Category: Home Cooking

Top 10 Food and Travel (mostly) Highlights of 2009

Everyone’s got a top 10 list! So I will too. I don’t know why I don’t do them more often–I certainly love making lists.

Like a lot of people, I’m coming away from this year feeling like it was pretty craptastic. But the nice thing about making a list like this is that you (I) realize there were some really good concrete things that happened, or that I managed to pull off. The crappiness, I think, just comes from feeling overworked and generally unfocused. And, of course, the creeping realization that there will never come a day in my freelance life when I get so fabulous that people are beating down my door offering me work. In fact, I will continue to have to rustle it up myself. Which, you know, is why I’m going on vacation for the next three weeks. (Holy crap! To Asia! Never been to the other side of the world!)

What I’m pretty pleased with, in no particular order:

1. I made croissants! This is fresh in my mind because it happened just a few days ago, only nominally fulfilling my 2009 resolution to work with yeast dough more. I can’t tell you how miraculous it is to make these things. I actually laughed out loud with delight the first time the dough rose. Simple (borderline idiotic) pleasures.

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2. I traveled for a month in Mexico and did not get shot, kidnapped, ticketed or asked for a bribe. Actually, this is not such an accomplishment. Contrary to everything you read in the newspaper, Mexico is not a war zone. Allow me to briefly hijack my top-10 list for a mini-lecture: not going to Mexico because of the drug war is like not coming to the US because of the drug war. San Cristobal de las Casas, Merida and Tulum are a world away from Juarez–just like, say, Seattle is a world away from inner-city Baltimore.

3. I hiked for nine days and did not die. Granted, this was about the most candy-ass form of hiking–traipsing merrily from village to village in Andalucia, stopping for many glasses of tinto de verano along the way, carrying nothing but some almonds and a change of clothes (and barely that). But there were real mountains! We were up at 2,000 meters! And we hiked by moonlight once! But the biggest miracle of all is that both Peter and I, dedicated urban travelers, actually had a nice time out in nature, and thought we might do it again. Next up: hiking across an island in Greece.

Sierra Nevadas

4. I jogged. Sure, it was only twice around the track. But, honestly, it’s something I’ve never done in my life. It was right after the Spain hiking trip. Peter and I were jet-lagged and feeling like we needed to capitalize on our newfound fitness. It was satisfying. But then I got horrifically sick for the next week. A friend told me that’s normal when you first start running–all these toxins get pushed out. Sadly, I have not jogged again since.

5. I stayed at a ridiculously nice resort in Mexico, on assignment. I know, this isn’t really much of a personal accomplishment, and I’ve stayed at nice places before. What made this one nice was that it was free of schmoozing (my expenses were paid; I was incognito). And for once in my travel-writing life, I managed to get all the work done that I needed to do beforehand, so I really could just lie on the beach and wave at the waiter for a margarita. The funny thing is that now that I’ve done that, I really have no huge craving to do it again.

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6. I wrote a cookbook. Oh, yeah, that. The high point and sense of accomplishment came mostly in the last days of the manuscript-tightening process, at the very beginning of this year, and not actually at the time of publication, in October. This is because, by the time the book came out, there’d been so much wrangling over the layout, and of course, the title, that it was a chore to even think about the book. And in the interim, I’d also written large portions of three other travel guides, which effectively erased Forking Fantastic! from my mind. Can the publishing industry speed up, please, at least just so authors can get more of a thrill out of the process?

7. I became a “guru.” On the basis of the wit and charm and deep, deep knowledge displayed in Forking Fantastic!, Tamara and I were on The Brian Lehrer Show every week this December. It’s kind of hilarious to hear yourself introduced as a “holiday entertaining guru.” And I love Brian Lehrer–hardest-working man (along with his crack producers!) in public radio. We got some excellent calls too. The segment on holiday food traditions made me so proud to live in New York City.

8. I cooked dinner for Jamie Oliver (as shown on TV in 2009). Speaking of being proud to live in New York: Back in late 2008, Tamara and I taped a segment with Jamie Oliver, for his series Jamie’s American Road Trip. Seeing how I’ve loved Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks since early, early days (like, Naked Chef days) and I’m floored by all the cool food advocacy he does in Britain, it was really an honor to meet him. But that was technically the year before.

The real honor came when I finally saw the finished episode, which focused entirely on food in Queens, and especially on immigrant culture. Honestly, I cried the first few times I watched it. The Peruvian ladies with the secret restaurant! Colombian George, who feeds homeless illegal immigrants! The Chinese noodle dude! The ranchero musicians on the subway! It was great TV, and I felt proud to have had a hand in it (I directed them to Ali and the live-poultry place). Unfortunately, it hasn’t been picked up in the US, and likely won’t be, and there are only a few clips online–here’s one (ignore the freakout about the live-poultry place; oy).

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9. I started Cooking in Real Time. If you’re not subscribed to my home-cooking podcast, go ahead and do it now. It’s like that Cookalong with Gordon Ramsay thing, except it’s not a ridiculous variety show, and it actually teaches you something.

What I’m really proud of, though, is that I designed the logo and header, and built the website myself. OK, so the site was mostly template-tweaking, but it was still immensely satisfying to learn how to control all these little elements. It was very nice to have a project that ended with a concrete result (aside from cooking, which is my usual make-stuff-with-my-hands outlet) and that involved both creativity and code-cracking. Unfortunately, just this week, I dropped my voice recorder on the floor and broke it, so now CiRT has to go on hiatus while I’m away in January.

10. I painted the dining room pink and orange, with gold trim. The vision of the Bollywood dining room, finally realized! The real accomplishment here is that I triumphed over decision paralysis, as presented by 8 million paint chips, and finally picked some colors. Plus, I exploited visiting child labor to get the painting done.

Zora O'Neill and Tamara Reynoldsphoto courtesy of Katja Heinemann

Happy new year, everyone! Here’s to an exciting new decade! Health care and croissants for all!

Last-Minute Resolution Resolution

At the beginning of 2009, I resolved to “get down with yeast doughs” this year. Whoops. Not sure how the whole year got away from me, but I did not rip open a single packet of yeast.

I also acquired a nice marble slab, and have managed to roll out only two pie crusts on the thing.

So! I’m springing into action. Forging ahead with the Tartine morning buns, per this source.

Which starts with the Tartine croissant dough recipe, which everyone always seems to be googling for. I snapped photos of the relevant pages from a friend’s cookbook. The procedure is ridiculously long and complex. (Which is why I think no one has yet to post it online. Six pages, people!)

But the real catch, every time I’ve thought, ‘Oh! Maybe tonight I’ll start the pre-ferment!’, is that the first ingredient is

Nonfat milk

Uh. That is something we never, ever have lying around the house.

So I finally bought some, furtively, hoping no one would see my shameful purchase. Tonight, we begin! At least one yeast dough will be made before the year is out!

My Fruitcake Brings All the Boys to the Yard: Redux

Last year, I made my family’s fruitcake for the first time. It was tremendously good. (If the words “fruitcake” and “tremendously good” are not really making sense to you, let me just say: currants soaked in brandy; candied orange peel; an awful lot of butter. Taste some, and you’ll understand.)

fruitcake

Unfortunately, I failed to make any proper notes about how I did it. And the anxiety of confronting the existing recipe (yield: 12 pounds, with my mother’s notes on top of her mother’s recipe, plus instructions to call my dad for extra advice) made me put off the project this year.

My fruitcake should have been soaking in brandy and rum since, oh, August would’ve been nice. But somehow that didn’t happen, and now it’s December. Which I had basically decided was too late.

But then I decided that the real point of Christmas baking is not so much to have sweets on hand for Christmas or parties or gifts or whatever. The point of it–of investing in the best cheap brandy at the liquor store (Paul Masson, my father avers), covering your kitchen in flour and giving yourself a sugar fit from tasting the batter too much–is to get yourself in the Christmas spirit. Really, nothing says holidays like dried fruit soaked overnight in booze. Or candied orange peel with brandy.

So, that’s what I did this weekend. I listened to the radio and baked. I tinkered with the recipe, and actually took notes. I was working off my mother’s typed recipe (on her old manual typewriter, which had cursive letters and no upper case), titled “mama’s fruitcake with incredible modifications.” Not sure what those modifications were, but in modern times, in the email she sent accompanying it, she wrote

beat in the 15 beaten egg yolks….beat egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold in. or add the eggs, beaten together all at once in the beginning, whatever.

I went with “whatever.” My feeling is that there’s barely any cake anyway–there’s only enough to hold all the fruit together–and it’ll be soaked with booze. So it doesn’t matter if it’s all airy and fluffy from the egg whites. But this is how knowledge gets lost, so I’m mentioning that option, just for the record.

Anyway, the result: a manageable four pounds of fruitcake, worth its weight in gold. It’s sitting downstairs, waiting for its brandy-soaking. So, it might not be at its peak at Christmas, but it will still taste good…and it’ll taste great in the depths of February, when I really need a brandy pick-me-up. And even more important: I now feel vaguely Christmas-y. Or maybe just drunk. Hard to tell.

Nana’s Fruitcake with Even More Modifications

This recipe is pared down from the original 12-pound yield to about 4 pounds worth of cake–I use one standard-size loaf pan plus two half-size loaf pans. But if you’re doing this for the masses, to give away, you can obviously scale the recipe back up–if you multiply by three, make it an even pound of butter and a pound of brown sugar.

1 pound golden raisins
1/2 pound currants
1 cup blanched, slivered almonds
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
1/2 cup brandy (or 1/4 cup brandy and 1/4 cup port)
1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground nutmeg (about 1/2 a whole nutmeg)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
10 tbsp butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
5 eggs

For the candied orange peel:
2 oranges
1 tbsp brandy
1 tbsp water
4 tbsp sugar

The night before you’re planning to bake, toss the raisins, currants and nuts together in a container with a tight-fitting lid. Pour over the brandy (or brandy and port) and stir well to coat everything. Before you go to bed, flip the container, then flip it again in the morning–you want to distribute the booze well. In the morning, pour the fruit and nuts into a strainer placed over a bowl and let any remaining brandy drain out. Set the brandy aside for later.

chixsoup 021Make the candied orange peel: Wash your oranges well and, using a vegetable peeler, slice off the outermost layer of peel, taking as little of the white pith as possible. Chop the peel into fine slices (never mind that beautiful photo to the right–it’s much easier to slice the peel up before it’s candied). Set the peel in a heavy skillet and cover with water; simmer for 10 minutes, discard the water and add fresh (this is to remove some bitterness). Simmer for another 10 minutes, then drain. Combine the brandy and sugar with an additional 1 tablespoon of water. Pour this over the peel and and simmer until the peel is translucent and most of the liquid has cooked away. (You may need to add another tablespoon or so of water before the peel is properly clear.) Set out on parchment or waxed paper to cool.

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Prepare your loaf or cake pans: butter and flour them, or line with parchment paper. (I make parchment slings, folded over each long side of the loaf pan, then butter each short side of the pan. Then you can lift the loaf out with the parchment wings.)

Proceed with the cake: Sift 1/2 cup of the flour over the drained fruit and nuts, tossing gently to cover everything. Sift the remaining 1 cup together with the allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

With a mixer, whip the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue beating until the butter lightens in color and the sugar dissolves. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well to incorporate each one. Turn the mixer to low and add half the flour-spice mixture. When it is incorporated, add 3 tablespoons of the brandy that was strained out of the fruits and nuts (make up the difference with fresh brandy if necessary). Then add the remaining flour. Fold in the fruits and nuts and stir well to combine.

Pour the batter into the pans and bake until evenly browned on top and firm–the cake should spring back when pressed lightly. This takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes for half-size loaf pans and 1 hour and 30 minutes for a full-size loaf pan.

Remove to a rack. When the loaves are cool, sprinkle with brandy and/or rum, then wrap tightly in cheesecloth and waxed paper. Store in a tin with a tight-fitting lid. Every week or so (or, if you’re on an accelerated schedule like me, every few days), drizzle the loaves with a bit more booze. Give them as much time as you can–inevitably, the cake will be at its best about a week after you finally give in and eat it.

Faux Stollen–Just as Tasty as the Real Thing!

I’ve been on a little bit of a Christmas baking kick. One of the things I got hungry for a couple of weeks ago (before Thanksgiving, even) was stollen–a German Christmas bread with cardamom and almonds.

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My mom used to be all over the bread-making–she did a batch of whole-wheat bread every week or so, she made fantastic sticky buns every so often, and she was not daunted by making stollen, which is also a yeast bread. We had it every year for Christmas breakfast.

But then…the regular bread-making tapered off. Then the treats like sticky buns went. (I think this had to do with my mom starting to do real paying work–the brutal ’80s. Also, we moved to a house with a less inspiring kitchen.) And then the stollen gave out.

But not in a bad way. It’s just that my mom found a recipe for a quick-bread version of stollen (ie, no yeast required) in a most unlikely spot: The Vegetarian Epicure, by Anna Thomas. In its day, it was a classic, but it now seems to be out of print. Vegetarians don’t have a great reputation for baking, but this recipe alone rights several decades of carob-based wrongs.

Which is not to say I haven’t tinkered with it. I replaced mace with nutmeg, for instance–I figured that if I, who keeps a very extensive spice rack, have no other call for mace the whole rest of the year, it’s just not worth it. And candied lemon peel–too icky-sweet. I also make it in a food processor sometimes, which is handy (and helps infuse the bread with the flavor of the fresh lemon peel).

And in perhaps the most genius innovation (if I do say so), I split the recipe into two small loaves–one for eating fresh, and one for freezing and eating later. We’ve only got two mouths here on Christmas morning this year, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying to finish the better part of a whole loaf myself, and then moaning all day about how my stomach hurts. The bread has quite a bit of butter in it, see, but that doesn’t stop me from slathering a little bit more on each slice.

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Almond-Cardamom Christmas Bread (aka Faux Stollen)

This recipe relies heavily on a food processor, though I do suggest other options in the instructions. The only thing that it’s really nice to have a food processor for is grinding the almonds. So if you don’t have one, you’ll want to buy 3/4 cup of ground almonds or really go to town on some sliced almonds with a sharp knife, or pound them in a mortar.

Makes 2 6-by-4-inch loaves, or one 10-by-6-inch loaf
3/4 cup sugar
zest from 2 lemons
1 cup blanched sliced almonds, divided
2 1/2 cups flour, divided, plus more for kneading
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (about half of a whole nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (seeds from 8-10 cardamom pods)
13 tablespoons butter, chilled and divided
1 cup cream cheese (one 8-oz. package)
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons brandy
1 cup golden raisins
Confectioner’s sugar (optional, for garnish)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the sugar and lemon zest. Pulse to combine–about 6 or 7 one-second pulses. (If you’re not using a fo-pro, just mix the sugar and zest together well in large bowl.) Add 3/4 cup sliced almonds and pulse again, until they are coarsely ground. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour, plus the baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cardamom. Pulse again to blend well.

Cut the butter into tablespoons. Add 12 tablespoons to the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand. (If no fo-pro, mix the butter in using a pastry cutter or two knives–whatever strategy you’d normally use for making pie crust.) Pour the contents of the food processor into a bowl.

Cut the cream cheese into small blocks and place in the food processor bowl (no need to wash it). Add the egg and run the processor to combine. While the processor is running, add the vanilla and brandy through the feed tube. (The Vegetarian Epicure suggests using a blender for this–so ’70s! And of course you could also use an electric mixer.)

Pour the cream-cheese mixture into a large bowl and stir in the raisins. Gradually stir in flour mixture with a wooden spoon or wide spatula, then add the remaining cup of flour, until you wind up with a thick, ragged dough.

Work the dough into a ball and turn it out on a heavily floured board. Knead it for just a minute or so, until it is reasonably smooth and holds together. Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into an oval, about 6 inches long and 5 inches wide. With the blunt edge of a knife, crease it just off center, lengthwise. Fold the smaller side over the larger and place the stollen on an ungreased baking sheet. (You can also make one large loaf, starting with an 8-by-10-inch oval.)

Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in a small pan. Brush the loaves lightly with melted butter, then scatter over the remaining 1/4 cup sliced almonds. Bake for about 50 minutes–the bottoms of the loaves will be dark brown, and a toothpick stuck in the center will come out oily, but with no crumbs, though the whole thing will seem alarmingly underbaked. (A single large loaf will take more like 1 hour and 10 minutes to bake.)

Allow the loaves to cool slightly on racks, then dust with confectioner’s sugar. Allow to cool fully–at least a couple of hours–before slicing, to allow the center to set; plus, the cardamom and lemon flavors are stronger in the cooled bread.

Momofuku and the Mysterious Link Between Line Cooking and Copy Editing

I just spent the day reading David Chang’s Momofuku cookbook. It’s a gripping, strangely humble narrative, plus some ridiculous recipes. Even though I will likely never cook from it, I highly recommend it. [Just reread. Silly me. Not rote restaurant mimicry at all. Will definitely cook from.]

But reading it triggered some strange responses.

One of those is that I just went down to eat some of the cold leftover Japanese pork with ginger from the fridge, and when I saw the can of sweetened condensed milk next to it, I wondered how the two would taste together. Not too terrible, it turns out.

The other, deeper response was just plain regret. Between this and another book I’m almost done with (the salacious and smartly written Cooking Dirty, by Jason Sheehan), I’m getting a lot of input on the professional cook’s life.

Seven years ago (!!), I was thinking that’s what I’d do. I had talked myself into a very part-time slot on the line at Prune. I was soaking up as much cooking knowledge as I could get without paying for it. I was cooking ridiculous, elaborate dinners for friends just to practice.

And yet, I didn’t fully commit. Gabrielle Hamilton could’ve thrown a couple more shifts my way, but I felt like I couldn’t quit my money-making job (freelance copy editing), so I could only work weekends.

I was too rational. And at 30, I was also already over the hill, really, and I already knew from bartending how grueling a full-time on-your-feet job can be, how all-absorbing restaurant life is, how crappy the pay can be. That kind of knowledge makes you a little more hesitant than someone just coming up, entranced by the heat and the knives.

Plus, in a side note of regret, I said one of the most stupid things of my entire life when I first started working there: “Well, I don’t really care much about making a perfect omelet, for instance.” This, to Gabrielle Hamilton, after she put me on the brunch line. What? Why would I have said that? I cannot fathom. The next couple of months I worked were probably just charity on her part.

So. The David Chang book talks a lot about the intensity of restaurant cooking. And the absolute, pure striving for perfection. This is not a world of relativism, of softy liberal “do what you like.” No. You do it right.

See, I am a horrible perfectionist. But I was raised by hippies. The tension tears me up inside. I know, intellectually, that it’s not cool to be this way (which is why I must’ve made that dumb omelet comment), and it’s a terrible burden to place on others. But restaurant kitchens are perfectionist heaven. They are about the only realm in which you can let your anal flag fly, and actually get rewarded. (The other realm, incidentally, is copy editing.)

When I was having my just-turned-30 identity crisis, I really did think about all this methodically. In the “pros” column of restaurant work, I noted the fact that it’s still perfectly acceptable in a restaurant kitchen to have a screaming tantrum. You can finally just fucking go to town on all the people who are disappointing you and not doing shit that’s up to your standards.

This is not so acceptable in a magazine office. Or really anywhere else that I had access to, career-wise.

The other great perk of line cooking, when you do it well, is that it’s pure flow. Pure body function, without interference from the brain. I have never been an athlete—this is the closest I’ll ever come, I imagine.

Writing and editing aren’t physical at all (unless you count what it does to your back and hands), but they do have the potential to be just as completely absorbing. Unfortunately, though, your brain makes up any excuse to get out of the zone and interfere, and you just happen to be sitting at an Internet-enabled computer, so all day you’re in a nasty little battle with yourself, and you just don’t get the adrenaline high and inner peace you have after a 10-hour restaurant shift.

But. Well. So. I didn’t make the leap. After I got gently booted from Prune, I worked somewhere else much crappier, and just lost the fire. It’s entirely possible I would’ve really sucked—never nailed a flawless perfect omelet, never gelled with a crew, always been the one, ironically, not doing it perfectly and getting yelled at.

Now I’m a home cook (and cookbook author promoting same), but home cooking is the opposite of perfectionist restaurant work. You work with what you’ve got, and if it doesn’t turn out, fuck it. Tomorrow is another three meals.

On the best nights, home cooking does get me into that state of flow. But it’s not working toward one perfect anything. And I still have no real constructive outlet for my screaming rage when other people fuck up completely simple things, and don’t seem to even give a shit that they’re doing so. Which some people might think calls for therapy. But I think maybe just calls for a different job. I’m still looking.

Sudoku

A comment on a recent Mark Bittman NYT blog post:

“ I love to hear that I’m not the only one spending my commute home thinking about how to best use what’s sitting in the bin of my fridge. I’ve thought about that as a form of culinary sudoku.”

It’s Not Just Me–Judith Jones Agrees!

judithjonespleasuresofcookingforoneJudith Jones, who’s just about the queen of cookbook editors, has written a little book I’m very much looking forward to picking up. It’s called The Pleasures of Cooking for One.

I’ve been preaching this pleasure for years, but since I am not the queen of cookbook editors, I haven’t had quite the same impact this book will likely have. But truly, truly, truly, take mine and Judith’s word for it: cooking for yourself is one of the simplest ways of improving your day.

And you’re probably thinking, “But you’re married! It doesn’t count!”

Oh, but it does. Yes, there is someone else in my house, who often eats what I cook. And, to be honest, I have never lived completely alone. But I have enjoyed many, many solitary dinners, where I’ve had the satisfaction of cooking just exactly what I was hungry for. Developing the ability, and the inclination, to do this has been one of my great accomplishments. A good meal gives a perfect calm point to my day, and I suspect my life would be a shambles without it.

If you’re not sold on the book, you can listen to the eminently sensible Ms. Jones in a podcast here, at The City Cook. She shares a bunch of good tips for setting up a solo kitchen and the like.

Rosie Rocks!

Bitchin’ in the Kitchen with Rosie: A new tome for the archives: Forking Fantastic

An actual review from an actual stranger! I feel so proud! And relieved that more of “our kind of people” really exist out there, and get our jokes.

Seriously, I was faintly worried that we were writing for an audience that we had just conjured up in our imaginations. “Who’s coming to dinner? Well, Mr. Fox–he loves to swear. And Barney Squidgems–he loves ham. And Miss Violet–she lives in a tiny apartment, but actually does want to cook for people, even though she doesn’t know it yet.”

(I think I had an imaginary friend who was a fox when I was little–the others, I just made up on the spot. I swear.)