Morsels

It takes days for the tension of everyday life to drop away. Even here where there is mostly silence and acres of nothing and no one around us. Every night I’ve dreamed of work; meetings, proclamations, very involved, hushed conversations. But the country is seeping in. Today I drove down to the Shur-Fine market which is only 8 minutes away instead of the 20 it takes to get to the nearest Wegman’s. Shur-Fines is where you go when you need a quick quart of milk, or two rawhide bones for the dogs. Or…. the best mixes I have EVER had.  I remember Mom and I picked up one of these mixes on a whim when we were shopping for a few extras and such (this is that kind of place for me — basic, easy, close). We got the Gingerbread mix and made it up. Best ever. Today, I made sugar and spice cookies and they, too were tremendous. Here’s the link.  Order some of this. Seriously.

I drove the pick-up to the market in olive green Columbia pants, LL Bean Boots, Dennis’s Navy fleece. Yeah, I looked a mess. But everyone else did too! When you go to Heinen’s in Bay Village, there’s make-up and making sure your clothes aren’t on inside out or are even wrinkly for god’s sake. Here at the local Shur-Fine just about anything goes.

So, the fire is going, the dogs are sleeping. Dennis is playing chess on his i-touch. It’s a cozy family scene. Bless us everyone.

Actually, I’m not a lumberjack - not even close (well I do have a nice collection of flannels as well as heels so maybe I’m closer than I think). Point is, this is the song son C the younger was singing as HE put on his flannel and boots on his way over to our neighbor’s house to do some chores for him. We are in Finger Lakes and everyone is getting wood for the winter fires. I walked over to visit him at some point with IPod headphones and a coke and he was splitting and stacking wood. Hours later, he and Dennis returned feeling that sense of satisfaction only a nicely split and stacked log will give you. Turns out C is actually quite the log splitter, which only surprised me because of the activity itself. It’s been a bit of a challenge to get him interested in the sort of outdoors/wood work that this place affords. But he is perfectly happy working really hard at home on his skateboarding or playing basketball — he knows the enjoyment of physical exertion. And he knows that Metallica can help any strenuous activity (or so he claims, but it seems reasonable if you are a fifteen year old boy).

We had Chicken Marbella for dinner, that famous, easy and great recipe from The Silver Palate cookbook. It’s really the only recipe from that book that has survived for me — but it is a keeper.

Since it’s been so long since I have posted I have all these thoughts saved up. Trick is, to get them out faster and more frequently, I know. I actually changed laptops — gone back to a PC and have been experience FEAR OF THE NEW. I miss my MAC but it just wasn’t practical for my office environment. And I used PC’s for so long that once I got through the fact that my computer wasn’t as “cool” looking as my Mac, I find the navigation, etc to be second nature. BUT the point is that I have wanted to write about this conundrum that I have been rolling around for some weeks now.

The other day (ok week) I was having a business lunch with a group of wonderful women, one of whom is a new mother who also happens to work for me at cleveland.com.  We were discussing food and cooking and she allowed as how she fed her son chicken fingers (you see why I am keeping her anonymous?) There was much exclamation and concern and advice. One of the women goes to Costco every few months, buys chicken breasts, salmon, etc and packages them up into meal proportions, freezes them and pops them out for her weekly meals. They all plan and shop for the week on Sundays.

But it occurred to me that there are many women who don’t know how to plan and cook for the week and beyond that, if you add the desire to eat like a locavore, eat responsibly and healthily AND cheaply — it gets pretty daunting if you haven’t had a certain amount of background in that kind of cooking. It is actually not that hard to do but it is very hard to explain because there is so much that goes into it.  I read somewhere recently someone who suddenly realized that she could save a LOT of money not by shopping around a recipe but shopping for what is in season and on sale, THEN creating meals around that. Well, duh. But to actually learn that and then do it when someone tells you to plan your meals on Sunday and cook some of them or else you and your family are going to turn into chicken nuggets with legs? Another story.

I suppose the only thing I can do is try and impart what I know — and to be fair, it is all passed down from my mother who learned how to cook this way by being a poor wife of a poor graduate student in France in the 60’s (how romantic does THAT sound?) and then cooking for our family on a faculty salary in the middle of the natural food revolution and then on a farm.

By the way, I know there are plenty of people who know how to do this and are doing it — but it is that time-crazed, suburban, urban working mother who is most in need of this and the least likely to know how to tackle it.

It is our anniversary today (happy us!) and we are up in soggy finger lakes house. I know it has been forever since I have posted but I did want to tell a funny story about yesterday and our marriage (as it relates to food of course) and also post the recipe for a wonderful souffle I made (if I do say so myself).

Here’s the story: we went shopping at Wegman’s yesterday. Some weekends we cart all our necessary food up and sometimes we (read I) are too disorganized to do anything more than make sure there is milk for coffee in the morning. So this weekend was a disorganized one and we needed food for our anniversary dinner. The idea in my brain and vetted with Dennis was duck breast with cherry sauce, rice pilaf and snap peas. Grand Marnier souffle for desert. Well, we get to Wegman’s which was more packed than I have ever seen it — I guess it’s the only thing to do around here when it is pouring rain? And they have no duck. Well one frozen one but it didn’t look like it was going to cooperate with being cooked for dinner in a few hours. So I grabbed a couple of little fresh cornish game hens and figured we’d be down with that.

Get to the check out line and as I lift them up to the conveyor belt thingy I show them to Dennis and say “here’s what I got instead of duck.” Poor guy’s face fell. “Oh,” he says. You see how sweet he is in the face of a disappointment? So I said, “you really wanted steak didn’t you?” and he nodded. So I sent him back to the meat department on his own to return the two little game hens and bring back a steak.

Now we all know what it is like to get to the check out line with all your variously gathered goods and realize that you forgot the sage, or garlic or whatever. The pressure IS ON. Luckily, we had the two slowest check out guys I have ever encountered. So Dennis was able to return with his steak. It was a three pound (at least) sirloin. Huge. All I could see when I looked at it was the slaughterhouse (sorry). I am eating meat again, yes but I am trying so hard to keep it to local and at least grass fed. Food is rumbling along the conveyor belt. He has just dodged about six women in carts and a couple of really old ones who seem to do a lot of standing in the middle of things all with this huge bloody steak in his hands. I looked at him and said. “Umm that’s a lot of steak. Mind if I go grab some smaller grass-fed ones I saw?” He shakes his head no. And now I’m the one running through the aisles past the very same women who are still standing around with the same piece of meat ( I mean I have the piece of meat and THEY are still standing around). I actually started laughing at the spectacle, which only made it more spectacular I guess. Anyway, got my little more appropriate steaks and phew! made it back.

So there you have it. Our daily negotations. Particular to us at that moment I suppose but really not at all. We are all (us marrieds and committeds) juggling daily details and back and forths. Sometimes more gracefully than others. It certainly helps to have a sense of humor and (thank you Dennis) patience.

And it also helps to make a souffle now and then. I took this from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything book and switched it up because we had no Grand Marnier. But we did have Amaretto and it was really, really good and really easy. Believe it or not, this was my first souffle. I am going to make more.

There are a few things that I am pretty bad at — identifying small birds (it was small and brown), mushrooms (it was umm small and brown?) but one of the most seasonal frustrations I run into is my complete lack of talent in the compost-making department. It may not seem very important to those of you who do not fancy themselves suburban farmers (which, btw, is all the rage) but for anyone who wants to tuck some tomatoes into rich, organic soil, harvest some fresh-snapped peas and so on and so forth, you really must have a nice compost pile.  I will admit that Bay Village is not the most compost-friendly environment (sort of feel odd running out in the morning in my “work” clothes, heels and all, dumping eggshells, lettuce leaves, apple cores and the like into the growing pile beside my little vegetable garden). But dump I do and for those of you who are excellent and worthy composters, yes I alternate “green” material with the food and I make sure it has water and it is in a sunny spot. Poo. It is still lumpy and matted and seems to enjoy resurrecting the food that I am trying so desperately to turn into dirt. By that I mean that I think there is a potato growing out of it at this point. Now my mother? She is a damn good composter. Plunge a pitchfork into her compost pile and turn it over… you will be rewarded with rich, warm earth. Perfection. Arthur felt bad enough for me that when he left for college he made sure to print out this article in his favorite magazine (Arthur) about the Sodfather. Take the time to read the article — he’s a real character.  But read as I might, it has been to no avail.

Which brings me to my mother’s placemats. Stay with me here Since seester had her little boy Luca Mom has taken to frequenting local thrift shops very frequently and snapping all sorts of lovely little things for the baby. At some point in her forays she found what she described as beautiful, multi-colored placemats that were like little rag rugs for your table. They were perfect for the Finger Lakes house she decided if a little musty. So home they came and into the washer. Unfortunately, once removed from the wash, it turned out that they had become a little frayed. My mother said they had grown beards. And what do you do with unruly beards? You trim them naturally. By now we were several days into the saga. It took a few weeks for beard trimming what with gardening, yoga, cooking and etc. And then once they were taken off, the little mats turned in on themselves (think those pot holders we all made as kids). Apparently they aren’t as bright either. Mom skyped me last week and said she thought either they were just fine or I might want to use them as mulch. See? Compost connection made. Oh snap.

So at this point I am a little afraid of what they will look like when she presents them to me. I will take a photo and post it maybe. And then if I can figure out polls I will let us all vote: Compost? or placemat? Only I will have to think of wittier questions.

so I emailed this particular adventure to my painting teacher this morning and then felt it was wasteful to just put it in one, lone email. While at Wegman’s, provisioning for the week up here (NY house) I was struck by how pretty the mackerel were. They looked like a very nice (still) subject for a still-life. Only I wanted three and they were largish fellows. So the whole thing was going to cost me over ten dollars, which seemed extravagant. I already had a pound and half of wild haddock, two pricey cheeses, fava beens, spicy sprouts and other very important food stuffs in my basket.  Instead, I bought three herring (and as I said to Jeff my teacher this is where it begins to sound like an episode from Monty Python - a herring!!)

Well, I did buy them and they are still wrapped in their pristine white wrapping paper, lurking in the fridge. We are 4 days into the whole saga and I am fearful. You know they are just a stinky mess and they were so pretty and shiny. Just four days ago my biggest worry over them was how to arrange them and on what in order to compose my still-life. Now, I’m afraid the whole thing is lost and they area going to have to get tossed in the woods. Maybe I should plant them like the indians did and see if corn grows. Maybe I should put them in the pond and hope to attract a heron?

The moral? If you have an inkling to paint something dead a la olde Masters, do it right quick. Course it makes me wonder exactly how they managed. Those rabbits and pheasants look so fresh.

Here is a picture of the last painting I finished. It’s a view of a storm coming in over Squirrel Island which sits at the mouth of the bay in Maine. Ann Sexton lived there and went mad which must have shaken that old community up a bit.

Squirrel Island Storm

It is Easter morning and the bunny came last night (ok just ten minutes ago but I only have one fifteen year old to manage) and left Christopher a nice organic chocolate fascimilie of himself, some chocolate eggs, malted chocolate eggs and of course, the requisite Silly Putty egg. Last night, Christopher mournfully wondered if the bunny WOULD come? Because we were up here in NY and last year he hadn’t come to Austin, Texas (where C was with his dad) I swear I packed chocolate in his suitcase last year? I say it’s hard when everyone is so far — I had to pack Arthur’s in his masive food box that I send up twice a semester — mostly granola, ramen, emergen-c and the like but I did tuck in the same Easter mix that C just got with a BIG note that said not to open until Easter. Apparently the note was either not big enough or alarming enough or whatever because he claims to have not seen it and has already eaten his way through it. I felt a little bad when I heard that but not bad enough to go out and buy/send more.

Anyway, I smartly did not buy any jelly beans because I would be eating them all right now, starting with the black ones.  And we won’t be having an egg hunt which is my other favorite part. So here are some easter images as much for me as anyone:

Oxford, the perfect dog of our childhood, running ahead in the cold Ohio spring “cheating” because he could with his happy dog nose and finding the chocolate eggs. Coming back with little bits of colored foil between his teeth. I think he may disprove the myth that chocolate kills dogs– we may tell ourselves and them this because there would be no chocolate left for us humans if we didn’t.

Our neighbor Ed Burmeister (this goes back to when I was 11?) merrily tucking a raw colored egg under a tree for someone to find. I did of course, because I was the oldest and the fastest and it is a hard balance to NOT find all the eggs before the other, really slow littler ones — an aside — as a mom I watched Arthur struggle with this one himself; it was so transparent and I thought I was being so discreet walking past that bright yellow one tucked under the almost in bloom forsythia (my mother liked to camouflage her eggs but sometimes it was more of a reference, all depended on how fast spring had decided to arive). Anyway, Arthur did a good job leaving some for Christopher. Back to the raw egg. I found it and plopped it in my paper sack and plunged on. Only to find at the end that it had exploded and covered everything within the bag with its sticky, yolky mess. Now, as a child, I wasn’t really given to letting grown-ups have a piece of my mind but I remember distinctly the sense of just plain old meanness that I thought that joke was. And I told him as much. I can’t remember if he apologized or not. But it is one of my first memories of telling someone that they really ought to think a little before they play a mean trick. And I have never been one for a mean trick since (well hardly ever, but that may be another post).

And to end on a nicer note. Every Easter as I have posted before, we had David Eyres pancake. That cant’ be quite true because it wasn’t published until 1966 but, frankly, it is all I remember. It is sweet,  hot and bubbly and rich, rich, rich and it comes to the table with a sprinkle of lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar. I smear mine with strawberry jam and serve it with cut strawberries as well. I am sure that this morning mom and dad will be having one as will Susanna and Wes (unless little Luca is complicating matters, in which case I will eat my sister’s piece).

Happy Easter to all –

Well, this is nice enough… sitting at the kitchen table in the NY house. The sun is out, it is working its way up to a 58 degree day and my biggest responsibility is how to treat two very nice pheasants who are shivering in my fridge. I take this sort of responsibility seriously though and it has been weighing on me since my friend (he was also the generous donor of the incredible venison we had awhile back) gave them to me mid-week.

So I’ve been poking though my cookbooks.  Julia Child had a recipe in Mastering the Art (and etc) which involved aspic. Really? I am going to have enough of a time getting young Christopher to ingest these guys without coating them in cold meat-flavored jelly. Then there was Julia’s partner-in-crime, Simone Beck whose book, Simca’s Cuisine is one I always turn to when I am really stuck and need “just the thing” my dear. She does have a recipe but it is naturally pretty complex and I am more interesting in great flavor but relative ease. Hmm, might be a new motto.

I called mom in the midst of all this because that really is the thing to do in these cases. She offered to pore through her books but reminded me that she had cooked pheasant only once and that was when I was very young and we were in France.

Of course… this is a family legend and a very early memory for me so I am bound to tell it. We were all three of us very young. I am two or three so that makes mom 25 at the most and dad 24. We are living in Aiguilles in Provence, a tiny town surrounded by vineyards. I remember most of all the soft beige and rose stone walls (the very same colors I have been trying to capture in my painting!) and the great old house (manse) our apartment was in. The house was surrounded by a walled-in garden and I used to run through the paths with my best little pal, Richard. But this was Christmas and it was chilly. Maybe there wasn’t quite enough snow. Everything was covered in a light powder, like the sugar on the pastries in the shop mom and I went to every day.  I remember the sun was beginning to head its way down but that would still put us in early afternoon and I wasn’t sure where mom was. So, calling and walking in the tall rooms and the sun slanting down and then there she was on the balcony overlooking my secret garden with a multi-colored bird in her lap. Very still and the feathers tumbling about her in an incredible fall of color and softness. For a minute, the light was all. It bathed her and the bird. But then I took her in and saw — she was literally blanketed and weeping. For the bird’s beauty. For Christmas without her father for the first time. For being alone with this tremendous responsibility (me? the bird that ought to be perfect for our first Christmas? — I couldn’t tell. ) All I knew, really was that she was terribly sad and the bird was like a dream. I don’t remember how it tasted at all.

So pretty daunting to try and cook that up again, right? I have found a fricassee in James Beard’s book. Of course that good man would have a large section on game birds and many ways to cook them up. H says the following about game birds in general: “(They are) a gamble. One is never quite sure of their age or previous athletic activities. Sometimes they will seem perfect and one anticipates a tender morsel, but I’m afraid 90 percent of the time they are a risk”

Which is why I am not broiling, not roasting. I am fricasseeing. Even though I am pretty sure this pair, raised to be shot at in the lovely hunt club — they probably are, actually, quite tender. Well we will certainly see.

And a footnote — anyone who doesn’t have the above cookbooks and is interested in building their collection should immediately buy the books I mention. (I’m so bossy!)

My husband, Dennis and I have escaped to our Log Home in the Finger Lakes. We’re in the hills very near Bristol, New York. It’s cold outside and there’s a nice layer of snow. We are here for a few days and went into town to Wegman’s today. Wegman’s is a pretty awesome store — the cheese counter alone can keep me busy for way too long. Today, they had beautiful steelhead trout fillets which I will make with the Pasta and Chickpeas from Deborah Madison’s book, Vegetarian Suppers. It’s a really nice book, full of interesting, inventive dishes. Here is the recipe.

The fish guy at Wegman’s was cutting up a huge Mahi-Mahi while we were there. Being up here and provisioning is always a little hit or miss — i.e., I usually forget something and always buy garlic, shallots and that Greek Face Yogurt. Which results in too many somethings and no lemon. I am feeling a little stymied about the fish since I am lemon-less. I thought maybe I would saute some shallots (since I have so many!) with a little Balsamic vinegar but that seems more appropriate for a stronger fish. I am sure the trout is going to be really wonderful and fresh since it is in season.