Not In the Kitchen with Gwyneth and Mario

There are carrots and potatoes and maybe a head or two of garlic roasting in the oven. I've tossed them with olive oil and lightly sprinkled them with sea salt and ground pepper, the four variety kind. To what end, you ask? I'm not sure. They were what was in the refrigerator--you may remember them left over from my last culinary adventure--when I got VERY HUNGRY watching Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow in On The Road Again in Spain.

This is an odd program. The premise seems to be that chef Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow are on a culinary road trip through Spain. The purpose? Well, there is a lovely cookbook that they're flogging at the end of the show, written by Mario with assistance from Gwyneth. I don't think of her as being a particular expert on any cuisine, let alone Spanish. Doesn't she exist on a macrobiotic diet? Or love alone? But, no, Mario has told Oprah; Gwyneth has a healthy appetite. Is that sufficient expertise? What do you think?

They are, at least in the episode I watched, accompanied by a middle-aged man who seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place him, and a lovely young brunette, whose sole purpose seemed to be to offer a visual contrast to Gwyneth. The foursome drove for a while and then dined for a while. Driving and eating, this is the stuff of great drama.

Actually, it is unscripted television at its most banal, and I'm someone who loves reality shows. But the ones I watch are produced by people who understand arcane dramatic concepts such as story arc and dialogue. The successful reality show are cast so there there is a variety of personality types and edited so there is a narrative line throughout. But the characters in On The Road Again are, with the exception of Battali, bland, insipid, a bit like rice pudding without the raisins. Further, there is no story and the dialogue--well, think of the talk at your dinner table when everyone's mouth is full. All the four can offer is a variation on the theme of "Mmmmmmmmmm."

So in some way this is a gentle form of porn, watching Gwyneth Paltrow put things in her mouth and lick her lips and moan appreciatively. Perhaps that is its purpose after all. But on PBS--isn't that too cheap a thrill?

Stone Grill Restaurant in Sacramento

It was good. Better than good. The meat, Kobe beef, was tender and flavorful. This restaurant, which is either a chain or a franchise, has a gimmick of sorts which almost works. It's called the Stone Grill because they serve your protein on a stone that has been heated to 700plus F. degrees. The heat from the stone, which lasts a llllooonnnggg time, then cooks the protein and you eat it right from the stone. A new kind of do-it-yourself, I guess.

You order your steak or seafood or fish--in our case, it was a couple of NY strips and an order of scallops--and it arrives in front of you raw on the stone. The stone is set into a platter, which is obviously heatproof since the food is already sizzling. The platter includes a section on each side, one for the cooked potatoes and one for the raw veggies.

Up to this point, life is good and the food is wonderful. The aroma of sizzling Kobe beef, just imagine...are you drooling yet? You cut off a perfect piece of steak. Well, perfect if you like your beef rare. Which I do. So perfect for me; never mind about you. Pop it in your mouth--ooooohhh, hot hot hot. Too hot for my delicate mucous membranes. Okay, we can work around that, cut another piece and blow on it. Better, but still uncomfortably hot. Meanwhile, the rest of your steak is still sizzling away. So if you do like it rare--well, them days are gone for this piece of beef. I didn't finish my steak--I never do, should you be buying me dinner--and it was a lovely pinkish medium when I ate it at home for lunch today. However, if I had eaten the whole thing at the restaurant, by the time I finished it would have been shoe leather.

Meanwhile, over at the giant scallops stone, they're sizzling away and getting a nice carmelized crust on them. Grab them now, because in another thirty seconds or so they're going to be OVERCOOKED. Fish, seafood is funny that way; any chef will tell you that cooking it to the right consistency requires a delicate hand. I know this, so I take my scallops off the stone and plunk them in my potato area. Where they sit for a while...and get lost among the fingerlings.

And then there are those lonely raw veggies. I don't know about you, but I don't care for asparagus and mushrooms grilled dry.

So here's the thing. They've not taken this idea far enough. They're assuming everyone has (a) an asbestos mouth, and (b) eats faster than a truck driver on speed. Those of us who dine at leisure--well, we must resign ourselves to overcooked, and therefore tough, food.

One of my dinner companions, the lovely Nanny Goats In Panties (wearing black slacks for all of you who are curious) suggested the one should cut up one's meat all at once, as if one were feeding the two year old, and fling it onto the side where the veggies are. One should. Our host, Mr. Mudpuppy, did not complain. Nor did he eat his mashed potatoes, which left all the more for me--nah nah nah. I can, therefore, recommend the steak and mashed potatoes. And fling--or eat fast.

Monday Monday -- I Like It Like That

My dark and woeful mood has lifted somewhat. I think it is the weekend that does me in. Seems to me that I've spent a lot of Saturdays over the past year or so sitting on the sofa and watching movies during the day. Maybe other people do that all the time, but me--no, except on these Saturdays when I can't think what else to do with myself.

Sunday is my Food Network Day. That's an allowable excursion into TV Land, mainly because I don't do it sitting on the sofa. Rather, I'm standing in the kitchen, cooking up my own Food Network show. Yesterday I did some conglomeration of bacon and pork and onions and greens. It was what I had in the refrigerator.

Please do not tell God that I had all that pork, because we're right smack in the middle of the Days of Awe. If God gets mad at me, he will not write me in the Book of Life for 5769 and consequently I WILL DIE.

So not only is the American Stock Market continuing to tank, but the rest of the world's as well. If I am not going to die this year, then I WILL NEED AN INCOME. Anybody out these hiring a good, marginally shop worn writer????

And what about them Cubs. Or was it the White Sox? Twitter is all a-tweet with the boys watching the game. Or maybe they're watching football. I'm not quite sure, because I haven't paid attention to boy-talk about sports, like ever. Even in high school, when I had to seem to listen, I'd really just perfected a round-eyed, rosebud mouth, "Oh really? Fascinating. Huh. That far." God knows what they were saying, because my ears were elsewhere, and you know something, no one ever called me on it. This is not a special talent that I had; it's one that most girls learned quite early. Think of it as the precurser to the "ahu hu hua ha hu hu eeeeeeeeeeee" in When Harry Met Sally. You know, the line that provoked the response, "I'll have what she's having."

Someone's In The Kitchen...

and it ain't Dinah. Tis I, me, myself.

I love fiddling in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon, and I love it best of all in the fall and winter when I can use my oven without jacking up my air conditioning expenses. Last week I bought these cute multi-colored root vegetables: carrots and potatoes in several different hues, including blue (potatoes) and white (carrots). And yes, I do buy my crayons in the 64 color boxes.

I roasted the potatoes and carrots with some garlic cloves and cut up red onions (which are really, as you know, purple). I then cannily tossed them with several dribbles of the oil of the virgin organic olives, a grinding of four kinds of fresh peppercorns, a toss or two of sea salt and several sprigs of thyme plucked fresh from my garden.

I bet you're wondering what that yellowish cowpie is at the top of the pan. That, my dear friends, is fresh polenta that I made. For that, I had to first sift through a half cup of polenta, taking it out into the broad sunlight to try and ascertain what exactly those dark specks in it were. I was looking, of course, for movement, legs, feelers. I saw none, so I decided that either the black specks were a natural part of the polenta--or they were dead bugs. If the latter, I reassured myself (in the best Alton Brown mode) that they were merely protein to go with my veggies. For some reason, the meal was singing a siren song of lemon to me, so I used the juice of a lemon as part of the polenta's liquid. When the whole mess was nice and thick, I threw it into the pan with the veggies, which is as you see it here.

And here you see it as I've plated it. I recently learned the verb "to plate", but obviously I haven't learned to do it.

Never mind--the whole thing was exquisitely delicious. As it was again tonight. And will be again tomorrow night.

Heirloom tomato sandwich with bread baked ByJane

Heirloom tomato sandwich with bread baked ByJane
Originally uploaded by ByJane

I was going to sell my old bread maker, but first I had to see if it worked. And it does. And I ate the whole loaf in less than twenty four hours. So I won't be selling it. But I won't be making bread with it very often either. Obviously, I am not to be trusted around homemade carbs.

In Which I Dutifully Account for My Luncheon With Rocco

I had lunch with Rocco Dispirito last week. Yes, I did. Me and Rocco...and a bunch of other BlogHers. Bertolli has three new microwave in the bag how easy is that pasta sauces--see, here they are.


And here is Rocco, who is every bit as cute and hunky and funny and did I mention hunky as he seems on TV. Truth in advertising is that boy.

Is The Food Channel Dumbing Down?

I think so. I just watched the latest episode of The Next Food Channel Network Star (or whatever it's called). Between the episode itself and the commercials, it seems clear that The Food Channel is looking to appeal to the common mom cook without much time (or talent?) in the kitchen. I don't mean to be snobby, but when I watch a cooking program, it's to be taken to a higher level in the kitchen. Rachel Ray doesn't cut it with me. Bobby Flay--eh, he's cute, albeit somewhat damp looking, but he doesn't inspire me to new culinary heights. Thinking about it, the only Food Channel programs I really enjoy are the ones with professional chefs doing high concept cooking. The other stuff--the easy, peasy in the kitchen stuff--nah, I can do that myself without the laugh track.

Iron Chef Sacto-style

Chef Yossi Ben Dayan, Head Teaching Chef at Hadassah College's Culinary School in Jerusalem, made a whirlwind tour of the West Coast. I was there! I prepped for him. Molly was there. She supervised him (look to the right side of the cooking table). Tomorrow I will report on this exciting event with RECIPES!!!!!

Blah blah blah blah

So--another day, another dollar. Oh, no, that only worked when I was earning a living. Now I'm just--not.

Last night I had one of those nights where my tiny little brain would not stop racing. It may have had something to do with the several ounces of chocolate I had right before turning out the light. But surely the milk chaser should have had some sort of soothing effect. One would think. Wouldn't one?

Today was one of those days when I suddenly realized at about 8:22 pm, that I had not spoken to another human all day. I talked to Molly, and she seemed to listen. But maybe not. I tried to work up a bit of a pity party for myself, but I just couldn't get there. I am realizing these days how much of my isolation is, well, it's My Isolation. It's how I like things. I do like to be alone. I like not having places to go and things to do. Except when the point comes, as it did about 8:20 pm, when I really wish I had SOMEWHERE TO GO AND SOMEONE TO SEE.

Tonight I watched Wednesday night's cooking shows: Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef. I find the incessant screaming in Hell's Kitchen a tad wearing. And the male egos always on display there a tad pitiful. Top Chef, on the other hand, offers a relatively calm kitchen (relatively, I said!), but there too the male egos--why, sometimes they're being exhibited by the women.

Tomorrow (are you beginning to pick up the theme here?) I will continue my ambidextrous machinations of the now two new websites that I'm creating. Me, Wordpress and Liquid Web--we're just like THAT.

A Tale of Two Holidays

So Queen Esther was there--I saw her walk in wearing a pretty pink dress and, of course, a crown--and Haman undoubtedly lurked behind a door. Today's group of screamers was not quite so, shall we say, screamy as yesterday's. Yesterday they were wearing lots of green as they screamed. So does this prove that Jewish kids are quieter than Gentile kids? Perhaps.

Yesterday I was at a St. Paddy's day event. My host served corned beef, a brisket that he corned in brine for some seven or eight days. He also served this tidbit: that corned beef as a tradition of St. Patrick's Day is as Irish as the Pope. Seems the Lower East Side Irish immigrants borrowed the corning of a beef brisket from their Lower East Side Jewish neighbors. The Irish saw it as a cheap substitute for ham; the Jews, well, the Jews just liked the taste. Or maybe there's another fanciful story to go with it, but my host, who is a Yiddish-speaking Scotsman didn't say. He also made, from scratch, some Irish soda bread. It was--firm. I brought the cheese. In that family, they call me the Queen of Cheese because, I dunno, I buy good cheeses. But then I'm a Jewish girl and if there's one thing they say we know how to do, it's shop.

Today's event was a Purim party of sorts. An ad went out in the Sac Bee last week, kind of a Calling All Jews who are interested in having some sort of Jewish community in Elk Grove. I responded, of course, because--gee, I can't imagine that there's more than me here. But guess what! The room was full. (Yes, Virginia, we are everywhere--and we vote.) I got so excited, I forgot to eat my hamantashen. That's a lie. I don't like hamantashen; that's why I didn't eat it.

So I was hungry when I got to Trader Joe's and looking for something nice, you know nice, for my dinner. But there was an abundance of ham and pork in various forms and formats and having just left the company of a rabbi, I couldn't stoop to such tref. Instead I had a salad, and then ate all the candy that was in my Purim giveaway bag

Sunday Night, What's on TV?

I watched Dexter tonight. Wow. I haven't had much patience for dramas these past few years. Don't know why: was it them, or me? I watched this one because, well, for the same reason that people climb Everest. It was there. It is one weird show, and I do love weirdness.

I did not watch Oprah's Big Give. Phew. I am so over Oprah. I look at her and I think: hubris, the gods will be descending soon to give you your big pie in the face. I look at her and I think: girl, get rid of some of that makeup. Par-tic-u-lar-ly the mega false eyelashes. They are so, so very false. I look at her and I think: Jim Jones. Watch out for the Kool-Aid, people, because it's sure to be doled out somewhere down the line.

I watched the first fifteen or so minutes of The History Boys, Alan Bennet's movie of his play by, hey!, the same name. T'was ted-i-ous in that way that most pretentious Oxbridgey quasi-intellectual Brit comedies are. Actually, I may just not like Alan Bennet. I recall seeing something of his way back when and not liking that either. So, sorry Mr Bennet, you're just not my cuppa.

And when I wasn't watching TV, I was cooking. I bought some blood oranges the other day, and I've been using them in all sorts of dishes. Well, two really. Both of which I made up. The first was a cold dish of lentils, roasted yellow beets and parsnips and blood oranges.
The second was lambshanks and blood oranges...and a bunch of other stuff too, of course.
The cold dish was quite excellent, thank you very much.
I have not tried the lamb shanks yet, but shall report on them tomorrow.

Flotsam & Jetsam & Metaphors Galore

Last night I dreamt I got stuck in a steep ravine. I started to climb out and then stopped because I remembered how old I am. Too old to be climbing out of ravines, it would seem. In my dream, I found another way out, but when I awoke--now--I'm wondering if "too old" is a fact of life to be dealt with (as I did in the dream) or an excuse.

The brined chicken was not successful. Despite being all nicely browned, crispy even, on the outside, it was still pink--oh, yuck!--on the inside. I had to zap it in the microwave which, of course, left it dry. I'm wondering if brining does something to poultry that affects cooking time and temp. I find myself, in this current bout of cooking mania, very interested in the chemistry involved. It's as if--no, it is!--that I've suddenly discovered that cooking is really a chain of chemical reactions. Unfortunately chemistry was my worst, absolute worst subject in school...


The product of my weeding on Sunday: I chopped and trimmed and cut and eventually pulled out a dead bush . It was the sister to the bush below on the left. Why did one live and prosper while the other died? I'm not sure. Maybe it was the incredibly invasive vining weed that had wrapped itself around and through the bush. Or maybe it was just Its Time.

This is the clear space that's left, and now I get to decide what I want to put there. I'm thinking bulbs--I love hyacinths. And maybe herbs. I'm not sure.

When I typed that first sentence above, it came out as , "The product of my wedding on Sunday..." Today, actually, is the anniversary of my wedding nineteen years ago. Do I regret it? No. Do I regret its ending? In some ways, yes and in some ways, no. It is what it is and I am what I am, and today I'm happy with that.

How's About Some Cabbage & Apples?

It's Sunday and I'm in the kitchen with the Food Channel again. But yesterday I was there as well...and here's what I made
I'm calling it, in a streak of originality, Cabbage & Apple Side Dish. I made it to eat on it's own, but it would be terrific as a Thanksgiving dish. And it's cheap. And easy. And I made it up.

Here's what to do:

1. Chop 1 purple onion (nice color, doncha think?) and a couple of cloves garlic and brown them in some oil (I used walnut, but olive would do as well). I got them quite brown, some were actually crispy, but you don't have to do that. You can just saute them till they're limp or golden or however you like your onion/garlic mixture.
2. Add 2-3 T of butter (sweet, please, is there any other kind to cook with? d'oh?)
3. Cut up half a cabbage into chunks or slivers or however you want to slice 'em. Add to skillet (I did tell you to do this in a large skillet or dutch oven, didn't I). You can use any kind of cabbage. Mine was the frilly kind because--it just was.
4. Peel, core and slice a tart apple and mix it in with the whole thing. Do some salt and peppering, if you like. Cover the pot and stir occasionally. Oh, did I mention this should be on a medium fire?
5. Cook until the cabbage and the apples are limp. Serve. Eat.
6. This is an expandable recipe. Just add more of everything to feed more people. Mine provided a side dish for four (me and three more of me.).

G is for Garden...

This will not be a touchy feely post. I am not one of those souls who wanders 'round her garden being nurtured by the nurturing nature of things green and growing. For one, there are also things brown and gray and wiggly being nurtured. I once wrote an article about harvesting snails from one's garden. It was a how-to, written in the days when I took any writing gig that paid (okay, so those days have not ended). I researched the thing and as with my articles about things sexual, my readers benefited only from my research and not from my experience. So when I tell you that harvesting snails is no big deal as long as you put them in corn meal to eat and shit for some amount of time (which you can probably find out by googling, or I could dig up the article) before you actually eat the suckers. And I use that last word advisedly.

But back to my garden....self-analysis is a 24/7 thing with me, so over the years, I've learned this about myself via my garden.

1. I am a process person. I love the planning, the digging, the planting, the weeding. To actually harvest whatever, eh, not really. I no longer grow green beans because they get so big so fast that I could never keep up with them. One year I actually made green bean pesto, which was no small feat. And people ate it. Which just proves that garlic, basil, and a good olive oil will make a decent dish of any old thing.

2. I don't believe in watering. If those fuckers, whatever they are, can't grow on their own, they don't deserve to, is my motto. Consequently I have more and better and bigger tomatoes than anyone around. Because tomatoes don't like a lot of water. Which means they deserve to grow in my garden. Other vegetables, not so much, I confess. Like cucumbers. But chard--I once grew a magic potion of rainbow chard. Of course, at the time I didn't know what to do with it, so it just kinda bolted out in the ground, a blessing of red and yellow and green, until it became brown and moldy.

3. I am an organic gardener. Mainly because those chemicals scare me and I'm always sure I'll shoot them in my face--or in Molly's. So if there are pests in my garden, I take care of them naturally. I spray whiteflies with soapy water. I get whoever I can to pluck the tomato worms off the vines. I tried drowning snails in beer, but frankly, my heart broke for the poor unwitting snail, inching his way into that good smelling stuff, working so hard, covering so little ground in so long a time and then--splat, he falls into beer and can't swim and drowns and leaves all his poor snail children alone in the dark. The same with snails and salt. I couldn't bear to watch them writhe. Why not just crucify them? You'd only need one nail.

4. I love weeding. I may save this for W is for... because really, what I would reveal deserves its own post.

5. I rarely if ever sit in my garden. My excuse is that it's too hot, too cold, too wah wah wah, but really, I think it's a character issue. What I like about my garden is the making of it. It's the process, I tell you, not the product. My garden here in Elk Grove is beautiful. As well it should be since I paid Hugo some $10K (okay, that may be a bit high) to put it in. It's got a stone waterfall and a gazebo. Actually, the electronics on the waterfall have frozen, so this summer particularly it has threatened to be a little den of mosquito inequity. And the gazebo--well, it's not fastened down and on windy days, it walks. But the rest of the garden is gorgeous: rose bushes and Meyer lemons, peaches and sweet peas, and them there tomatoes that I mentioned above. And, oh, the grape vines. These were D's special request. I think he plucked one grape, and I got stuck with the rest. Typical. I cut them off the vine and thought I'd make wine, or jelly, but, eh! they ended up rotting. So now I've got huge vines and what the fuck am I supposed to do with them. I look at them and think--grape vine wreathes, esty--I should cut and twirl or twist them and then sell them. I should. I should. I should.

But I won't. Maybe I'll get Bob, who is the Fijian replacement for the Mexican Hugo, to cut them down. Maybe I will.

But probably I won't.

NaBloPoMo

My Day -- By Jane

Here's what I've done today:

1. Got up early (for me) to drive to Sac's version of the 'hood to open up a community center and sit in an office waiting for my 9 a.m. client to arrive. And my 10 a.m. And my 11 a.m. A hat-trick of no-shows.

2. Read through almost my entire Google list on my Treo. No small feat with a screen that size. Got caught up with lots of people's blogs.

3. Drove back home, listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. A very good thing since laughter is the best medicine, etc. etc. etc. Stephen Colbert was on. He's funnier, I think, when he's not doing a character. Wondered whether he has ever discussed why his ears don't match. For the longest time, I thought it was a costume thing. But I think not. I think his ears don't match. And I'm curious as to why.

4. Didn't need to check my email since I had checked and rechecked it while waiting for the hat-trick of no-shows.

5. Packed up for mailing a blouse I bought at a Tupperware party. Well, not really. But like a Tupperware party, except for clothes. CAbi--heard of it? Neither had I. The blouse was too small and too large. That is, too small in the boobs and too large in the shoulders. This is my fate these days since I've grown these headlights. I don't know what to do with them. I have no experience at dressing them. I wish they would go away.

6. Went to Kinko's to mail the blouse. Got the new boy on the job. The one who didn't know what he was doing wrong so he just kept doing the same thing over and over again. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Or maybe just stupidity. I was a model of patience, I must say. He would never know that I'm usually a fire-breathing dragon in such circumstances.

7. Went to Target to see what new tops they have in. For my headlights. I need something that is not T-shirty, clingy, 1% spandex. If you have wandered through Target recently, you'll know how impossible that is. Tried on one top which fit everywhere except--my boobs. Tried on another which was on a rack labeled Voluminous. I believe this was the name of the garment. Or maybe it referred to the size. Either way, it fit everywhere including my boobs, except--it made me look pregnant. This is, I realize, the current fashion. I believe it has everything to do with the latest fashion accessory: the baby bump. That is, pregnant or not, if you wanna be in, you need to wear maternity clothes.

8. Came home. Decided to bake. Was chagrined to realize that I didn't have a stick of butter and thus, was thwarted in my urge to create.

9. Wrote this post. Lucky you.

Written from a fog somewhere....

I am groggier than hell, so forgive me if I babble. Sleep, as the commercials kindly put is, is eluding me. I fall off okay, but then I wake up about 3:30 or 4 a.m. and I AM AWAKE. Eyes open, brain twirling--I feel like I'm back in college and just pulled an all night on uppers. I'm having conversations with everyone, with D and my cousin and my nephew and my friend. They're good conversations and bad, about sweet things and sour. I'm superbly articulate, of course, and say exactly what I need to to convince said person to see the rightness of my ways. And they do, or at least they fade from the stage, and then the next person appears to lure me into my nighttime dialogue. Or blog posts--I'm writing entire blog posts in my mind. Incisive, deeply moving, wittier-than-shit blog posts. And you're not reading them? How can that be?

Last night I finally got up and had some toast and a glass of milk. And read Time. (nb: Time is a much better magazine than Newsweek; have you noticed that too?) And did not fall asleep upon my return to bed, so that's the old drink-a-glass-of-milk theory down the tubes.

This morning when I finally dragged my sorry ass out of bed (thanks, Sondra Jean, for the colloquialism), I was shakey and--hmmmm, hungry. Like when I was in college and would wake up with a hangover (and though I sound it, I wasn't one of the biggest stoners around) and had to shovel bacon and eggs into me toute suite.

I pulled the bacon and eggs from the fridge, lucky me to have stocked up last week. And put the bacon in the microwave for 10 seconds--what, you thought I was making it fresh? Puhleeze, don't you know there is pre-cooked bacon on your grocer's shelves. I pulled open a drawer to get the little yellow plastic ball in which I nuke my eggs only to realize it was in the dishwasher. Dirty. So of course I hauled its sorry ass out of there and peered into it (kinda like I would peer at the crotch of dirty underwear to see if they would stand a second wearing when I was in college--are you sensing a motif here?) and saw, much to my regret, too much schmutz to be able to ignore.

So I returned to the freezer where I pulled out another tasty treat: a frozen gluten-freeze organic buckwheat waffle with some sort of allegedly wild, allegedly berries. I fried that in the toaster, since the microwave was occupied reheating the almost full Grande Drip that I got yesterday morning at Starbucks but didn't finish. Finally, as the chefs on the cooking shows say, I plated my food, pouring Real Maple Syrup on my waffle, and sat down to eat, with a napkin no less.

In all fairness, I must finish this culinary expedition exposition by telling you that the absolute best of all the dishes before me was the day-old coffee. Hey, wanna come over for breakfast tomorrow?????? I'll wash the yellow egg ball.....

Things To Be Thankful For....

1. In the last several days, since I first added it to my blog, I have earned $.07 from Adsense. I am thrilled. Really. I'm actually making money off my writing again which means that once more, when I fill in the blank at the passport office, I can put "Writer."

2. When I'm feeling out of sorts, no one else has to suffer. Although when I'm feeling out of sorts, it's maybe because no one else here.

3. I'm old enough to eat candy for dinner if I want to.

4. I'm smart enough not to.

5. I have a whoopy-de-do kitchen that faces my mega mega screen TV, so when I'm feeling out-of-sorts, I start cooking and watching moronic TV. A & E reality shows about dwarfs. And small female entertainers. (Does A & E have size issues?) It's a good thing that there are a seemingly endless supply of these shows as I'm just not in the mood for anything that may provoke, even in the slightest, an unwelcome thought or feeling. Nah, that's not true. I'm just incredibly shallow. But then I'm also incredibly over-educated. Are the two related??? Go read HerBadMother; she expressed it perfectly (as is her wont).

6. My mother modeled the cook-when-you're-feeling-punky activity. I just realized that when I wondered why the hell I am spending so much time in the kitchen. Cooking. For myself. When I rarely did so when D was around. And I'm making incredibly fresh, nutritious dishes, that I concoct myself, out of just the two or three things I happen to have in the fridge. Today it was golden beets, two kinds of zucchini, fresh garlic heads that I roasted, peeled, sliced and diced and mixed with some great northern beans (or should that be, Great Northern Beans), olive oil and white balsamic. I'll let you know how it is....

7. My hair will not look very good for BlogHer '07, so no one will have to worry about my tresses out-tressing them.

8. I made it onto Second Life today. For a second or two. I have a deep fear that once in, I won't emerge. But today I got in and out. And for that I am thankful.

Love,
Jane

The Story of the Stuffed Cabbage - Part II

My mother taught me to cook. My two earliest memories of being in the kitchen as more than an observer were when she had me preparing roast chicken. Salt and pepper it inside and out, shove a quartered onion up it, put it in a pan, stick it in the oven at 375 for an hour or so, and when the leg wiggles, the chicken is done.

The other memory is when I made dinner for my dad. My mother was away and that left me in the dominant female position, which I fulfilled with a meal heavy on food types that I liked, canned green beans for one, but also a new-to-me product, Cool Whip. I hate to tell you how long ago this was; suffice to say, Cool Whip did not start out in those cute little tubs in the freezer. It originally came in packets that you had to mix up. I thought it was, well, cool. So canned green beans and Cool Whip--even I knew that something was missing, so I mixed several different colors of Cool Whip. Blue Cool Whip as meat, yellow Cool Whip as potatoes, and red Cool Whip as salad. The green was taken care of by our canned beans, remember. My father was a peach, and I believe he cleaned his plate and may have asked for seconds.

All of this was a preamble to a lifetime reputation as one hell of a cook. Thus, I felt no fear when faced with the Stuffed Cabbage. I found two recipes, one in the vintage Good Housekeeping that my sister gave me when I got married [the first time] and the other in Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook. I used the first the only other time I made Stuffed Cabbage, which was back when I was married [the first time] and had an unfortunate mishap with the stuffing bowl and the dish washing soap, which tainted forever that recipe with the tang of lemon Palmolive. That being the case, I elected to go with Joan Nathan.

Nathan's recipe is unique, or so it seems to me, in two ways. First, rather than lemon, she uses frozen lemonade. Second, she recommends that one freeze the cabbage head for two days prior to making the rolls because this makes it easier to fold the cabbage. I followed her recipe to the T--almost. The only part I didn't do: Miss B is a vegetarian, and thus my Stuffed Cabbage had to be meat less. I substituted some product called Chorn (or that may be the name of the village in Russia that my grandfather came from). Whatever--this stuff is made of egg whites and other things and is crumbled up to look just like hamburger meat that's been cooked. I mixed the fake hamburger with the onion and garlic and rice that Nathan called for--and it didn't smell bad, but it didn't smell good either. Although how fake meat would/should smell is beyond me. Still, I must have had a frisson of concern because I did note the odd odor.

But I persisted and went on to the prepping of the cabbage. This called for defrosting the thing over night (can you see how long this is taking on the shetl--two days to freeze, one day to defrost, and this is just the cabbage we're talking about). Then I cut the core out of it and, as instructed, began to separate and spread the cabbage leaves out. Nathan is right; the formerly crisp, sturdy cabbage leaves were now, well, limp. They had taken on an odd coloration, sort of translucent, but with a vaguely plastic look. Kinda like they food samples that some Asian restaurants put in their windows. It's food, but yet not food.

However, they were quite easy to work with, and I began the stuffing processing with a kind of joy. I was channeling my mother; my hands just seemed to know how they should go, and it was a kind of Zen moment for me. Soon, I had a pot full of little cabbage rolls. I meant to stop at this point and take a picture so this could be an illustrated tale, but I poured the tomato sauce over them before I remembered that. So, sadly, my story is text only. I put the covered pot in the oven at 350 for four hours, as Nathan said to, and walked away, feeling proud.

You all know where this is going, don't you. I don't have to drag it out and detail the odor of burning tomato sauce, turning the temp down, more odor, more temp down, until after two hours or so, I couldn't stand it and pulled the pot out. Already I had some crispy critters in there, but I could remember times my mother had burned things and she just left the burnt parts and served up the still-good middles. So all was okay, I could still feel pride, and we would eat our Stuffed Cabbage for dinner.

Even up to the point when I served myself a portion of the Cabbage from the pot, I was still walking in my mother's shoes. I could feel myself holding the spoon as she had (and, truth be told, it was her spoon) and plating the Stuffed Cabbage as she had and taken a forkful as she once did and--.

These were not my mother's Stuffed Cabbage. I hope they weren't Joan Nathan's Stuffed Cabbage either. They were, in a word, awful. I don't think it was just the fake meat, although that probably contributed (Note: can fake meat go bad, because this stuff smelled rank). The frozen cabbage certainly contributed. It occurred to me that the chemical breakdown that renders the cabbage malleable may also make it spoiled. Whatever, my Stuffed Cabbage were gag-worthy. I had D try them, just to make sure I wasn't prejudiced by having dealt with all the ingredients, and he said, "it's not often that I can't eat something...."

He went out for hamburgers, and I stuffed my Stuffed Cabbage down the disposal. It was, to say the least, a chastening experience.

The Story of the Stuffed Cabbage

My mother was known far and wide, particularly within our immediate family, for her Stuffed Cabbage. She was an excellent cook of that genre of Eastern European dishes, but her cabbage was among the best. It was a meal she made to say 'I love you,' and no wonder since it requires a multitude of prep steps. Stuffed Cabbage is clearly a shetl food, made by women who (a) are making do with the end of the end cuts, and the dregs of the field, and (b) have nothing better to do with their time than peel apart a cabbage, cook the individual leaves to a softness suitable for folding, and then spoon stuffing into the leaves and roll them up, put them into a pot, and cook in a sauce, which has already been cooked for some time, for four or five hours. They are also called Pigs in the Blanket, but not by Jews who keep kosher.

I don't remember the last time I had my mother's Stuffed Cabbage, but back in '96, she gave me a casserole of them. Frozen. To keep on hand, should one want a taste of Mom.

I did just that, kept them on hand in my freezer, tucked away in the back in their celadon green ceramic dish for oh, I hate to tell you how long. Far past the point when they would have been tasty. Far past the point when they would have even been edible. After my mother died, I liked seeing that green dish in the freezer. It reminded me of her, and it spoke to the fact that I was still, even in absentia, being mothered. To anyone who dared to comment, I told them we were keeping it to send out and have its chemical makeup determined, since my mother left no written recipe for her famous Stuffed Cabbage.

The years passed, and still the green dish remained in the freezer. Then we were moving, and among the many decisions of what reminders of my parents to keep and what to throw (yes, to some stationary from my father's last business; no, to his household bills from 1983), I was faced with the Stuffed Cabbage. I regret to tell you, dear reader, that it was also 'no' to the Stuffed Cabbage. I don't think I did the actually handling of the bowl into the garbage; probably I got my friend Jimmie, who was doing most of the heavy work for us that week, to do it for me. Probably I just said with a wave of my hand, "Toss it." I doubt that I made much of what it was, since he was already overwhelmed with the Stuff My Family Thinks It Has To Keep.

So the Stuffed Cabbage is gone, and I confess, I haven't missed it much. Until last week, when Miss B, in a swoop of postpartum something or other, asked me if I'd gotten the recipe back from the chemist's as she was hankering after Mama's Stuffed Cabbage, and could I make it for her when I came to visit. I didn't have the heart to tell her I had never actually sent it to the chemist, and I rarely have the heart to say "no" to her requests, so I smiled and said, "I can do that. I can do that."

And tomorrow, I will tell you the story of how and why and whether I could or could not.

Thanksgiving 2006

Me!!!!!
Originally uploaded by By Jane.

Me!!!!! Full of food. On the way home from our Thanksgiving meal with the Bs. We had grand plans this summer, W and I, to rent a cottage at the beach and all the families would come. But my family couldn't come and her family couldn't come, so we ended up Thanksgiving dinner for four at the Club they belong to. Actually, make that three, as W is sick. So D, J, and I had a nice meal and a nice glass of wine, and I didn't have to cook.

But I did...couldn't not, so I bought a turkey breast and cranberries and now we have stuff for leftovers. Should either of us ever want to eat again.