With the pandemic and all, everyone has been talking a lot about beans. Or have they?? It’s hard to know what to believe anymore. Between the cries of fake news, and the scandals at Bon App and other food media, and the fact that I don’t actually see other humans anymore besides the ones that sprung from my own body and my husband, I don’t know anything for sure, outside the four walls of the “playyard” (we have a less glorified name for it) in which I spend most of my waking hours, drinking tea with frogs and singing songs about toes. I digress! But there has been a lot of chatter about how people have been stockpiling beans. And personally, I welcome a topic that isn’t as depressing as the news, the election, or the economical, social, and physical wellbeing of our country. So beans it is.

Plus the babies love beans. (Great for the pincer grasp!) And now that they are old enough to really eat—so much so that I actually have to plan accordingly, not just crack open a jar of applesauce—beans are an ingredient I lean on quite frequently.

Beans are a pretty perfect food. Economical, full of variety, apparent in scores of different cultures, vegetarian/vegan (which I am not, but I do cook vegetarian quite often), full of protein, filling, and available ready to eat. You can eat them in a soup or a curry, or add them to a salad, or make them into a dip. You can dress them up, you can dress them down—well, I guess. Anyway, they are flexible and delicious.

Back in March and April, I tried to get some of the fancy dried beans that I’ve always been too cheap to pursue—like Rancho Gordo—and the ransacked, sold-out website supported the thesis that there are indeed tons of bean-eating people out there who are one step ahead of me. No matter. (And now it seems all stocked up again.) I was and am happy to eat cans of whatever-brand beans that I order by the dozen from Walmart with jumbo packs of diapers. Less romantic, certainly, but still tasty.

So here’s what I’ve been doing with them the last 6 months especially, but really much longer than that: I marinate them. This works with all sorts of beans, including the dried ones you cook yourself in a slowly simmering pot of salted water with a halved onion and some garlic cloves and herb stems if you feel like it. To a bowl, add finely chopped celery, scallions, and lots of soft herbs of your choosing (parsley, chives, cilantro, mint, basil, etc etc.), the zest and juice of a lemon, and lots of olive oil and salt. Optional: a mashed garlic clove, a chopped jalapeño or Serrano (a must for me, if I’m not sharing with the twins), pul biber or another dried hot pepper, spices of your choosing. Add a couple of cans worth of drained and rinsed beans (I most often use small white beans, navy beans, cannellini, or chickpeas) and put in the fridge for at least a few hours. They are amazing cold or at room temp, and they just get yummier after a few days. The mix is important—the brightness of the lemon zest, the zing of the scallions, the crunch of the celery, the freshness of the herbs all contrast with the soft yielding texture of the beans, which soak up the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. It’s convenient that most of these ingredients I have on hand all the time, pandemic aside. But that said, per usual with everything on this blog, this is a flexible recipe-concept: swap in what you have (shallots for scallions, lime for lemon, a squeeze of harissa, etc.) and taste along the way. Making it your own is half of the fun.

Additions are great too: if you have ripe tomatoes, they are great tossed in right before eating.* Or flake in a can or jar of really high quality tuna. Perhaps some cracked olives. They are great alongside a vegetarian pasta—say one made with hard-sautéed zucchini, pine nuts, and feta—or Mediterranean drips and drabs like jazzed-up orzo (with oranges and toasted almonds, pomegranate seeds, etc.) and a cucumber-yogurt salad. It’s also great with sautéed sausages and greens, or on a pile of arugula with some shaved parmesan. I ate mine yesterday with half an avocado and some toast. In my sometimes-usual world of “grim lunches,” a bowl of marinated beans in the fridge can really perk up a gal. Desperate times? Yes. But these days, as always, it’s about the small things.  

*Just be sure to add enough salt to compensate. I’ve found in my old age that salting tomatoes—ahead of time, if I can—makes them infinitely tastier.

They were perfect. Henry was 6 pounds 14 ounces, and Margaret was 8 pounds 4 ounces. They slept, they smiled, they did cute things like hold hands while they nursed. Somehow almost 20 months have passed since they arrived, and they give me more joy than I ever realized existed. What can I say?

And somewhere in that time period after these adorable morsels were born, I was commissioned to write a book. This is my job of course, but this time, instead of signing NDAs and lurking behind the scenes, my name was to be used. Not hidden in the acknowledgments, but as the author, a “leading voice in the modern culinary arts,” as Black Dog & Leventhal, my publisher, describes me. Well, shucks. Today, that book is published. 

Happy birthday Encyclopedia of Kitchen Tools! I wrote every inch of you, and yet I remember almost none of you, since I was only working in stolen bursts of intensity from when the babies were two months old and my brain was a sieve. (Or slotted spoon, or chinois, etc: see Utensils and Gadgets chapter, page 215.) But I’m pretty proud of the bits I’ve reread. Isn’t it amazing to learn anew from a book that I myself wrote? Ha. Let me know what you think!

• Indiebound

• Amazon

• Barnes & Noble

Everyone fantasizes about what sort of adult you will be when you’re not one yet. Some might imagine fancy cars and white weddings. Or winning the lottery, rising up the corporate ladder, helping people, becoming famous. We all have different definitions and ambitions of what it means to be grown up. I used to dream about living in a bohemian, high-ceilinged Brooklyn apartment, casually pulling out a membership to the Met from my wallet, and having all my books in a real bookshelf, alphabetized. I’m about the little things, I guess.

So it’s no surprise that in college, my friend Rachel and I once agreed upon the milestone of always having certain foods in your house, and how that would mean you were finally an adult. (Weirdos!) I think we got to discussing this when in our efficiency kitchen sophomore year, where we had nary a scrap of food, exempting a half-eaten can of frosting. For me, these grown-up-making foods were the things my mom always stocked up on: a bag of onions, a head of garlic, lemons, parsley. As a college student, focused mostly on boyfriends and paper-writing, it seemed like the height of maturity to prepare for your future self that way, confidently, without even knowing what you might be cooking.  

Now, many years beyond that conversation, if I don’t have these things in my kitchen, I feel a bit panicky. What doesn’t start with onions and garlic? What food isn’t better when finished with chopped parsley or a squeeze of lemon (or a scrape of zest)? I do indeed get a sense of domestic satisfaction, and joy, honestly, out of having these always at my disposal.

What I didn’t imagine is that I would also be the sort of adult who borderline obsesses over how to use it all up when the clock starts ticking—i.e. the slow softening of your onions, sprouting of your garlic, caving of your lemons. While lying in bed at night, others might imagine themselves driving Ferraris through sunsets. I consider what to do with the wilting parsley in my crisper.

Parsley seems to be the biggest timebomb of the pantry. It’s sturdy, and in a cold produce drawer in the fridge, could last over a week.  But if you just sprinkle it over finished tomato sauces, sautéed chicken thighs, etc., you are going to have to reckon with a half bunch at some point in a more engaged way.

My solution: an ultra-satisfying combination of both using up the end of something (watch out almost-finished shampoo, I’m not done with you yet) and making something out of almost-trash that actually adds tremendous value to your meal. Green sauce.

Every culture seems to have one: a loose, raw sauce made mostly of chopped fresh herbs and olive oil, to be spooned over steaks, fish, eggs, grilled veggies, etc. Sometimes they are mild, sometimes very spicy; some use parsley, some use cilantro, basil, or other soft herbs. The executions of these individual sauces are still likely quite distinctive from cook to cook, but I’ve created a little reference chart to highlight some of the big differences between a handful of my favorites.

A very informal chart of green sauces from around the world:

Mine is a loose mash up of all the ones I know, picking and choosing ingredients as my tastes and pantry dictate. The idea is not to have a tried and true recipe, per usual, but a technique that is flexible enough that I can fit what I have around into my final product. Have a bunch of dill and nothing to do with it? Make a green sauce. Have some anchovies leftover from opening a can? Make a green sauce. It’s making something special, while making do, an ethos that really resonates with age. 

Ever Adaptable Green Sauce

Quantities are approximate and just listed to demonstrate broad proportions—this is not about measuring!  Use what you have, and balance it out by taste. 

Green sauce is delicious on top of a grilled steak, a sautéed piece of fish or chicken, roasted veggies, etc. It’s also great on a sandwich. I used up the last of it to dress chopped hard boiled eggs for a mayo-less egg salad, and it was scrumptious—just added a dollop of pickle relish and some diced celery; this tactic would work great for chicken or potato salad too.  

In a small bowl, mix together:

• 1/2 c to 2/3 c whatever soft herbs you have* (soft stems are fine), chopped fine
• 1 fresh hot pepper (fresno, serrano, jalapeno, etc.), minced, or red pepper flakes, or hot paprika, to taste
• 2 scallions or a shallot, minced (optional)
• 1 garlic clove, grated
• 1 to 4 anchovies, finely chopped
• 1 T capers, chopped
• Zest of 1 lemon and juice of half, or 1 t ground preserved lemon and 1 t brine, or 1 t light-colored vinegar
• A squeeze of honey (optional)
• Olive oil to saturate/cover and make saucelike

Mix together and taste. (If you are in a rush, you can dump all in blender or small food processor—but I like the more rustic hand chopped texture.) Adjust with additional of any ingredient until it tastes well balanced and delicious. As long as there is enough oil to cover everything, it should last in the fridge for at least a week.

Other things to do with leftover herbs:

• Herb butter
• Herb pesto—it’s not just for basil!
• Green goddess dressing
• Add whole leaves (especially parsley) to green salads and grain salads
• Chop finely and freeze—break off as needed and add to sauces, stews, pastas, etc.

* It’s good to have a large proportion be parsley or cilantro, which are a bit more mild, and a smaller amount of dill, mint, oregano, basil, chives etc.

The children’s book George and Martha—a collection of stories by James Marshall regarding two hippos in a vaguely defined relationship—was always a favorite of mine.* One story in particular, about Martha making split pea soup and George not wanting to eat it so intensely that he pours it into his loafers under the table, always stuck with me. The emotional complications of wanting to avoid conflict while being faced with the horror of eating something unpleasant resonated deeply. As a child and as an adult, I’ve always wanted to please, and my career centers around cooking, writing about, and eating food that I like. So the prospect of eating yucky soup or telling your loved one that you hate their soup would be a very fraught choice.

Marshall’s fabulous illustrations really illuminate the drama. I love that George’s loafers are a delightful melon-pink, the type of soft red that Italian men (and hippos, I guess) wear confidently, a lovely contrast with that tilting plane of olive-green soup. Culinarily, however, George’s solution did serious harm when it came to the stock value of split pea soup. As in Oppenheim’s fur teacup breakfast, a lunch being slipped into loafers equals a gross-out worthy of surrealists and children alike. It’s hard to overcome that image. 

Luckily, in regard to this particular conflict, Martha spots George with the slippers and confronts him. It turns out that Martha likes making split pea soup, but neither George nor Martha actually likes eating it, so through what some might call "assertive but not aggressive" discussion, accord is restored to their mysterious union.  

I too like to just make soup sometimes. It is like money in the bank: a healthy, wholesome thing that can bubble away on the stove quietly and pleasantly, to be packed up and eaten for lunch. So I recently made split pea soup, which isn’t my favorite but sounded kind of fun to make, and told my husband after, thinking he’d be psyched. But alas, he reminded me that he, too, doesn’t like split pea soup. Too late. Like Martha, sometimes I just like to cook a thing because I like the process, even if the end result isn’t that popular. Art imitating life? A stretch. Obliviousness to facts that I don’t care to accept? More likely.  

But then we tried the soup, and, if I don't say so myself, it was pretty delicious. There was an obvious reason for its singular appeal. A secret weapon, deep from the depths of the freezer: a prosciutto end.  

Of course, prosciutto is ham, and ham and split peas are nothing new. But prosciutto is a very special Italian, unsmoked, cured ham, and the end is one of those surprising ingredients that will make many dishes inherently better. The narrowest part of the pig’s leg, it is difficult to be safely cut into slices, which is why it’s sold as a piece. Because there’s only one end per leg of prosciutto, it can be hard to procure. Your best bet is to ask at the deli or butcher, or just keep your eyes peeled in forgotten refrigerated corners of specialty shops. I bought mine at an Italian foods store months ago, the type of place where you order everything at the counter; I sniffed it out in the somewhat dejected serve-yourself case of prepackaged cheeses. Opposed to the mortgage-threatening cost of sliced prosciutto, the end is always priced to sell: a remarkable ingredient, disguised as a castoff.  

As intensely flavored as the rest of the ham, the end has a texture that’s less melting and more dry, often covered with a layer of fat. (Though honestly the dryness may be because I always freeze mine, not knowing when the inclination to use it will strike.) But its lackluster looks/store presentation is another way it deceives people. Those people might ask (in a potentially annoying tone): Why buy a dry hunk of prosciutto that you can’t even make a mozzarella sandwich with? Or drape artfully over cantaloupe? Or wrap around asparagus? (Or whatever other fancy things people do with prosciutto?) Because this humble hunk will make sauces, stews, beans, and risottos taste wonderful. Dice it up—just a quarter pound will flavor a whole pot of beans for example—and add it to any soup or pasta dish. Anywhere where you might flavor something with bacon or pancetta, replace with this, its unsmoked cousin. There are all sorts of delicious options once you get your hands on one. Try to find one! Your split pea soup haters, or at least their loafers, will thank you. 

Prosciutto-End Split Pea Soup

Dice up the prosciutto end (both the meat and the fat—don't be crazy) and cook it slowly in a large pot or Dutch oven to render the fat and brown the meat; if needed add a tablespoon of olive oil to get it started. Add 2 or 3 chopped stalks of celery and a small chopped onion (and a peeled and chopped carrot if you have one); cook until softened. Add 2 chopped garlic cloves, a bay leaf, 1 pound of sorted split peas,** a spoon of chicken bouillon if you like, and water to cover. Simmer slowly until peas are soft; add more water as needed to keep them covered. Blitz with an immersion blender until as smooth as you like it; taste and reseason with salt and lots of pepper. A squeeze of lemon (and/or a sprinkle of ever-present pul bibir) over your bowl might lift the flavor in a pleasant way, but it’s up to you.  

Alternate things to do with your prosciutto end:  

• Risotto: Dice and brown the prosciutto end, then start a risotto in it. If you like, add fresh peas five minutes from the end of cooking.  
• Greens: Dice and brown the prosciutto end, then add cleaned chopped greens (turnip, collard, beet, kale) and a splash of water and cook, covered, until greens are tender. Finish with a few drops of vinegar or lemon juice.  
• Tomato sauce: Dice and brown the prosciutto end, sauté with a chopped onion and garlic, then simmer with canned tomatoes. Finish with lots of chopped parsley and toss with cooked pasta.  
• Hammy mac and cheese: Dice and brown the prosciutto end, then add to your bechamel with the cheese. Proceed as you like.   
• Minestrone: Dice and brown the prosciutto end, then proceed.  
• White beans: Cook the beans* until just tender. Dice and brown the prosciutto end, then sauté an onion and garlic, then add the beans and some of the cooking liquid. You can add a parmesan rind here too. Cook on very low until the beans are very tender and tasty. Serve over polenta (also good with a parm rind) with garlicky sautéed escarole.  
• Braised chicken: Brown some chicken thighs in a large pan, then remove from the pan. Brown the diced prosciutto end, then add an onion, mushrooms, and garlic and cook until softened. Add the chicken back in with some wine and/or broth, cover, and cook until the chicken is done. Chopped tarragon would be nice at the end of cooking.   

* I’ve been scooped by the NYT. Great article about George and Martha here. 

** Take it from a former nay-sayer: I HIGHLY recommend actually sorting through the peas (or any dried beans) before rinsing and pouring them directly into your soup pot. The bag will also instruct you to do this, but you might consider skipping for your own laziness. DON’T. This last time, I found two actual tiny pieces of gravel in my soup. It’s very disconcerting. 

One Art, one of my favorite poems, is about loss, something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit the last few weeks. The author, Elizabeth Bishop, lists off things that have disappeared—an hour, her mother’s watch, a continent—and claims it’s “not a disaster.” But of course it is. Even with her cool masquerading, the tenderness of her list (the devastating “joking voice,” the anticipatory “next-to-last”) shows her true engagement with these intensely private, personal things. Her losing “two cities, lovely ones” resonates with me, among other things. Walking around a new place until I can patch together a map in my mind—as I was lucky enough to do in London—is a pure joy, and I too am as sentimental about the places I’ve loved and lost as I am about the people. It’s impossible not to be jarred when left with a void, where something important once was. 

Surely, no one reading her poem is convinced that the art of losing isn’t hard to master. But Bishop manages to make art out of losing, and I’m appreciative of that. When I’ve lost something, art is often what I turn to for comfort. 

Like a Spotify frenzy, following one song after another down a rabbit hole, flooding myself with newly discovered loves. Or in a museum, circling back for one more glimpse of the pieces that moved me most, just to make my heart beat faster. These experiences both console me and inspire me. Similarly, Bishop’s poem can read like a list of losses, but also like a love letter to all the people and things that meant something to her. Amassing these, both the ephemeral and the steadfast, is indeed helpful. Since you can lose anything or anyone at a moment’s notice, identifying and savoring what grounds you is a worthwhile act.

Not every attachment needs to be so profound. Food is a good example, especially the modest everyday food you kindly make for yourself. A soft-boiled egg is a simple thing I eat many mornings, and it’s delicious, uncomplicated fulfillment, as well as a positive symbol itself: rebirth, promise, etc.

The inherent fleetingness of most good things (people, experiences, moments of connection and beauty) stresses that one day they will be gone, and you may never be able to have them again. But with food, the takeaway is solely about the satisfaction of having had it, not its demise. You can just enjoy it and take heart in its easy replaceability: here, you can have another one tomorrow. 

Seven-Minute Eggs

These days, for me, a perfect soft-boiled egg means one you can peel and halve, where the white is set but the yolk jammy and thick, a bit oozy. They do require a timer, but it’s worth it. I put a full kettle on, and when it boils, I cover one or two eggs in a tiny pot with the water and put over a low flame. I set the timer for seven minutes. (Then I use the remaining water to make my tea.) After seven minutes, I rinse the eggs under cold water, then peel them. With a little salt and hot sauce, and a piece of hot buttered toast, these eggs make an ideal breakfast, morning after morning.

Like many others, I grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books: Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, et al.* As befits a book about 19th century American homesteaders, food preparation featured prominently, which was a draw to this weirdo: at age 8, I loved nothing more than to read about smoking venison in a carved-out log, or churning butter, then tinting it with grated carrot and packing it into a mold. One of the more memorable scenes was hog killing, an infrequent event, when Laura and Mary played with a “balloon” made of the pig’s bladder and one very lucky girl got to nibble on a roasted pig’s tail. The descriptions of everyday life were full of detail about how everything got used—there was no specific pride in this, just the reality of life then, and making every bit count.

This sort of prairie resourcefulness resonated with me, even as a kid born and raised in Brooklyn. My mom’s mother grew up in Nebraska, and had a certain Midwestern practicality. My mom’s childhood was spent outside Boston, where “thrifty Yankee” is an actual term, much to my delight. My mom is the master of making something excellent out of nothing. (A piano student once gave her a scrap of furniture upholstery fabric and she constructed a pretty dashing winter coat from it. This sort of thing happens all the time.) I certainly got my obsession with using things up from this side of the family.

There are some ingredients in the kitchen that harken back to times when using things up was just the norm. Lard is one. While it’s commonplace in plenty of the world, and certain parts of this country, and even in the occasional food magazine toting it as the next big thing, no one I know actually uses it except my mom, my friend Melinda, and myself. And that’s a shame—it’s a versatile ingredient that has different qualities than other fats.

Despite coming from a pig, it does not tasty overly porky or meaty, so it works for both sweet and savory applications. It makes a delicious piecrust, of course, cut with butter or solo. Homemade flour tortillas are worthwhile, delicious, and surprisingly easy—plus kneading them with your hands makes your skin incredibly soft (!). With a higher smokepoint than butter, it’s great for frying of course, or sautéing. I even like to grease my cast iron with it when making cornbread. And while the stuff you get in supermarkets is certainly processed, at least it’s something that people have been using in cooking since way before the Ingalls family—unlike margarine, shortening, and other spooky mystery fats.

Which brings me to my most loved lard application: cookies. Orange- and cinnamon-scented and full of toasted almonds, these are my mom’s invention, nutty and aromatic. And easy to make too: You dump the ingredients in the food processor, roll into a log, then slice and bake from the fridge or freezer. Because of the lard, they taste more multi-dimensional than a typical slice and bake cookie that uses only butter; these use equal parts of both. And most importantly, the lard (and some cornstarch) gives these cookies a truly special texture: delicately snappy and crumbly, with a sweet crunch from the sugar on top. They are delicious with a mug of milky Earl Grey on a grey, freezing afternoon. It doesn’t get much better: sitting around with my mom, in slippers, nibbling on a few of these while chatting about who knows what—for those times, I’m very thankful. 

Gretchen's Spanish-Style Butter and Lard Cookies

These cookies are not fussy at all, but in case you don’t read the whole recipe through carefully before you embark on it: You need a food processor, cold butter and lard, decorator or demerrara sugar, and parchment paper. And you will need to toast the almonds. Also, don’t plan on eating these right away: you’ll silently curse me for telling you to bake a quasi-tasteless cookie, somehow neither sweet nor salty enough. The trick is to wait to eat them for at least a couple of days—both the texture and taste develop in this time, sitting in a tin. This “curing” process happens to coincide with most mailing times, if you are a holiday cookie sender.

Put 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 cup toasted slivered almonds, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and the grated rind from one orange into a food processor.  Process until the nuts are pretty fine.  Add 1/2 cup each cold lard and cold butter, cut into pieces, and process until mealy.  Dump into a bowl and add one beaten egg.  Mix by hand until dough comes together (you might need to add a bit of cold water).  Form into cylinders and wrap in plastic wrap (I like making them into thin cylinders and slicing into coins, but normal cookie sized logs are great too). Chill until very firm or freeze for later use.  

Preheat oven to 325°F. Slice the logs into cookies about 1/4-inch thick. Put on parchment covered cookie sheets. Sprinkle with decorator sugar crystals (demarrara will work in a pinch—use more than you might think) and press sugar into cookies with the heel of your hand or your fingers. Cook until thoroughly golden brown, between 9 and 15 minutes. Do not undercook, but watch them so they don't burn. Remove them from the oven and the pan to let cool completely; store in a closed tin. Fine to eat immediately, but great if allowed to age for a few days.

 Favorite other use for lard:

• Homemade flour tortillas. Sounds like a pain, but isn’t. They are 1,000 times better than anything you can get in a bag or store, and even a restaurant, and so dang easy. Google a recipe (it’s a simple ratio) and get to it. Plus, as I said before, soft hands. Also, I imagine you could make a huge batch of them and freeze them.

* I’d really recommend the newest biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, out this month, called Prairie Fires. Quite simply, it changed everything I thought I knew about her and the turn of the century. Truly informative and food for thought!

My husband and I went to Mallorca once in the early spring when it was just a tad too cool to really beach. And beaching was really what there was to do. Palma, the capital, wasn’t that cultural, and the internal towns were sleepy. Determined to take advantage of being outside one afternoon, I took a nap on the lovely outdoor couch (100% the reason why we booked this particular airbnb) but to stay warm I had to swath myself in a sweatsuit and roll myself up in a loose corner of the upholstered couch cover. The whole vacation had an air of this sort of trying. We drove a death-defying road to visit a monastery, switchbacks for miles, and it was just ok. We tried to eat lots of Spanish food, but many of the restaurants swung German, due to the most frequent tourists. It rained a lot. First world problems of course, but not all vacations can rise to the top.

There were serious highlights though. A dramatic deserted beach that we hiked to through trespassed land; after swimming, we walked up to the rocky shelves that projected out into the water, skimming the surface of the deep, rough ocean. The gorgeous town of Valldemossa, where Chopin and George Sand retreated when sick or in love, or perhaps both. Allioli, the original mayonnaise, fluffy and garlicky, which one dipped everything into. And the sobrasada, a delicious, spicy, spreadable salami.

We first ate sobrasada in a tiny cave-like lunch shop in Valldemossa, a few steps down from the street, where we ordered the only thing served: a platter of sandwiches. And what came to us was one of those unforgettable eating experiences you encounter occasionally, if you’re lucky, when traveling. Four open-faced toasts came, each with a different topping. Cheese—manchego-like, sheep-y, mild, and firm—topped with anchovies and pimentos. Shingled slices of a very rustic meat terrine, liver colored and dappled with distinct squares of fat. A dry chorizo-type of sausage, salty and snappy. And lastly, the sobrasada: a thick smear of meat, flavored and orange-red–colored by hot pimenton, drizzled heavily with honey, anchored with a slice of fig.

Similar to Calabrian ‘nduga (which is flavored with peperoncino instead of pimenton), sobrasada is a cured Spanish pork sausage, quite spicy and very, very rich. It’s best when allowed to come to room temp, when it can be easily squeezed or scooped out of its casing and (most often) spread on bread. Its texture is a bit like finely ground rillettes, or, simply, a meat paste, which is what it is.

I had encountered it earlier that week, unknowingly, in the local Mallorcan grocery store: chubby sausages that softly caved when you touched them, hanging in pairs from pegs. That smoosh was disconcerting to me—in fact, I had wondered if they had gone bad. With only a puny command of Spanish, I opted instead for a thinner, firm little salami, which I could be certain about. But now I know that that pliability was what gives the end product its amazingly spreadable texture.

Fast forward to a year later, when living in London, I discovered a Spanish stand in an outdoor market that had sobrasada, and I was flooded with memories of that picturesque little town. But this time I knew not to be weirded out by its physical pliancy. So I bought the smallest one they had, still quite huge, and we proceeded to eat this very indulgent thing, slowly, until we moved back to the US.

You can do all sorts of things with sobrasada, starting with everything that you can do with a regular salami. If you find one, I recommend getting a small one and experimenting with it. You could put it on a pizza, serve it with cheese, add it to pasta sauce, and more. But the most memorable thing I did with it was also the most crass: I scooped out the last of it to make the world’s richest grilled cheese. On buttered walnut bread, with a sharp English cheddar, the sobrasada basically melted along with the cheese; that rendered fat permeated the bread and made the it even crispier in the pan. To honor Valldemossa, just prior to eating, I pried open the molten sandwich and drizzled in some honey. Sweet, spicy, and crazy rich, it was a decadent treat. Like Mallorca, I am very glad to have had it once, but may never need it again.

Grilled Cheese with Sobrasada

Butter slices of walnut bread or any rustic sourdough. To the unbuttered side, add slices of sharp cheddar and a smear of sobrasada (slices of salami work too, though the result will be a different) to make a sandwich. Cook in a pan, butter side down, on medium-low heat until browned; flip and brown the other side. If the cheese isn’t fully melted yet, cover and continue cooking on low heat—it’s worth the wait. When melty, remove from the pan; pry open and drizzle in honey to taste. Eat immediately. Take a nap. 

Ideas for Using Up Sobrasada:

• Spicy elephant ears (weird title): spread a very thin layer of sobrasada and quince jam on puff pastry, roll up, slice, and bake
• With eggs: warm a bit on the side of your fried eggs, make the ultimate egg and cheese
• On pizza: dollop on top prior to baking
• In a fish stew
• Sautéed with calamari or scallops
• To fortify a tomato sauce
• Baked brie: an idea even more decadent than my grilled cheese, but certainly delicious-sounding (a layer of sobrasada and fig jam on top of a wheel of brie, wrapped up in pastry and baked)
• Add bits to proofed bread dough—rolled breadsticks, shaped rolls, etc.
• With cheese: on a cheese plate with something sweet or with just one fresh cheese like burrata, ricotta, or mozzarella

Once, in college, I went out with a friend on a sort-of date to a Chinese restaurant. Chinese food was not big in Philly then. But there are plenty of things to order in an Americanized, not-so-great Chinese restaurant that will be reliably tasty: hot and sour soup, pork dumplings, anything with fried chicken in it (General Tso’s, Sesame Chicken, etc.). It is not the time to try anything unusual or authentic. My theory is that since a not-so-great Chinese restaurant is serving General Tso’s 99% of the time, it should be passable. So I went with the flow. After I ordered, my date ordered. He asked for some steamed tofu and vegetables. It wasn’t on the menu—he just generated this combination. And then he asked for the tofu to be “marinated.”

I don’t always remember the details of what other people order in restaurants (despite my recent incredulity at my “friend” ordering lasagna in a Dominican restaurant), especially when we are talking about approximately 19 years ago. But I do remember this particular time because it made me question so many things at once. One, why go off-menu here, of all places, and for something so terribly boring? Two, do people actually marinate tofu? Three, why am I potentially dating this man again? He suddenly seemed like the least fun person on the planet.

I liked tofu, but I certainly wasn’t such a ninny that I would order it, steamed, on a date, and, further, to specify that I’d like it marinated. Sheesh. Live a little! After that order, there was never going to be anything fun or delicious about the evening. His dish came and was terrible. Well, in all honesty, I don’t think we actually exchanged bites (another red flag). But I remember how it looked when it came to the table: limp carrots and hunks of celery, steamed soy-stained slabs o’ tofu. Luckily, my love life and my tofu eating have made great strides since then.

Handled with care, tofu can be truly delicious. It is inherently flabby and bland, not first on the list of sexy, joie-de-vivre ingredients. But I see these as secretly good attributes. Its flabbiness is actually a very desirable texture if you treat it well: you can poach it in soup or a curry so it becomes delicate soft little cubes, or fry it so the outside becomes crispy and the inside remains custardy, or roast it in slabs for a hearty, chewy texture reminiscent of meat. And its blandness means it can go in all sorts of culinary directions. It absorbs flavors easily, so you can rub it with spices, glaze it, or just serve it in or with a punchy sauce. Also, it’s one of the handiest things to keep around for a quick meal—those refrigerated packs last in the fridge forever and shelf-stable blocks work fine too. 

So to make tasty tofu, it’s all about technique. Here’s a simple one I learned from a charming Korean comic-book cookbook called Cook Korean! The results are quick and amazing: Hot and crisped and browned on the outside, and a bit soft and chewy in the middle. All you need to do is brown the tofu in a single layer in a covered nonstick pan. That’s it. No weighing it down to press out the liquid (though I do dry it off with a paper towel), no hectic stir-frying, no sticking. It won’t break into curdy pieces on you, and it doesn’t require deep-frying or even much oil.

After, I like to dip it in a soy/vinegar/sambal oelek sauce or a quick peanut sauce, though a miso-mayo would be amazing. Or, because of how nondescript its flavor it, you could go in a non-Asian direction, like tahini-garlic sauce. Plus the finished tofu makes a great ingredient in other dishes—see below for ideas. You could even marinate it beforehand, if you patted it dry after: garlic, ginger, sesame oil, and soy will indeed make an impact. But I wouldn’t go advertising that fact in a social setting unless you want your dining companion to complain about your being a snoozefest. There are some details best left unsaid.

Pan-Fried Tofu

Slice firm tofu into slabs and press with a paper towel to remove excess moisture. In a hot nonstick pan with a tablespoon or so of oil, put slices of tofu in a single layer.  Cover the pan and cook over medium heat without disturbing the tofu until it’s browned on the bottom. Flip and continue cooking, covered, until browned on opposite side. Serve immediately with a snappy sauce.

Other ideas for pan-fried tofu:

• Sandwiches: vegan muffuletta (tofu + olive salad), banh mi, cheeseburger treatment (pickles, tomato, lettuce, melted cheese, mayo, mustard, etc.)
• Faux saag paneer: replace the paneer with cubed-up browned tofu
• Faux buffalo chicken wings: toss hot browned tofu in mixture of melted butter and hot sauce, serve with blue cheese dressing
• Tofu parm: Cover with tomato sauce and mozzarella and bake
• Cube and add to noodle salads, soups, stir-fry, rice bowls, or curries

In her cartoons, Roz Chast captures the unreasonable paranoias, internal monologues, and existential-petty angst of uber-regular people, especially New Yorkers. I love her examination of normality, and all its defying quirks. I see myself in her characters, which brings both light embarrassment and a shrugging giddiness. Daydreams and neuroses are a part of all of us, and I don’t really mind being proto-typical or self-analyzing. We’re all types. I listen to NPR podcasts while I walk my dog, possibly like a million others; I move the car, in PJs, according to my very particular alternate-side-street-parking strategy, like a weirdo. We are all strange. I love Roz Chast for both gently ridiculing and wholly celebrating us.

I feel like our society’s fixation with food could be her next topic. You can imagine her frazzled characters in shlumpy outfits carrying New Yorker tote bags exclaiming over the dearth of certified organic options or the careless extinction of heirloom tomato varieties. She could play up the complicit silence/internal rage surrounding the casually brazen rounding-up of sum totals at a favored farmstand (injustice at every turn!). She could depict the turn when pride in a groaning cornucopia in the kitchen-counter produce bowl slowly becomes (after a week of *mostly* take out) a source of nail-biting guilt when fruit flies descend. She could find hilarity in the seriousness of seasonal cooks like myself, who mark time with the beauty and fleetingness of summer peaches, the abundance of fall gourds, the forthcoming total grimness of winter turnips and rutabagas.

And that food calendar of mine is feeling out of whack, I admit. Though it’s late October, there are still tables full of bona fide summer produce on display at the farmer’s market. Eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, CORN. It’s weird. And somewhat of a conflict when you’re psyched to start cooking squash, and stews, and stuffed cabbage. I mean, do you cook solely according to your cravings, or do you cook with what’s fleeting?? It’s a conundrum I feel like only Roz would understand. I fall squarely in the camp of shunning personal desire for taking advantage of short-lived availability. (A friend once ordered lasagna in a Dominican restaurant in Washington Heights, because that’s what he felt like eating. Lasagna. In a Dominican restaurant. Whaaaat??) Yet how silly to cook something only because you are seasonally able to and won’t be able to do soon. That said, this is still entirely how I live my life.

So if your local market is still flush, and you are FOMO-oriented like me when it comes to produce, here are some last-minute ideas to take advantage while you still can (italics to indicate Chast’s eyes-bugged-out emphasis). These ideas also consider the fact that it is fall, and that a cranked oven, steamy pot of pasta water, or a warming soup is entirely appropriate.

FOMO Ideas for Lingering Summer Produce:

• Corn fritters: plain with maple syrup and/or bacon and/or hot sauce, or with basil and tiny cubes of mystery cheese from the fridge drawer (like cheddar, gruyere, gouda) cooked inside. (Quick recipe: 2 ears corn, 1 egg, splash of milk, enough flour to make thick batter (~1/2 cup); don't overmix; cook in butter)
• Pizza: roast all the veggies you couldn’t resist buying (zucchini, eggplant, peppers, etc, plus an onion and some chopped garlic), place on pizza dough with homemade or storebought pesto, and top with ricotta or mozzarella. When out of the oven, drizzle with more pesto.
• Healthy-striving version of Pasta alla Norma: roasted eggplant, fresh tomato sauce, basil, pasta.
• Roasted tomatoes: for salads, for sauces, for eating out of hand in a feeding frenzy. (These can also be frozen for a winter day—so resourceful!)
• Tortilla soup: chicken broth, corn, tomatoes, peppers, cilantro.
• Corn chowder: I talk in detail about it here.
• Fresh tomato sauce with sausage and tons of basil, served with spaghetti squash: summer on top, fall below. 

What do you cook when global warming is messing with your available ingredients? And would you order lasagna in a place specializing in rice and beans and the world’s most delicious baked chicken?

Finally fall has come. Hallelujah! It’s been so hot that one of the only ways to get the dog to leave the apartment is to take her to the “beach”—actually a funky pond in Prospect Park—where she does her old lady laps, her head aloft like she wants to keep it dry, paddling in circles. Suffice to say that being able to put the kibosh on this practice is a long time coming: as much as she enjoys it, it’s a mess, and my husband has to bathe this beloved creature each time she goes for a dip. Now it’s time for her to assume her next seasonal role: “mop in the forest,” where entire branches and other seasonal debris ride around in her fur, parasite style. Nothing says fall like a lady-beard full of rainbow-colored foliage.

With the cooler weather, soup season has arrived too. One of the best and quickest types uses squash, a mainstay of this month’s farmer’s market. My go-to is butternut, but if you’re a fan of acorn or even pumpkin, this could easily be adapted. Made with half-and-half, curry powder, and an apple, quintessential pureed butternut squash soup is sweet and rich. 

This one is a spin on the classic, as I used some lingering Thai green curry paste instead of the usual tinned yellow powder of British-Indian descent. Despite both having the word curry in them (a word that has a serious history and subsequent plethora of meanings), these two products have little in common. Green curry paste, even the jarred kind, is fresher, brighter, and more aromatic, due to the cilantro, lemongrass, chilis, galangal, shallots, and more. Curry powder is earthier and toastier, a heady combination of ground dry spices like turmeric, cumin, coriander, and cardamom. They both have their place in a kitchen, but are usually used in different applications. Deviled eggs or chicken salad need umph? Try curry powder. Want to make a kicky soup, stew, or sauce (especially one with coconut milk)? Use curry paste.

Here, either works, but the green curry is a nice Thai-flavored change. The complexity and funkiness of the spice paste, and optional fish sauce and lime, balances and counters the sweet squash and apple. To make it “creamy” without dairy (which doesn’t occur much in SE Asia), I add and blend in a single potato. The texture is a bit less cloying without the cream, and still wonderfully smooth. 

Lastly, do reserve the seeds when you prep your butternut. When rid of their weird pumpkin-y membranes, and toasted and sprinkled with cayenne, they are an addictive little snack. Try to save a few for the top of your soup, as they add nice crunch to this silky, spicy bowl o’ seasonality.

Green Curry Butternut Squash Soup

Sauté a peeled and chopped onion with a glug of oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Season lightly. When the onions are golden and soft, add a few cloves of chopped garlic and 1 to 3 tablespoons of green curry paste, to taste (intensity and heat level can vary greatly over different brands). When the paste and garlic are aromatic, a minute or two, add a peeled, deseeded, and chopped butternut squash, a peeled and chopped potato, and a peeled and chopped apple. (When prepping the squash, reserve the seeds.) Add water to the pot to almost cover the squash, as well as a spoonful of chicken stock concentrate, if you have it. Cover the pot and simmer until the squash is soft and cooked through. Puree with an immersion blender, a regular blender, or a food processor. Taste and season generously with fish sauce (great for a jolt of salt) and a squeeze of lime to brighten it up.

Meanwhile, remove all the squash flesh and membranes from the butternut seeds and rinse. Dry thoroughly, then add to a small pan over low heat with a bit of oil, salt, and cayenne pepper. Toast, tossing often, until lightly colored. Let cool, then sprinkle on top of each bowl of finished soup.

This is a post about fancy salt. And I know what you’re thinking: how very special. How highfalutin of me. My husband and I joke all the time about things or each other being “very special,” code for being just so: our dog, for refusing to eat unless we mix in leftover steak gristle or the like; ourselves, for luxuriating in the linen sheets we got as a wedding present. (All we do is sing “very special” to the tune of the Debra Laws song of the same name.) It’s gotten to the point that any declared partiality at all—a preference for one CD over another on a car trip, the simple utterance of a sentence beginning with “I’d like…”—can trigger this song.* And extolling salt that retails for $10 a box in NYC is certainly fodder for this accusation.  

It’s a fact: Fancy salt, specifically Maldon Salt, IS very special. Very special indeed. It is used as a “finishing” salt, judicially sprinkled onto very special cookies and very special avocado toast. It is so expensive that, despite my profession, I couldn’t ever justify buying some.

But then I went food shopping in London (I know, privilege alert… cue Debra Laws), and found that one can buy Maldon salt for around $2 a box. I can always get behind a bargain. So I bought some. And damn it, I like it.

I swear I haven’t changed otherwise. If you are a longtime reader of this blog (not that long—it’s only been <a full year!> since the first post), you know I get a real thrill out of making a meal out of potato skins, corn cobs, and stale bread ends. Precious ingredients are fine, but what you do with what you have is much more interesting to me.   

That said, if you can get your hands on some fell-off-a-truck Maldon salt, snatch it up. Its taste is cleaner and milder than both iodized and kosher salt. It’s also less salty, so it’s hard to overseason and easy to add a little hit of salinity (which is especially convenient for sweets). People tend to describe it as “crunchy” but I think of it as more “textured.” I’ve had other finishing salts that really are crunchy and remind me of having sand in your food (see first photo, which includes some gifted grey salt, which is not my favorite). Maldon is intact enough that you do get a tiny pleasant jolt of salt, but since it easily dissolves on your tongue, its flaky texture is quite lovely, not a distraction.

Another factor that might help justify buying Maldon is that it’s best used only after food is already cooked, often already on a plate. A piece of toast with unsalted butter? Yes. Corn on the cob? Sure. On a platter of lamb meatballs that you fear are a tad under-seasoned (as meatballs can easily be)? Certainly. But it would be a waste to use this in any dish where it will be dissolved or mixed in prior to you eating it. For that I use kosher salt. That’s still the salt I use 98% of the time: for seasoning food as it sautés, for raw meats, for salad dressing, for sprinkling on veggies prior to roasting. I happen to have a canister of iodized salt around too, and I use that only for salting boiling water for pasta or blanching. So three salts. That’s my set up. Some might say it’s very special, but it’s just who I am.

Favorite Uses for Maldon Salt

• Any toast, especially with unsalted butter or avocado
• Crostini (ricotta and honey, mashed white beans, etc.)
• Pan con tomate (a slice of crusty toasted bread, rubbed with a raw garlic clove then a halved excellent tomato, sprinkled with salt, and drizzled with olive oil)
• Eggs of any sort
• Fresh, mild cheeses like burrata and mozzarella
• Sliced tomatoes: in sandwiches, as a salad, etc.
• Cold soups (which can often use a bit more salt, since the cold deadens the seasoning)
• Corn on the cob
• Just-roasted or just-fried foods
• Sliced steaks or other grilled meats
• Individual bowls of pasta or risotto
• Mixed with pepper flakes, to drag steamed shrimp or picked crabs through
• Any sweets that benefit from a little salt: caramel sauce, butterscotch pudding, blondies, chocolate chip cookies, truffles, etc.

Do you use fancy salt, and if so, what do you use it for? Do you feel pretentious, or do you sprinkle with pride? Most importantly, is there a secret place in NYC to buy it for cheap?

* You know when someone you know very well says something slightly more specific or poetic than usual, like, “It was a surprisingly small dressing room” and you say back, “You’re a surprisingly small dressing room” and then later you say something like, “Look at that sapling, lit up by the sun.” And they automatically say back, “You’re a sapling lit up by the sun.” And then at some point everything you want to say you know will be infinitely mirrored back to you, and you can’t speak anymore? My friend Kate and I did that with that joke until we stunned ourselves into silence. When jokes become that engrained, it’s hard to stop yourself.

Postscript

 I was originally going to name this post “Salt and Privilege” based on the simmering tirade I had in my head about the complications regarding my recommending expensive salt. And thus I wrote a rant about the increasing prevalence of people talking about other people’s privilege, and how below the belt and inarticulate that can be, but also how, on the other hand, people talk about their advantages with no graciousness or awareness of other people’s situations. Eventually I felt like the whole thing was a tad off-topic from Maldon salt (and truly getting into some tangled issues), and deleted it. But in this postscript, I wanted to make a few random points, because this is my blog and no one can tell me not to:

1. When I see Maldon written into a recipe by a recipe developer—who I know has 4 roommates, lives in a actual slum, and makes minimum wage—I am uncomfortable. Sometimes a person does things that make no economic sense, I get that, but the seemingly acceptable idea that one should keep up with the Joneses, even if it means ignoring personal means to do so, really troubles me. I know a box of fancy salt is small potatoes, but still. 
2. Likewise, I once had to tell an author flat out that we could NOT call for Pink Himalayan salt exclusively throughout a cookbook. This author could afford that, but it felt irresponsible and a tad absurd to make every reader feel obliged to follow suit. It’s fine to have advantages, but it’s nice to actively avoid being exclusive.
3. And lastly, a recent article from the New York Times (and later in the WSJ) regarding a study discovering a connection between happiness and hiring people to do tasks that you dislike really got my goat. (Called "Want to Be Happy? Buy More Takeout and Hire a Maid, Study Suggests".) In general, I love the unabashed intellectual pursuits of the NYT and have dismissed the elitism accusations from the last 9 months (guff from the rampant media firestorms). But the idea that this is a relevant article for New York Times readers as a whole is ridiculous. It assumes enormous economic privilege to say that “we” should let ourselves pay for help doing things that aren’t a joy. Like we all just need a push in that direction, given conveniently by the NYT, to help unburden us from the guilt we have—“we deserve it!” No. The people who can afford to hire others to do unappealing tasks are a lucky bunch, and they are not the majority. Am I overreacting?? I just think the world is in a crazy place these days—between hurricanes and earthquakes and nuclear weapons and, of course, POTUS’s endorsements/commands to “grab ‘em by the pussy”—so perhaps we all need to try even harder than usual to be thankful for what we have and sensitive to what others have, don’t have, or are going through. Woof. Opinions, anyone?

As an optimistic kid, born and raised in Brooklyn, I never thought I’d really get sick of the city. The culture is so amazing, the museums, the people, the slice of life you get from just riding the subway somewhere. It was always such a huge part of my identity, being from here.

But things have changed—not just me, but the city itself too. The neighborhood I grew up in—Boerum Hill—has priced me out. The hospital I was born in was just pulled down for condos. My public elementary school now has a French language program and an organic garden. Brooklyn is an adjective, an expectation, a commodity—I miss when it felt like an underdog. (Oh, the nights when I used to beg my friends to cross the river to meet at the Brooklyn Inn!) And now the vitality that used to fulfill me and energize me often feels like a current I am fighting against. It’s exhausting just doing the day-to-day life things: finding a grocery store, doing laundry in basement, negotiating two seats together at a movie, getting into a restaurant. So much competition, so much hauling. I’ve gotten so OLDDDDD.

I digress. This is all to say that New York is a tough old mare. I love her, but she kicks. Occasionally getting out of town makes my heart a bit fonder.

Renting a cabin upstate, or in CT or PA, is a treat. It’s amazing what a 36-hour escape can do for the soul, even couched with traffic and the 4 flights you have to haul your stuff down and up. Reading, long walks, bananagrams, and naps are always on the to-do list. (Um, you can take the New Yorker out of New York…but she will still have a quiet but ambitious relaxation to-do list.)

Cooking in a weekend place is always part of the equation. Personally, I’d rather have a really good meal that is easy to make, and cooks away while you are playing Shithead and drinking rosé with your nearest and dearest, than an exceptional meal that requires much more time and energy to cook and clean. I say this as a person who loves cooking, obviously, but it’s hard to compete with cards and wine. Why not have your cake [dinner] and eat it too?

A little planning can help a lot. Since you never know what a rented house kitchen will have, I find it easiest to gather a bag full of staples from home and supplement with a few fresh things picked up along the way. (I presume access to a car.) Coming prepared means you won’t have to buy last-minute pricey necessities, like oil and pepper, doubles that won’t fit later into your city fridge and cabinet. And you won’t have to send someone out again when you assess the pantry in the new place, realizing there is no coffee for the morning.

And if you’re clever you can reuse these flexible ingredients to feed yourself all weekend. Mustard used in a chicken roast also flavors/emulsifies salad dressing, maple syrup for a salmon glaze also sweetens overnight French toast, cheese stars in a cheese plate for afternoon Bananagrams but also snazzes up frittatas, salads, and sandwiches. This way you aren’t dragging too many drips and drabs back to your apartment, which, after your time away, you’ll hopefully be excited to live in again.  

Packing and Planning for a Weekend Away

A few pantry items to bring from home:

• Olive oil (and butter if you must for toast)
• Vinegar (often balsamic) and/or lemons
• Salt and pepper
• 1 spice (something flexible within cuisines, like ground coriander, or a mix like herbes de Provence or ras al hanout)
• Dijon mustard
• Hot things: pepper flakes and/or a chili paste like harissa 
• 1 sweetener (sugar, honey, or maple syrup, though if someone needs sugar for their coffee, you might bring a liquid sweetener too)
• 1 light-colored jam (like fig or quince): a half-eaten jar is ideal, because maybe you'll finish it there. 
• A couple of chicken bouillon cubes
• Wine: something to drink that wouldn’t break your heart to splash into food
• Coffee and/or tea
• Optional extras: risotto rice, another grain, pasta, potatoes, herb butter (great for sautéing seafood, making garlic bread, cooking eggs, etc.), cornbread mix

A few fresh things from home or a store:

• Bacon or salami: for breakfast or sandwiches, and starting dishes like stews, chicken dishes, tomato sauces, or soups
• Eggs
• Milk
• Baguette: good for sandwiches, French toast, or cheese plates
• Parm and another cheese
• A couple of apples or in-season fruit
• Onions and garlic
• Cherry tomatoes: for frittatas, sauces, roasted, salads, or sandwiches in a pinch
• Spinach or kale: you can sauté them, add them to soups/sauces, or eat raw in salads or sandwiches
• Proteins: chicken thighs, fish, steak, rack of lamb, sausages, whatever sounds fun.
• Optional extras: berries, mayo, plain yogurt, fresh herbs, veggies for roasting, ice cream

Bare essentials equipment to bring only if very concerned with the state of the kitchen:

• 1 chef’s knife. A bad knife is impossible to overcome.
• A wooden cutting board. This is so underrated. With a plastic or tiny cutting board, I don’t actually feel like I’m able to cook at all, plus it makes that horrible scraping noise. This can also be your cheese plate surface in a pinch.
• 1 cast iron skillet. When the other pans are shitty, you can cook almost anything in this: cornbread, frittatas, steaks, fish, roast chicken, pasta sauce, baked desserts, pancakes, etc.
• Baking sheet. Less necessary than the above, but super handy for roasting veggies, chicken, etc.

Easy mains to make from these ingredients:

• Roast chicken pieces: Pantry chicken (mix together jam, harissa, ground coriander, oil, s&p, sliced lemon, peeled shallots), Mediterranean chicken (tomatoes, balsamic, oil, s&p, garlic, herbes de provence), mustard chicken (mustard, honey/maple, s&p, bed of oiled, sliced onions). Mix all ingredients with some bone-on chicken thighs and bake. 
• Rack of lamb, for a vacation-y treat: rub fatty park of the rack with mustard, spice mix, oil, s&p, then press on homemade bread crumbs made from ends of baguette. Roast and deglaze pan later with dissolved bouillon, wine, balsamic, and honey.
• Steak! Sauté an onion on the side. Deglaze steak pan with wine, mustard, lots of pepper.
• Fish: salmon with maple/mustard glaze, or any type of fish with burst tomatoes
• Quick pasta: cook down onions, garlic, hot pepper flakes, and cherry tomatoes; add bacon or salami if you like. For a one-pot dinner, throw in spinach at last minute. Another fav with few ingredients: Italian sausage, garlic, pepper flakes, white wine, kale/rabe, parm. 

Easy sides to make from these ingredients:

• Fancy cheese board: parm and other cheese, serve with fruit, jam, salami, honey, baguette
• Roasted potatoes: add garlic, lemon juice (greek style), or the spice mix if you like
• Garlic bread or crostini (brush bread with oil, spice mix, s&p and bake)
• Risotto: fancy it up with canned artichokes or sautéed mushrooms
• Cornbread (honestly, I like Jiffy mix with a can o’ niblets, but you do you; use bacon fat to grease skillet if you have it around)
• Salad with DIY salad dressing  
• Sautéed greens
• Roasted veggies, with optional spicy yogurt (yogurt, salt, garlic, spice mix and/or hot pepper flakes)

Breakfasts to make from these ingredients:

• French toast with fruit, quick apple compote, jam, or maple syrup
• Overnight French toast: in a casserole dish, soak bread overnight with eggs, milk, maple, and optional berries, then bake until puffed and golden
• Strata: let bread soak overnight with eggs, milk, grated cheese, something spicy, and whatever other savory items you like: tomatoes, salami, etc.
• Frittatas: leftover roasted veggies, leftover pasta, cheese, spinach, etc.
• Shakshuka: cook down tomatoes and onions with harissa or whatever chili you brought, poach eggs in it
• Eggs and cornbread (with bacon or crispy salami, if you like)
• Hash with leftover roasted potatoes

Lunches to make from these ingredients:

• Grilled cheese: jazzed up with bacon, salami, tomato, apples, jam, harissa, etc.
• BLTs
• Corn chowder, if it's summer
• Egg salad or deviled eggs (mustardy, with harissa, etc)
• Leftover-chicken salad
• Salads: panzanella, grain salad, or spinach/kale salads. Leftover chicken, steak, salmon or veggies are good additions; homemade croutons improve all.

What did I miss? What do you bring when going away for the weekend? Tell all. 

My cookbook collection—housed in a groaning third of our living room bookshelves, as well as my office—owes at least 50% of its bulk to tag and library sales. While I work in the cookbook field and keep up with the newest publications (and even get sent new books sometimes, lucky me—when I judged the James Beard awards this year I received 50 at once), most of the cookbooks I return to over and over again are older. The dishes are often more reasonable, about just cooking dinner every night, rather than the most special or precious food. They use less dishes and equipment; they get the most out of their ingredients. What they may lack in consistency or preciseness (like measuring with a wine glass), they make up with personality. 

One favorite, food writing pioneer MFK Fisher, is praised not nearly as often as she should be. Everyone talks about Julia Child, who is great of course, but this lady came before (with others, like Elizabeth David—another star), and had skills and panache to burn. How To Cook a Wolf—where Fisher dealt with wartime food shortages and subsequent lack of ingredients—is one of the most influential books written, for me, both in content and in tone, cookbook or otherwise. Her economy with food is not the lowly, insipid economy that that word sadly now implies. It’s graceful, creative, resourceful, thoughtful, and absolutely inspiring. She digs deep, has a sense of humor, and exudes a general perkiness and can-do attitude that I really respect. You can’t get this woman down.*

Similarly, an old cookbook I purchased last summer, also from a tag sale, implicitly discusses economy, but Italian-style, which is a cooking genre all of its own: cucina povera (see my thoughts on caponata). Focused on the amazingly vibrant cuisine of Sicily, the recipes are simple and straightforward. Since a visit there a couple of years ago, I knew that the island’s seeming culinary modesty wouldn’t equate to underwhelming food. Quite the opposite.

Paging through, one simple recipe caught my eye—a rice gratin. Parcooked short grain rice, starchy and chewy, mixed with cheese and roasted eggplant, then cooked “al forno,” in the oven. While it sounded like a lot of prep and dishes for a glorified casserole, something about it tempted me. (If I am willing to go to some trouble for pasta, why not just-as-humble rice?) So I played around with the idea, adding a few more veggies and streamlining for my laziness. With a creamy texture inside (almost risotto like), and a crusty cheesy top, this rice gratin became a showcase for late summer vegetables, and a comforting dish made for cooling September climes. Since then, I’ve made it with roasted zucchini or fennel, sautéed leafy greens, and even roasted butternut squash; short-grain brown rice is fine too. Alternative cheeses are delicious, like Caciocavallo, Provolone, and/or Gruyere. For vegans or non-dairy people, it even works to eliminate the cheese, shockingly, and top it with nicely toasted slivered almonds. However you make it, use the best vegetables you can find, and revel in the untrendy, scrummy results. 

Old-Fashioned Rice Gratin

Cube/chop the veggies of your choice: here I used an eggplant, a pepper, an onion, and plenty of cherry tomatoes.** Put into a roasting pan or gratin dish, toss with olive oil and lots of salt and pepper, and roast at 400 degrees until soft, cooked through, and browned. If you need to use two pans so the veggies aren’t crowded (always a good idea), be sure to put the tomatoes in the gratin or roasting pan.  When all the veggies are done, combine into the gratin/roasting pan and let cool; add 1/2 cup of shredded parm or other grated cheese and a large handful of chopped basil, and reseason as necessary.

Parcook 1 to 2 cups of Arborio or any other short-grain white or brown rice in a few cups of boiling water (like you are cooking pasta), until almost cooked through. If you have a parm rind, boil it first for a few minutes before you add the rice. Scoop out the rice, draining it mostly as you go, add it to the veggies, and toss gently, being sure to use the hot wet rice to help dissolve and incorporate the yum yums (what Emeril Lagasse sometimes calls the caramelized bits stuck to a pan). It should be saucy but not soaking—the extra starchy liquid clinging to the rice will help it cook through. Sprinkle with a bit more parm and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes. If you used an oozier cheese, feel free to broil a couple of minutes to brown the top. Top with more basil if you like.

* Seriously, one of her chapters is titled "How to be cheerful though starving." Not all of her writing, or cooking, is dire. Also, the subtitle of this post comes from her too... though she paraphrased it from W.S. Gilbert. 

** This is the minimum volume of veggies, but more is more. You want about half rice/half other stuff. The juiciness of the tomatoes is important (the rice soaks up the excess), so use a lot—halved/quartered larger tomatoes would also work. Roasted butternut squash, fennel, even Brussels sprouts, would make interesting swaps. Likewise roasted sliced sausages or a bit of slivered salami wouldn’t be crazy, especially with sautéed chopped hearty greens like broccoli rabe. (Lastly, chopped garlic would be great to add to the roasting veg, but I was out, so I used a sprinkle of garlic powder…not to beat a dead horse, but it worked!)

There’s a snobbery lurking in spice cabinets, especially in those belonging to the type of people who are into Top Chef or food magazines. But break out the onion dip or ribs, and everyone—snobs or not—clamors. There’s a reason why those dishes are so good. It’s not fresh garlic. It’s dried garlic. And, strangely, no one is willing to talk about it. 

People may say, “Why are you using garlic powder? You should use fresh garlic.” Accompanied by an eye roll or pitying glance, they imply that only a Neanderthal wouldn’t choose to smash fresh garlic cloves with the side of their knife, celebrity-chef style, that dried garlic is for ignoramuses. Should, shmould. This prejudice is not likely from actual experience, just the regurgitated cooking knowledge we are all indoctrinated with via food TV. It’s the same type of insistence on the necessity of salting eggplant before cooking. Or that you can’t have cheese with seafood. Or that eating steak anything but medium rare is an outrage. I can’t stand having the status quo forced on me. We can disagree and still be nice to each other. We might even learn something!

(These partisan days are full of hurts and sensitivities, aren’t they?? It’s brutal. I feel like I’m either on my high horse or pawing around in the gutter. Ug.)

Anyway, back to garlic. Here’s my take, having experimented. Dried garlic is not a replacement for fresh garlic—and that is likely where its mediocre reputation started.* I don’t want to sauté spinach with garlic powder, or add it to pesto, or use it in most cases I use garlic, which are myriad. But there are times when dried garlic is just the thing. It’s milder than fresh, easier to disperse and dissolve, and gives instant umami without dirtying a knife. It’s why seasoned salt and Adobo seasoning are so popular.  (Have you ever eaten your college roommate’s “Montreal steak seasoning” plain, out of your palm, like a horse eats oats? Maybe that’s just me. I couldn’t help it.)

For example, my friend Seth makes ribs using garlic granules, adding them to James Beard’s iconic recipe, which otherwise consists of three ingredients: ribs, salt, and pepper. They are cooked in a regular oven, no smoker or grill needed, and they are truly the best ribs I’ve ever had. My husband and I embarrassed ourselves with how many we ate last time at their apartment. His wife, one of my best friends and a true meat lover (and coincidently the owner of said Montreal steak seasoning—sorry Ang), insists he makes them once a week. Fresh garlic would never work here—it wouldn’t disperse as thoroughly or penetrate as evenly.

Similarly, when developing menus for a meal kit company, my team had to create a last-minute breadstick recipe to bulk up a too-light dinner. My suggesting garlic powder raised little enthusiasm, in lieu of a sprinkle of nutritional yeast or smoked paprika, the more chic, upmarket options…that is, until the test kitchen did side-by-side tests and the garlic powder version was most popular by a landslide. The garlic powder created a warm, earthy depth, and didn’t burn in the oven’s heat like raw garlic would have.

And dips and dressings are perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of garlic powder. Ranch dressing, “Italian” dressing, yogurt dip, anything with sour cream. It’s especially nice when you don’t want to bowl over your guests, or yourself, with garlic flavor. Fresh garlic in raita and dairy-based dips/dressings can be delicious, but even for a garlic lover like me, the punch of eating it raw can overwhelm my tastebuds, sometimes for hours. It’s hard to get the amount right—one raw clove of garlic for a whole bowl of dip sounds puny, but in reality it’s quite a lot. With dried garlic you really can add just a little. 

So yes, dried garlic is not the same as fresh, but that’s the point! Like anything else, having variety is a good thing. No need to disparage it just because you can find it in any grocery store in the entire country. (What a feat!) And further, don’t let anyone boss you in your own kitchen: cooking isn’t about right and wrong, it’s about finding your own way. 

Top 3 Times Garlic Powder Works Better Than Fresh

• Homemade dips and dressings: ranch dressing and onion dip especially. 
• Spice rubs: Good for ribs, a pork shoulder, a whole chicken, or any slow-cooked meat. Create your own with garlic powder, paprika, chile powder, dried mustard, sugar, pepper, and salt. Or go Seth-style and mix garlic granules with salt and pepper only (look up James Beard’s Salt and Pepper Ribs). 
• Quickest garlicky “breadsticks”: Mix garlic powder with salt and oil or melted butter, then brush or dab onto naan bread. Bake in a low oven until hot, about 5 to 10 minutes, then cut into chubby fingers. Irresistible unless your snobbishness knows no bounds. 

* If this feud were being moderated by a huge food corporation, we’d likely have to witness a garlic powder and fresh garlic showdown. But I don’t encourage conflict here. 

Helda beans. Perhaps I’ve seen them quaintly illustrated in an old farmhouse cookbook, but I hadn’t seen them in the flesh, or eaten them, until just a few years ago. They have many names—romanos, flat Italians, etc—and they aren’t something you’ll likely find in your local Key Food.* It’s a bit of a mystery when they'll appear at the farmer’s market. But when I do see them, I always grab a bag. Their hearty, verdant good looks appeal to me, and that is enough of a reason to take them home and experiment, whatever they’re called. 

As opposed to asparagus, snap peas, and other early spring treats, which require only a quick steam, stir fry, or roast, Helda beans like being cooked until soft, as if they are just tough, overgrown green beans (they’re not). To me, they give a ratatouille/caponata vibe—best with savory flavors and stewy treatments—rather than the squeak-in-your-teeth vibe of a regular snappy green bean. The sun-drenched flavors of early summer produce go well with them: sweet cherry tomatoes, herbs, Japanese eggplant, peppers.

In this version, I crisp up a tiny bit of pancetta, then slowly cook some onions in the fat until they’re brown and soft. In go the beans, whole grape tomatoes, and garlic, cooked until all is on the verge of collapse. Lots of fresh basil, a necessity here, and a bit of crumbled feta at the end (as well as whatever pancetta you haven’t nibbled away) brings it all together. No accompaniment is needed, though I’m sure it would be delicious on top of soft polenta. It’s good hot or cold, but maybe best at room temperature, as are many cooked vegetable dishes like this, ideal for lunch on a screened-in porch near a craggy New England beach. 

Like tomato sandwiches, corn fritters, and peach crisps, this sort of food is unfussy, rustic, and made with what’s in season. It’s often some of the best. 

Heldas with Pancetta, Tomatoes, Basil, and Feta

Cook 2 to 4 ounces of pancetta in a bit of olive oil in a pan until crisp. Remove pancetta; reserve the fat in the pan. Add one diced onion and a sprinkle of salt and pepper and cook on low heat until brown and soft. Add 1 pound Helda beans, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces, along with a pint of grape or cherry tomatoes and a couple of cloves of chopped garlic. Cook on low until all is soft, about 10 to 15 minutes. A lid will help the process along if you are hungry. Stir in a large handful of whole basil leaves and the crisped pancetta. Serve topped with crumbled feta to taste. Great hot, cold, or room temperature. 

* They are available in the UK at the grocery store, at least lately. 

In these days preceding the Fourth of July, I’ve been thinking about American foods, the type you eat when it’s blazing hot. Devilled eggs, potato salad, corn on the cob, blueberry desserts. Hickory-smoke-infused, tomato-based barbeque sauce, often more sweet than spicy, slathered on some chicken or ribs, seems especially American. The appeal, I think, lies in that sticky, bronzed surface that comes from high heat and caramelization. I think this is why my nephews—Max and Charlie—suggested this post.* 

But in the UK, this kind of barbeque sauce doesn’t seem to be a thing. Sure, they have HP, also known compellingly as “brown sauce,” but it’s not the same. It contains dates and tamarind, which give a decidedly chutney-like flavor—I don’t think it would exactly scratch the itch here.

And to be honest, back in New York, I don’t usually have American barbeque sauce on hand either. The ingredients are usually too gnarly; high fructose corn syrup is often first on the list.** I like some sweetness (from honey or even sugar), but the idea of spreading some high fructose corn syrup on my chicken is pretty yucky, and actually embarrasses me, as an American—it just smacks of the rest of the world’s worst stereotypes of us. And liquid smoke, another necessary-seeming ingredient, is another fake and troubling food (despite the science-y triumph of making a gas into a liquid). I’m not a huge fan of smoked things to begin with, but the idea of a factory-made fake smoke essence, in a highly concentrated liquid, really weirds me out.

What is stranger still is that no one is trying to hide these facts in storebought sauce. In fact, they’re highlighted on the packaging. Sweeter and smokier every time. Cowboy-style ‘Merican. It’s Real, it’s Serious, it’s full of troubling innuendos. There’s lots of “ain’ts” and nary a “G” (rib stickin’, grillin’, chillin’). With names like Chicken & Rib Renegade, Grilled Onion & Garlic Showdown, Old West Hickory, Honey Garlic Bonanza, the whole BBQ marketing world has gotten so abstracted and cuckoo that I’m not sure I want to be a part of it anyway. (As much as I’m curious about a grilled onion and garlic “showdown”.) Can’t a person like barbeque, and prefer “isn’t”? Are law-abiding citizens not supposed to grill chicken? Can’t that person be a woman?? I digress.

Despite my ambivalence with supermarket barbeque sauce, I’ve always liked barbeque chicken, and especially as a kid. Sweet and sticky, barbeque chicken feels a bit like junk food. Which I think is likely why Max and Charlie like it. It’s good reason to eat with your hands and get incredibly messy. That’s summer.

But being me, I prefer to make the sauce myself. It’s quick and I can craft it to my preferences: spicy and tangy, and still sweet enough to create a dark crusty surface when cooked. It’s super flexible, just a matter of balancing spicy, sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. I’ve given examples of all sorts of ingredients (not exhaustive) that will help you achieve that balance—use as few or as many as you like/have. It’s a great pantry clean out.

The only real must with making barbeque sauce is that you need to taste it as you go. The mix of your particular ingredients will affect the proportions, so the only way to tell if it’s balanced will be to taste it. For example, some hot sauces are actually quite sweet, so you might need less sugar or honey, and brines are often salty in addition to sour.

Happy 4th!

Sticky Barbeque Sauce

• The base: sautéed finely minced onion and garlic, tomato paste and/or ketchup
• Sweet: Honey, sugar, apple juice, apricot jam
• Salty: Salt, soy sauce, fish sauce
• Hot: fresh chilis, chili powder or cayenne, chili paste (any kind), hot sauce, mustard, ginger
• Sour: Vinegar (balsamic, apple cider, white), pickle brine (jalapeño, bread and butter, etc)
• Bitter/smoky: brewed coffee, bourbon, beer, canned chipotle chilis and/or their sauce, smoked paprika

After sautéing the onion and garlic, add tomato paste or ketchup for bulk. Then add one or more ingredient from each group little by little until you like the way it tastes. Cooking it all together for a few minutes helps your sweeteners melt and brings it all together. If it’s too thick, a tablespoon or two of water helps thin it down to saucy consistency.

To use, grill chicken, ribs, or even slabs of firm tofu. When it’s almost cooked through, brush on the sauce; turn frequently and brush on more sauce so you develop a crust. Or dump the sauce on some raw chicken and bake it at 325 or 350 degree (so the sauce doesn’t burn before everything is cooked through); if needed, broil it at the end to crisp up the surface, but watch it carefully.

* Hi guys! Thanks for the awesome idea. Keep ’em coming!

** I know that ketchup has plenty of corn syrup in it too, and I am not shy about using it here. Oh well. I’m full of contradictions.

My earliest encounters with British food came from Roald Dahl's books. His characters were always sucking on lollies and eating jam, getting biscuit crumbs in their beards and making Toad in the Hole. From one of my favorites, Danny the Champion of the World: 

Very carefully, I now began to unwrap the waxed paper from around the doctor’s present, and when I had finished, I saw before me the most enormous and beautiful pie in the world. It was covered all over, top, sides, and bottom, with rich golden pastry. I took a knife from beside the sink and cut out a wedge. I started to eat it in my fingers, standing up. It was a cold meat pie. The meat was pink and tender with no fat or gristle in it, and there were hard-boiled eggs buried like treasures in several different places. The taste was absolutely fabulous. When I had finished the first slice I cut another and ate that, too. God bless Doctor Spencer, I thought.

Food was often a theme: a commodity, an activity, even a weapon. In Dahl's adult work, which is as wild, enjoyable, and subversive as his children's stories, a lifelong vegetarian finds religion in a hot dog, not knowing its contents, and a wife clubs her husband to death with a leg of lamb, then roasts it and serves it to the investigating detectives. A leg of lamb! Even in his most vile and violent, his food—at least compared to run-of-the-mill American food—always provided an accent to the action. 

So when on the curving high street in Rye, having spotted an old-fashioned sweets shop, its windows lined with rows of candy jars, I immediately remembered Dahl's quintessentially British descriptions.* His lickable wallpaper, 3-course-dinner gum, Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. Happily, the real candy is just as exotic. Names vacillate willy nilly between the stuff of exuberant childlike fantasy and brain-chemistry–altering drugs: Coltsfoot Rock, Parma Violets, Lime Crystals, Fizzy Fangs, Winter Nips, Acid Drops, and the ever-mystifying Pink Shrimps.**

I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but one particular candy did get my imagination going: Rhubarb and Custard.  

I love real custard, in the form of ice cream (i.e. frozen custard), or in a trifle, or just in a bowl with ripe, cut-up fruit. And while chocolate pudding and panna cotta have devotion high and low, vanilla custard doesn't receive any attention, despite it being sweet, smooth, and dead simple to make.

Rhubarb has a similar fate. Seasonal and beautifully ruby-green, it never gets the parade that strawberries and cherries do. Perhaps its looking like celery doesn't move people. Tant pis. A "compote" of it is only as complicated as chopping it, sprinkling in some sugar and water, and cooking it until it slumps—10 minutes of prep and cooking combined, tops. 

The only potentially tricky part of custard, and likely why there is a whole industry based on instant custard—Bird's here in the UK, or Jell-O or My-T-Fine in the States—is that you have to take care not to scramble the eggs when cooking it. This is not difficult. Just temper your egg yolk mixture with a little hot milk at a time, whisking all the while, until the milk is fully incorporated and the mixture gets poured back in the pan to cook on the stove. My mom also adds a little flour to the egg yolks to stabilize the mixture; and whatever my mom does in the kitchen, I follow. It hasn't failed me. 

What you do with this custard is your own business. I like it with this rhubarb compote, its mellow sour bite a delicious foil against the sweet. A piece of shortbread or a cookie adds some texture. Fresh fruit is also delicious drizzled with it. You can get more ambitious too. The three leftover egg whites can make a meringue—it's classic to pair the two (like in a Pavlova)—and while I personally don't love the tooth-sticking tackiness of meringues, I appreciate the resourcefulness. Another extravagant option, using the egg whites, is my childhood favorite, Îles flottantes (meaning floating islands), a French dessert where beaten egg whites are poached in milk to an foamy etheralness and served floating in a pool of custard and caramel.

Or lose the distractions and just eat a cup of it, ice cold from the fridge, standing up next to the sink, Roald Dahl style. I don't think he would have judged you, and neither would I. 

Vanilla Custard

In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 egg yolks, a heaping teaspoon of flour (optional), 1/3 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt. Meanwhile, heat 1 cup of whole milk in a small sauce pan, but do not let it boil. While whisking the egg mixture constantly, very slowly dribble the hot milk into the eggs. (Doing this slowly will bring the temperature of the eggs up slowly, so they do not scramble.) Once the milk is all whisked in, pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Do not multitask—if you leave the custard alone it could scramble. When it's thickened to the point where you can draw an articulated line through it in the back of your wooden spoon, remove it from the heat and transfer to a bowl. Continue stirring to help it cool down fast—you can ice bath it if you want to be sure. When cooled, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla and refrigerate. Serve cold. 

Rhubarb Compote

Chop a few stalks of trimmed rhubarb and add to a small saucepan. Sprinkle over a tablespoon or two of sugar (you can always add more if it's not sweet enough) and a splash of water. A few drops of lemon juice adds a little dimension, if you have one around. Cook on low heat until broken down and jammy, about 5 to 10 minutes. Refrigerate. 

* I'm also convinced Roald Dahl called water fountains "bubblers," and since childhood I accepted it as British English. But my husband has never heard it, and I've yet to find proof. Until then, I haven't had the nerve to ask a museum guard or the like where I could find a bubbler, for fear of being misunderstood, and possibly ridiculed. 

** I have a real love/hate relationship with the word shrimps. To me, shrimp already functions as a plural, so "shrimps" clangs loudly in my head, like the equivalent of adding an apostrophe where one is not needed. Similarly, I do not like the word "hairs"—yuck. Yet Pink Shrimps would make a compelling band name.

One thing I love about cooking in the UK is the accessibility of different ingredients. One local favorite is my beloved pul biber, chili flakes from Turkey. Harissa here comes in three varieties: red, green, and rose petal. Another constant is ground lamb. This isn't a surprise—I have seen more sheep in the last month than in the rest of my years combined. Encountering them en masse while walking on various country footpaths, I feel confident in saying that English sheep seem very happy.

But even in the US, lamb is an ingredient I reach for often. Because of its relative unpopularity, I like to think that American lamb is of higher quality than supermarket-variety ground turkey and beef. And of course, it’s much tastier. Some people talk about gaminess in lamb, but I don’t taste that—just a richness and umph. And because of that extra strength in flavor, it can stand up to other hearty flavors, like strong cheese, warm spices, and chilis. 

Often I’ll make lamb meatballs. Leg of lamb or cubed lamb for stew takes a bit longer to cook, and lamb chops are a bit of a treat, financially. But ground lamb is relatively affordable, and wonderful for quick meals.

Lamb meatballs are delicious Greek style, braised in a cinnamon-heavy tomato sauce, topped with feta cheese—that's my go to. But for a change of pace, I tried a North African bent this time, with dill, mint, parsley, spices, and harissa. I served them over orzo with herby yogurt and pomegranate seeds. While the pomegranate seeds might seem like a pretention, they are weirdly vital to this dish—they add a bright, fruity juiciness and crunchy texture that really contrast with the soft, spiced lamb.

I made a salad alongside with another ingredient that is easily found here, but starting to show up in the states more and more: shrinkwrapped, precooked beets. You could used canned ones in a pinch, or roast your own. I marinated mine in lemon juice, olive oil, shallots, salt, and pul biber. They can sit there all afternoon; then at the last minute, toss with arugula and feta.

One last opinion about the meatballs. Even if you aren't obsessed with waste, like me, it’s bordering on profane to not make a quick sauce out of the brown bits left in the pan here. It's a good way to gently cook them all the way through, if needed, or an easy way to heat them up—plus it basically cleans your pan. I was out of white wine, but half of a bouillon cube and water works. Earthy pomegranate molasses would have added a little complexity and acidity* and tied nicely with the fresh pomegranate; instead I used a bit of balsamic vinegar and honey. Obviously, this sort of sauce is flexible: basically just dissolving the brown bits and balancing with salt (bouillon), acid (wine/vinegar/pomegranate molasses), and sweetness (pomegranate molasses/honey). Experiment. When it tastes good, pile it all on a platter, dress it up, and enjoy. 

Lamb Meatballs with Pomegranate and Yogurt

• Large handful each of dill, parsley, and mint
• 1/2 to 1 cup yogurt
• Salt
• 3 scallions, roughly chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 to 2 T harissa
• 2 t cumin
• 2 t coriander

• 1 piece stale bread or 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• 1 pound ground lamb
• Olive oil
• 1/2 bouillon cube
• Splash of balsamic vinegar
• Honey, to taste
• Pomegranate seeds**

In a food processor, process the herbs until finely chopped. Remove about 1/4 cup and add most to the yogurt with a pinch of salt and refrigerate; reserve the remaining tablespoon or two for garnish later. To the remaining herbs in the processor, add scallions, garlic, harissa, cumin, coriander, 2 t salt, and the torn up bread or breadcrumbs. Process until fine. Add to a bowl with the lamb and egg and mix with your hands until incorporated. Form into 2-bite meatballs and put on a plate—they’ll be very soft and barely able to hold their shape. Freeze for an hour. (This will help them stay together when fried.)

Heat 2 T olive oil in a large pan, then carefully add the meatballs. Fry on all sides until dark brown, turning carefully. Remove the meatballs to a plate, and add half of a bouillon cube and about 1/2 cup water to deglaze the pan. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and a squirt of honey; cook down until slightly thickened. Taste and reseason as necessary. Add the meatballs back and cook on low until hot and cooked through. Serve the meatballs and sauce over orzo and top with the herbed yogurt, pomegranate seeds, and reserved herbs. A marinated beet and feta salad is a nice side. 

* There are a few limits I put on myself when stocking the cupboard for only three months—and unfortunately pomegranate molasses did not make the cut. 

** I added an ingredient list because I'm working on a couple of book projects and wrote one without thinking. But usually I skip it. Do you all prefer it? I'm curious. 

*** Forgive me for the true weirdness of the title of this post. It's an obscure reference to a Sargent painting of bucolic English countryside in early evening light, titled Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. I think the sheep made me think of it. It turns out that Sargent lifted it from a song whose refrain asks, "Have you seen my Flora pass this way?" And the answer is "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose." 

I love to talk to people about food. It often tells you something about them that other chit-chat might not disclose. What people cook and how they eat is quite revealing. Then one day my friend Ali wanted to talk about cooking. Even though I have known Ali for years and years, this was surprising. Cooking is not her top topic. 

Ali likes to eat though, and is pretty game. One of her kinder moments was to both consume and exclaim enthusiastically about some chicken liver pâté that I had made that was not going over well at a dinner party. (Liver is still a hard sell, I guess... people wouldn’t even try it, despite Ali’s perkiness.) We’ve made dinner together tons of times (with Rachel too), but she’s not the one at the helm, just a willing, easygoing participant. So she has never been the cook in her household—her husband ably holds that title—but has recently committed to cooking once a week to give him a night off.

She said she follows recipes fine, but wants to learn how to put things together on her own more. And with two little kids and a long commute, she needs to have dinner ready soon after she gets home. Could I think of anything she could cook in under thirty minutes that would be somewhat kid-friendly, that wasn’t too complicated for a novice?

While these must be the most common cooking constraints of most women I know, I was a bit flummoxed. Cooking is more of a hobby for me, so I don’t mind spending some time making dinner—in fact, I look forward to spending that time every day. Also, since I work from home, I have the benefit of making the sort of meal that can be prepped while I'm on a call or can be stuck in the oven for hours. But certainly I could come up with something.  

To me, the most interesting part of Ali's conundrum was her wanting to learn how to put things together on her own. So I tried to create a flexible technique-recipe that could be easily mastered and easily changed up with what’s in the fridge, what’s in season, and what kids are willing to eat. I wanted to try not to use every pot and pan in the house, as clean-up takes time too, and who wants to do that post putting kids to bed? And I wanted it to be food that adults would like too.

The idea I came up with is a flexible spring veggie pasta dish. Simply, the technique is boiling veggies and pasta first to get them cooked evenly and quickly, then finishing it all in a pan with some sautéed aromatics to add flavor and a little texture. The result is endless variations of something tasty and easy, with constraints or not.

Tom and I recently ate something along these lines at a restaurant and salivated over it for days after: handmade ricotta gnudi with fava beans and pea shoots and green garlic. It was simple and delicious, and tasted absolutely like spring. But the idea of the dish could be translated to a super-quick version for home that would scratch the same itch. So quick and easy in fact, that it would fit Ali’s criteria too.

In Ali’s case, it can be made with storebought gnocchi, sugar snaps, and frozen peas. If you have more time, make ricotta gnudi and/or use some veggies that need more prep: fava beans are absurdly involved, but so tasty. (Just buy at least a pound or two, or you’ll wonder where all your work went.) If you want to see how far this technique will go, make the Korean-ish version with rice cakes, detailed below.

Here's hoping this gets a better response than the chicken liver pâté. If not, at least I know Ali will be nice about it, and probably like it too. 

A Technique-Recipe for Spring Veggie Dinner Variations:

Equipment: One pot, one pan, one spider (or slotted spoon), one wooden spoon, one big bowl.

1. Blanch bite-size veggies. Boil a pot of water and heavily salt it. Blanch the vegetables of your choice, one type at a time, until barely cooked (they’ll cook a bit more in the pan)--test them often so you don't overcook. Strain out with a slotted spoon or spider, rinse under cold tap water, drain again, and add to a big bowl.* Continue until all your veggies are done and in the bowl. Ingredient suggestions (single or a combination): asparagus (cut into bite size pieces), fresh peas, snap peas (halved), snow peas (halved), artichoke hearts, fava beans (removed from their pods, then blanched, then peeled). Frozen peas work great too—just add defrosted ones directly to the bowl, no need to blanch.
2. Sauté the aromatics. Cook some aromatics in some fat in a large pan over medium-low heat until tender. Ingredient suggestions: leeks, scallions, shallots, onions, spring onions, garlic shoots, garlic. For extra umph/protein, use a little pancetta, ham, or bacon. 
3. Add flavorful extras to the bowl. Add some flavorful things to the bowl with your almost cooked veggies. Ingredient suggestions: grated cheese, lemon zest, preserved lemon paste, ricotta, chopped soft herbs (parsley, basil, mint, dill, etc.), pesto, sundried/roasted tomatoes.
4. Boil the pasta. Add the pasta to boiling veggie water and cook until just done (gnocchi and gnudi are done when they float the surface; when in doubt, try them); using the spider, add the pasta directly to the pan with the aromatics. Ingredient suggestions: storebought/homemade gnocchi, fresh/frozen tortellini/ravioli, gnudi, even dried short pasta.
5. Pull it all together and re-season. Sauté the pasta in the pan for a minute (gnocchi, gnudi, and tortellini are good if allowed to get a little browned), then add the bowl of veggies and extras. Stir to combine, adding a little pasta cooking water,** until everything is combined and hot and the veggies are tender. Season to taste and serve. Ingredient suggestions: salt, pepper, more cheese, more zest, more herbs, a little lemon juice, red pepper flakes.

So that's the concept. Here is how it gets played out in a few different scenarios (veggie amounts are approximate, do to your taste): 

Weeknight- and kid-friendly variation: Sugar Snap Gnocchi

Defrost a small box of frozen peas and drain if necessary. Blanch 1/2 to 1 pound halved sugar snaps in boiling water for a couple of minutes (until bright green and still crisp) and add them to a large bowl with defrosted peas and a big handful of grated parm. Sauté a couple of chopped shallots and a few slices of chopped ham in butter until soft. Cook the gnocchi in the boiling sugar-snap water until they float. Using a spider, add the gnocchi to the shallots, letting them brown slightly. Add the bowl of veggies and cheese. Stir to combine, adding a little pasta cooking water and additional cheese if you like, until everything is combined and hot and the veggies are tender. Season to taste and serve.

More involved and fancy variation: Gnudi with Fava Beans, Asparagus, and Fresh Peas

Make ricotta gnudi (there are lots of recipes online) or homemade gnocchi. Remove 1 pound of fava beans from their pods and blanch; peel off outer skins and add the beans to a large bowl. Remove 1 pound of fresh peas from their pods and blanch; add to the bowl with favas. Blanch 1 pound of asparagus, cut into bite size pieces, and add to the bowl. Add grated parm, lemon zest, and chopped mint or basil to the bowl. Sauté chopped spring onions in butter. Cook gnudi in the boiling water until they float. Using a spider, add the gnudi to the spring onions, letting them brown slightly. Add the bowl of veggies and extras. Stir to combine, adding a little pasta cooking water and additional cheese if you like, until everything is combined and hot and the veggies are tender. Season to taste and serve.

Extra credit variation: Korean Rice Cakes with Asparagus and Sugar Snaps

Whisk together a sauce in the bottom of the large bowl: 1/4 cup gochujang, 1 T sesame oil, 2 to 3 T soy sauce, 1 T rice wine vinegar, 1 t sugar, pinch of salt, a sprinkle of sesame seeds, and thinly sliced scallions. Taste and adjust to your taste—it should be strongly flavored and balanced. Blanch 1/2 pound of halved sugar snaps and 1/2 pound of asparagus, cut into bite-size pieces, and add to the bowl with the sauce. Sauté sliced onions and garlic (and 1/4 pound thin slices of ribeye, if you like) in vegetable oil. Cook rice cakes in the boiling water until they float. Using a spider, add the rice cakes to the onions, letting them brown slightly. Add the bowl of veggies and sauce. Stir to combine, adding a little rice cake cooking water, until everything is combined and hot and the veggies are tender. Season to taste and serve.

* If you want, you could put them in an ice bath, but I often skip the trouble. A cold rinse is usually fine and less dishes. Just don’t put them straight in a small bowl as they’ll sit on top of each other and continue cooking.

** Pasta water is starchy, so will combine with the cheese and butter to make a sauce and help bind everything together. 

It's still winter. Last week, my dog stared out the window at the blowing snow and frozen trees and looked contemplative. I worked, she napped, and by midday I decided we needed to do something that would brighten our spirits.

A treat from sunnier Mexico beckoned: two containers of tomatoes—not organic or local or seasonal, just on super sale—were sitting on the counter. Cutting into one of the little golf-ball size fruits, I found it to be perfectly ripe and juicy. So, without an end plan for them, I roasted them at 275 degrees—just enough to heat up the apartment a little—with thyme, oil, salt, and pepper.

Two and a half hours later, they were dried, a little chewy, and caramelized from the inside out. I popped more than a few into my mouth: a salty, tangy snack. They were so delicious I could barely save any.

With the rest, who knows? A pasta? Topping a piece of fish? With salami and crackers? In a frittata? In a pesto?* Tucked inside a sandwich? All would be good. The week will tell.

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

Heat the oven to 275 degrees. Halve your tomatoes through their middles and place them on a parchment-lined sheet pan, cut side up. (Any size of tomato will do, but do core the larger ones.) Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pull off the leaves of some thyme, if you have any, and sprinkle over the top. (Dried thyme, herbes de Provence, or rosemary would work too.) Place in the oven and roast until shriveled, caramelized, and almost completely dry—for smaller tomatoes, a couple of hours, for larger ones, longer. Store in a jar as is, refrigerate, and eat within a few days, or cover with olive oil to extend their refrigerator life. Add to pasta, sandwiches, cheese plates, grain bowls (ug--hate that term), salads, egg dishes, etc.   

* A quick pesto with these tomatoes would be great: in the food processor, grind up the roasted tomatoes, a small handful of toasted almonds (or other nut), a little parsley, a garlic clove, salt, and olive oil. Stir in some grated pecorino or parmesan at the end if you like. Toss with hot pasta.