Pink of Perfection

This sickness came on hard, fast, and out of nowhere. My sister says the dipping sauces we shared a week back might be the culprit. Damn that fresh spring roll, even if it did have lobster and strawberries, because since last Friday, I’ve been talking like Kathleen Turner and not wanting to eat a thing. Except maybe ice cream which, in addition to cinnamon rolls, is the only thing that sounds at all appealing.

Which brings me to this: when I am lucky enough to be healthy, I sometimes I get annoyed by my endless love of grocery lists, imaginary dinner party menus, and stash of online recipes. Why aren’t I using that energy to write a book? Sew a dress? Cure something?! But when you are sick and food loses all its appeal so, to some extent, does life. Let’s face it: living just isn’t as much fun without meals you can get excited about punctuating your days. You start settling: oh sure, I’ll eat that overripe banana. Whatever. Takeout again? That’s fine. I don’t care much about food. And that does not sound like me at all.

Soon, my taste buds will poke out from behind their sickly veil. Until then, the only way to get through to them is with fiery hot foods like chips and salsa, red curry, and this turkey soup.

Continue reading “Mexican Turkey Soup for the Sick” »

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to treehouses, deeply-cushioned reading chairs, down comforters–hell, let’s call a spade a spade–bed, sunny nooks on cold afternoons, and stews. What do all these things have in common? They are cozy, and I, my friends, am an unabashed fan of cozy.

Sure, I love sexy, and also adventurous, and certainly a taste of glamour from time to time. But give me a wisp of a nightgown, a blue and white teacup filled with hot chocolate, and a battered paperback and I will know just what to do.

Which is why last Sunday night I got into my head that I wanted to make a garlicky beef daube and have it simmering on the stove for an hour while I puttered around the newly-clean apartment, flipping through a magazine and tucking-in hospital corners. That is Sunday Night Cozy, a quiet and delicate mix of hands-off cooking and gentle productivity about the house.

But then I realized I am a complete dope: Sebastian would be drinking Mexican beer and cheering on the Giants in a bar on a divey drag of 4th Avenue, and my Sunday night would not see us lingering over glasses of cabernet and pretending we were in an old French farmhouse. Ah, reality. Instead, I decided to let the daube bubble away while I chomped loudly on another favorite meal (chips and salsa) while watching the Law & Order SVU marathon, blissfully alone. I’m telling you, sometimes life turns out even better than you expect.

But back to the daube. As I reluctantly pulled myself away from the television Sunday night, the daube was ready, wonderfully aromatic with thyme, garlic, red wine, and vegetables, and the meat was tender. I let it cool, then stowed it in the fridge before it would reappear on Monday night as a quick supper. And here we have yet another lesson learned in the book of “How to Eat a Decent Supper Most Nights”: let something cook slowly on the stovetop or in the oven while you have time to amble languorously about your home and admire the late afternoon light. And then stow it away for later in the week when you will have burst through the door, harried and hungry, looking for something wholesome to eat. Something that will restore your humanity when the world has taken it out of you. Something cozy. This is it.

Why does it take so long to learn the simplest lessons?

Garlicky Beef Daube
Serves 4-6, adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything

Here’s what I love about this recipe: you don’t have to brown the meat. You get to skip that whole troublesome, splattery step. And while I find beef bourguignon to be quite a pain in the rear and perhaps not worth the time and effort (though I’m glad I tried), this is marvelously simple. Just chop everything up, let it marinate for a good long while, and then let it simmer a good long while more.

8 garlic cloves
2-3 pounds beef chuck or round, cut into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch thick rounds
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 1/2 cup dry red wine
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

In a large dutch oven, combine six peeled and minced garlic cloves, beef, onion, carrots, vinegar, wine, thyme, and bay leaf. Stir, cover, and refrigerate for 1-24 hours.

After the desired period of marination, place dutch oven over moderate heat and bring to to a boil. Then lower the heat, cover, and let simmer for 1-1 1/2 hours, until the meat is tender. Remove cover and reduce liquid slightly, if necessary.

Peel and mince the two remaining garlic cloves, and add to the daube. Simmer for another five minutes and scatter parley over top. Serve with buttered egg noodles and something green, like green beans with caramelized shallots.

My friend Amanda is one of those people who is totally together. She works out every morning and makes dinner every night, her shoes are never scuffed and her curls are always shiny. I suppose this could be annoying on someone who wasn’t the funniest person ever, but Amanda is, so it’s not. And hello, she’s one of my favorite people on this green earth, so she could pretty much start eating small children, tell a rationalizing, funny joke about it, and I’d be on board.

But she doesn’t eat babies, of course, she eats rice and beans. Not just any rice and beans, but rice and beans with the right accoutrement to really make them sing as a meal. Amanda uses short grain brown rice and tops the whole affair with homemade guacamole (mash up cilantro and a bit of garlic in the mortar and pestle and then mix with an avocado) and pico de gallo. And, scene. Learning that this easy-breezy bowl of peasanty deliciousness is a go-to meal for my personal model of togetherness helped a lot of things fall into place for me.

Namely that, on a weeknight, after you’ve come home from your kickboxing class, and the clock is fast-approaching a number dangerously close to your bedtime, you can hardly expect yourself to pour over a new recipe and measure homemade chicken stock. Rather, I should say, I cannot expect myself to do this. Deb, another personal model of togetherness, definitely can.

But after 12 hours out in the world and six hours since my last meal, I confess my mental functioning starts to break down a bit. I like to pour a glass of wine (another trick learned from Amanda), chop a couple things, stir something, and be done with it. The whole process should take no more than 40 minutes and hopefully a lot less (and that time allotment includes digging around in the cupboard for the salad spinner and washing out the saucepan I left in the sink the night before).

I like brown rice in my rice and beans, but I also confess to really loving the Goya yellow rice. I sauté one small chopped onion and two fat cloves of chopped garlic in a touch of olive oil until they are soft and translucent. Then I add two cans of black beans. I fill up an empty can about 3/4 full with water and add that to the beans along with a heaping teaspoon each of cumin and chili powder and let them simmer while the rice cooks. Sometimes I’ll mash them up a bit. I stir in salsa, or whip up my own pico: juice of a lime, 1/2 purple onion diced, 2 cups grape tomatoes, quartered, a jalapeño, and a whole lot of cilantro. If I’m feeling really decadent, I’ll top with some chipotle sour cream, and then I’m mmm-ing all the way to the bottom of my bowl, sanity saved and weeknight time constraints be damned.

To go through a New Year’s Day in the South without eating black-eyed peas or Hoppin’ John (with rice) would just be asking for trouble. The traditional dish is thought to bring luck and prosperity in the new year, and you’re not going to pass up an easy chance for added wealth and good times just by eating something delicious, are you? I am drawn to rituals and find this one, entering on the first day of the new year, a fine way to usher in good things to come. But why play hard and fast about the New Year’s Day rule? As much as I am a lover of tradition, I’m not much of rule-follower. Cook these up within the first week of year, and I bet you’ll be just fine.

This is the kind of “recipe” that is utterly unintimidating, since this is a dish cooked in a thousand homes in as many different ways. In other words, you can’t go wrong. Add collard greens for extra wealth, use a jar of your favorite salsa to spice things up more, use a ham bone, salt pork, or bacon for a rich saltiness, or make yours vegetarian-friendly. I rocked mine out with a Southwestern flair, topping them with sour cream and lime juice. Even with just a sautéed onion, this earthy dish ushers in a sense of cozy well-being so welcome on this first cold day of the year, whether or not it will actually usher in bags of cash in the coming months.

New Year’s Day Black-Eyed Peas
Serves 6

1 lb dried black-eyed peas
6 slices of bacon, chopped
3 fat cloves garlic
2 stalks celery with leaves, chopped
1 jalapeño, minced
sour cream and lime wedges

In a large pot, cover the beans with about 8 cups of water, turn the heat to high, bring to a boil, and let bubble furiously for two minutes. Then turn off the heat and let the beans sit for an hour. Take an alpine hike.

Next, drain the beans and set them aside, and use the same pot over medium heat to cook the bacon until it gives up its fat and is beginning to turn brown. Add the garlic and celery leaves and sauté until soft and translucent. Return the beans to the pot and add enough water until just covered. Raise the heat and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Add jalapeño or other desired flavorings. Cook until the black-eyed peas are tender, about 15-25 minutes. One wise man I know says you can blow on a bean and if it’s ready it will crack open; see for yourself.

Serve with sour cream and wedges of limes and get ready for a super awesome year.

Mondays have a tendency to chew me up and spit me out, so that when I arrive home, tired and worse for wear, I want life to feel easy. Soup, with its bare requirement of casual stirring, and its gentle steam bringing the flush back to your cheeks when you finally lean over a bowl, spoon poised, fits the bill quite nicely.

This is not only my favorite soup but my favorite kind of recipe. I call it Alchemy Cooking. The list of ingredients is so humble that I am always somewhat astonished at the flavors that burst forth in the end. Better still, the satisfaction of making something is only magnified when its beginnings are so unassuming and its final form so great.

A couple Mondays back I decided to take the the subway to the far reaches of my neighborhood. I thought some French-style exercise would do me good, and few things put me more at peace than a chance to enjoy the charms of Brooklyn. It was the perfect night for it, as this was the last sigh of mild night air before a fast descent into winter. That is, all seemed perfect as I was peeping into undraped windows when all of a sudden the sky opened up and began to rain fat drops on me and my tote filled with the ingredients for this soup.

Had this been a typical Monday, the next part of this story would involve me cursing under my breath and having thoughts that sound more than a little like violins playing. I can’t say what it was exactly that prompted me instead to put up the hood of my jacket and laugh a little at my luck and wet toes. Perhaps it was knowing I had a bottle of wine at home to warm up with, or that I knew I would soon be eating this soup, or maybe it was the burst of endorphins from scurrying along the slick residential streets. Whatever the reason, what would have been an annoying inconvenience became a serendipitous delight, and I wish I knew how to make that happen more often.

White Beans and Greens Soup
Serves 4-6
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 bunch dark, leafy greens, such as collard greens, kale, or Swiss chard, stemmed and roughly chopped
1 15.5 ounce can white beans
6 cups chicken stock
salt, plenty of pepper, and grated parmesan

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, and sauté onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Stir in greens and cook, uncovered, until wilted. Add chicken stock and white beans, and raise the heat to bring soup to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, and serve topped with grated parmesan.

When last we spoke I was waxing poetic on the beauties of spring. But you know what? Since then it’s been rainy and cold, and I have twice caught sight of flurries. Because of the unseasonable precipitation and a schedule that has included more running around than I would like, I haven’t bought much in the way of fresh ingredients lately. I just can’t get it together.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve been speed-dialing Joy Kitchen every night. In a perfect world I would have an entire roster of delicious meals that could be made from nothing but the contents of a well-stocked pantry. In reality I have a mere sense of what can be made with cans of this and boxes of that. With a little creativity and hard thinking, my handful may one day become a roster after all.

This quick dish would be great with other dried fruits, like apricots and plums. Is it cheating if the pine nuts come in the box? Who cares. You are hungry, this stuff is delicious, and America’s Next Top Model comes on in 15 minutes.

Continue reading “Pantry Supper: Moroccan Stewed Tomatoes, Chickpeas, Raisins, and Pine Nut Couscous” »

I really don’t care much for football, but since I caught 20 minutes of a game a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been craving chili and cornbread. It must be Pavlovian or something. This meal is hearty and wholesome in a nice country way, and it’ll have non-game fans smiling. Then again, I ate this while watching Antonia’s Line, so what do I know?

Continue reading “Big Game Chili and Cornbread” »

Some people adore the long holiday build-up: Christmas music in the drugstore, red cups at Starbucks, the trees and wreaths lined up for sale on city sidewalks. It’s safe to say I like the rising action more than the day itself. I love the anticipatory excitement, running elfish errands, making delectable treats, all the ribbons and wrappings, and thinking hard what gifts my loved ones would like most to receive.

And while I loathe a braggy Christmas letter, I adore the the cards themselves. Stacked up on mantels and pushed in the rim of a mirror, they are a visual reminder of the people in your life who care enough to still use stamps. This year I received some artistic help from Stencil 1 for my outbound batch. This isn’t the first time I’ve espoused the merits of stencils, but I’m happy to say it again: I can’t draw, therefore, stencils save the day. You’ll only need cardstock, pinking shears, a short stiff brush, and some tempura paints. I just held the stencils down, but you could use masking tape to keep the stencil firmly in place.

And look how durn pretty they are! I can’t wait to send these out to the friends who are farther away than I’d like and to even the ones who live around the corner.