There's nothing to make tonight

Oh, but there is.

Here's a website that uses what you have in your pantry and sends you recipes.
It's a cool idea. But it has flaws.
For example: I have lemons. And I have rice (among other items, but work with me here). It offered up a recipe for lemon rice, that sounded very tasty and actually like something my kids might eat. Except that I never learned that pesky metric system.
What's 500 ml of water? I'm sure there's a way to Google it and find out (what did we do before Google, anyway?) but my Google is upstairs and my kitchen is downstairs, and you know, that's just too much effort for the Bad Home Cook to expend.
I apparently have all the necessary ingredients to make French onion soup as well. But a quick read of the recipe on offer suggests maybe I don't want to attempt this particular French onion soup. Besides being ignorant of all the pertinent metric measurements, it says I should use a stock cube (red flag!!) and throw in a cup of wine. What kind of wine? Doesn't say. Hmmm.
Maybe I should just try it and see what happens. Could be a giggle.
I still have no idea what to make the nits tonight. Maybe I'll just take them for fast food. I can have a glass of wine and call that dinner. Grapes, yes?
I always loved the idea of the liquid meal. Holly Golightly did it in front of Tiffany's. Why can't I carry on the tradition?

Yogurt and Rice...and all that is nice

I read cookbooks for fun. A good cookbook comes with recipes wrapped in the adventures of the person who wrote them. I get to read all about their travels and their memories; how their Italian grandmothers used to make this or that, or that back when they lived in Morocco with their first husband and his extended family, this was on the weekday menu. When I peruse the list of ingredients I can often imagine what the dish would taste like. Never mind whether I could recreate it myself -- usually I know better than to even try. My inexperience in the kitchen doesn't prevent me from daydreaming, however. Indeed, this is one of my favorite pastimes. I had a Persian cookbook once filled with beautiful photographs of dishes made with ingredients like rice and saffron and pistachio nuts and rose water. The recipes were completely beyond my ability. And yet I spent a lot of time hunched over this cookbook, staring at the pictures like it was a Victoria's Secret Catalog. But I never tried even one of the recipes myself. Finally I gave it to a woman whose husband was Persian. May she please him with secrets I myself was too timid to try.

I'm just really into Mediterranean food. The graphic you see here has something to do with food and a certain Middle Eastern Religion. Check out the link. Strangely appropriate, don't you think?

But I can always be tempted with less exotic fare. Last week I took my kids to the local library and pulled the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special cookbook off the shelf. I like the Moosewood stuff. Several talented cooks I know think highly of the collective's series of cookbooks, but more importantly, the recipes are generally simple enough for the likes of me. I flipped through its pages one evening as the dinner chaos was erupting around me. And I found the soup of my dreams.

Persian Yogurt Rice Soup. Page 129.

Can you imagine how creamy and delicious this soup must be? When later that night I learned about National Soup Swap Day, I knew right then that this soup would be my offering to the cause.

And OK. I'll just admit it. This soup calls for a blending of egg and yogurt, which I felt was beyond my abilities and frankly promised a terrific screw-up which I would then be able to blog about.

But that didn't happen, damn it.

Instead, the soup, which I made in the half an hour before my soup swap party began, actually turned out deliciously: Creamy and flavorful. Even my Kitchen Goddess friend Audrey uttered a little gasp and rolled her eyes back when she tried a spoonful. I was elated. Her only criticism: Just a little more salt.

Here's the recipe.
1 tablespoon olive oil. (just one? That's what I thought...but it did work out, so...)
1 cup finely chopped onions (I actually used pre-chopped from Trader Joe's to save time)
3 or 4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed (I minced)
1/2 teaspoon salt (or a little more, if you want to listen to Audrey, which you should)
1/2 cup peeled and diced carrots (I chopped up baby carrots)
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste (this was the one spice I didn't have, so I forwent it)
1/4 cup raw white basmati rice (rinsed and drained)
3 cups water or vegetable stock (I used veggie stock from Trader Joe's)
4 cups stemmed chopped spinach, loosely packed (one bunch)
1 egg
2/3 cup plain nonfat yogurt
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Warm the oil in a non-reactive (what does that mean, anyway?) soup pot. (I used my beautiful new Le Creuset soup pot, thank you.)
Add the onions, garlic and salt and saute on medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the onions are translucent, stirring frequently. Add the carrots and saute for about 5 minutes. Then stir in the spices, and keep stirring.
Add the rice and the veggie stock or water. Cover and bring to a boil; then reduce the heat and simmer until the rice is tender, between 15-20 minutes. When the rice is tender, add the chopped spinach to the soup a bit at a time and stir well.
In a bowl, beat the egg into the yogurt with a wire whisk.
Add this mixture SLOWLY to the soup, stirring all the while. Stir in the cilantro and slowly reheat, taking care not to let the soup boil.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

The result was better than I could ever have hoped for. Six friends showed up with soup for National Soup Swap Day last night (Jan. 23), which also happened to be my daughter's 10th birthday. This soup was gobbled down and enjoyed by all.

I made it in my magic new Le Creuset soup pot. And the ingredients for this soup were lovingly brought to me by the Flamenco guitarist. He couldn't be at the Soup Swap because he had a student that night. But he is to be rewarded for his ongoing generosity with a new batch of this very soup tonight. And crusty bread.

I still have the Moosewood cookbook. It's overdue, but I'm not done with it yet. I need to please someone with its secrets.

National Soup Swap Day - Jan. 23, 2007

I love soup. Any kind of soup. Chicken soup, rice soup, mushroom soup, beet soup, lentil soup, black bean soup, minestrone soup, bird's nest soup, egg drop soup, heartbreak soup and sopa Azteca. Soup makes me shiver with happiness and satisfaction. Soup is easy to make. It's economical. It's tasty and usually good for you. When somebody opts to make you a soup versus heating you up the contents of a can, it's because they love you and want only the best. Soup will heal you. And soup is hard to mess up, although I've been known to do so.

The soup pictured here involves parsnips and almonds. I didn't make it myself, in case you're wondering. But it sure looks dang good, don't it?

So it was with no small excitement that I read about National Soup Swap Day. Since soup is also about friendship and community, I wasted no time in alerting six friends, kitchen goddesses all, to the mission.

Next Tuesday, Jan. 23, we meet at my house to drink red wine and swap soup. I'm going to make Persian Yogurt and Rice Soup. You're right if you think it's unlikely to turn out as good as it sounds. It involves ingredients like lemon and dairy, which tend to curdle if not handled right...and I don't have any idea how to handle it right. Stay tuned.

However, for this event I have a plan B. If I ruin the Persian soup, I'll bang out my signature lentil soup instead. Always a crowd pleaser.

Thanks to Margaret and her blog devoted only to soup: The Gracious Bowl.

How to make your house smell good

There they were. Two black bananas curling like shrimp in my fruit bowl. Nobody was going to touch them. So I did. I moved them from the bowl, where they threatened to spore up my apples, and onto my counter top, where I let them sit another day. I had a plan. But I didn't know if I could pull it off.

Then on Wednesday night I was struck with a fit of ambition. This happens from time to time. I am truly fearsome to behold when I'm on one of these streaks: I mop the kitchen floor. I finish all my assignments. I write a chapter of my novel. I clean my kids' room. I am organized and clear-headed, capable and up for anything. In these rare moods, nothing is beyond my ability!

Not even banana bread.

And so it was that I brought the kids home from school with a playmate in tow. "Hey kids!" I chirped as they threw their backpacks and sweaters on the living room floor. "Let's make banana bread!"

The two girls didn't say anything, only cast me grave looks that suggested the middle-school years were coming to get me soon.

From my son: Euuuuuwuwwwwww!! Gross! Blechhhh!!!

My children are miserable cretins who don't understand about life-affirming experiences like warm, fragrant banana bread. They don't know from the joys of the thing toasted, and then smeared with peanut butter. They most certainly don't grasp the greatness that is something wonderful made from something horrible and wretched, like two blackened bananas drawing fruit flies in mid-winter.

There is no consensus on what makes the perfect banana. Some like them unblemished, green-tinged, and pulled from the refrigerator. I like them moderately speckled, like this. These are some perfect, fleshy, flavorful specimens. Of course, Deb at Smitten Kitchen writes that these bananas were long gone and so perfect for her banana bread. Hmmm. She does know what she's doing, so who am I to question? (warning: Don't go near her blog if you're at all hungry. The photos alone will do you in) The bananas I used were, um, further along than these. And as has already been well-established here, I don't know what I'm doing. Nevertheless, I had it in my mind that I was not going to waste two perfectly good, nearly rotten bananas.

So out came my How to Cook Everything.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees
grease a bread tin with butter - not too big. What, you think I have measurements on hand?

One stick butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas, smashed with a fork until smooth
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup grated dried unsweetened coconut

Amazingly, I had most of this stuff on hand. But only two bananas. And no coconut.

Mix the dry ingredients together
Cream the butter and beat in the eggs and banana. There were no instructions on which order this action should take, so I, being stupid, creamed the butter in one bowl and mashed the bananas in another, added the butter to the banana and then added the eggs...
The eggs were cold, so the butter clumped, so I had to get out the mixer.....
Anyway...dump this into the dry ingredients and don't mix more than necessary. Add the vanilla and walnuts.

Plop all of this into the bread pan and put it into the oven.
Bake for between 45 and 50 minutes. A toothpick or a knife inserted into the middle will tell you if

it's done or not. Mine wasn't, so back in it went. It ultimately took about an hour and five minutes. But my stove probably sucks.

But half an hour before this my kids started lifting their little noses to the air. "What's the delicious smell, mommy?" And then they started to get excited. The playdate was upset that she had to leave before the bread was done. But I promised I'd bring the loaf to my daughter's Girl Scout meeting the next day. Mostly to get rid of it. It wasn't going to be any good anyway, I reasoned. Might as well fob it off on a bunch of other people's kids. I'm such a bad mom.

I let the bread cool for 15 minutes before turning it out onto a plate. I cut two small slices and offered them up to the fruit of my loins, with milk. They fell on it. They begged for more. I had a piece. Not bad. Functional banana bread. I wondered how it would taste toasted.

The next day I brought the bread to the Girl Scout meeting as promised. There was only enough for a half slice for everyone, and several sniffed dismissively when they heard what it was. "I don't like banana bread," said one girl.

She changed her mind later on, however. In fact, this was the highlight of the year thus far: fourteen 9 and 10-year-old girls loved my banana bread. MY banana bread! And they thanked me. And they asked me to make some more next week. Wow. It filled me with hope. Maybe this will be a breakthrough cooking year after all.

Or not. I'm eyeballing a celery-root puree. Sounds fancy. And where the hell does one buy a celery root, anyway? Stay tuned.

Cook it once, cook it twice: Chicken, chicken soup with rice

It got cold suddenly. About bloody time. Cold in Southern California means two things:

Put on your Uggs. Make soup.

Chicken soup with rice. Hmmm. The very thought of it hit the spot. I fancied a nice, clear broth, ever so slightly salted. Nothing more than diced carrots and some leeks or zucchini slices. And just enough rice to make it satisfying.

I didn't have a recipe for that, though. So I ventured out on my own. It was a haphazard journey. Ill-thought out. With many detours. And yet I eventually got to where I was going, with results not nearly as disastrous as I'd planned for. My kids even ate a bowl, which continues to be my definition of success, although I don't suppose it should be.

Here's more or less what I put in the soup:

two cloves garlic
Two stalks celery, chopped three green onions, chopped six cups chicken stock
two frozen chicken breast tenders
1/2 teaspoon cumin, and turmeric
1/2 cup of rice.

I couldn't find zucchini. The summer stores must be depleted. Couldn't find leeks, either, since the only place to find those here are in the "better" farmer's markets or a higher end store than the one I patronize. So I went with celery. I don't even like celery. But there had to be a green in there. I know from experience broccoli would make things go from bad to worse and smell up my kitchen in the bargain. So I went with nice, clean celery.

I like garlic. It's tasty and it's good for you. That was the thinking behind two whole cloves of garlic, which I then sauteed in, I don't know, probably three tablespoons of olive oil. That's probably way too much, but that's what happens when you daydream while you pour. Note to self: Use measuring devices; they're made for people like you. Can you saute celery? Maybe you can. Maybe I read that somewhere. So in they went, too.

Keep the heat low so you don't burn the garlic. It burns quickly, just so you know. And it will change the whole flavor on you. Add the spices after a few minutes. Stir them in and let them mingle with the vegetables.

For some reason I did all this in a separate pan than my soup pot. Why? Dunno. I wasn't thinking that far ahead.

In my actual soup pot I used "Better than bullion" soup stock mix from Trader Joe's. It comes in a jar. You use a teaspoon of paste per 8 ounces of boiling water. I used six cups of water and so sparingly used 5 teaspoons of chicken stock paste. Heaping teaspoons, too, not rounded.

Too much. The stock was much too salty. I should have used four teaspoons of stock plus two cups of water. Better yet, I should have just used pre-made chicken stock.

In this salty broth I placed two frozen chicken breast tenders. They cooked through nicely, at which point I removed them, chopped them up, and returned them to the pot.

I dumped the contents of the pan into the broth. Stupid, really, because everything, the burnt garlic and the excess olive oil included, floated on the top of the broth. I had to start chuckling at myself by that point. I really have a rare gift for crap cooking.

I almost forgot to put the rice in, too. At least I had the sense to add only half a cup. I cooked all of this for about 20 minutes, or until the rice cooked through.

I ladled two bowls of this stuff out for my kids, realizing at the last minute that I'd forgotten all about the carrots. I tucked three small, uncooked carrots into each bowl and hoped the heat would soften them up a little before my kids found them.

As an added incentive, I had a nice baguette to offer them. The kids sat down. Inspected the soup closely. Then Annie ventured in and gave her little brother the secret kid nod and the apparent thumbs up. They ate most of their bowls.

Cool.

Maybe I'll get around to making those latkes on New Year's Day - when I have all the kids and no plans.

Bella Bialetti

I had to move at the end of the summer, because my greedy bastard landlords wanted to sell their house and make a killing in real estate. Too bad for them the market had stopped short and nothing was selling anymore (it sits on the market still). But good for me, because I was forced to leave a house I never liked that had bad energy and unpleasant memories (not to mention a ghost in the dining room) and found my dream home instead. A two-story, sun-filled 1920's Spanish style duplex. Just around the corner.

A benefit of having to pack up and move abruptly: I got rid of mountains of superfluous crap, purging my life and getting ready for a clear new beginning.

I found beautiful items along the way. Among them: My Bialetti (moka pot) from Italy.

All good associations here. Kitchen Goddess Three, Christina Bess, lived in Italy in the mid-90s with her husband Andy. His employer rented them a villa just outside of Florence, in the middle of a working orchard, with a view of the mountains. This villa had a small apartment over the garage. Needless to say, I was there every chance I got. This was before kids, in another life. It seemed somewhat easier to get to Europe in those days, for some reason, even though I was even more broke than I am now. I guess I was richer in time.

And my times there were languid and filled with tastes and aromas and the heavy, fragrant air of Tuscany in late August. In the mornings I'd come down to the kitchen, following my nose to the coffee boiling in this strange little pot on the stove. I'd never seen a Bialetti before. I was more a Mr. Coffee sort of American. I couldn't fathom how such a small appliance could produce enough coffee for four adults. But it was espresso that was being brewed, and as such, it only took a small amount, mixed with three parts warmed milk in a large cup, to perfectly sate. I was so delighted by the output I bought my own to take back home with me.

A lot has happened in the ten years since then. I hadn't even thought of the Bialetti for years. I couldn't even remember how to work the thing when I first found it, deep in the back of a top cabinet. It requires a small modicum of mechanical sense. There are several sections that need to be assembled correctly for it to work. There is a rubber washer involved. The first time I tried to use it, I don't think I packed the coffee in right: The water in the bottom boiled away without ever percolating up into the pitcher. The second time I used too much coffee. The time after that I used too little water.

All standard for me. I thought about giving up. I was not about to Google how to use a Bialetti. Just typical for me not to be able to use a simple appliance. One morning I tried again, using ground espresso I'd bought just for this purpose. I set it on the stove. I was busy, pre-occupied as usual. I had no expectations, and indeed, I had every intention of going out and buying a coffee later on, when this last experiment failed.

I smelled it before I heard it -- a rich, creamy olfactory hit that instantly took away the last ten years and put me back into a kitchen in Tuscany. Then I heard the strange hissing burble and I knew it was working. I sat down and waited patiently. Nothing that tastes the way I hoped this would taste is made quickly.

I had half-and-half left over from my holiday party. I heated some up in a small saucepan. To my delight I remembered the large, artsy teacup set my sister-in-law had given me for Christmas and poured one part espresso to three parts half-and-half into its deep bowl. It was a light brown mocha color. It smelled sublime. I stirred once. I sipped. I closed my eyes.

It's August, 1996. Except that it's December 2006 now and I'm so happy I could weep.

Need more coffee? Here's a great how-to essay by the really smart, irritatingly prolific guy at the Big Picture.

The frosting conundrum

Some years I bake for the holidays. In select years past, December found me content, organized, focused and flush enough to buy ingredients to bake a variety of items for my friends and family. Sugar cookies are easy because they come in a tube (although you can always burn them, in fine Bad Home Cook tradition). I used to love making bourbon balls. Two years ago I made ginger stars - ginger cookies shaped as stars - to the delight of my children. It was all I could do with the scraps left over from my attempt to make gingerbread men for them. It was the highlight of the year, as I recall.

The trouble with holiday baking, however, is that it often requires decorative frosting. A dawdle for most holiday bakers, no doubt. But to me, it's another simple recipe for me to bollix up and embarrass myself with.

I know I'm not the only one to be ginger-bread-house-challenged. In her yummy blog, What Did You Eat?, Sher acknowledges the various pitfalls awaiting the untrained. But then she's trained. And she eventually comes out on top.

In early December my children started agitating for a gingerbread house. A *real* gingerbread house, of the sort you see in Martha Stewart Living and in various glossy magazine ads. My Aunt Dorothy used to make the most amazing gingerbread houses - all covered in gumdrops and held together with thick white, paste-like frosting she'd squeeze out of a pastry tube. I gave the idea some serious thought for a few days. I did make gingerbread once. Why couldn't I make a few slabs and improvise? Maybe I could start a nice holiday tradition. I'm big on those, since I didn't grow up with any myself.

Then I stumbled upon a pre-made gingerbread house kit at Trader Joe's and realized that, judging from the way my kids were falling over each other in excitement, a store-bought house would make them just as happy. It was a big triangular box, with instructions on the back in German. I decided to splurge.

Inside the box came four ginger-bread like slabs, a dozen colored hard cookies of various shapes and sizes, and two little candy characters, a mom and a little boy, presumably for decoration. But, as always happens when you buy a box intending to assemble the contents within, some key nut or bolt is invariably missing. In this case, it was the frosting. It hadn't occurred to me that a pre-made gingerbread house wouldn't come complete with a plastic bag of stay-fresh frosting-flavored product. It didn't make sense. It was bad marketing.

Why would someone buying a pre-made holiday tradition want to make their own frosting? That's why you buy a gingerbread house in the box. You want it all there for you. Didn't they realize the paradox here? If I could make frosting then I could presumably make my own damn gingerbread house. Right? RIGHT?

It's not like the Germans to overlook such a key detail.

But it was too late to turn back. I'd already opened the box -- in front of my kids, who were watching, waiting for their mother to do something magical for their holiday. Crap. I had no choice. I had to go in.

Upon quick reading, the recipe was simple enough, but it dealt with meringue, which deals with egg whites, which really, if you're a novice, isn't that easy.

For example: I dimly remembered how to crack an egg and pass the yolk from side to side over a bowl to catch the ick (the egg white). It was one of the many valuable skills I learned in my junior high school home economics class. Likewise, I thought I remembered that whipping egg whites would eventually turn them fluffy. In any case, the directions did call for "making them stiff." Ya Woll!

I whipped those egg whites with a wooden spoon until I broke out in a sweat and I could see that I would be getting nowhere fast. I whipped out the electric mixer. And mixed until things indeed got stiff, about 10 minutes.

With A. reading the recipe out to me, I added the sugar, and then the lemon juice and the vinegar.

I had just dumped the liquid in when Annie held up her hand. "Wait!" she said. "It says here lemon juice OR vinegar."

"Not both?"

"One or the other."

Damn. Trying to blot out the extra liquid with a paper towel, predictably, didn't do much, and that was that. My frosting was nice and white and fluffy and had the consistency of whipped cream. But would it hold a house together?

You can judge for yourself here.

"Mommy, why doesn't our house look like the one on the box?" asked my son.

"You ask too many questions," I said, and handed each child their own candy character to eat. This placated them for the evening, and I let the house sit on the counter for two days before slipping it outside into the trash when they were at school.

I redeemed myself a week later, however, when I helped my son's first-grade class make their own gingerbread houses. We all brought candy to decorate them with, and the teachers whipped up a huge tub of thick, white frosting, the consistency of glue. Their secret? There's an icing mix you can buy, apparently, at specialty baking stores.

I plan to investigate this closely for next year.

Too bad I don't remember details...

My holiday open house was a great success. That's what I hear, anyway. I don't remember a lot of details. This is because my neighbors Marsha and Terry showed up first with a tumbler filled with Marsha's professional-grade Cosmopolitan cocktail. A glass and a half of this later and there was nothing that could have happened that would have flummoxed me.

I ended up only making one thing, my tortilla - which turned out perfectly and was consumed quickly, to universal accolades.

Somebody brought me a clever little bag of these cherry chocolate kisses. I didn't know such delights even existed. Too bad I don't remember who brought them.

I had the help of several experienced and well-meaning people. I must bow low and pay homage to their skills here.

Tony - who apart from being a gorgeous flamenco guitarist, is also an experienced party-giver and an extremely organized person. He made a list. Checked it twice, and made it all happen. He also thought of party elements that would never have occured to me, like why don't I just BUY a big lasagna and feed that to the masses? Make it easier on yourself, he said. And he gave me my party mantra: "This is a party for you. If your friends show up to share it with you, even better." This actually helped calm me the hell down.

Audrey Smith - who agreed to back me up in the food dept. if needed and opened the door to her glorious garage-full of Christmas decorations when I realized I had none of the necessary decorative paraphernalia. She also lent me all of her funky Christmas jazz CDs so I could make the appropriate playlist for the kitchen Ipod. She showed up early, looking festive, and stayed late. She ranted and raved over my tortilla, too, which is particularly gratifying.

Catalano's veggie lasagna was a huge hit. Other people brought dishes. Salad, and bread and lentils and lots of sweet stuff. Audrey made her popular persimmon roll. People stayed and talked for several hours. There was some dancing, thanks to Debbie, who grabbed me mid-party and said, "Remember when we used to swing-dance in junior high?"

"No!" I yelled, trying to avoid the tree. It did make for some comic relief.

A commentator also left a bit of advice that I took to heart. "Drinks, drinks, drinks." he said. I provided plenty of libation and what do you know. It worked.

So this is all behind me, thank God. It was fun, but I think it aged me two years.

It's still Hanukkah though. So I'm bound by honor to try my hand at latkes this week. Should be a real mess. Stay tuned.

Holiday party: What the HELL am I thinking?

I'm throwing a holiday party on Friday. It's now Monday night. I have to cook things to serve to people. I have relatives visiting from abroad. I have work. I have Christmas-y things to do for my kids' classrooms. I have other frets. And now I have to cook. For people. Lots of people.
Tony talked me into this. He has thrown a lot of parties in his day. He has more confidence in this arena. He said if nobody shows, so what? We'll get drunk and eat all the food ourselves.
I told him we'd have to be really drunk to do this. He said fine. He'll bring a better grade of booze.
Today I asked Audrey, Kitchen Goddess Number Two, if she would help me by bringing a few special dishes. "I would just feel more secure if I know you're there for me," I said. "Watching my back." She happily agreed. "I've been wanting to try this recipe for persimmon loaf," she said.
And what about the hot apple cider, I asked. I want to make the flat smell warm and holidayicious. I want it to smell like a big Victorian house in New Hampshire, with icicles on the porch and a fire crackling in each of three hearths. How do you make it, I queried. Surely you have a traditional recipe for me. Surely you've read something in Martha Stewart Living or Gourmet or have a secret set of ingredients passed down by your grandmother. Reveal it to me!
"I go to Trader Joe's and buy their cider," she said. "And then I put some cinammon sticks in there, and I cut up an apple into really thin slices so you can see the star. And they float around in there. People really like that. They think you've picked the apples off your own tree or something."
I love Audrey.
She also gave me this valuable tip: The day of the party, don't cook anything with parmesan cheese in it. "Or your whole house will smell like vomit."
Yes, this is a gal after my own heart.
Stay tuned for Holiday Party: Tips to Grow by.

Oh My Cod

As I opined in my last post, the very fact that I'd even attempt something like a cod cake is testament to the virtues of Mark Bittman's brilliant "How to Cook Everything." They're really not too hard, but you need to have the correct ingredients, and you need to have a standard of calm and quiet in the home so you can concentrate. There are several steps you can trip up on.
I'm finding that a primary problem of mine is pressure. I tend to announce my intentions of cooking for another, and that's when I choke. I have a big problem cooking for people. Not my kids. They don't count. In fact they'd be happier if I stopped cooking for them altogether and just fed them breakfast cereal for dinner. I mean other people. Friends. Tony. My Dad. Those close to me who, like anyone, are delighted to accept the offer of a meal and probably expect a taste sensation or at least something edible put before them on a nice plate. I have the nice plates. It's the edible, tasty part that I can't promise.
I don't remember why we were talking cod cakes, but about a month back I got it in my head to cook up a batch again. I haven't made cod cakes since I left Berkeley in 2003. "Oh, I can make a mean cod cake," I bragged to Tony one night, dimly remembering my one or two dumb-luck successes. "You'd love my cod cakes." Before I knew it I was on the docket for that Friday night. Dinner at home. Cod Cakes on the menu.
The first order of business was getting the salt cod. Back in Berkeley I had access to the famous Berkeley Bowl, with its six different kinds of organic endive and 34 varieties of peaches. It sold small loafs of salt cod in a shrink-wrapped package in the freezer section. All you had to do was soak it overnight; change the water three or four times, and by the next afternoon you had cod ready to cut up and cook.
All I have now is a Whole Foods, which is like Berkeley Bowl's skinnier, better-married sister. It's got half the stuff at twice the price but it sure looks prettier. It has salt cod, but it's flat, unpackaged, and kept in a barrel, I suppose to preserve its rustic feel. I supposed they would fill out upon soaking. I had Tony bring down three fillets later that week.
The big day came and typically I wasted time drinking wine and dancing around until it was 5 and time to start dinner for the kids. I put pasta on for them and started the potatoes.
For cod cakes, you mix the cod with mashed potatoes, dredge in bread crumbs and then fry.
First mine-field: Make mashed potatoes. The Bon Appetit magazine I get (but still don't know why) had a Thanksgiving special section that included an article called "Mastering Mashed Potatoes." It promised a four-step process to perfect mashed potatoes. "What's the secret to light and buttery mashed potatoes? It's all about using the right techniques in the right order."
I can read. I can follow a simple to-do list. So I figured I should be OK. I boiled the potatoes for the prescribed time. I "dried them out" by stirring them in the saucepan for "about two minutes," per the instructions. I added the butter. Finally, I mixed in the liquid. The instructions said the milk must be warm so that the potatoes don't become gummy or cold. Check.
What it didn't mention was that you need to pour the milk in a little at a time. I only remembered this after dumping in all the milk at once.
So I had fairly runny mashed potatoes. So much for fool-proof techniques. Bon Appetit should hire me to stupid-proof all their recipes.
Next step. The Cod. Unfortunately, the salt cod floating in water in my refrigerator had not lived up to its promise. I pulled off the skin and was left with two thin flaps of rubbery fish. I cooked it in hot water, which only made it more rubbery. I cut up what I had as best I could and mixed it with my mashed potatoes.
Third step: Dredge in bread crumbs. Because I am detail-challenged, I hadn't bought bread crumbs. I ran out to the store and found some stuff called Panko, Japanese-style bread crumbs. These actually worked great because they're bigger than standard bread crumbs.
Fourth Step: Fry up. Frying is dicey. I don't eat a lot of fried foods and the very act of dumping half my olive oil into a pan caused me great pause, not to mention eye-twitching. I wondered if I shouldn't be using another sort of oil that might pair better with fish, but such instruction was not noted in the recipe.
The frying went off without incident, but throughout the entire cooking process I was vexed by constant fear of failure, anxiety over how I could save face if the meal went horribly awry and Tony was forced to call out for Chinese instead. I felt I didn't dare improvise, such as take a chance with a different cooking oil, for fear I would ruin everything. As it was, with the sloppy mashies and the disappointing cod, I didn't know how things would turn out until I took my first bite.
Tony arrived, bearing Manchego cheese, olives and bread from our favorite place in the world, Say Cheese in Silverlake. My kitchen looked like Hurricane Katrina had stopped by for a quick bite. He set out the goodies and I fell on them without a thought to etiquette, sitting there in my stained apron. When I recovered my senses, I served up the cod cakes without garnish, and realized that I'd failed on the fifth step as well: You can't serve a dish in a vacuum. The cod cakes tasted fine, but I'd prepared nothing to go with them. They became simply another appetizer. Only they'd taken a lot out of me.
Tony seemed to understand. He poured me a big glass of wine and ate his cod cake con mucho gusto, singing its praises with his mouth full. I agree that they were edible, but with better cod and a thicker potato they could be so much more. I was once again reminded that learning how to cook was very much like learning how to dance flamenco: You have to learn the steps before you can concern yourself with artistry.
And so with me you get a cod cake on a plate. But you don't get the meal.

The Only Book that Matters

Like everyone else, I grew up with a copy of “The Joy of Cooking” in my mom’s kitchen. I never actually saw my mom crack it open, but it stood there on the counter underneath a cupboard for years, along with other yellowing and sticky treatises on culinary arts that were never examined. Because I was a nosy child, I did on occasion pull the tome out to inspect its secrets. It seemed dated even then, in the mid-70s, what with its promise of the perfect casserole and unorthodox uses for gelatin. Always good for a ponder were the recipes for bear, and possum. In junior high school I discovered the recipes for butter icing, also brownies, which at the time were one of the only things that could soothe my bitter soul. (I confess here that I never attempted “magic” brownies, since even then I knew my limitations in the kitchen. And why otherwise waste a perfectly serviceable dime bag?)
As I got older I got more interested in cooking, which isn’t to say I knew anything at all about it. In my 20’s I learned how to make 20-clove garlic chicken and four-can bean soup (one can of tomatoes, three cans of beans, different sorts). I perfected my rice-making. In my early 30s I was married and had a baby and was spending a lot more time in front of the stove than ever before. My then-husband brought home a new copy of The Joy of Cooking (because it was such an American thing, he laughed, and because Brits love to laugh at Americans), and after learning that the recipes for bear and possum had largely been purged (much to his disappointment), we placed it on our counter and rarely opened it again except for use as a reference. How long do you cook an artichoke? Consult the Joy Of!
It wasn't until a few years later that we heard about the Book. It had just been published: A thick yellow tome with the simple title, "How to Cook Everything." I started seeing it around, on the shelves of various people I didn't associate with cooking. I started hearing complimentary things about it. It was basic, I learned, but not so basic as to be boring, said one friend. Everything I've tried to make has turned out, said another. I picked it up one afternoon early in 2000 and flipped through it while everyone else made merry at the Superbowl party around me. Hmm. One of the first recipes in the book was how to marinate olives. Even I could mix garlic with balsamic vinegar. There was a whole section on vegetables (how to buy, how to store, how best to cook), as well as an exhaustive primer on meats. There were recipes for basic dishes: Roast chicken, for example, but also little sidebars on how to make a roast chicken more sexy. What sold me, however, was the recipe for crackers. My own saltine crackers. Easy as mixing flour with water, the author promised. It had never occured to me that you could make your own crackers - or at least that someone like me could do so. Page 239.
Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" became my kitchen Bible. The Joy of Cooking for my age. With it, I actually began to have some rudimentary success in the kitchen. I appreciated his many chapters devoted not to recipes per se, but to basic edification. Those more skilled than I might turn up their noses at an essay on how to make tomotoe sauce, but I, for one, was thankful. "Thirty-one sauces and dishes you can make in the time it takes to boil water and cook pasta" is the kind of side-bar that has supreme relevance to my life.
My copy is now tattered and stained. Whole pages have fallen out (Cookies. And the whole section on beans), and I’ve tucked them back in disorderly along with yellowing newspaper clips of recipes I like the sounds of but may never make. It’s a loved cookbook. Well-used.
The very first recipe I tried: marinated olives. Page 18. It was a boffo success. Everybody ranted about my olives. And I was thus emboldened to push onward.
I learned how to make an ok vinagrette. I learned how to seed a pepper, then roast it (although mine still stick to the tinfoil). I learned how to make really good zuchinni - useful since at one time I had a plot in the community garden that could feed all of China with its zuch ouput.
I learned that if you poke a hole in an egg with a needle or pin before you boil it your chances of successfully making soft-boiled eggs increases dramatically.
At one point I even made cod-cakes! Me! This involved three steps, which dramatically increases the chances of my bollixing up the entire operation. But they turned out pretty damn good, too! I can hardly believe it now, but part of my success was that at the time I lived in Berkeley and hence had access to the overwhelming assets of the Berkeley Bowl. I could go and find salt cod any time I wanted and all it required was 30 minutes or so circling for a parking space nearby.
I used the gingerbread recipe to universal accolades. Blueberry cobbler! Sauteed roast potato with rosemary! Mashed potatos!
You must understand what it’s like to make successful mashed potatoes from scratch when you’re someone like me. I have ruined spaghetti.
Not everything turned out, of course.
Lamb patties with Bulgar. As I suppose I’ve mentioned before, I’m mad for Mediterranean food. Lebanese food, in particular, is something I savor. Kibbeh is a big deal in the Middle East, and it’s a pretty basic part of a lot of yumminess. That’s why this dish sounded appealing. Alas, I’m not too good with meat. I don’t understand it. At any rate, this all came off very badly, made a mess and ruined a perfectly good iron skillet as well.
Chestnuts – did you know that chestnuts will explode in your oven if you don’t score them first? I do. Now.
Red beans with meat. Again with the meat. Bad. Bad. Bad. And then there was the coconut milk that made it worse.
Brown rice with lentils and apricots sounds good on paper, but the version I made was way too sweet. Brown rice pisses me off in any case.
But let us not dwell on the failures. My point is that this book changed my life. It gave me all the meager hope I needed that perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps even I could one day be a passable home cook.
Then again, stay tuned for my latest adventures with cod cakes.

Blogger sucks!

...so do chickens, according to this fellow.

Retail Therapy

The flamenco Guitarist and I awayed to Santa Barbara this last weekend. There was sushi, of course. And music, and dancing (even if it wasn't very good), and general merry making, including a giant tapas nosh with my brother Clem and his wife, the fabulous Hiromi-chan. And on the second day of this glorious weekend, the handsome flamenco guitarist walked me down State Street to buy life-giving blended mochas and people watch Santa Barbara's curious blend of co-eds, Mexican families, homeless people and the top 10 tax bracket.
And we were thusly promenading when we ran smack into my favorite place in the world. The Sur La Table store.
I don't know how professional chef's feel about the place, but to me, there is no store more titilating in all of Cookiedom. The colors! The textures! The neat little gizmos in neat little piles that people with kitchen talents can purchase and use!

Think of the cupcakes! And who doesn't think about cupcakes?

Or these clever little pastry tins. Tiny and solidly cast, they're fantastically satisfying. Small and cold. They sit in your hand like a little frog. I've fantasized for two days now about rolling out small circles of pastry, tucking them into one of these darling minature molds, and filling them with tidy spoonfuls of cherry surprise, or blueberry something. If only I knew what I was talking about. Oy.

Even the dish-rags are inviting. I want all of them.

It's really too bad Blogger won't let me upload any more photos. I have some really cute ones.

A little Peas and quiet

I get a few cooking magazines sent to me every month. Three to be exact. Two of the three baffle me upon arrival in my mailbox. Every month I get my Bon Appetit and I ask myself what I was thinking when I ordered it. Its pages are filled with recipes for gracious outdoor parties and uber-cool dinner salons. The people in the photos are all beautiful and interesting-looking. The kitchens are showcases. The recipes presume a certain level of kitchen know-how and go from there. They also make assumptions about your gear. Naturally the kind of urban sophisticate who throws Tuscan dinner parties on her inlaid-brick patio have all the right equipment. Me? I have what could pass as a patio, but I don't have a George Foreman grill. I don't have a pasta maker. And while I think I may have a lemon zester, I have never actually used it for its intended purpose, which, come to think of it, I'm not really clear on anyway. It did nicely scrape residual tape off my landlord's wood floors recently, though. One day I may have the skill to attempt a recipe within the pages of Bon Appetit, but not this week. In fact, likely not this decade.

I get Gourmet also. I don't remember ever ordering it. Maybe I was sleepwalking? Maybe it's somebody's idea of a joke? Barbara Cleaver Tilsner nudging me from Beyond? Anyway. I flip through it and promptly toss it into the recycling bin. Why would somebody like me even attempt a recipe found in such a magazine? Even the weight of the paper stock intimidates me.

The one cooking title I subscribe to with delight, however, is Everyday Food, a clever, paperback sized magazine that features the kinds of recipes people like me might actually try, and even better, might actually have some success at. Yes, it is published by Martha Stewart Living, but obviously they've found a new, lower-caste niche audience and are exploiting it to great profit. Over the cover title a banner reads: Your Guide to Fast, Great Meals. I like fast. And I like great. Wouldn't it be great if I could actually make great, fast meals for my family?

The book excites me because it makes cooking well seem so accessible. The recipes are all broken down into simple steps. They even include a shopping list so you can actually have all the ingredients onhand before you start (a common misstep of mine). It has features aimed squarely at me and my ilk. "Food Facts" is one page all about a commonly-used foodstuff - honey, for example, or wine, or tomatoes. It has a page about spices, a page about basic kitchen items you might find helpful, like a chef's knife, or a cheese grater. There are recipes on basic sauces, so you never have to guess about how much garlic to use in your vinaigrette ever again.

I flip through the pages and feel my sap rising. Zucchini frittata. Asian chicken and chili soup. Potato leek soup. Gingered carrot salad. I dog ear many pages. I use Post-It notes without restraint. I almost paw the pages. The photos are simple, uncluttered. Inviting. I might be able to make some of this, I think.

I'm not normally prone to deluding myself. As of my most recent birthday, I'm afraid my dreams of being discovered to star in a Broadway musical are long behind me. I will never grow into my looks. My skin will never clear up. I accept all of that and more. And yet, when it comes to cooking, hope springs eternal. I feel that desire to cook well should supercede utter lack of ability and talent. And so I forget past embarrassements and forge ahead.

I forget about the meatball soup debacle, for example. That's a recipe from Everyday Food. And it's for the best that I've blocked out what I did when trying to create the white bean chili featured in the "Cooking for One" section. You just don't want to know. Some things can not be written about.

And so it was with this particular dementia that I flipped through my latest issue of Everyday Cooking and set my eyes upon a recipe my entire family would enjoy (switch on copywriting tone).

Tortellini with peas. My kids like tortellini. They like peas. They like garlic and they like Parmesan cheese (especially when they don't know it's there). I also like all of the above. If I could make this dish I might successfully add to my daily evening repetoire, which these days seems to consist mostly of plain pasta, breakfast cereal, Dino Nuggets and edamame beans.

Tonight I tried it. Although maybe I should have waited until a day that was not Friday, as well as a day that we didn't have a play-date over. Also, it's hard to concentrate when your kitchen iPod is competing with your six-year-old's Godzilla movie in the next room. But when have I ever let chaos stop me from cooking?

Well exactly.

OK. Here's what you need:

1 1/2 pound frozen tortellini (yeah right. Like I live in North Beach or something. Get a package of dried from Trader Joe's)

Some frozen peas

2 tablespoons of butter

1 garlic clove, smashed

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

course salt and ground pepper

Cook the pasta about two minutes less than it says to on the package, then throw in the peas. Cook on until the pasta is al dente and the peas are tender, two minutes more. Drain the pasta and peas, but reserve 1 cup of the pasta water.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pasta pot over a medium-low heat. Add the smashed garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Discard garlic (or eat it, because it's yummy and good for you.)

Dump your pasta and peas, the Parmesan cheese and most of the reserved pasta water, back into your pot with your butter sauce. Mix it all together. Add salt and pepper. Add more water if necessary. Top with additional Parmesan if desired.

Couldn't be simpler, right? Here's where I fouled up.

The timer dinged just as I was yelling at the kids to stop playing with their light sabers in the house and I drained the pasta even as I realized that A) I forgot to put the peas in and B) I forgot to reserve the 1 cup of water.

So I dumped the steaming, not-quite-drained pasta back into the pot, poured the butter sauce onto it, dumped the Parmesan in (I had grated, not shredded) WITH the frozen peas and mixed it all together really quickly, hoping the friction would help cook the peas.

I forgot all about the course salt and pepper.

It didn't look so bad, though. The cheese melted nicely. The peas cooked through. I put some in a bowl even as my children and their friend were rolling pillows and other objects down the stairs, and I gathered up my library book on the Alhambra in Spain, and I sat down at my Ingo table in the kitchen and I ate my tortellini and peas in relative peace and quiet, all the while reading about why things were always better in Andalucia, even 1,000 years ago.

And I had a small epiphany of my own. My kids would sit and eat this dish. When they got hungry enough.

Also this: I don't like peas.

You say Potato, I say Potawto..

Note: I'd love to have a photo here, of my daughter with flour all over her adorable little face. But I can't, because Blogger, for some reason, can't upload photos today. No reason given. Mabye the photo gods haven't had their coffee yet. Strongly considering ditching this free blog for a better one. Stay tuned.


Christina Bess, a kitchen Goddess I worship, once told me that there are two kinds of people. Pie people and bread people. I am, according to her, a pie person. I went through a phase years ago of making apple pies from scratch at Thanksgiving time. These, to my delight, seemed to turn out deliciously, and won the accolades of everyone who dared a mouthful. Alas, peeling and cutting a bag of apples and making pie pastry by hand takes patience and focus I no longer seem to have, so I haven’t made a signature pie in a long time.
But apparently I still have the baking stuff. For someone who’s a bad home cook, I can bake surprisingly well. Not like Audrey Smith, of course, but I can make edible Christmas ginger snaps and passable Toll House cookies. It’s also a little known fact that I make a mean zuchinni bread.
So the other day my daughter was looking through her “World Cooking” book and asked if we could make scones. I’d made these once before, using the recipe from Mark Bittman’s marvelous “How to Cook Everything” book, and presented them, along with tea and a dozen chipped and mismatched tea cups, for snack to her Brownie Girl Scout troop. They were a huge success. And not too hard, as I recall.
Funny thing about scones. We here in the states pronounce them “Scones,” with a long O, and joke about the hoity-toity British, who pronounce them “Scawnes.” Actually, though, in Britain, where accent dictates who you are and where you sit on the economic and social pecking order, only Sloanes, or the wretched upper classes, pronounce “scones” with a long O. “Only ponces say Scones,” sniffed Annie’s Dad, Luke, a Brit from North London. Non-ponces (middle class and below) pronounce it “scawnes.”
Well. Who knew? I tried to say “scawnes,” for a long while, but in the end, it just sounded too, well, poncey for me, so I reverted to my Yank diction.
At any rate, darlings, making the bloody little things is dead easy.

From Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything”

2 cups all purpose flour (plus some more as needed when it’s time to knead the dough)
1 scant teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons cold butter
3 eggs
¾ cup heavy cream
1/3 cup raisins, cranberries or blueberries
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 450
Mix the dry ingredients together, reserving 1 tablespoon of sugar
Cut the butter into bits and work them with your fingers into the dry ingredients until you have an ever-so-slightly moist mix.
Beat two of the eggs with the cream. Using a few swift strokes, blend this into this mix. Use only a few strokes to beat your raisins or whatever into the mix.
Turn the now sticky mixture into a ball and place it onto a floured surface to knead, no more than ten times
Press the dough into a ¾ -inch thick rectangle and use a glass or a biscuit cutter to cut into rounds
Place the rounds onto an ungreased baking sheet. Reshape the leftover dough and cut again. You’ll get about 10 scones.
Beat the remaining egg with the 1 tablespoon of water and brush the top of each unbaked scone with this mixture. Sprinkle each with a little sugar from your extra tablespoon.
Bake 7 to 10 minutes or until the scones are a golden brown.

It couldn’t be easier. But of course, you must pay a little more attention to details than I do if you want perfect success. My scones came out OK, but a little dry. When I went back over the recipe, I discovered a few mistakes I made:

I preheated the oven to 350, not 450.
I read the part about withholding one tablespoon of sugar, and withheld one tablespoon of butter instead. So of course my dough was going to be dryer than it should have been.
My daughter was helping me knead, and got carried away, because let’s face it, kneading is fun. Like playing with Play-Dough. I think over-kneading changed the consistency of my dough.
Feh. How typical of me. Christina wouldn't have made such trifling mistakes.
In the end, the scones were OK. Good enough for the kids, anyway. But it was another humbling moment for me, reinforcing my knowledge that a little concentration goes a long way in the kitchen.

Tortilla y ya!

I did it. I nailed the tortilla. Or at least I made a version of it that both tasted great to me and impressed a flamenco guitarist who grew up on the real thing.
Here's how I did it:
Four small to medium Yukon potatoes, washed but not skinned. Cut in half, then again, then sliced from there.
One medium onion, sliced
two garlic cloves, diced
a cup of oil. Olive oil is fine, but corn oil is more flavorful it seems.
Six eggs, lightly whisked.
A dollop of milk.
A bit of chopped parsley. A tablespoon at most.

Heat most of the oil into a NONSTICK SKILLET. If you don't have a non-stick skillet, your tortilla won't turn out. I don't know how women in Spain did it before this invention, but thank God I live in the plastic age.
Add the garlic and onions - saute for a bit, then add the potatoes. Stir once or twice to cover the potatoes in oil, then don't touch again. Cover
Ccook for about 20 minutes. Don't brown. But a little brown is always ok.
Drain the potatoes. I remove them with a slotted spoon.
Whisk your eggs with a dollop of milk. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Add the remaining oil to the skillet and return the potato/onion mixture. Pour the eggs over this and stir once or twice to cover the potatoes. Don't forget to add your parsley.
Cover. Watch.
As it cooks, shake the pan a little every now and then to make sure the tortilla isn't sticking to the bottom.
When the eggs are almost cooked, (mostly solid except for a small pool of runniness on top) take a plate, put it on top of the pan and FLIP that tortilla. Slide it back into the skillet and cook on the other side. Five minutes or so.
Return to the plate.
Let cool for ten minutes.
Pour your glass of wine, break out your crusty bread, and make merry.
Buen Provecho. Or however you spell it.

I like to watch

I don't know why I'm the last person on the planet to realize this, but you can learn a lot about cooking by watching somebody else who knows what they're doing. I can credit finally nailing a tortilla directly to the hour I spent a few months ago watching closely as Javier made his version. Tonight my friend and neighbor Tamlin invited me down to her house to try a couple of new recipes she'd dug up on the Internet, and in watching her I learned a few choice tricks about how to prepare a dish. Linguine with clam sauce, for example. A common dish, perhaps, but not one I'd ever deign to try on my own. When the pasta was done she didn't drain it, as I would have done, but rather used tongs to pull it out of the water before plopping it directly into the cooking clam sauce. "You use the water from the pasta to help dilute the sauce," she told me. Oh. Who knew? Likewise, I never knew you could make a marinade in a gallon Ziploc bag. But she did, and threw six half artichokes into the back, shook it up and let it sit for half an hour to marinade. I always thought you had to marinade in the refrigerator, and for hours, in a separate dish.
Small realizations, perhaps, but valuable in the long run. I suppose that's why cooking shows are so popular. Maybe I should get cable.

Dream kitchen

One day when I have my old house, I will have an O’Keefe and Merritt stove in my kitchen. I don’t require a lot for my dream kitchen. I don’t need granite countertops (but yellow and blue tile would be cool). I don’t need a dishwasher. I don’t need a microwave or a central chopping block. I do need a lot of sun, and a window sill big enough for me to make sun tea on.
Over my stove, I will have hang framed photos of all my Kitchen Gods, so that they might look over me as I bumble through my paces and mayhaps pass on positive blessings.
Here are my Kitchen Gods:

Barbara Cleaver Tilsner. My late, great stepmother, whose pots and pans (and dishrags) I rescued from her kitchen after she unexpectedly passed over to the big kitchen in the sky. This woman could pretty much cook anything, and did so with big love for her family and many friends. She taught me how to roast a chicken. She taught my kids how to make Princess Toast (buttered toast with sugar and cinnamon, cut into quarters, set on a pretty plate). She would love this blog. I miss her every day. With her watching over me, I can’t go that wrong.

Julia and Javier – artistic and intellectual, these friends make magic in a third world kitchen. Dining is an art with them (they did live for several years in France, after all), and when invited to their table, you break all previous engagements and attend. When last at my house they made gazpacho blanco, which involves almonds, and is something I would never deign to even attempt.

Audrey Smith – my friend and neighbor, a Martha Stewart type if Martha had gone to art school. She is the keeper of the womanly arts, circa 1900. She quilts. She grows a verdant garden and cans and jars the output. A master in her kitchen. Her husband and kids do not realize how lucky they are to eat this gal’s cooking. She recently made tomato jam – a French recipe – from her own tomatoes. It’s sweet, and yes, tomatoe-y, but the furthest from tomato sauce it can get. Guaranteed to bring the sweet taste of summer to your mouth in deepest winter. Even my six-year-old loves it.

Christina Bess – a friend from grad school, eldest daughter of a sprawling, slightly crazy Italian family in Rhode Island. Naturally she knows how to cook. She showed me the iron skillet her grandmother gave her and inspired me to find my own at a flea market. She’s sent me dozens of her favorite Italian recipes, including a few family favorites passed down through the generations that I will never try because I will never be worthy. Memorable eating with her include sitting on her villa’s patio just outside of Florence, Italy, drinking chianti and eating pasta she made herself, gazing at the orchard and the mountains just behind them. (“No 26-year-old has the right to live like this,” she commented at the time. I had to agree, but then somebody had to do it, right?). She’s the one who can throw tomatoes and basil into a bowl with a little olive oil and sea salt for an appetizer that will bring you to your knees. I do the same and it’s slop. Her husband possesses similar skills, particularly with fish. Kitchen Gods, both of them.

Tamlin Santos – Tall, blond, busty, a medical professional, tech geek, baseball fan…and she can cook!! (sorry boys, get in line). She Tivoes the cooking shows in her spare (?) time, and walks down the street to share her output with me. Memorable dishes are her Louisiana-style gumbo and spicy pastas. She makes a mean chocolate chip cookie, too, as my kids can attest.

Tortilla espanola take two

I feasted on Antonio de Jerez's tortilla all week. I had three pieces when it was still warm. That next morning I reached into the fridge and ate it cold, con mucho gusto. I brought a large piece to my neighbor Tamlyn, who often brings me portions of her delicious and soul-satisfying soups and ragoux and who I knew would appreciate this delight. I fed off that beautiful tortilla for several days, until there was nothing left but a few crumbs. And I ate those, too.
And then it was gone. I stared at the empty plate and felt...alone. Insecure. I had the same kind of general sinking feeling I get when I drink the last of my Two Buck Chuck. "Oh no. It's gone. Now what am I going to do?"
Then my daughter started putting the pressure on for me to get her some Pop Tarts. Not Trader Joe brand pop tarts, but the real stuff, in all their chemical preservative goodness. I was hungry. I wanted tortilla. Then I had a brainstorm.
If I'm at Ralph's, I thought, I can just get the ingredients for tortilla and give it another try. It's easy, right? It won't take long.
I can make my own tortilla and eat it tonight!
So the girl got her Pop Tarts (S'more Pop Tarts...igg!) and I procured the necessary items to try, once again, my own tortilla. Thanks to the thoughtful and very good-looking Tony Triana for the list. To be safe, I replicated even the brand names.

Three tablespoons Mazola corn oil (that's what Antonio de J. uses, apparently. Not olive oil)
one and a half Paul Newman organic russet potatoes
one bunch Italian parsely
5 eggs

I peeled and chopped one medium potato, which was much smaller than the russet potato I used on my first attempt, so I added a second, smaller potato.
I fried these up gently in my cast iron skillet, stirring often so they wouldn't stick. I didn't want to let them brown either, just soften.
I added just the tiniest big of chopped onion.
I whisked five eggs in a glass measuring cup, added salt and black pepper.
I chopped up about a fourth of a cup of parsely.
I found a pan I felt sure would mold the tortilla into a pleasing shape, and I oiled it up well.
I drained the extra oil from the potatoes, and transferred them to this new pan.
I added the eggs and the the parsley.
I watched. I jostled the pan so it wouldn't stick. I used my spatula to loosen the sides.
When I felt it was firm enough, I put a plate over the top and flipped the whole thing so that I could cook the other side.
And here's where it all went to hell.
Most of it stuck to my pan. The part that didn't both crumbled and dripped onto the plate.
With no form left, there was nothing to do but scrape it all back into the pan and cook it up.
That's when I realized my many mistakes.
To wit:
- I don't have any sense of proportion. My potato-to-egg ratio was embarrassingly off, to significantly worse results than last time.
- Wayyyyyyy too much parsely.
- structural problems. It stuck to my pan, even though I oiled it and kept it all moving and the result was gloppy chaos. There are some foods that simply must meet a basic aesthetic standard and a Spanish tortilla is one of them. Antonio's was round and firm, like a cake almost. It's pleasing to look at. You can't wait to cut into it.
I'm still very far from my goal. I have the ingredients, but only the vaguest idea of how to combine them properly.

The results of this round: Crap. A potatoe stir-fry with some egg and some parsely.

I think I need better equipment. Maybe the right pan

Viernes Alegria

Tony actually did it. He paid cash money to Antonio de Jerez to make me a tortilla española. But he wasn't allowed to stay and watch this alchemy, oh no. He brought over all the ingredients, two expensive German beers and one crisp new Jackson but was then sent away. He returned a few hours later to receive the perfect, hot tortilla.
"She really wants the recipe, Antonio. Won't you tell her how you do it?"
"I don't think so," said Antonio. He handed Tony the results of his clandestine labor. "And make sure you bring the plate back."
So Tony brought this beauty down to me, still warm under tinfoil. You can see that it's a flawless piece of art. And it tasted every bit as perfect as it looked - lofty, but dense. Slightly salty. Chewy. Filling. Perfecto, eh? But after careful inspection, we realized we were no closer to its secrets.
Stay tuned...