday dinner in the joy category.
 
Our Sunday cooking extravaganza always left me with enough meals and meal compontents that I could spend a good part of the following week just reheating. Several days each week though I still had to construct a full dinner on my own. These days were always such fun. I would rarely wake and say today “I want [insert specific food here]” but would often wake and say “I wonder what looks good at the store today” and then plan a trip to the market to critically examine meats, sniff fish, and squeeze produce. I am very fortunate that I have a small Italian market within walking distance of my kitchen (and uphill only in one direction!) where you are encouraged to use up to four senses before adding a purchase to your basket. (You could sometimes use the fifth after asking.) (Yes, you do know which one I mean!) In the absence of the little market, and it is now absent since the owner decided he would be happier staying alive than staying open, the nearest supermarket has an excellent produce section, a well stocked and maintained fish counter, and a butcher ready to butcher on request. One way or another I had sufficient opportunity to find something that looked good with which to build dinner.
 
But now I’m stuck at home and the only tomatoes I get to choose from are those my daughter had the pleasure of putting under her thumb – so to speak. No sniffing the blossom end of a cantaloupe, or peeking between the leaves of an artichoke. No examining the fat marbled through a New York strip or glistening in a filet of salmon. No losing oneself in the intoxicating aroma of cheeses and sausages ready to be sliced or portioned to my specifications. [Sigh] [Again] 
 
Bad as that is, its going to get worse, even as it appears it may be getting better. Last week the pronouncement came down from on high. No farmers’ markets this year. Farm markets to be sure. You can still go to them, but no weekly gathering of all the local farms at a convenient park or parking lot with their most recent hauls of fruits and vegetables, their just baked breads and pastries, their hand cut cuts of beef and pork, their eggs and chickens, or even their kitsch and tchotchkes. [Big sigh]
 
No, even if I get the chance to go out and shop on my own this summer it won’t be the same. The joys of fondling fresh fennel fronds straight from the farm are just not to be. [Sigh] [Still] But al least I can still dream.
 
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For The Heck Of It

Michael Leave a comment
Last summer was a bad time for me. A baaaaaad time. After I got out of the hospital I was anxious to get home but smart enough to know that wasn’t the wisest choice. That’s one of the things that people who loooove the freedom of living alone don’t often consider. Long story short, particularly because I wrote about it often enough last summer, I spent several weeks at my daughter’s getting my feet and other body parts used to stepping in time for themselves. And even after I ventured back to my lonesome life, the child of mine continued to assist with daily activities that eventually morphed into weekly activities that now ultimately has settled at one weekly activity.
 
It’s been seven months, 3 minor procedures, two rounds of physical therapy, and one new ongoing exercise routine since my reentry into “the outside world” and if I say so myself I’m just as good as new! Or at least as good as the average slighty used, only driven on Sunday, new inspection but no warranty, as is, all sales final, yet you’ll still get some decent use out of it. Certainly well enough that household chores aren’t much problem as long as I stay away from “the big vacuum” and split my grocery shopping into no more than 10 pound bags. As far as cooking is concerned, especially since the last round of therapy, I can stand in the kitchen and slave over a hot stove as well as I ever could (as long as I don’t use the big cast iron skillet) (that weight limit goes in the kitchen too you know). Still, yesterday my daughter was over for our weekly 4 hour cooking extravaganza and we prepared a week’s worth of meals for the both of us – me because I need the help and she because she is so busy during the week. Except neither of those is true. 
 
Why do we still do this? Because it’s fun! I’ve always been good in the kitchen but as a 60-something Italian-American it most often involved red meat, red tomatoes, and fresh cheese. Add a glass of wine and I had the 4 basic food groups at every meal. The daughter has always been good in the kitchen but as a 30 year old urbanite her refrigerator has things like leftover pad thai, vegetables of every color, and a token chicken breast to satisfy the occasional meat craving. Fortunately wine rounds out her fourth food group also. Different color but still it was a common starting point. 
 
I firmly believe if you want to put people together, regardless of how different they spend the rest of the week there should be one day each week they must cook together. It is much too difficult to complain about trivial matters like politics and religion while you’re trying desperately to whisk fast enough to make mayonnaise knowing no store bought stuff will make a good enough base for your Romesco. And when you can’t get your point across about why you think your way might be better, an immediate taste test removes all doubt and answers all questions. 
 
After 7 months of cooking with each other we’ve both expanded our tolerances and are practicing cultural inclusion through yummy dishes from every continent except Antarctica. (Being involved Pittsburgh hockey fans neither of us is in a hurry to add penguin to our meal prep.) (Another common point.) Oh if only the rest of the world could come over every Sunday afternoon we’d all be doing so much better.
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bubble-wrap-groceries
Oh hey, not that it has anything to do with anything else but today, the last Monday in January, is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day. Thought you might want to pop that in your calendars, you know, just for the heck of it.
 
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Cereal Killer

Michael 5 Comments

They are magically delicious. They are often the first real solid foods you eat. They’re great. They are the stuff dreams are made of. Wait! No, those are jewel encrusted golden birds from Malta. But that other stuff, yeah, that they are. And they are cereal.

Today is National Cereal Day. Look, every day is something and today the needle points to those grains used for food, often breakfast, such as wheat, oats, or corn. (Thank you Mr. Merriam. Or Mr. Webster. Can anybody tell those guys apart?)

Can you imagine your life without cereal? Probably not. Even if you aren’t a cereal eater now, you once were. Hot, smooth cereals like cooked creamy rice or wheat are often a baby’s first step from “baby food” to the stuff in the house everybody else eats. Those round oat thingies (Cheerios by name) are most toddlers’ favorite snack and few parents of the youngsters leave home without them. And you confirmed anti-cereal zealots, don’t tell me you don’t have a canister of oatmeal or a box of corn flakes somewhere in that kitchen with the idea that they are just to make cookies or to bread chicken.

cerealI’ll admit I’m not a big boxed cereal eater myself today but I have a decent chunk of pantry space devoted to the foodstuff. Hot cereal is different. I always have multiple containers of old fashioned oats on hand for breakfast, lunch, sometimes dinner, often cookies, just as often bars, and occasionally muffins. But those other cereals usually end up masquerading as “a heathy snack.”

Oddly my favorite cereal from childhood rarely visits my old man kitchen. And it wasn’t even a typical kid brand like Cap’n Crunch. My favorite cereal growing up was plain corn flakes. I’d have a bowl of flakes with a half a banana sliced into it and whole milk. The banana’s other half would go into my school lunch unless somebody got to it first for another breakfast add in. That was breakfast more days than not until I set off for college.

I tried to look up the most popular cereal. I found 5 polls all published within a month of each other, and all wildly different. I guess the most popular depends on where you are, what company is sponsoring the poll, or how honest you feel like being when asked if you prefer Kashi or Fruity Pebbles and your whole pilates class (or bowling team (no judgement here)) is listening.

So we’ll do an informal poll. What is your favorite cereal? Ahh, still no judgement.

 

 

Strike Up the Grill

Michael 8 Comments

I saw an article on one of my magazines’ weekly emails that there are only 3 weeks left to grilling season. Obviously that’s a bit of marketing hype for this month’s hard copy edition’s cover story. Three weeks from now is just a week into September and for here, and I would think most of the U. S. except perhaps some ZIP codes in Maine and Alaska, there’s a lot of good grilling weeks well beyond that. For some parts, it never stops being grilling time. (Sometimes I think this country is just too big for its own good which messes with magazine headline writers’ best intentions.) Now as far as I’m concerned, and being just north of the 40th parallel and having a covered patio, I’ll grill pretty deep into winter as long as the grill isn’t frozen shut. When we get those deep freezes and harsh winds that facilitate snow accumulating under the patio cover, I’ll put away the grill spatula.

WintergrillI think the point they wanted to make with that 3 week warning is that Labor Day is only 3 weeks away. Pools will close, fall decorations will come out of garages, wardrobes will be swapped for darker colors, and pumpkin spice everything will greet us at the entrance to every store, even Pep Boys.

I think the point that they are actually making is that just like the stores that already have their pumpkin spice everythings starting to sneak close to the entrances, the magaziners enjoy rushing the seasons. If they didn’t publish their fall cooking guides, turning leaf travel guides, or autumn splendor festivals guides by July they think some other magaziner (or horrors! an e-ziner) will beat them to it and there will go their credibility with the masses. With that there goes their summer advertising revenue projections hopefully earned from the ads for fall fashions and vacations by the sellers certain that you’ll book you flight home for Thanksgiving weekend with somebody who advertised cheap winter holiday fares in June. Arrrggghhh!!!

What I was hoping I’d find in my inbox would be a recipe on how to use up all those summer vegetables perhaps in a grilled medley since we apparently have 3 weeks of grilling season left. Unfortunately, all I found were some interesting ways to use those soon to be ripe pumpkins. I guess all the zucchini recipes were in the April editions.

 

The Dinner That Didn’t

Michael 6 Comments

Before I start today’s post I want to apologize to some of you. Somehow my site’s notification commands got changed and I haven’t been notified of new followers or comments since sometime in June. (OK, I probably did it, but I didn’t know I did it or even how I did it. Hmm. Maybe I didn’t do it. Anyway…) Unless I just happened to run across something you left for me I may not have acknowledged you. I’m sorry. It’s fixed now and if I haven’t caught up with you yet, I will soon.

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The Dinner That Didn’t

Yesterday was a dialysis day for me. But today is not a dialysis post. Today is a dinner post.

My dialysis time is right in the middle of the day. I leave home around 10:15 in the morning, about 2 hours after breakfast, and I get home at about 3 in the afternoon, at least 2 hours after when lunch should have been. Usually when I get home I grab a snack to settle the hunger pangs that had been roiling for 2 to 3 hours. That way I can still have dinner around 6ish and maybe a light snack sometime later so I don’t wake up famished. The only thing that makes this all a little tenuous is that on dialysis days I’m pretty tired (exhausted), and cooking is often not (never) something I want to take on. What I usually do on the four days of the week that I don’t have dialysis is cook enough for a small army, or at least two meals. When I get home from my treatments I can then rely on the “heat some leftovers method” for that evening’s meal. It usually works like a charm. And sometimes not.

Yesterday I was running a little late. I rushed out the door closer to 10:25 than 10:15. Actually, I was rushing out the door closer to 10:30 than 10:25. Things happen. But I still had 15 minutes to make a 20 minute drive. I can do that. I was merrily on my way with my bag of comforts (book, tablet, crossword puzzles, soft warm woolen blankie (ahhhh) (what can I say, I get cold there)) on the seat next to me when I realized I had forgotten not only my glasses (no crossword puzzles for me) but also my wallet. (Darn! Danger, danger! Reduce speed!!!.)

A while later I was sitting in my dialysis chair, not working a puzzle, controlling my heart rate, and thinking about what I was going to have for dinner. I took the proverbial mental inventory of the fridge and decided on…hmm, nothing. As my mind’s eye scanned the shelves I saw eggs, breakfast sausage, deli meat, several cheeses, some homemade relishes (I should really post the watermelon rind relish recipe I just did – fabulous on fish), condiments, milk, water, a couple of juices, white wine, a large bowl of cut fresh fruit, and a jar of leftover pancake batter. All perfectly yummy in their own right but nothing dinner-worthy. Oh there was plenty in the freezer but it all required real cooking. No Stouffer frozen entrees up there. (Darn.)

EmptyFridgeI thought about this quandary. I had plenty of time to think not being able to see well enough to read or write. That’s when I realized that I had a golden opportunity right there in front of me. Stop on the way home and treat myself! Yes! That’s when I remembered why I had such an empty refrigerator.

The day before yesterday I had a doctor appointment. On my way home I was going to treat myself to lunch at a local diner close to me. The only problem was that this hole in the wall greasy spoon (when I decide to treat myself, I go all out), doesn’t accept cards and I was cashless. No problem that a quick stop at the drive through ATM couldn’t fix. Except for the storm raging and the chain across the driveway that held the sign, “CLOSED. NO POWER.” (Darn.) (Again.) (Or the first time.) (Do you think I overuse parentheses?) By then I was so close to home and so hungry I just went home and ate. My last leftover meal. *sigh*

No problem, I chuckled to my remembering self. That was yesterday (actually 2 days ago), this is today (actually yesterday). The power’s back on. And I sat back in my chair and tried to relax without the help of my glasses. And I relaxed like that all the way through the rest of the afternoon and right on up until I pulled onto the greasy spoon’s parking lot and then I remembered some more. Still no cash. No wallet. No ATM card. No treat. *bigger sigh*

So yesterday for dinner I had pancakes with sausage and fresh fruit. I thought about topping it with watermelon rind relish but I think I’ll turn that and some cod I have in the freezer into fish tacos for dinner today.

Unless I go out and treat myself instead.

 

Half-Baked

Michael 2 Comments

I baked cookies yesterday. Hold your applause. They were just oatmeal cookies. Oatmeal cookies are like the Blue Apron of the baking world. No thought required. The most difficult step is finding the measuring cups.

You all already know I enjoy my time in the kitchen but it’s almost always cooking. Baking is a whole different animal. It requires measuring stuff, preheating the oven, using the timer even. As a person who spent his whole career in a regimented, scientific occupation you’d think the most comfortable thing I could do in the kitchen is fall into the baking regimen. Nope, I prefer the loosey-goosey world of cooking.

Maybe that’s because I enjoy the freedom of modifying the dish I’m working on based on what’s fresh, what’s handy, what’s tasting good. Maybe it’s because most of the dishes I started out cooking were family recipes which changed as the family moved from Italy to America and ingredients changed based on what was available. Or maybe it was because some of those recipes were written in a combination of Italian and English and we weren’t always sure what was supposed to go into that pot so we improvised.

Or maybe that’s because it’s just the way I’m wired.

While I was deciding if I wanted to weigh or measure my dry ingredients I did some thinking about just that. Does our personality reflect our cooking style – and shouldn’t it also compare to our chosen lifestyle? Here’s what I came up with.  . . .  Maybe.

Take me for the first example. Even though I decided on keeping the wolves from my door in the highly regulated, policed, and exacting world of health care I tend to keep most of the rest of my life in the “let’s see what’s up” end of the spectrum. Back in the day when I actually made plans my idea of making plans (unless it involved non-refundable air fare), was “hey I heard about blah-blah-blah on the radio this morning, let’s go!” Thus my life in the kitchen is more a matter of “hmm, I wonder what’s in the refrigerator that hasn’t changed color yet, let’s eat!” And 9,999 times out of 10,000 it will be good.

Consider the ex. I’ll not be bad-mouthing anybody here. I’m just using her as an example. Her idea of spontaneous was using only two sources of information for research on a place, restaurant, movie, or wall-covering. But boy could she bake. Pies, cakes, breads, cookies. If it involved a rolling pin (no, I won’t go there), she had it mastered.

Now, let’s look at the daughter. The mix of the aforementioned Thing One and Thing Two. On one hand she’s creative enough to have selected one of the most imaginative fields you can imagine to make a living at and is making a living at it. On the other, she’s making a living at it by working for herself and manages to handle all the requirements of self-employment successfully enough to still make a living at it. Her style in the kitchen? She can bake a mall-worthy cinnamon roll in the morning and finesse her way through a dinner for four with whatever might be in the pantry after not shopping for two weeks in the evening.  Living at both poles and baking and cooking with aplomb.

I guess that’s make her sort of a hybrid.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Crème de la Crème

Michael 1 Comment

It took me most of my adult life, which is to say most of my life, to perfect scrambled eggs. It’s easy to make good scrambled eggs, not that hard to make very good scrambled eggs, but damn near impossible to make perfect scrambled eggs. Perfect little pillows of bright, yellow deliciousness light enough to float off the plate into your mouth where they melt over your tongue into a symphony of wonderful. That kind of perfect.

When you get down to it, scrambled eggs require only three things – eggs, fat, and heat. It is the combination of those three things that make the difference between meh and perfect. About a year ago I found the perfect combination for perfect scrambled eggs and I’ve been making them the same way ever since. Two eggs, a half ounce of half-and-half, beat until my arm is tired, then rest (the eggs, not the arm) while a half tablespoonful of butter melts in a seven inch omelet pan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted and fragrant, pour in the eggs then start moving them around the pan with a heat proof spatula, turning down the heat to low. Keep turning the eggs until they are almost set then pull them off the heat. Add any desired herbs, salt, and pepper; give them one final turn around the pan and transfer them to a nearby plate allowing them to rest just long enough to carry them to the table where coffee, juice, toast, and the morning paper wait. Alternately you can just stand over the kitchen counter and eat them right from the skillet but you will miss out on the daily crossword puzzle.

Three, four, maybe five times a week I start my day like that. The days I don’t are there just to make the scrambled egg days even more special. Yesterday was a scrambled egg day. Yesterday sucked. When I ended up with watery clumps of yuckiness my first thought was that I had a sudden brain fart severe enough to make me forgot how to cook. I almost convinced myself of that except everything else – coffee, juice, toast, newspaper – came out just fine. And my socks matched. Then I spotted the culprit. On the counter, waiting to go back into the refrigerator was the carton of half-and-half (or half-cream as the Europeans might call it). Except it wasn’t. Apparently I indeed had suffered some brain issue but it was when I was at the supermarket the day before. Apparently, that’s when I picked up a carton of fat-free half-and-half.

Who the hell makes fat-free half-and-half? What the hell is fat-free half-and-half? Half-and-half is half milk, half cream. That’s two components whose defining ingredient is fat. Real half-and-half is about 12 percent fat. I took a look at the ingredient label on the imposter. “Skim milk, corn syrup, cream*.” I looked for the asterisk and found “* Not a significant source of fat.” In other words, so little cream compared to the skim milk and corn syrup that it might have been in the same county as a cow for a short while. American skim milk is less than 0.2% fat or essentially white water.I had unwittingly tried to make my fluffy yellow clouds not with thick, rich, creamy half-and-half but with thickened water.

My shopping blunder resulted in me making scrambled eggs (which you recall require eggs, fat, and heat) with two out of three ingredients. When it comes to scrambled eggs, two out of three is bad. I’ll be going to the store again in a couple of days and I’ll replace my ersatz half-and-half with the real deal. As for the remainder of the fake stuff, I suppose I can use it on oatmeal. That’s supposed to be good for you, too.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Close Enough, Part 2

Michael Leave a comment

Normally I don’t mind doing anything in the kitchen. I’ll slice, I’ll dice, I’ll juice and zest and shred and grate. I’ll fry or steam, I even make ice cream. But I hate slicing tomatoes. I don’t think it’s the slicing so much as the cleaning up after. I love tomatoes but they can make a mess with their juice and seeds on my cutting board. So a while ago I started using an apple slicer to make perfect tomato pieces for any salad.  Want that tomato diced? Swap out the regular slicing blade for a French fry blade and the battle is half won. That might not be what Mr. Buchi had in mind when he patented his apple slicer in 1923, but I figure it’s close enough.

That’s not the first time I’ve bastardized the intent of a perfectly good kitchen gadget.  I have a smallish kitchen and can fit only so many gizmos so they better be willing to be flexible. Like the hard-boiled egg slicer that also slices mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and strawberries. That’s especially good for me since you found out recently that I am hard-boiled egg challenged yet still have said implement. Then there is the large stir-fry pan which doubles as a wok, triples as a popcorn popper, and quadruples as a braiser. So far the only thing I have come up with for the small stir-fry pan to do other than frying is small batch popcorn popping. But I’m working on it!

There is a frying pan that wins the versatility award.  It’s a 14 inch job that is perfect for combining pastas and sauces, making frittata large enough for the neighborhood, doing paella small enough for the family, and searing the largest roasts.  Its only problem is that it has no lid. Sometimes you need a lid.  Fortunately a pizza pan works just fine to cover this monster.

Closely related to kitchen gadgets, bar accessories can also have split personalities.  Wine stoppers make great cruet toppers (or vice-a-versa depending on which you have and which you need).  And speed pourers also do a dandy job of controlling the flow of your oils and vinegars.

Gadgets are cool. I rarely walk into any department or discount store without checking the gadget wall. A kitchen equipment store is downright dangerous for me to be in. But no matter where I am perusing the latest food prep thingamajigs, it better be able to do more than what the package says if it wants to go home with me.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?