Embracing My Hippie Roots

What is it about making something with your own two hands that is so satisfying? Why is it so down-deep pleasing to look at something and say: I made that?

The high you get from making things fully from scratch would seem to fly in the face of talk about how Americans don't cook anymore and how the Food Network and its ilk turned food into a spectator sport .

I blogged a year or two back about the idea that cooking is one of the few "dirty" jobs we still do. And I still think that, although I've begun to suspect that cooking is just the tip of the iceberg--the gateway drug. See: recent spate of hipsters learning how to butcher things. And as much as I hate to admit it, I totally get it. I spent the last 6 months looking for posters that show all the butcher cuts. I found them, and now they're taunting me. Isn't the next logical step learning how to break down a cow?

I would not be the first, or only, amateur to take this path. But really, short of ponying up for a class I think my hands on experiments will have to stay on the tamer side for now. (Heads up for the buried lead.)

In that spirit, I made yogurt last week. From scratch, like actually from a gallon of milk! I'm hardly breaking new ground here, I have friends who have routinely done this for years, but I'm still basking in the glow of accomplishment. It was embarrassingly easy, but even that can't diminish my sense of pride. I was dancing-literally-around the kitchen when the texture finally came together. Winner!

The only hitch: there is now a full gallon of yogurt in my fridge. Any suggestions?? It's a lot of yogurt. The obvious short term solution was to embrace my hippie roots, so batch one of yogurt was quickly followed by a massive batch of granola. Yes, I admit my transformation back to the crunchy Vermont hippie roots is nearly complete. I fought it as long as I could, and finally caved. But I still draw the line at Birkenstocks.

But really, despite it's "crunchy" stigma, both the yogurt making and the granola were so. much. fun. Really, you should try it. I'm officially hooked. And ridiculously excited about breakfast every morning. I'm almost as giddy about this as I was about a successful pasta making experiment with LD last month. Another "I made that" moment of euphoria and self-congratulatory back slapping.

I'm feeling quite cocky now. Next stop: cured meat. Now if only I could find saltpeter (which is apparently also an ingredient in some truly frightening explosives-who knew?!?).

California

Two days back from a trip to California and I'm still sorting through all the deliciousness. The best food images from part of my trip are most definitely to be found at Shea's blog, I can't even pretend to get visuals close to this. (and yes I have fully lifted one of his pix to catch your interest.) I only wish he'd been there for the rest of the week to catch a few of the other meals we had (I'll get to those later).

There was some amazing food, but what will linger long after I forget the precise taste of the Parkside fried chicken benedict(it was outrageously delicious) or how puckeringly, deliciously, lemony the ice box pie Shea trekked from Lois the Piemaker was (and it alone was arguably worth the price of my plane ticket)was the people all those meals allowed me to connect with.

It was one of the humbler home cooked meals last week that clarified why I love not just the experience of eating well but the conversations and relationships that take place around it. Abby and Paul had two friends over, brothers from Mexico. A and I cooked, one of those "what's in the fridge" meals that turned out surprisingly well.

A, P and I were talking about a New Year's meal from last year when I made carnitas a la Shea, which is a fabulous winner of a meal. LL and I won a sandwich competition based around it earlier this month. Which is all to say I'm kind of proud I've mastered this recipe. Until last Tuesday that is. Martine, the younger of the two brothers schooled me about carnitas. Apparently he's been helping his father cook carnitas back home all his life. Hard to compete with that.

Midway through the conversation (as translated through his brother as my Spanish skills are nonexistent) what struck me about the conversation was less the actual recipe, although it really sounds amazing, and more that we were completely bonding over the "right" way to make the dish. I'm going to concede defeat to the lifelong practice Martine has on me, but in spite of the difference in experience and language we had a long conversation about how you cook carnitas.

It got me thinking about how many times I've done just that, connected with a virtual stranger across whatever barriers might exist around food. Which leads next to how many connections I have with the people I love that are also bound up in and intertwined with food experience.

San Francisco has many amazing food options, but what really made them all memorable was getting to share them with friends and family. As always it's not just about what we eat, but how, where and who we are eating with....of course that won't stop me from dreaming about both the fried chicken benedict and the lemon pie. And saving my pennies for my next flight west.

Resolute Relish

I don't go in much for New Year's Resolutions. I support the notion of goals and self improvement, but the act of making a resolution rings false to me. If you want to do something, just do it. It's possible my personality is more inclined towards contemplation interrupted by bursts of impulsiveness. Yearly goal setting is a tad to regular for my taste. With that said I'm thrilled to bid 2010 goodbye and good riddance and move into 2011. So in the spirit of starting over what I can get behind are some reasonable food and eating goals. So here goes.

1) Learn how to make fresh pasta.
2) Conquer my fear of pie crusts (just in time for what every food paper, blog, smoke signal and what have you calls the year of the pie in 2011)
3) Catch up on my food lit: namely the MFK Fisher compendium and the New Yorker food tome collected dust on my bedside table.
4) Cook more complete meals
5) Eat more vegetables
6) Try more food trucks before the bubble bursts in DC
7) Find more local sources for food to carry through the farmer's market off season
8) Can something
9) Bake something, anything, from the pretty "My Bread" book I've avoided all year
10) Blog more

Happy New Year!

T-minus to Turkey

Cranberry orange relish, check. Gingered butternut squash soup, check. Pumpkin ginger cheesecake pie, check. All that's left is the cauliflower gratin, the roasted brussels and the herb butter basted bird. And of course the table setting, the gravy, the last minute inevitable chaos. And accommodating the seven other sides being supplied by others.

Only six for Thanksgiving this year. I'm so used to cooking for crowds that this feels ironically more challenging. Note to self: do not make a vat of anything.

My family is one of the "you don't mess with classics" variety. For many years I found that stifling and bland. I always introduced one new dish to the classic line up, on principle. It was also in hindsight what spawned my growing obsession with cooking. Thanksgiving for me was a time to try things out in a safe environment where my experimenets were backed by many, many other tried and true recipes to fill in if I failed.

All these years later, and hosting another Thanksgiving with friends instead of family (albeit only the second time I've ever not been with my family) I find the menu I gravitated towards to be a mix of favorites, experiments and dishes I've tried but are on their way to being classics.

Ironically it's not the turkey that inspires nerves. Can I do the cauliflower the way my mother, grandmother and aunt have? I've never done it solo. What if it's not the same? It's the one dish that's a nod to my family traditions this year. The butternut squash soup is a favorite of mine, easy, delicious and healthy. The pumpkin ginger cheesecake pie was a hit at a few events last year, courtesy of another blogger friend. The roasted brussels are a common table adornment around here, having emerged as the only way I like the veg. And the potluck component of most meals at 1660 ensures that there will be plenty of new dishes to try.

In some ways my Thanksgiving table resembles my approach to life these days, a nod to tradition but the curiosity to keep experimenting.

Happy Turkey Day.

Vacation, in the Vernacular

Vernacular: of, relating to, or characteristic of a period, place or group. In essence, native.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how travel and food intersect. Not just because I’ve only recently returned from a fabulously food filled vacation, although I have, but more because I find the two interests so intertwined as to be nearly inseparable. And then today, voila, an online chat about the New Yorker’s food issue with three writers supplied the term I’ve been searching for. Writer Calvin Trillin said he mostly writes about vernacular food, food attached to a specific place. He said his dislike of fancy restaurants often comes from the sameness you can encounter.

It’s perfect. Yes, I can eat Turkish food in the U.S. versus traveling there, and have done so deliciously twice in the last seven days, but what I loved about both meals was how firmly grounded they were in being Turkish. I might not NEED to travel to Turkey to eat those foods (though I would love to) but I do want the meal to make me feel as though I did.

I think I’d take Trillins thought one step further to include the totality of what vernacular means, essentially that a meal can be tied not only to place, but to the when and who of a meal as well. The experience of eating something is inextricably bound up in where you are when you consume it, when you consume it and who you share it with. Eating is about things that taste good, but as I’ve said on this blog before I don’t believe it’s only about what tastes good.

October brought a wonderful two week vacation that was very much about vernacular food and encompassed a trio of locales. A pitch perfect week in London with BOG /W, a long weekend in Kent for the wedding of PA/A, and four days in Barcelona to round it out. It was far flung and wonderful and full of fun, dear friends and delicious food.

In fourteen days we ate more than I could possibly include in one blog post, I’ll have to dissect and describe the culinary compendium later. But suffice to say highlights, in addition to the seaside paella, included: curry near Brick Lane; pad thai at a restaurant that features chilies so hot they brought the fire department, literally; grilled razor clams at a tapas bar inside La Boqueria; partridge cooked in a pear cider sauce in a 17th century inn in Kent; wonderful, lemony Afghani food in a tiny London storefront; churros and chocolate during a festival celebrating a saint represented by flies (long story involving French invaders and swarms of defensive insects supposedly sent by a dead saint); cozy soup in a cook book store turned café; and countless other meals.

Why is it that food tastes so much better when we’re traveling or on vacation? Even basic things seem luxurious. Is that because we’re paying more attention? Because drinking that bottle of wine at lunch on a Tuesday seems just a wee bit naughty? Whatever the reason I seem to find all my meals memorable when I’m traveling. And this trip was no different. The multi-cheese picnic consumed on the train after strolling around Borough Market stands out in my brain just as clearly as the two fantastic tapas meals I had at Tapas 24 in Barcelona. Go figure.

Wanton Chicken

I was vindicated today to find that Julia Child’s recipe for basic roasted chicken is almost the same as the one I’ve been using. Simple. Delicious. Humble. I can’t imagine anything better than the smell of a chicken stuffed with lemons, rosemary, thyme et al roasting away. Perhaps I can’t imagine it because right now that’s all I smell.

JC and I differ on one element. She trusses her chicken, tying the legs together to make for a better presentation. She’s quite adamant that to leave the legs swinging free is wrong. She makes some noise about overcooked drumsticks but her main concern seems to be keeping up appearance. Actually, the word she uses is “wanton”…. Leaving the legs splayed “gives the chicken a rather wanton look,” JC says in her lovely cookbook co-written with Jacques Pepin. I love that that’s the word she chooses. I usually can’t be bothered to dig out my cooking twine. So wanton chicken it is.

I’ll admit that roasting a chicken is an odd activity for a lazy, gorgeous Saturday when lunch is past and it’s not quite dinner time. But this was a: when the oven was free in my cook crowded home today, sandwiched between the farmer’s market inspired breakfast cooked by one housemate and the zucchini cake baking frenzy of another who is valiantly trying to tame our CSA share. And b: if I didn’t make this chicken today it was going to be a lost cause.

Hence roast chicken at 3pm.

My approach to roast chicken is simple. Having never owned the proper v-shaped roasting rack I strew the bottom of the roasting pan with onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, leeks: whatever’s in the house and will lift the chicken off the bottom of the pan. Rub the bird’s skin with butter or olive oil, s&p, put some in the cavity as well. (JC calls this a “generous butter massage,” wanton indeed!). Cut a couple lemons (or a mix of lemon and orange if there are oranges to be had) into thick slices. Squeeze the lemons over the chicken and stuff the cavity with them and fresh herbs. We always have rosemary and thyme so those tend to be my preference. Whatever lemons don’t fit in the cavity I toss into the bottom of the pan. Roast at 425 for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour.

That’s it. It makes for very simple, delicious chicken. With some yummy roasted veggies in the bottom that basically basted in butter and chicken fat…. Really what’s not to like. Although the “veggie rack” I use might not be universally appealing. They are very mushy and very intensely flavored and can end up on the salty side as basting washes some of the salt from the skin into the pan. I love it. But it might not be for everyone.

And I have to say that JC’s system for testing chicken’s “doneness” is preferable to my mind. If I cooked a chicken until the meat thermometer said it was done it’d be sawdust. I swear that’s why chicken has such a bad rap. Stuffing the cavity with citrus does slow the cooking time if, like me, you’re over exuberant about citrus. But I just allow for extra cooking time—a necessity with 1660 Hobart’s ghetto oven anyway. Julia says the chicken’s done when the juices run clear and the legs move easily in their socket.

Bon appétit!

I think I may have found the cure for my pathological fear of baking. Booze! LL’s birthday was Aug. 27 and per the birthday girl’s request I was charged with making an ice cream cake. In keeping with LL’s tastes I decided on chocolate stout cake for the “cake” layer of the ice cream cake and used a Hobart favorite: Milk Stout. I have to admit I did not make the ice cream myself. I need to log quite a few more hours on the Dixie Bell (our aptly named retro ice cream maker) before I’d venture to include one of my own creations in something as important as a birthday cake. I chickened out in other words and bought Haagen Daz. Vanilla.

As an aside have you ever read the ingredients of most ice creams? I did the other day and it is truly terrifying. The vast majority are most definitely not Fit For Human Consumption. Why on earth are there so many unpronounceable ingredients in them? Having now made our own ice cream I can attest that it’s a refreshingly simple recipe. Cream. Ice. Salt (for melting the ice). Whatever fruits or flavors strike your fancy. In an entire case of ice cream at Whole Foods the ONLY brand that had just ingredients I could identify without a periodic table or a degree in food science was Haagen Daz. Ridiculous.

So ice cream purchased all that remained was the topping. I again relied on a Hobart favorite: bourbon whipped cream. I worried in the days leading up to Laura’s birthday that the stout, chocolate, ice cream, bourbon combo would be overwhelming, that there was too much going on. But if the reports of those who ate the cake are to be believed it all married surprisingly well. The bourbon notes in the vanilla dovetailed nicely with the bourbon whipped cream. And the dense chocolate stout cake seemed to benefit from the cool smooth vanilla flavor of the ice cream. I’m going to try the cake solo for guests this weekend as a comparison, so we’ll see how the recipe does at room temperature with nothing to distract from it. I think the cake definitely benefitted from sitting a day or two. The milk stout gave the chocolate cake an almost sour taste which while not entirely unappealing really mellowed out over time.

I don’t have the attention to detail required for light fluffy baking. Dense, intense flavor I seem to be able to manage. Chocolate stout cake definitely falls into the latter category.

Hobart St. Boozy Birthday Cake

Cake recipe (courtesy of the NYT, adapted from Epicurious)

Butter for pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/8 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda


1. For the cake: heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium-low heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

2. In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until risen and firm, 45 minutes to one hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

Ice Cream layer:

Allow a container of ice cream, recommended flavor vanilla with bourbon notes, to soften at room temperature. Line an 8 inch spring form pan with plastic wrap. Pour or scoop ice cream into the pan and smooth into an even layer. Freeze until hard.

When hard, put cake layer on top and freeze again. (Note: my intention was to do 2 layers of cake with ice cream in the middle. Using the above cake recipe you would need to double it, the one cake isn’t tall enough to split horizontally. But the single layers of cake and ice cream worked just fine.)

Topping:

1 pint whipping cream, powdered sugar and bourbon to taste (Buffalo Trace worked nicely). Mine was a little too bourbon-y so be careful not to over pour. If there’s a “right” time to add liquid to whipped cream I don’t know what it is-I dump the powdered sugar and the bourbon into the cream in the stand mixer and flip the switch. For topping a cake stiffer whipped cream, practically butter texture, is preferable. It was easier to use as frosting.

Cover cake with whipped cream frosting. For frosting technique I recommend getting lessons as I did over the weekend from a trained cake decorator! I would’ve been a train wreck on my own. (Thanks AM.) Otherwise do the best you can. My philosophy is that taste matters more than aesthetics anyway.

The assembled ice cream cake is best if you allow it all to freeze again. Perhaps even overnight. Day 2 and 3 of LL’s cake outstripped day 1 hands down. The whipped cream sets up more like frosting and the flavors seem to meld better. But if you’re antsy (or like me perpetually running behind) it can be eaten in the ooey gooey stage right after frosting. The flavors are all there.