Comfort Food

Thank you, Mark Allin, for the image.

This is comfort food season. It has been raining off and on for a month (and to think in January, it seemed like it was going to make a dry winter!). The sun is out, but so is the arctic bluster. I have been only reluctantly including greens in our meals (because, dammit, they do taste good and are good for you, unlike, say, gin) because when I think of food right now, I think of starch. Warm, steamy starch, with lots of butter or bacon, or both. Butter and salt and cream and cheese. The warm, greasy, salty starch could be in the form of mac n' cheese, or noodles, or butternut squash, or warm, communist beets, or oatmeal bake drowned in maple syrup, or potatoes (sweet or Russet).

I was raised on comfort food (my mother is a bona fide comfortfoodie-- tho' i suppose most mothers are). Beef is a huge part of her comfort food repertoir. It would probably be a part of mine, too, except I am too lazy to walk the four blocks to the nearest market-with-a-butcher when I get a craving, so generally, my comfort foods tend to be vegetarian-ish, until now.

Patricia Unterman, who may be my favorite living gastronomer, wrote in her Food Lover's guide to San Francisco about a Chinese cash-only sausage place that was tucked behind an ice cream parlor. Not only was it an intriguing combination, but it was blocks from my house. I had no excuse not to hunt it down. After searching for about five minutes on the specified block, I found the dessert place, and in the back, as promised, was a whole wall devoted to sausages.

Sausage, of any sort makes me nervous when I think about it too much. I get even more squeemy when I think about sausages of the East (not that occidental food can't be gross, its just that its a grossness that I am used to) so I don't think too much about these shriveled, chewy, pink, sweet wieners-- what goes in them, or if there is MSG.

Patricia recommended dropping the sausages in a pot of uncooked rice, and then steaming the whole thing at once. In spite of the fact they are dried, they are not cooked. According to the ice cream lady (the sausage lady didn't speak English), they need to be steamed at 175 for 15 minutes.

I tried it as soon as I got home. Hot, fluffy, white rice, topped with decadent little meat candies, what could be more comforting?

Cooking Beyond Measure: How to Eat Well without Formal Recipes by Jean Johnson (food writer)

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The other day, Dutch came hope with a stack of cookbooks he got on cheap at Stacey's going out of business sale. He knew I liked cookbooks with short ingredient lists and even shorter directions. He guessed right, and Cooking without Measure is a cookbook I wish I had written first. The writer combines fresh, seasonal produce with fun ingredients to create savory, straightforward dishes. I tried the rolled ups (or crepes) and the way she described making the batter was so clear and direct that I had no problem replicating them at home. She also uses a lot of cheese, which is always a good thing (now I am looking for the Ski Queen caramelized goat cheese she keeps raving about). Plenty of the other recipes look good enough to try also-- like the "Sou'wester Chile with Chocolate and Pomegranates," and "Greens with Pears and Swiss" (probably tonight).
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The only reason I am giving four stars is that sometimes her folksy, narrative style of writing gets in the way of actually deciphering the directions.
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This is a great book for cooks who love to play and experiment with new things and old friends, who need an excuse to try a new vegetable, or combination, or who have a fridge full of random things that need to be eaten. In a word, for people who actually cook.


View all my reviews.

Dutch Cooks

Steamed Whole Broccoli with Mac and Cheese Surprise

Last night, while I was unraveling mysterious paintings and drawing in my 'book, Dutch cooked up a bona fide meal. This is a first in our marriage. He usually defers the cooking to me, because he says I do it better. He insisted I stay out of the kitchen while he was working, I was happy to hang out in the play room and draw. The meal was delicious, but I was a tad bit curious why the mac n' cheese was a little bit brown. It certainly wasn't made of whole wheat noodles, and the sauce was rich and creamy, with just a hint of blue cheese.
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Dutch's Mac n' Cheese Surprise
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2 boxes of mac n' cheese, follow the box instructions, substituting half n half for milk, and adding extra butter.

Once its made, add

1 T of molasses

1 T crumbled blue cheese

1/2 cup Government Cheese

and enough half n half to maintain a creamy consistency.

Serve warm (before it solidifies)

Anglophilia

Dutch did some grocery shopping today, spontaneously.

Back Story

When Dutch was seducing me, all them months ago, he pretended to like cooking. He came over to my house and would "help" me with whatever I was preparing. Pretty soon, I discovered that he could do the really simple, smelly chores like cutting onions and chopping garlic. After a while decided he had other things to do. Then the gig was totally up when I asked him to "heat up some tortillas" and the next thing I know, there is acrid black smoke pouring forth from the microwave and I realize that he had thrown the whole bag, including the metal twisty, into it. At that point, I was completely in love, and it didn't matter if he didn't cook, the kitchen wasn't that big anyway.

I had mentioned last week that I needed sugar (the C&H kind, nothing fancy). Yesterday he brought home two bags of organic sugar and palm sugar "for bread" (complete with the Armenian labels and an English tag slapped on). Today he brought home treacle (I knew it was something that James Herriot's farmers sometimes fed to their animals), carob molasses, and organic molasses.

Is the Lion Dead?


hear the buzzing?

I am a fan of 19th century package design, so I was already primed to really enjoy the aesthetic of this tin. As I was enjoying the curliques and the nifty fonts, I spied what appeared to be a swarm of flies hovering over a lion that didn't look so spry. When I think of famous SpokesLions, usually they are rampant, or growling and very much "alive." Dead lions aren't very appetizing. What was this stuff? I know that blood can smell sweet, but that isn't a great association for sugar. I pried open the lid. Inside, it appeared to be roof tar (Brer Rabbit's tar-baby and numerous roof-jobs came bounding through my imagination). Also not appetizing. Then I read the teeny tiny print, "out of the strong came forth sweetness." Now it made sense. That lion was most definitely dead, expired, room-temperature, defunct, kaput. And those little swarming insects, they were bees. Samson killed a lion, came back later and found honey in its carcass. Strange and apt at the same time. Sometimes the UK seems oh so far away.

Post Script

The Dead Lion may be a little odd, but he's got a great recipe for Gingerbread Cake. I am gorging on it right now.

Lasagna

 

I bought a box of Trader Joe's No Boil lasagna noodles the last time I was at Trader Joe's (which since we've moved to the culinary equivalent of Russia/China larder is rendered somewhat unnecessary so we only go once a month for bacon and wine) because I was very very optimistic.  I had never made it myself, but mom's was always so decadent, gorgeous, and I thought, possibly fool proof.  She never consulted a recipe, and each time it was different-- sometimes with cheese and meat, sometimes with leafy greens and zucchini.

Our CSA box arrived with a dubious looking recipe for kale and butternut squash "lasagna" which did not include copious amounts of either noodle or tomatoe sauce.  I like the idea, though, and tried adding kale and cooked BNS to a recipe for Spring Lasagna found in Italianissimo (a bargain rack cookbook I picked up at Borders) which included homeade pesto and Bechemal sauce.  I just substituted BNS and kale for the cooked potatoes and veggies they called for. 

Heaven is Bechemal Sauce and Pesto.  

It is.  That first lasagna was the most fragrant, toothsome thing I had ever pulled out of the gaping maw of my oven.  I made a second dish of it last night, this time, I didn't have any BNS or kale, but I had a huge head of cabbage I had to get rid off.  Why not bury it inside a lasagna?  I used the rest of the hard cheeses in the fridge and a heal of blue.

Lasagna 

Oven 375

no boil noodles (yes, you have a life!)

1 or more c pesto (we like pistachios)

Bechemal Sauce (see below)

2 lbs tomatoes (a lot, I never measure in pounds) chopped

1 T olive oil

1 lb potatoes cooked and cut in cubes (or butternut squash)

a mess of another optional veggie, like kale or cabbage or?

3/4 freshly grated parmesan or peccorino or both

a scant handful of cheddar

salt and pepper

Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish.

mix the bechemal with the pesto.

spread the sauce on the bottom of pan.  

add a layer of veggies

add a sprinkle of parm

add a layer of tomatoes

add a layer of noodles

repeat until you run out of stuff.

toss of that scant handful of cheddar and whatever parmesan you have left.

bake for 45 minutes

Bechemal Sauce

1/4 c butter

1/3 c flour (I use whole wheat, because that is all I buy, and it works)

2 c milk

salt and pepper

(if it tastes too much like bisquit batter, add more salt and a splash of chicken stock)

Melt butter in pan, add milk (don't burn it!) and whisk in the flour slowly.  Keep simmering and stirring until it suddenly gets thick, then turn off the heat.

Four Alarm Popovers

There is nothing at all in the world like waking up every single neighbor in a 40 foot radius at 7:50 on a Saturday morning. Forty feet may not seem like a big distance to my suburban readers, but the lots on my block are 25 feet wide, hence the buildings are 25 feet wide, and a story is 8 feet, I am talking about potentially dozens of people.

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When I was little, one of the fantastic weekend morning treats were my mother's popovers. Unlike most breakfast food that can be whipped up in the time that it takes to cook, popovers are a tad bit more involved. As the decades stretched, the popover making evolved into a fine art. When I asked my mother for the recipe last summer (probably for the third time), it reflected a full 35 years of refinement and wisdom. A popover is like a small souffle. The eggs expand and ideally, a popover should tower over the edge and the inside should be hollow (in order to accommodate mass quantities of jam, peanut butter, maple syrup, honey, or all of the above). Baking the perfect popover is an art, and experience helps.

But before I blame these 85 decibel fiascos on my mother (mothers are too easy to blame), I am going to return to my first point. The cozy human density of my street is a loud thing in and of itself. From the Babar Clan who lives upstairs (and if my old ballet teacher were around, she would have clobbered them) to the old man who sounds like he is suffering from an advanced case of tuberculosis, there is rarely any quiet. When I first became aware of the old man, I felt sorry for him. I could hear every cough, every loud hock, I could even hear the sound of the mucous bubbling in the back of his throat. Soon, my pity turned to irritation. He got up every single morning, precisely at 6:45 AM to clear his lungs. It didn't matter if it was a weekday or a weekend (I suppose the germs don't take a break, either). If I prepare ahead of time, I can steel myself to sleep through the human hurricane, but last night I forgot and this morning, I just couldn't go back to sleep. If a lay in bed trying to sleep, I usually start imagining the slug-like progress of the mucus through our pipes. Being in the lowest apartment, we are acutely aware of every shower and toilet-flush in the building, and its easy to imagine a bilious green glob slowly making its way through our walls. Dutch can usually sleep through it, but he can't sleep through my tossing and turning. So I got up and decided a nice warm batch of popovers would be lovely for breakfast.

My popover (do not try this at home)


As any astute viewer can tell, this in one of my popovers, not my mother's. Notice its hockey-puck-like density and shape. While it is not like biting into a cloud of pastry, this version is still a suitable vehicle for peanut butter, butter, or jam. For the record, I substituted the milk for yogurt and water, and I used whole wheat flour, both which rendered the pre-heated tin moot.

Mom's Popovers

preheat oven to 450, put empty muffin tin in there to warm up, too.

1 c flour (white flour produces the most altitude)
1 c milk
4 eggs
1/2 tsp of salt
4 tblspns of melted butter

mix ingredients

when oven is up to temperature--

use melted butter to grease the tin

pour in the batter and cook for 20-35 minutes at 375.

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I am sure even a fire marshal, perusing this innocuous recipe, would be hard pressed to explain why the hair-trigger fire alarms go off every time I cook them. I truly thought having all three vent fans going, the doors shut and the windows open would prevent the disaster from happening a fourth time (I know, I am slow learner, but I really want them to turn out!). I am no stranger to setting off the alarms. A bread heel, caught inside the toaster will do it. Bacon, cooked to fast, broiled vegetables with too much oil, and any other number of foods can set of the alarm. I have been able to figure out how to prevent all of them, except this one.

Maybe in the morning, I am dumber than I am the rest of the day. Maybe my hunger clouds my judgment. Maybe the rules of my mother, even in the face of common sense, are impossible for me to ignore (that is not true), maybe my mother's kitchen pronouncements are cast in granite.

Be that as it may, in the future, I must absolutely skip the first step. For some reason, preheating the tin throws the alarms into conniptions. Taking the done popovers out of the oven doesn't bother them, so it is not just a hot tin, or a hot oven. My theory is that the nonstick surface offgases at high temps. Which makes me think we eat those gases in the cooked popovers. Yum.

The Culprit

I was under the impression that non-stick meant "teflon" which, in turn, meant "inert." Clearly I was misinformed. Whatever it releases at 450 degrees is odorless, but sends the smoke detectors into a tizzy.

Former French Lit Teachers and Paella Pans

I would have stayed inside all day working on the towel rod in the bathroom (day three, and I still don't have those drywall anchors in correctly) but for the mouthwatering memories of eating paella in the Mission.

Last time Dutch and I were at IKEA, I discovered that they not only sell paella pans, but they also publish companion cookbooks. The paella pan was more than I wanted to spend, but the cookbook was cheap. I wondered how those Swedes were going to interpret paella. I flipped through it, and ingredient lists were short, which is generally a good sign.

I was trying to escape getting sucked into the half-finished towel rod disaster this morning, so I decided to go online and peruse the world's kitchen accessory selections. I looked at tagines, dutch ovens, griddles and skillets. It was all very exciting. I would have bought everything I looked at, except the thought of shipping a 35 lb dutch oven half way across the country seemed ridiculous when I could simply drag my lazy ass a few miles across town and I could inspect all the dutch ovens I wanted.



Cookin' is a second-hand gourmet supply store. Dutch and I stumbled in a few months ago for the first time. Crockery, pans, butter dishes, bowls, china, bundt pans, cast iron, copper, cookbooks are all stacked to the ceiling in rickety piles. I always tiptoe very carefully, as there are a million things to break in every corner. I was perusing the butter dishes when a large crashing sound shattered the quiet. The shop-lady started yelling at the culprit, a little 20something hipster in a pink cloche. Then she turned to me and gave me the universal "humans are so stupid" look. She explained that that area was "obviously roped off" and off course anyone stupid enough to ignore the signs got what they deserved. The girl then ran out of the store with her head down. I told her I knew all about people-ignoring-directions because I am a teacher. It turns out that she used to teach 17th century French Lit, but had to quit "because they kept giving me illiterate students." Apparently, its much easier to find the matching bottom and tops of vintage crisscross depressions glass butterdishes (it took five years! she claimed). I bought it, and right now Dutch's special Irish butter is climbing towards room temperature in it. I also bought an ancient griddle with a century of pancake batter-crust intact, a few pyrex mixing bowls, and a gigantic paella dish.

I feel a bit foolish for buying the paella dish, especially since I haven't ever cooked paella in one before, but it was so purty. Tonight, its paella. The language in Ikea's "More than just a Pot" book is a bit strange, as if it was translated by a non-English speaker. I wanted to put a link, but I couldn't find any mention of it on Amazon or Ikea.com. A German website is mentioned in the cover, and I even found their cookbook section, but no mention of my book. They do advertise an intriguing "Amerikan" cookbook. Tonight I am going to attempt "Black Squid Paella."

The Ecstatic Grocery Store

The Kitchen King once described the New May Wah Market as a food museum, because it contained all the foods that humankind has been eating for the last millennia. While that may be true, the New May Wah Market also caters to the currently-eating set.

The last few nights, I have been so busy installing towel rods, rearranging closets, and checking my email that I haven't had the time to obsess over that burning question of "what's for dinner." Fortunately, Dutch usually takes a late lunch, so he doesn't come home ravenous, but I usually am. As a consequence, we have sampled two new neighborhood Thai places and a pizza joint.

Tonight I decided I was going to cook, so I carved the time out of my hectic schedule to think about it.

The New May Wah is a gigantic Asian market, with the best and freshest collection of fruits, veggies and fresh meat of the 'hood. Its not for the faint-hearted. If you desire chicken, be prepared to slip your hand in a bag and grab a very-recognizable chicken part from the piles. If you stand in front of the crustacean department, you could be at an aquarium, but being a grocery, its more like death row for all the little creatures. While I was wandering the menagerie, I found some fat salmon steaks. I had never tried their seafood before and I usually assume seafood I buy from anyone besides a fisherman is going to have been frozen, and if there is a way to tell before you eat it, I don't know.

I took it home and poached it in beer (a recipe from the Clay Pot Cook Book) and it emerged from the oven a perfect and scrumptious hymn to all that is salmon. The flesh just melted in our mouths and our teeth made that fresh-fish squeeky sound.

Heaven

Bike Food

bike, originally uploaded by camille94019.

I biked all the way across the City today, going farther than I ever have before. I snagged my favorite pair of hose on a sprocket tooth, but other than that, I returned home unscathed. I have been training for this day ever since I learned how to bike in the driveway when I was ten.

The City's infamous hills and aggressive, urban traffic, continues to intimidate me, so last week I attended a four hour bike safety class put on by the Bike Coalition. I learned that I had the right to a full lane all the time (except for on freeways), how to wear a helmet and other sorts useful things that are easy to take for granted. I am still scared of traffic, but now I can mostly avoid it.

Since the Silver Bullet's untimely demise, I have had to relearn how to be a grown-up. I used to just be able to drive places, like to work, the post office, and the grocery store. I feel like I have suffered from some kind of life-changing physical accident. What was once easy, is now hard and fraught with drama. It was as if she was an appendage. My phantom car hurts.

After the car went away, I didn't go to the grocery store for a long time. The stash of dry pasta was running out. The ranks of canned beans were decimated. Only a few dry garlic wrappers chased the breeze in the bottom of the allium bowl. The lone banana quietly rotted in the corner. The proverbial larder was painfully bare. Fortunately, Dutch didn't let me starve, instead, he fed me at restaurants, but that is expensive, though delicious (at this point, this blog could almost be entirely devoted to food). My nutritional outlook is now sunnier since I put a rack on my bike.

I was going to wait to install a bike rack until such time as I had money, but the irresistible cry of my stomach overrode those petty financial inhibitions, so I took the bus to the closest Sport's Basement (the Presidio lacks groceries, but it has a sport's megastore!). The Yellow Monster now has the cheapest rack and the heaviest saddle-baskets available (and when my ship comes in, I'll replace them with something lighter) and together we can haul up to two conservative bags of groceries! Now the wide, wonderful world of City grocery stores is mine for the taking! I can even go to places that don't have parking, like the legendary Mai Wah Market on Clement St, which I had to avoid before. (My housemates describe Mai Wah as a "food museum" because it represents everything eaten by humans, regardless of continent and epoch). Not to mention the Evergreen Market on Mission, whose tortillas are hot, the quesa cold, the chiles plump and you can fish the tofu out of the barrel for 99 cents-a-pound. The adjustment period has been difficult, but my gastronomy can only expand! Oh the vistas to conquer! and worlds waiting to be chopped, sliced and sauteed and consumed!

Chow Bike (adapted from Martin Yan's Chow Mein)

1 bundle Japanese yam and buckwheat noodles (from J-town, of course)
mess of green beans (from the Syrian Market District on Geary) cut 1"
two cloves of garlic, minced
1 t-spoon sesame oil
fresh ginger, to taste, grated
2 tbs soy sauce
orange bell pepper, diced
1 tbs oyster sauce (from Mai Wah)
half cup of chicken stock
pepper, to taste
cooking oil
1/2 tsp crushed "brown sugar" from Evergreen (it looks rustic, tastes divine, comes in a big, pre-industrial cake)

1. cook noodles per directions, rinse with cold water, set aside.
2. heat skillet, add oil and garlic, but don't burn either one, just warm the garlic, to release its fragrance. Add the beans and cook gently
3. mix liquid ingredients in a bowl, plus the ginger and sugar.
4. add the sauce and noodles and stir until heated through, add the bell pepper. Add some pepper if you want.
   

bon apetit!