Pork Cake on Fire

Many years ago I spent an evening with Melissa and her ex-husband (I think) and our friends Josh and Ana, who have long since also split up. We were in Josh and Ana's Brooklyn Heights apartment, which was just about the perfect Brooklyn Heights apartment. Charming and slightly off-kilter, it was three flights up in a brownstone, the kitchen was in a pass-through between the living and bed rooms and you had to go through the bedroom to get to the bathroom. It had two cats, this lovely study off the living room, and, I think, a mantle. In any case, being in that apartment at that time with those cats and those friends was very reassuring, even cosseting, and the evening I'm thinking of may even have been some kind of holiday like Christmas or New Year's. Whatever it was we (or I) ate just an enormous amount, and I purposefully didn't save any room for dessert because I knew Melissa had made something from one of the Laurie Colwin books (Home Cooking or More Home Cooking) that involved whole lemons and suet, or what I understood to be the fat that's wrapped around the pancreas of a cow. I wasn't expecting much, but, you won't be surprised to read, my expectations were all wrong. I was completely devastated when I bit into my bit of suetty, lemony, toffee-liquor-drenched stuff to discover nothing short of perfection on a fork. I don't remember anything more about the dessert (like it's name) but I do remember being so sad that I'd already eaten so much because I knew I was about to eat a whole lot more of that dessert, personal comfort and health be damned. It was something, that dessert, and this post on Melissa's web site, with its recipe for pork cake that one sets on fire before drinking too much reminded me of that very, extremely, lovely, and filling, night. Happy Holidays!

Celebrity Sighting: Carla Hall!

There we were, waiting on the line to board the train from Washington, DC to New York City, and there she was, red glasses and all. My husband said, "Did you see the chef?" It was all I could do not to run up to her and gush, politely, discretely, briefly, about the love.

Love that Carla Hall.

Sweet Potato Pie

Because I am an extremely lucky fish, I had some of this pie -- Sweet Potato Ginger Custard -- last night, and I can tell you, it is Deeeeee-licious.

Cook This Now!

OK, so, I haven't gone on and on too much about Melissa's new book, Cook This Now!, but I should. Because why? Because it's got so many recipes you're going to want to cook right now! Like yesterday! It's arranged by month, which, frankly, to me is like a breath of fresh paper-scented air. I see the recipes for desserts and soups differently when they're arranged by month. I don't know why, it's just how it is. Anyway, moving on from organization, I can tell you that this weekend I'm going to make curried coconut tomato soup and I may get started on mallomars (which I've made before and will make your knees weak). Those aren't from October, but who cares? For next week I've tapped spiced braised lentils and tomatoes with toasted coconut (September), and cumin seed roasted cauliflower with salted yogurt, mint and pomegranate seeds. (October! You can read about it here, too.) Oh yes, also raw kale salad with anchovy-date dressing. (Also October, and I know the anchovy-date thing sounds a little weird, but I know it's going to be great.) Now, I must shop. You must, too! For this book! Now!

Time is Short: Spatchcocking!

This week will be completely bananas. There's lots and lots to do on the family and work front The list of what has to happen includes exciting things like cupcakes for birthdays and writing a long term plan for a student I'm tutoring and not-so-exciting things like a midterm about which I'm trying really, really hard not to be nervous. Still, I must share something. It's called Spatchcocking. Say it out loud and you will blush. Try it in the kitchen and you will be delighted. Melissa Clark tells us all about it here.

October! And Cook This Now!

September was madness. It was chaos. It was a mad dash crazy blitz run for it please let this be the finish line. And the finish line? Just a schedule. A regular, predictable, reasonable schedule. Of course things are still a little chaotic and I've had a lot of ideas for posts that I haven't had the chance to write. And I'm out of practice writing because I don't write every day anymore, and I wish I did, but, as with exercise and cutting down on butter, wishing doesn't make anything so. Which is to say I'd like to hunker down for a long post right now about something, but this is just a quick one for I'm soon off to a party to celebrate Melissa's new book -- Cook This Now! Everyone should go buy it now. You won't regret it.

Irene, Clarence and Rick

I sat down this morning to write a post about Irene and how big storms like it make me nervous about climate change, not to mention how thinking about lower Manhattan flooding makes me think about lower Manhattan disappearing, and how I can't believe the moment when Irene is coming is a moment when Rick Perry, who apparently thinks the whole idea of climate change is a little bit of elitist hooey, could be the Republican nominee which means he'd be in the running to be President, and it's also a moment when Clarence Thomas, who thinks he can think like an eighteenth century white slave owner and other writers of the Constitution, is seeing his legal and political agenda flourish, but writing a post like that made my wrists freeze and eyes water so badly I had to get up from the computer and make some granola instead.

Melissa Clark Eats Breakfast

And a whole lot more. Read all about it here.

Sour Cherry Pie

Truth be told, on my last trip to the farm market, I managed not to blow my budget on greens, but not with the sour cherries. I'd decided to make a sour cherry pie, and you need a lot of sour cherries to do that, two quarts worth, in fact. It's not a small investment. But, for me? Totally worth it. Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fruit pie person. I don't really know why, that's just how it's been, until I had the sour cherry pie. It's not that my pie was perfect, it wasn't. But, the sour cherries? Oh my god, in a pie, they're just so sweet-tart-terrific. And, you know, my crust wasn't bad, either. Truthfully, I want to make another one this week, but I won't. Maybe you should? Here's the recipe. Enjoy!

At the Farm Market

Today at the farm market I was at the fanciest of the farm stands trying desperately not to blow my whole farm market budget on tiny eggplants and exotic greens when a woman with two kids, maybe they were eight and seven or thereabouts, dropped buckets of stuff on the counter. Looking at her pile of verdure I wondered what her kitchen looked like and if I walked into it would I instantly forget that I'm incredibly privileged because even with the many blessings I do have, I don't have a wide expanse of counter space punctuated by high-end appliances.

But the real psychic injury wasn't inflicted by what she was buying. No. The real injury came from what her kids were doing while she was shopping. One, a girl, was eating a zucchini and the other, a boy, a cucumber. Just like that. Raw. Like they were lollipops. Then, the boy grabbed one of those darling little peppers that you can get in tapas restaurants char-grilled and salted and started chomping on it. "Mom!" he exclaimed, "This is really good!"

"Good," the mom answered, hardly paying attention for fear of dropping her seventy-five dollars worth of braising greens, "good."

"Yeah," he went on, "It's really spicy, but I'm eating it with the cucumber and it's really good!"

For the record, last weekend I made zucchini and corn fritters on the off chance that Elliot would take one bite of a vegetable if it also offered a deep fried experience. He did take one bite, of the oil-soaked edge. "I like the crunchy part," Elliot told me. He left the rest on the plate. Maybe the next time I should just lay a shiny raw pepper next to the fritter. Maybe the salty-spicy combo will be just the ticket. And that pepper? It won't take up any counter space at all.

What I Learned Today: Or, When Baking from Your Freezer

If you have a hunk of dough that's been in your freezer for a while, and if you decide that you'd better defrost it before it's too late and it goes all freezer-burned, and if, once defrosted, you decide that that dough will roll into the perfect crust for a nice quiche you could tuck into for at least two dinners and possibly a lunch, do just one thing before you bake off that dough: Taste it. Because if you taste it before you bake it, you might realize, before it's too late, that that dough isn't meant for a pie or quiche. No. That dough that's been tossing around the back of the freezer for going on three months? That dough there is butter-cookie dough that might have been made for chocolate hamentaschen. And while it's great filled with chocolate, topping it with eggs, cream and cheese is slightly less successful. I leave it to you to decide just how slight that success might have been.

Lemon Tart

Generally speaking, lemon tart is not my thing. I made one once, homemade curd and all, for a friend's birthday (because lemon tart really, really is her thing), and I liked it fine, but I didn't get all woozy. That said, I'm definitely going to make this lemon tart. I have to work on my crusts and it sounds -- what's the word? -- dreamy.

What's the Matter with Lunch?

What is it about lunch? When I ask a parent -- check that, when I ask a mother of school-aged children who are out of school how things are going, she almost always says, "What a relief it is not to make lunch!" And when I talked to a friend whose child is a toddler going to his first drop-off camp, which requires a packed lunch, she said, "I think about lunch all the time." As for me, my kids are now in a camp where they're given lunch. Not only are their food horizons expanding ("Today I had meatballs for lunch! And apple and peas and carrots!"), each morning I pace the kitchen in a state of easy contentment murmuring, "I don't have to make lunch...I don't have to make lunch...."

What's going on with lunch?

Like every other meal, lunch has to happen, each and every day. Unlike those other meals, you can't wing it with your kids. You can't run out and pick up a salad for them, or a turkey wrap (which, after reading The Ask, I can no longer eat anyway). No, none of that applies to lunch for your kids. Instead, it goes to school with them, and many days, it comes right back home. Its return, in full or partial format, is hard evidence of culinary failure. Sometimes I think I'm in some kind of pitched battle with my kids: Would it kill my son to eat a yogurt squeezer? Why won't my daughter try sunflower butter? Why won't my son eat bread? But, if the sandwich containers come home empty, I repeat the successful sandwich, over and over, until I run out of bread, throw away the bag, and can't remember which type of bread got eaten. Once, my daughter, who typically ate three bites of her grilled cheese, told me I wasn't sending enough food in her lunch box. "I want five things," she told me, "and a break from grilled cheese."

So for me, at least, not only does lunch mean the constant assembly and cleaning of plastic containers (which we use instead of snack bags and tin foil), it means exposure of my worst food habits, my ruts, my lack of creativity, ingenuity, verve. I'm beaten down my lunch, except, it turns out, during the summer, when, made by someone else five days each week, it's the perfect meal.

Red Cooked Pork, or, What I'm Not Writing

I had a variety of topics in mind for posting today. For instance, I was thinking of posting something about my changing relationship to writing and, by extension, to blogging. I also considered writing about body image and girls and how I wish we'd called "The Skinny" "If You Want the Cookie Have the Cookie." I thought about writing about seeing a very old friend (30 years we've been friends!) and what that felt like and I thought about writing about how I feel conflicted about writing about my kids, the post on body image notwithstanding (although maybe exactly standing). In any case, instead of any of that, I'm writing about this post from my friend and former boss Kian Lam Kho over at his blog Red Cook. Kian is a wonderful person and an astonishing cook and just once in my life I've eaten his Red Cooked Pork and it was transcendent. Here he talks about how to make it. I doubt I will ever make it, but what difference does that make? A girl can dream......

Mealtime

Taking a break from education and testing, here's what I'm wondering right now, at 10:46: Am I the only one who always wants to eat lunch at 11 AM? And what about having a big snack at five and another at eight? I know, I know, this is not new, it's the whole five small meals a day thing, but, still, is it reasonable to expect someone to have a bowl of cereal with berries at seven in the morning and not eat for five whole hours? Inquiring minds want to know! (Hungry minds want to make this pork butt and cellophane noodle dish. I bought my first butt today at the farm market.)

Cake or Klein?

I'm halfway through former New York City school chancellor Joel Klein's piece in The Atlantic. I keep thinking I'm going to finish it then write up a big old screed of a post about it but every time I think I'm going to pick up that magazine and finish the article it's clear there are about a hundred thousand million other things I'd not only rather do but MUST do, which means I'm not going to write a screed about Klein who, by the way, along with Michelle Rhee and maybe a handful of other reformers and the hedge fund managers who drink with them, is one of the few adults in education who actually cares about children. In any case, I guess it's OK, not to write that screed because, really, what do I know? I have ideas, of course, and feeeelings, but none of them are well-developed enough to do anything but add noise and I don't think more noise would be helpful.

Here's what I do know. This raspberry buttermilk cake? The one you'll see if you click on this link? It's delicious and so super easy everyone who eats gluten and dairy should go make it right now. You won't be disappointed.

Go Fish?

A while back, a friend and I were trying to figure out where to go for dinner.
"Do we have sushi? Can we do that?"
"No," I answered, "I don't think we can."

And so, we, who once ate sushi with wild abandon and true delight, had Korean food. (Please don't ask how I felt about eating beef that I was pretty sure came from a cow that had a really bad life.) Not the end of the world, it was a great meal, but it wasn't sushi. Honestly, I don't know when it will be sushi again. I hardly ever buy the stuff and when I do, I rely, heavily, on the Whole Food placards telling me what fish comes from "questionable" sources and what's a little more reliable. For more information on which fish when and from whom, there's this from Mark Bitman in the New York Times. And for goodness sake, if you're going to the Mediterranean this summer, don't go fishing.

Are (some) Kids Idiots About Food? In Defense of the Children's Menu

The summer I was seven and my brother 10, my parents took us to France. We spent two weeks in Paris and a month on the island of Corsica. It was an amazing trip. I'm sure we had amazing food. But on our very last night on the island, when my mom, brother and I were staying at a hotel near the airport (my dad had returned a few weeks earlier), my brother could find nothing to eat on the hotel menu. He hemmed and hawed and couldn't make up his mind.

"Do you want a haahmboorgeeerrr?" sneered the waiter.
"Yeah!!"

My brother really, really wanted a hamburger. He really, really didn't want anything else. Did that make him an idiot?

This past Wednesday night, on the Top Chef All Stars Reunion Show, Antonia, whom I love, announced she hated children's menus because they treat children like idiots. Well, sometimes when it comes to food, I'd say my kids are not, let's say, engaged. My son, every so often he tries a new food. Just last week he saw me eating egg and cheese on a roll and could not resist its siren call. But he won't try sweet potato. This is a kid who lives for sugar and he won't try a food that has the word "sweet" in its name. Then there's my daughter. We tried a new food chart for her. One day maybe last summer, she looked at her chart, she said firmly, "Next time, my new food will be a poppy bagel." I know from my psychology class that according to Piaget Helen suffers her cognitive stage when she's thinking about bagels -- that is, she can only think about one quality of the bagel at a time. She can't help it. It's part of pre-operations, where she apparently is, and when her brain moves into the next phase, concrete operations, she'll see that a poppy bagel and everything bagel are both BAGELS and one does not count as a new food.

Now, my brother's kids, all four of them, eat everything. They always have. I say, "mazel tov." Readers of this blog know very well that my kids do not eat everything. And, therefore, I'm grateful for a children's menu. Paying six bucks for a plain bowl of buttered pasta, the dish for which I don't have to wash? I love it. Is it idiotic to like what you like and refuse to try anything new? Maybe. Maybe if my brother had tried something new that night in Corsica he would've had a transporting gustatory experience. Then again, he'd spent the last six weeks doing new things. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he wanted something familiar. Maybe the only thing in the world he wanted was a hahmmbooorgeerrr. Putting aside the question of how that beef got into that patty, is that so bad?

If You're Going to Make Chicken

You might as well make some really delicious chicken. This recipe (yes, it's Melissa's) which has the chicken roasting over chickpeas and carrots is super fantastic. You know I wouldn't lie about something as serious as cooking a baby-chicken.

Roasting the Chicken

OK, it was a crazy week, my first back in school, and here it is Friday again. And, as you know, on Friday I often cook the one dinner the whole family eats: Roast Chicken. Only tonight, I was patting down my chicken and it flopped over to the side and it was very, very, disturbingly, baby-ish. So there I am thinking I'm cooking some chicken's baby and that baby probably didn't have a very good life and should I be eating chicken anyway and I wish my kids didn't like it so much so I could eat much less of it and, oh yes, do I want another baby?

Whether or not I want another baby, I'm not having one, but maybe I should become a vegetarian.