The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

For something so basic and necessary, it is easy to take food for granted. Doing so enables many of us to ignore the chain of social, economic, petrochemical, pharmacological and loose regulatory causality that goes into putting a meal on our plate. For example, the meat most of us eat is the end product of an industrial food chain driven not so much by our collective hunger for burgers and chicken as it is by the mountainous — and ever growing — surplus of corn. Similarly, while the term “organic” conjures up comforting thoughts of healthful food grown in pastoral settings, the reality of the industrial organic business model in place today benefits from regulations that define organic food in the broadest possible terms while charging a premium for them in the marketplace.

In The Ominvore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan tracks his way through four food chains to see where our food comes from, and to identify the true costs and tradeoffs that come of eating in different ways. He explores the complicated, corn- and petroleum-based food economy, culminating in a McDonald’s meal. He investigates the organic food movement, and discovers that the process by which organic chicken and baby greens get to boutique markets require similar economies of scale and comparable tradeoffs to the industrial food mainstream. He spends time working on a farm that produces its food in as close a harmony with natural systems as something as interventionist as agriculture allows. Finally, he learns to hunt and forage, and cooks a meal gathered entirely by the effort of his own hands.

Ultimately, few of us are in a position to feed ourselves and our families as pure hunter-gatherers. Even if we were, the reality is that there is not enough forage out there to feed a nation of scavengers. While the book presents the facts and implications of each of the different food systems Mr. Pollan explores, the lesson of The Ominvore’s Dilemma has more to do with mindfulness — of knowing what you are eating, where it came from, and the benefits, costs, and tradeoffs inherent in that food system — than with changing readers’ ways of thinking or acting.

I’m not sure I wouldn’t be happier not thinking about where my chicken came from, or the evolutionary tinkering that goes into feeding ruminant cattle a corn-intensive diet in order to fatten them up in order to yield more burgers per animal, or even about the reality that undelies the pastoral image on the box of my supposedly organic cereal. I suspect that from this point on, I will have a much more difficult time being casually ignorant; ignoring these realities will now require an act of will.

Meal of oat (oatie, oatie, oat…)*

While I enjoy oatmeal – both as a breakfast option and on a purely existential level – it’s not the most…exciting meal in the world. You can dress it up with apples, bananas, cinnamon, brown sugar, almonds, dried cranberries or coconut all you want, but eventually, oatmeal gets boring. Eating it becomes an exercise in conspicuous virtue rather than enjoyment. The prospect of yet another bowl of the stuff becomes increasingly daunting.

It was while in the grip of this state of mild aversion and incipient loathing that I hit upon an idea: fried oatmeal. Instead of heating up a pot of oats and sticking them a bowl, I decided to carve off a slice or two of leftover oatmeal and cook it up in a skillet. As with the beefy beans recipe I mentioned a while ago, thinking about this basic recipe in a slightly different way yielded an interesting – and tasty – result.

Fried Oatmeal
(serves 4-5)

1 recipe steel cut oatmeal (1 cup steel cut oat groats, 4 cups water, 1/2 cup half and half [optional] hefty pinch of salt; bring to a boil, then simmer 35-40 minutes, or until all the liquid has been absorbed by the oats), transferred to a rectangular storage container and allowed to set up overnight into something with a loaf-like consistency.

For each serving, you will need:

1/2 apple, diced

1/2 banana, quartered and sliced

1t butter

1t brown sugar

cinnamon to taste

Slice the oatmeal loaf into two 3/4-inch sections per person.

Heat a small skillet over medium-high heat. Coat the pan with a quick hit of nonstick cooking spray. Add the oatmeal slices to the hot pan. Cook 5-7 minutes on a side, or until toasted brown in color. Remove the cooked oatmeal slices to a serving plate.

Return the pan to the heat and add the butter. Once it has melted, add the apple and banana, followed immediately by the brown sugar and cinnamon. Saute 2-3 minutes until the fruit has heated through and softened. Serve this warm “compote” over the top of the oatmeal slices.

The result is something a bit like a flourless bannock or a thicker and moister oatcake. The pan-frying treatment browns and crisps the surface of the slice, which gives it a toasted, nutty flavor. The sautéed fruit provides traditional oatmeal accompaniments, and serves as a way to add a little sweetness to the otherwise neutrally-flavored oatmeal.

*Someday, The Kid will hear the song “Jungle Love” by Morris Day and the Time, and she will be terribly confused.

Full, but not sinful

As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re trying to eat healthier here at the Modern manse. One reason for this is pure (if tautological) common sense; healthy foods are healthier than unhealthy foods. Unprocessed foods are, in the main, better than processed foods, satisfying as those processed foods may be. We’re not being fanatically zealous in our commitment, but the balance of items in our grocery cart has definitely tipped heavily in favor of the foods on the perimeter, rather than the center, of the market.

Another reason is that eating better helps support other lifestyle changes. I’ve been trying to get more exercise lately, both for the baseline benefits of exercise, but also because increasing my activity level supports my goal of droping a few (dozen) pounds over a reasonable period of time.

So, part of our recent commitment to better eating has involved eating better. That is, our desire to eat fresher, healthier, less processed foods has also resulted in our eating food that tastes better. It has also led me to do more actual cooking, using recipes that actually take time, thought, and effort to prepare.

Sometimes, all our schedule really allows for is throwing together a meal that is quick and nutritious. There’s nothing wrong with a simple meal of baked chicken, roasted potatoes (or rice, or some equally nutritive but uninspiring starch) and steamed broccoli. It’s healthy and balanced, if entirely unimaginative. Recently, I took the opportunity to stray off the path of convenience. The other night, I made a roast chicken (okay, so I stayed in chicken territory, which I’ll admit isn’t exactly walking on the wild side, but it takes a bit more effort than just opening the package of chicken parts and throwing them on the baking sheet) with a cornbread stuffing (thanks, Chris Kimball). Roast chicken is still a pretty simple dish, but throwing a bunch of aromatics into the roasting pan (apple, lemon, onion) gives the meat a really nice flavor, with the added bonus of roasted onions as a side dish.

Making the stuffing required bacon, which lead to leftover bacon. Leftover bacon became the impetus for making a coq au vin the following night. Again, this is hardly the most complicated meal in the world — the greatest investment lies not in ingredients, or culinary skill, but in time — but the result is rich, and flavorful, the sort of meal that leaves you looking for one more piece of crusty bread to mop up the last of the sauce.

Indeed, the only problem with indulging in my love of cooking is that it makes me want to (over)indulge in my love of eating. With baked chicken and rice, there’s not much of a desire for seconds, or a need to exercise moderation. Coq au vin on the other hand, requires one to summon some restraint.

But. Just because I’m trying to eat better, exercise more, and, ultimately, weigh less as a the result of making changes to established habits and behaviors (replacing them, over time, with different habits and behavioral patterns that are both healthy and sustainable) doesn’t mean I want to stop finding pleasure in good food. The trick, I think, is to stop conflating that pleasure with moral judgements, stop framing enjoyment of a good meal with sin, and exercise with expiation.

Coq au vin (or Spaghetti alla Carbonara, or whatever your favorite indulgence happens to be) is something to be enjoyed, not something to atone for. Thinking about this or that dinner in terms of the amount of time one has to spend working off, or paying back, the calories, is entirely the wrong mindset for sustainable change. The goal should be to have diet (in the sense of what one puts in one’s body, rather than in the sense of a branded Diet Program [tm] complete with books and prepackaged meals, television exposure and celebrity advocates, seasoned with just the slightest hint of snake oil) and exercise balance each other out as part of a healthy lifestyle. In that way, the occasional indulgence can be seen (as it should be seen) as a source of pleasure.

A good meal should not be viewed as a debt to be paid off in sweat, but a credit redeemed by dutifully eating all that @#$%ing baked chicken the rest of the time.

Bart’s Beefy Beans

So a few years back, we started making what may be the world’s simplest slow cooker meal: package of chicken breasts (with the packaging removed, natch), can of black beans, drained, jar of salsa. Cook all day on low (high if you start with frozen chicken). Shred the cooked (poached, really) chicken with a couple of forks, spoon into a pre-cheesed tortilla, roll up and enjoy. If you like your tortilla a little crispier, you can always put it seam side down in a skillet over medium heat for a minute or two, then flip to crisp up the other side. Simple, easy, pretty darn good, and comparatively healthy if you don’t get crazy with the cheese.

Then, a few years after that, we found ourselves stuck for what to have for dinner, without time to wait for the slow cooker. In a quick adaptation, I browned some ground turkey, tossed in the black beans and salsa, and created a ten minute version of the all day dish, one that has become a staple in our household. For some reason, we’ve taken to calling this recipe “beefy beans” despite the fact I’ve never once made it with beef.

A few days ago, after some early morning exercise, I was looking for something with protein in it for breakfast. I cracked out some of the previous night’s beefy beans filling, heated it up, and threw it in a bowl. In doing so, I realized I not only had a really basic burrito filling, but also the most basic homemade chili imaginable. Three ingredients, ten minutes. Sure, it’s only one small step removed from opening up a can of mass market chili, but there’s a world of difference contained in that small distance.

Once I started of thinking of this as a chili, I started thinking of other ways to use it: thrown into a chili cheese omelet; served over spaghetti as chili mac; spooned over tortilla chips, covered with cheese and turned into nachos. There’s a whole range of uses for this recipe, this idea, that never occured to me until I happened to look at it from a slightly different angle.

There’s probably a metaphor for life in there somewhere.

Indulgence

If healthy eating is a habit to be cultivated, then the corollary is that sometimes you have to throw broccoli and self-discipline to the wind and make a pilgrimage to the local dairy bar.

On a warm spring afternoon, there aren’t many things better than sitting at a picnic table amid good company, waiting for your order number — your first of the season — to be called over the PA system. Pay for your order and grab your tray. Quick detour to the condiment bar to load up on specimen cups of ketchup and mustard, each one too small to satisfy the dipping needs of even the dantiest and most fastidious diner, but you always end up getting too many. Back to the table. Pass around the food. Grab a couple of onion rings from the communal order in the middle of the table. Eat. Talk. Laugh. People watch; families, high school kids, seniors, a business type in shirtsleeves walking up to the counter for a decidedly non-business lunch.

You’ve definitely had — and made — a better burger, but context matters. Sunny day, picnic table, not a care in the world except whether or not to go back and order a chocolate frost.

Getting all up in your grill

A week of unseasonably nice weather (for a few days, Mother Nature leapfrogged over spring to give us a little taste of summer) turned this young man’s fancy to thoughts of…grilling. After a thorough — I’m still trying to get the last of the gunk out from under my nails — cleaning earlier in the week, I’ve celebrated the end of a long winter with a few nice grill-centric meals.

Grilling lines up nicely with the healthier eating kick we’re on here at the Modern family compound. As gas prices and food prices continue to rise, we’re making a real effort both to stretch our food dollar as much as we can and to devote the greatest possible percentage of every food dollar to the purchase of, you know, food. This makes trips to the market something of a balancing act. Real food, particularly things like produce, tend to be more expensive than the packaged, processed, partially hydrogenated, high-fructosized. You get more fruit roll-ups for your grocery dollar than you can real fruit.

Okay, so none of this is a revelation. I’ve known for a long time the difference between a real strawberry (or apple, or peach) and a machine-extruded strip of strawberryish plasticine. I know which one is better. I know which one is cheaper. So what’s the point, here?

At present, mindfulness is the point. At present, we’re thinking a lot more about our food when we buy it, and when we consume it.

I’ve always been a by the list grocery shopper. Obsessive-compulsively so at times. I’m not immune to the occasional impulse purchase or good deal, but by and large I have a plan and I stick to it. Improvisational grocery shopping doesn’t work for me; it’s too easy to go over budget, and even easier to load up on things that are not remotely necessary. Lately, in addition to making lists based on what we need, I’m also becoming a circular shopper.

For a long time now, I’ve shopped at one particular store. Not out of any tremendous sense of loyalty, but because they usually offer slightly better specials, which makes them the cost-effective option. Now that I’m shopping mindfully, which has had the added effect of further simplifying an already straightforward list, I’m comparison shopping among markets a lot more. With a pared down list, the value proposition of one store over another on any particular week becomes much easier to determine. I suppose if I were truly dedicated, I would make two or more lists, and break up my shopping trip to maximize value, but I’m not there yet. The gas price and time value costs of multiple shopping excursions outweigh any marginal savings, at least for the time being.

Like the markets themselves, the circulars offer a lot of deals on things I don’t need, heavily discounted in the hope of convinving me that maybe I do need them after all. So, while my actual frozen pizza (or processed cheese single, or store brand ketchup) need is zero, I have to consider whether loading up on ten frozen pizzas for ten bucks might not be such a bad idea. Fortunately, I’m sufficiently cynical that that line of thought usually culminates in the realization that convincing people that buying a whole lot of something they don’t need is a “savings” is part of the reason our economy and our collective values are so screwed up.

So it’s grilling season, and I can get a good deal on a rainbow assortment of grilling sauces and marinades featuring our good friend high-fructose corn syrup, and its hench-additives, the nefarious twins artificial and natural flavor.

Here’s my thing: given a reasonably well-stocked pantry, who needs prepackaged sauces? How hard is it to mix soy sauce and ginger to make a soy-ginger marinade? Absent a smoker to give you the tang of mesquite, why not just add a couple drops of liquid smoke to some chili and lime juice? Sure, chipotles in adobo aren’t a staple in some households, but a choice between a chemical slurry of faux chipotle and mesquite flavor and picking up a can of chilis is really no choice at all. Lemon-pepper? Herb and garlic? Make them at home. They’ll taste better, and you’ll have more control over what goes onto your food.

I speak from guilty experience when I say the main reason people opt for prepackaged sauces is time and convenience. Open the bottle, glug a portion over your food, mix it up to evenly distribute the marinade, and let it sit. Elapsed time, maybe 30 seconds. Simplicity itself.

Know what else is simple? Take a clove or two of garlic, and chop it finely. Transfer to a small bowl. Give it a few shakes of oregano and basil (or toss in a chiffonade of fresh herbs if you have them on hand). Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, half again as much lemon juice, and a dollop each of mustard and honey. Whisk to emulsify. Pour over a boneless pork tenderloin and distribute evenly over the meat. Elapsed time, maybe three minutes, four if you take a minute to rinse out the bowl and clean your knife and cutting board. The result, however, is at least six times better than the prepackaged option:

Preheat your grill to medium-high heat. Remove the tenderloin from the marinade, and wipe off any excess. Sear the tenderloin on all sides, then grill covered for 20-25 minutes, turning periodically. Let the meat rest for five minutes before slicing. Accompaniments at the cook’s discretion (grilled tortilla and a cucumber salad go very well with this meal).

Two of my favorite ‘B’ words

I’ve been taking shots at New York magazine lately, so it’s only fair that I sing their praises when there are praises to be sung.

Thanks to Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite for their piece in the April 14, 2008, issue of the magazine about Don Lee of New York bar PDT and his bacon-infused Old Fashioned.

I don’t care for vodka. It upsets my stomach. So I’ve never had much truck with flavored spirits, with the exception of a tolerable blood orange tequila I had at a place in Boston once.

Bacon and bourbon on the other hand? That’s tremendously appealing. In Mr. Lee’s preparation, I imagine the smokiness of the bacon would round out the richness of the bourbon, and balance nicely with the sweetness of the maple syrup in the drink.

And given the fact that some studies indicate that moderate alcohol intake can help lower cholesterol, the cocktail provides its own remedy against any bacon fat that doesn’t get filtered out of the infusion.

The Year of Eating Dangerously, by Tom Parker Bowles

It’s always dangerous to conflate a writer’s literary persona with their true personality. At the same time, in a work of nonfiction the reader has to assume that the persona with whom they interacts is the one on which the writer wishes to be evaluated. Based on this standard, Tom Parker Bowles reminds me of that old friend you haven’t seen in a while, the one of whom you have great memories of good times shared, but who, when you reconnect with them after a period of years seems like a bit of a jackass.

I’m not casting aspersions here. I suspect that some friends with whom I’ve lost touch over the years would feel the same way about me if we were to reunite. My insight into Mr. Parker Bowles character is therefore based on a clear-eyed assessment of my own.

As he presents himself in the book, Mr. Parker Bowles is someone who talks big, drinks copiously, and mistakes awareness of his own character flaws for deep insight. Basically, he is Anthony Bourdain with none of the chefly chops and one tenth the charm.

There is very little danger to be found in Mr. Parker Bowles culinary tour, aside from the danger to his ego of having his assumptions challenged and his preconceptions shattered. The rest is gloss. A few days in China here, a New Mexico chile pepper odyssey there, a taste of fugu in Tokyo over there, judging a barbecue contest (complete with the obligatory digression into the realm of the Arawak barbacoa to provide the necessary context for his porcine indulgence) in that other chapter. At best, he merely scratches the surface of the cuisines and cultures he explores. There is nothing wrong with that. Any of the subjects addressed in passing in each chapter would provide fodder for a book twice the size of The Year of Eating Dangerously.

The later chapters in the book are the most fascinating. His trip to Korea in order to eat dog reveals finds him wrestling with the cultural baggage of dog as protein (something for which he claims historical antecedents even in the West) versus dog as man’s best friend. Counterbalancing this is his extensive chapter on Laos. Again, he barely scratches the surface of the country, its people, or its culinary traditions, but it is clear that he was enchanted, if somewhat caught up in the dregs of 20th century imperialist fantasy, by his visit.

Ultimately, the greatest danger for the author or the reader is to take this book too seriously.

Back from Hell

In college, there was a small parking lot near the residence hall where various of my friends who worked on campus during the summer lived. As a local, and without an on-campus summer job that provided housing, I lived at home, but spent most of my free time on campus. As the closest parking spaces to the residence, these spaces were always in demand.

There were seven spaces, which we ended up naming The Magnificent Seven. Not content with merely naming the lot, we not only went on to name the spaces after the actors who played the Seven in the 1960 cinematic classic, but we did so in order of decreasing badassitude. Thus, the space closest to the building was McQueen, followed by Brynner, Coburn, Bronson, Vaughn, Dexter, and Bucholz.

There is room to argue the respective rankings of Coburn versus Bronson. On an unweighted scale, Charles Bronson has the edge. He’s the only actor who hits the guy movie trifecta, having appeared in The Dirty Dozen, The Magnificent Seven, and The Great Escape. That’s a strong argument in his favor. On the other hand, the characters he played in these films are all cut from the same basic laconic and competent cloth. Being badass is also about being cool, and in The Magnificent Seven, Our Man Flint has it all over Mr. Majestyk.

When parking, you always hoped McQueen or Brynner would be available, settled for Coburn, Bronson, or Vaughn, and felt cheated if you got stuck with Dexter or Bucholz. Regardless, invoking Elmer Bernstein’s famous score was a karmic necessity to securing any of these much in demand spaces.

This ritual notwithstanding, I love The Magnificent Seven on its cinematic merits as well. While I certainly enjoy the coolness of the top tier characters, I’ve always had a soft spot for Robert Vaughn’s Lee. What can I say? I’ve always liked characters with a broad fatalistic streak. Lee is a man past his prime, and he knows it. Even though he’s lost the spark that defines him, he can’t stop being what he is, even as he know that what his is will be his downfall. In the film he talks about losing that spark. He says, “You can feel it. Then you wait… for the bullet in the gun that is faster than you are.”

I spent a lot of time thinking about the whole gunslinger past his prime trope last week. My friend the Stoat informed me of the Hell Night
dinners* at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge. Fortunately, a business trip to Boston coincided with a Hell Night, and we were able to check it out.

I’m a big fan of spicy foods. I’m one of those “the hotter the better, bring the pain mother@#$%er” types. You know, the obnoxious ones. I’m not one of the obsessives with a refrigerator full of boutique hot sauces, but given the opportunity to cauterize my taste buds, I’ll take it. It’s gotten me into some trouble over the years, as when my boast about my cast iron taste buds fell afoul of a chicken vindaloo that was well within my tolerance, but which sent a dollop of sauce down the wrong side of my windpipe on the first bite, causing me to lose all face among by dinner companions. By and large though, I like to test the limits of my endurance.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed to my distress that my endurance was starting to have demonstrable limits. I hadn’t yet had my fateful encounter with the bullet (pepper) that was faster than I was, but I had to start acknowledging that such a pepper existed, and that it would find me some day.

So I was approaching Hell Night the way Robert Vaughn’s Lee approached the mission to save the village: as a chance to either face down a challenge worthy of my greatness, or to meet my end at the hands of foe worthy of taking me down.

I’m pleased to report that for one night, I found a third option: renewal. I not only faced my peppery nemeses, but conquered them.

I began my meal with habañero tequila, on the theory that if I was indeed courting doom, then as the poet says “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” Of the quality of the tequila I can make no report as the only thing I experienced of the drink was the heat of the habañero. I wouldn’t counsel drinking more than one of them, but it was a good way to start the meal. It was no so much a palate cleanser as a palate obliterator The tequila came with something the menu called sangrita as a chaser, but I can’t actually report any specifics. It was sorta pulpy, like maybe guava or tomato juice. It maybe had some flecks of chile in it. It went well with the habañero. It didn’t so much cool the flames, as provide counterpoint and restoration, making it possible to appreciate the flavors and complexities of the rest of the meal.

For an appetizer, I had spicy thai skirt stix, peppery beef skewers served with a spicy green dipping sauce almost like a chimichurri, and a thinner, but equally piquant chili vineagar. The beef was tender and flavorful, and the appetizer almost made me regret not ordering the skirt steak from the entree menu. The Stoat’s jalapeño cheddar Tasso hush puppies were terrific as well.

I chose the “Pissah Pork” as my entrée. This was a mixed grill consisting of blazing roast pork butt, an incandescent barbequed rib and a thermonuclear sausage-stuffed grilled banana. The sausage was like a chorizo made with habañero, and was easily the hottest thing on the plate. I suspect the banana was supposed to tame the heat somewhat, but it failed at this duty quite spectacularly, while providing a really interesting flavor combination. The rib was perfectly cooked, and featured both tender and cracklingly crisp bits, all wrapped in just the right amount of sticky spiciness. The butt was out of this world. The pork was rich enough to retain its own flavor, and subtle enough to serve as a delivery system for a really complex combination of herbs and peppers.

Of the various items on the entrée menu, there was only one that promised to be hotter than the pork, which was rated at five out of six bombs. There was a six-bomb lamb shank on the menu. Tempting though it was, I opted for the variety offered by the Pissah Pork. As so often happens, the decision was made easier by the choice of sides that came with each entree. The lamb came with basmati rice and spinach, both of which are perfectly respectable accompaniments, and ones I happen to enjoy. On the other hand, the pork came with mashed sweet potatoes and grilled pineapple. There are few things on this earth that will make me pass up grilled pineapple, and neither spinach nor basmati rice is on that short list. The pineapple was a terrific accompaniment. The chili mashed sweet potatoes were even better: sweet, creamy, and peppery. Both of these sides, along with the banana that came with the sausage, served as a reminder of how well sweet and hot flavors combine, and why that combination is the cornerstone of so many Caribbean sauces.

In the end, I don’t know whether this meal represented my last hurrah or a true Renaissance. As the final tolerably hot meal of my spicy food career, it was a fitting capstone. As a return to form, it makes me yearn for the next challenge. Whether I’m riding into the sunset, or merely over the horizon, this gunslinger sits high in the saddle.

*While the Hell Night writeup also uses the the chilehead as gunfighter metaphor, I thought about it this way before I visited the East Coast Grill website.

Over 1,000? Really?

I may have found the single most pointles and unnecessary book on the planet: The Ultimate Little Martini Book, by Ray Foley.

The cover of the book promises that it contains over 1,000 martini recipes. I find that interesting, given there is only one way to make a martini:

Gin plus dry vermouth in whatever ratio appeals to the imbiber’s palate, blended (shaken, stirred, or otherwise agitated) in a cocktail shaker with ice, strained into a martini glass or served over the rocks, and garnished with some number of olives, the quantity determined by the bartender, or a twist of lemon if the drinker prefers.

That’s it.

There are only three acceptable variants:

The vodka martini: replace the gin with vodka. If you must.

The Vesper, as concocted by James Bond in Casino Royale: 3 parts gin; 1 part vodka; 1/2 part Kina Lillet; shaken and garnished with lemon.

The dirty martini: the standard martini plus a measure of olive brine.

That’s it. Anything beyond that is a gin or vodka cocktail, but it is not a martini. Once you pick up a book with 1,000 recipes and start messing with apple or chocolate, or anise or orange you are no longer in martini territory. It’s a fair bet that any establishment that pretends otherwise, and offers a rainbow assortment of ersatz martinis, is a place where you won’t find a good rendition of the real McCoy.

Lasagna, demystified

“Anyone who has tried to bake a serious lasagna at home knows the truth about this intricate family dish. It’s laborious, time consuming, and fraught with all sorts of potential disaster.”

— New York magazine, “Best of New York” issue (cover date March 10-17, 200

The unattibuted New York magazine contributor who wrote the above introduction to the wonders of the lasagna served at New York’s Insieme restaurant misses an important point.

There is nothing intricate or laborious about lasagna. It’s pasta sheets, sauce, and cheeses — and meat, if you’re so inclined — baked into a wondrously bubbling mass. I know the pros introduce bechamel to the mix, but I’m of the opinion that’s an enhancement, rather than a prerequisite. If you can master a few basic moves — none of which is appreciably more complex than, you know, boiling water — you can make a serviceable, even exceptional, lasagna.

Pretending there is more to it than that is disingenuous. Food can be transcendent, but the reasons for that transcendence usually derive more from craft than from complexity. In general, good food writing does one of two things. Some writers clear the obscuring mists that make the preparation of food seem like the work of divine, or at least heroic, hands. They demonstrate that the application of the chefly arts rests on skills within the reach of any cook. The chef hones these skills over time to a degree of mastery, but it is possible for the home cook to employ the same techniques, if to a lesser degree.

Others demonstrate that food we think of as simple — preparations of a few basic ingredients, employing basic techniques — can be elevated through skill into something that makes you look at food, and the world, in entirely new ways. This is the difference between the mass produced loaf, and bread worthy of the staff of life label.

The challenge for the food writer lies in knowing which approach to take. In the case of Insieme chef Marco Canora’s lasagne verde, the New York magazing correspondent went the wrong way.

“Canora makes his sheets of pasta with fresh spinach, and mingles his beef Bolognese with milk, butter, and plenty of pancetta. Instead of three or four layers, he constructs seven, each one wafer-thin, and oosing with a rich bechamel seasoned with nutmeg.”

There’s that pesky bechamel again.

I’ve not dined at Insieme, but I’ll go out on a limb and opine that the wonder of Mr. Canora’s is not that he did something difficult well, but that he did something simple with skill and imagination. That’s an admirable feat in itself. Pretending he avoided disaster in the process is unnecessary, and may even diminish the achievement this dish represents.

Unpack your (culinary) adjectives

A few towns over from where I live, there is a spoon of indeterminate but presumably highly concentrated greasiness. Whenever I drive by this beanery, I notice the sign in front that has the words “Large Food Menu” printed on its face.

I always wonder which noun the word “large” modifies, and which of the various meanings of large the sign’s creator intended.

Does the eatery have a menu of large food — meatballs the size of grapefruits, cheeseburgers with the same diameter as manhole covers, omelets made with a gross of eggs apiece?

Is the term “large food” related to portions? For example, do they serve diners enough pasta to choke a horse that was itself used to choke a blue whale?

On the other side of the equation, perhaps “large” is a measure of the extensivity of the menu itself. Perhaps this seemingly unassuming slop house has a selection reminsicent of a place like the Cheesecake Factory, where the diversity of the offerings raises the inevitable question of if they offer so many different things, how can any of them be good?

Regardless of the application of the word “large” one thing seems certain: I derive more satisfaction from pondering the meaning of this sign than I ever would from a meal at this restaurant.

Bart Modern’s Bowl..of chili

So, big game tomorrow. Americana and overindulgence. Decided I wanted a nice bowl of chili to go with my ballgame and my beer. The Lovely Wife reminded me that I’ve made jambalaya in the past, but this year I’m craving a bowl of red.

One of the things I like best about chili is that it’s a recipe open to almost infinite interpretation. You can tinker with it — hotter or milder? beans or no beans? beef or turkey or chicken or soy crumbles? — and as long as you stick to some basic parameters, you’ll wind up with something edible. My default is the recipe I grew up with, a version that uses diced sirloin instead of ground beef. It requires a decent investment in time, but the return is worth it: thick, spicy, and needing nothing but a few saltines and a cold beer to accompany it.

But this is a dish that demands attention be paid to it. It’s not something I can just scarf down when my mind is focused on whether my team should go for it on fourth and short. No, for my current purposes I need a chili that can feed my body while keeping my mind free to focus on other things. At the same time, I don’t just want to suck down a can of store bought chili. I want a meal that has seen the inside of a kitchen, and was assembled by human hands from beginning to end.

The variant I’ll be enjoying tomorrow goes a little somethin’ like this:

Bart Modern’s Big Game Chili (200

2T vegetable oil

4T + 1 teaspoon hot chili powder

2t salt

2 packages (about 1.25# each) meatloaf mix (ground beef, pork, and veal)

1T olive oil

1T cumin

2 medium yellow onions, diced

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 4 oz. can chopped green chilis

1 cup beer (leave on the counter for about one hour to let some of the gas dissipate)

1 cup apple juice

1T Worcestershire sauce

1t Tabasco sauce

2 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes

1 cup water

1 15.5 oz. can red kidney beans

1 15.5 oz. can black beans

*************************

1) Heat the oil in a 5-quart stockpot set on medium high heat. Add the meat, and 1 teaspoon each of chili powder and salt. Brown the meat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon until it has a coarse consistency.

2) When the meat it browned, remove from the pot with a slotted spoon and set aside. Retain 2T of the rendered fat, and add 1T olive oil to it. Add the remaining chili powder and cumin, and stir for about 10 seconds to let the spices bloom in the oil. Add the onion, and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring every 20 seconds. Add the garlic and cook another 1 minute. Add the diced chilis and cook another 1 minute.

3) Add the meat back to the pot. Stir to combine and cook for 2 minutes.

4) Add the beer. Stir and let cook for 2 minutes to allow the alcohol to burn off. Add the Worcestershire, Tabasco, and apple juice. Stir. Add the tomatoes. Use 1 cup water to rinse out the tomato cans. Add to the pot. Stir to combine.

5) Reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook for one and a half hours.

6) Add drained beans, cook for another 30 minutes.

Burger, Pittsfield, Massachusetts

I take my burgers seriously. By the same token, I’ll note the charms of In-N-Out Burger were lost on me the one time I had occasion to try a double double, which I know calls my burger street cred into question in some circles. This gastronomic lapse notwithstanding, my personal gold standard includes Bartley’s in Harvard Square, and O’Sullivan’s in Somerville, MA. Lanesboro’s Olde Forge serves a terrific burger as well, but there it’s mostly by way of accompanying their beer menu, for which any superlative is too faint praise.

Recently, The Lovely Wife, The Kid, and I visited Burger, the recently-opened spin off of Pittsfield’s Spice restaurant.

Burger’s decor called to mind an idealized fast food joint, with a central aisle for ordering, and a range of table, booth, and counter seating arrayed throughout a large, well-lit, and comfortable dining area. There were a few retro signs (a Coke-branded luncheonette sign, and other, similar adornments) hanging on the walls, but these were tastefully restrained, thematic accents rather than an indication of mistaking aggressive kitsch for design sensibility. Granted, the faux broken plaster and distressed brick near the back entrance was a bit cheesy, but I saw it as a sign of the pride the owners take in the work they have done renovating the building. That pride was apparent in the caliber of the service as well; from counter to table, it was efficient and friendly.

Now, the ideal burger must have a nice crust on the outside, while being rare and juicy on the inside. It should be mostly pink in the middle, but not so undercooked that the meat lacks texture. I’ll rarely say no to a nice slice of cheddar and a couple strips of crisp bacon on top of my burger, but when trying a new place, it’s best to let the sandwich speak for itself.

The Lovely Wife and The Kid chose to have their conversation with Burger’s Classic 1/4 Pound burger. TLW’s medium well burger was a bit overcooked for my taste, but that’s going to be true of any medium well burger anywhere. TK’s medium was more to my liking, as it held on to more of the beefy flavor that TLW sacrificed on the altar of doneness.

This being a special occasion, I opted for Burger’s Kobe burger. It came slightly less than the medium rare I ordered, which meant that the balance of juiciness to texture wasn’t where I prefer it to be, but it was still incredibly rich and flavorful. It was definitely worthwhile as both a curiosity and an indulgence, but ultimately, the classic burger acquits itself so well that there is little reason to indulge except to be indulgent.

While all the burgers were quite good, the real star of the show was the rolls. Most of the time, I take the roll — or the rye, in the case of a patty melt — for granted. It’s a mere container, a delivery system for the patty payload. If it’s doing its job, you don’t notice it. On either extreme however, the roll can make or break your burger. Bad bread can ruin an otherwise excellent slider. Great bread can elevate an average burger to heights undeserved on the merits of the meat itself. While Burger’s burgers are well above average, their rolls most definitely put them over the top.

The bread itself had a slight sweetness similar to a Portuguese roll. The inside was moist, with an almost steamed texture, while the outside was apparently finished on the grill, or on a grill press. The result was bread that adhered, almost melted into, the patty, while having a crisp texture on the outside.

For sides, we ordered plain french fries, chili cheese fries, and eggplant fries. TLW’s eggplant fries were the clear winner, and that’s coming from someone who usually prefers to avoid eggplant. They were light and crunchy without being greasy. The result was something that tasted like a glorious hybrid of french fry and onion ring.

The plain fries were nice (although next time, I might opt for the “dirty,” which I take to mean skin-on, variety), thick cut, crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside. The only way these might be improved is by including a bottle of malt vinegar among the condiment options on each table. I’ve got nothing against good old ketchup, but chips this good and this substantial would be best with salt and vinegar.

The fries also served as a solid foundation for Burger’s chili cheese fries. The fries had the structural integrity required to support the mass of nicely flavorful chili, accompanied by straight-from-the-nozzle Technicolor orange processed cheese. Unfortunately, beside a hefty burger and a large milk shake, these fries were perhaps an exercise in undue optimism. They were very good, but more than I could handle. Next time, I believe I’ll opt for Burger’s sweet potato fries.

[Another suggestion: gravy for the fries, either alone, or as part of the classic gravy and cheese goo tandem affectionately known as Disco Fries.]

The shakes were merely all right. The consistency was nice — neither too milkily thin nor so thick you risk an aneurysm trying to suck it through the straw. I had a coffee shake, and the Lovely Wife and The Kid each opted for strawberry. Burger’s shakes weren’t overly sweet, which is nice. Too much syrup is often the unfortunate norm, and Burger avoided this pitfall. Our shakes were indeed coffee-esque and strawberry-ish, but I believe Burger accomplished this by using less syrup — and sacrificing flavor along with sweetness — rather than by using a syrup with a higher flavor to sweetener ratio.

For those for whom a burger just isn’t a burger without a cold beer alongside, Burger offered several varieties, as well as wine for more refined tastes. For those for whom wretched excess is an excellent starting place, Burger featured a range of spiked shakes that blend in various spirits along with the ice cream and other flavorings. The serving counter also boasted a tempting array of cookies, pastries, and other delectables for who prefer their decadence in solid, rather than liquid, form. I can offer no assessment of those, as we had a dessert date with some whoopie pies from Molly’s Bakery in North Adams (but that’s a story for another day).

Burger is located at 279 North Street in Pittsfield Massachusetts; 413-997-9797; www.eatatburger.com; open from 11:30 a.m. daily.

That 70s Chow

Had an unintentionally retro dinner last night. We had thought The Lovely Wife was going to be out of town for the evening, and I had picked up a nice steak for my dinner. When her plans changed, I need to respond accordingly, the piece of steak in question being not quite sufficient to feed two people. The result was like a trip back in time:

Meatloaf (leftover, pan-fried)

Wild rice

Glazed carrots (because sometimes the prospect of one more serving of steamed broccoli, a.k.a, The Fallback Vegetable, is too depressing to contemplate)

Granted, none of these items ever really disappeared from the American dinner plate, but at the same time, the combination seems — and tastes — like something from another time. Sort of like Swedish meatballs. Not comfort food necessarily, or at least not exclusively so. There was no conscious yearning for comfort or simplicity in last night’s dinner, merely a question of expediency. One look at the combination on the plate, though, and both The Lovely Wife and I felt the stirrings of nostalgia. As TLW joked, all it would have taken was a can of Tab to make the entire experience complete (although Diet Dr. Pepper provided a reasonable subsitute).

The familiarity came from the complete package of protein, starch, and vegtable. Meatloaf is a common participant in the family table — as are other slightly retro dishes like tuna casserole and beef stroganoff — and rarely makes the bold statement it made during last night’s meal. We certainly eat rice in enough combinations and variations that there should have been no surprise either. As for the carrots, I will note that we tend to buy the bagged baby carrots, whereas last night I used regular, full size carrots. It’s been a while since I bought “real” carrots, and I had forgotten how much more flavor and complexity they have compared with their scale-model cousins. Ultimately, though, I think the butter and brown sugar glaze (and the dash of dried parsley thrown in at the last minute) was the key that opened the lock of memory in this case. It was an uncommon enough choice that it elevated — or possibly grounded — the meal in a way we don’t see terribly often.

Curse of the WanVino

I was given a bottle of Manny Being Merlot the other day. My aunt bought one of each bottle of the Longball Vineyards wines launched as charity projects by Manny Ramirez (the aforementioned Manny Being Merlot), Curt Schilling (Schilling Schardonnay), and Tim Wakefield (CaberKnuckle) of the Boston Red Sox, and offered them to my mother and sister during a recent visit. My sister claimed the Caberknuckle, the LV variety I was most interested to try, based in no small part on the review of the project by the noted culinary luminaries at Sports Illustrated (as noted in the issue I leafed through recently at The Greatest Barbershop in Berkshire County). My mother offered me a choice between the merlot and the (s)chardonnay. Intending no disrespect to Mr. Schilling, but given that my philosophy of white wine states that I’d sooner be beaten to death with an unopened bottle than drink the contents therein, I opted for the Merlot.

Here’s what the marketing copy has to say about Manny Being Merlot:

2005 Merlot, Lontue Valley, Chile

This estate-grown, hand-crafted merlot shows a deep red color with aromas of black pepper and ripe red fruit. The velvety and spicy finish matches perfectly with grilled meats, pastas and pizza.

And here are the tasting notes from the Bart Modern Test Kitchen:

Rubbing alcohol laced with Liquid Smoke(tm).

This is a thin and astringent wine. While The Lovely Wife claimed she detected the promised black pepper aroma, I will note that this wine is not so much spicy as throat searing. To the degree its finish is velvety, it accomplishes this in a way designed to mask the inevitable and proverbial iron fist around which this velvet has been wrapped.

In the end of course, no one should be under any illusion they’re getting something for their twelve bucks that would make Robert Parker stand up and take notice. That’s not the point, of course. The point of Longball Vineyards is to make some money for the charities sponsored by the participating Red Sox players. So, in the case of Manny Being Merlot, my aunt’s investment (or about 75% of it, according to the marketing materials) is going to support CHARLEE Homes for Children, a Miami-based charity “that provides therapeutic, residential, and supportive services to abused, abandoned, and neglected children within a safe environment in a community-based continuum of care.” I’m not entirely sure what that last part means, but it sounds like something I can get behind.

More Cookin’ with The Kid

Necessity is the mother of invention, and The Lovely Wife is, apparently, the mother of necessity. On the walk home from Natural Bridge State Park, and faced with the dreary and mundane prospect of a dinner of baked pork chops, brown rice, and steamed broccoli, she challenged us to come up with a more interesting, but still palatable, meal. No shrinking violets we, The Kid and I rose to the occasion. We scoured the fridge and the pantry, and came up with the following tastiness:

Pantry Pork Soup
(As developed by Bart Modern and The Kid, August 5, 2007)
————————

1T sun dried tomato oil
1T olive oil
1/2 t chili powder
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped, diced, pressed, or sliced, as you see fit
2-3 T oil packed sun dried tomatoes, chopped
2 medium carrots, sliced lengthwise and chopped into 2-quarter thick half moons
2 center cut pork loin chops, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
(Note: chicken would work just as well, I suspect, although it would require changing the name of the dish)
1 can black beans, drained
1 quart chicken stock (I like the stuff from Pacific) [One quart makes a fairly thick, stew-like soup, as the noodles absorb a fair amount of the liquid. For something brothier, add 1/2 quarts, or pre-cook the noodles.]
5 oz (1/2 package small egg noodles)

Bonus level: ***Secret Ingredient*** — if you should happen to have the remains, say 1/3 to 1/3 cup of a truly excellent homemade ragu bolognese kicking around the fridge, why not add that to the recipe? It certainly didn’t hurt in our case. Got a can of white beans in the pantry instead of black beans? Shine on you crazy dinner makin’ diamond! Want to make it truly vegetarian by using tofu instead of pork? Go for it! Improvise! Innovate!

Heat the oils in a medium-sized stockpot set on medium high heat. Add the chili powder, stir for a few seconds. Saute the onions for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they just start to take on some color.

Add the garlic and the sun dried tomatoes, and saute 1 minute. Add carrots and saute 1-2 minutes.

Add the pork cubes, and season with salt and pepper. Cook about 3-5 minutes, or until the pork is no longer pink on the outside. Add your ***Secret Ingredient*** at this point. When the pork is ready, add the drained black beans, and stir to combine.

Pour in the chicken stock, reduce heat to medium, and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the noodles, and simmer an additional 10 minutes. Season to taste and serve.

The Kid was integral to both the creation and the preparation of this dish. As long as she’s interested in learning her way around the kitchen, I’m thrilled to act as her guide. Except in the area of baking. That’s her mother’s area of expertise.

41. It Must’ve Been Something I Ate, by Jeffrey Steingarten

See, now this book is damn funny. Still as OCD as all get out, but legitimately hi-freakin’-larious to boot.

In this follow-up to The Man Who Ate Everything, Mr. Steingarten – who I’m sure would be simpy rapturous to learn of this — cements his place as my favorite food writer of the moment. In particular, his essays on dry-aged beef, designer table salts, wedding cakes, and the proper way to prepare (and the proper critter with which to prepare) coq al vin are indispensible and supremely engaging.

Cooking class

Entertained and inspired by Pixar’s Ratatouille*, The Kid asked me to teach her to cook. After talking it over for a bit, we agreed we would begin by trying to cook one meal a week together.

For our first foray into the world of gastronomic education, we pored through a children’s cookbook by a certain ubiquitous culinary celebrity. In our defense, I’ll note that we acquired this book at a time prior to this celebrity’s ubiquity crossing over the line into full-scale overexposure. After rejecting a few promising candidates, we settled on cold sesame noodles as our inaugural dish.

Admittedly, this was an exercise in measuring and stirring more than actual cooking, but it’s always good to begin by learning, and ultimately mastering, the fundamentals. Making the dish was educational for both of us. The Kid learned how to measure and mix and pour. She learned that sesame oil smells really good on its own, and that you can identify the distinctive taste of the oil in the finished dish. I learned that if you’re using a cookbook from someone famous for quick and convenient cooking, you have to account for the trappings of convenience.

For example, we’re a natural peanut butter household; although the recipe didn’t specify this, I must assume it was formulated using processed peanut butter. The noodles were terrific, and nicely peanutty, but they were lacking the hint of sweetness I expected from the dish. As a result, the saltiness of the tamari was a bit more assertive than I expected without any sugar to balance it out. Next time, we will either use the processed, hydrogenated oil-laden and besugar’d stuff made by the nice folks at Skiff or Jippy, or else we will add a little bit of sugar or honey to the dressing. Or a dash of duck or plum sauce maybe. Hey, I bet that would work aces.

The recipe we used called for about a cup of shredded cabbage to give the noodles some added crunch. Again, the author being a fan of speed, convenience, and short cuts, the recipe recommended using prepackaged cole slaw mix to get the job done. It worked fine, but it also left us with the better part of a package of shredded cabbage and carrot.

As it turned out, I had a fend for myself evening last night. As I was pulling a piece of leftover chicken out of the fridge, I noticed the slaw mix. In a burst of inspiration/improvisation, I created the following East-meets-Southwest fusion dish:

Bart Modern’s Barbecue-Shu Chicken

2T vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
1/2t Kosher salt
1t chili powder
1/2-1t crushed red pepper flakes
1/4c cider vinegar
2 cups shredded cole slaw mix
1/2c homemade barbecue sauce (or your favorite store-bought sauce)
1 barbecued chicken leg quarter, skinned and meat shredded off the bone. (Note: grilled pork or beef or tofu would work just as well, I suspect)

Heat the oil in a large skillet. When heated, add the onion, salt, chili powder and crushed red pepper flake. Cook over medium heat 3-5 minutes, until the onion softens and starts to brown. Add the vinegar (stand back from the pan to avoid inhaling the nasal passage scouring steam that rises when the vinegar hits the hot pan). Throw in the cabbage, stir to combine, and allow to wilt down, another 3-5 minutes, add the barbecue sauce and the chicken, and simmer until the chicken is heated through.

Serve with warm flour tortillas (I think. Didn’t actually have any on hand when I created the dish, but I think they would work fine. Of course, everyone knows that you never get enough pancakes for all the mu-shu when you order it at a restaurant, so eating it as is would be perfectly acceptable. It certainly worked for me).

*Highly recommended for animaniacs, cinephiles, and foodies alike. Should you happen to be all three, then ooh la la! We’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of the line “I killed a man…with THIS thumb!” ever since we saw the film.

Bart Modern had a little lamb…

..he grilled it on the grill
and on the side he had some naan
of which he et his fill

The Lovely Wife was out of town the other night. I used the opportunity to cook something I love that she doesn’t enjoy at all: lamb. You don’t encounter too many people who are neutral about lamb: either you love it, or you can’t stand it. In that regard, it’s like licorice (personally, I can’t get enough of the stuff), coconut (love it) or cilantro (leave it).

Since TLW is in the leave it column when it comes to lamb, I rarely have it, and almost never cook it at home. Still, grilled lamb is one of life’s simple pleasures, and given the opportunity — and the grill — I would have have been a fool to deny myself.

Bart Modern’s Lamb Chunks

1 # lamb chunks (cut from the leg), divided*

1 large Vidalia onion, sliced thin

1/3 cup olive oil

1 1/2 T that dip mix my friend Deb brought up from Texas last summer, that’s been sitting in the back of my cabinet for the past past year** (or if you don’t have a friend Deb, any combination of fresh and or dried herbs and spices and bulbs and suchlike that grabs your fancy will do. Oregano goes well with lamb, and you can never go too far wrong with smashed garlic, you know?)

Kosher salt

1) Take half the lamb chunks, stick them in a bag in the fridge and forget about them until it’s time to fire up the grill.

2) Make a paste with the olive oil and the dip mix. Toss the other half of the lamb chunks with half of this paste. Marinate 3-4 hours.

3) Toss the sliced onion in the other half portion of the spice paste. Marinate 3-4 hours.

4) Fire up the grill. Set to medium high heat.

5) Thread the unmarinated lamb on a skewer. Season with Kosher salt. Thread the marinated lamb on a second skewer. Place the skewers on the grill. Rotate skewers one quarter turn every five minutes or so, or until lamb is cooked to preferred degree of doneness.

6) Make a foil packet of the spice-marinated onions. Place the packet on the grill while the lamb cooks. Turn occasionally.
If the place where you get your lamb should happen, as mine did, to have lamb sausage as well, why not get a link or two and throw that on the grill along with the skewers?

Enjoy the lamb chunks (and the sliced sausages, should you be so fortunate) and onions with some grilled naan and a nice glass of red wine.

*Okay, there’s really no reason to divide the lamb. I was kinda working without a net with the marinade, and I wanted a lamb contingency plan in case the marinated lamb didn’t work out. Fortunately, my marinade fu is mighty, and both varieties ended up cooked to perfection. Still, it was nice to have a contrast between the spicy marinated lamb and the simplicity of the meat seasoned with nothing but the Kosher salt.

**What? You don’t know my friend Deb? That’s too bad. She’s good people, although I don’t get to see her that often since she and her family moved to Texas — oh gosh, has it really been alalmost two years now? Anyway, she brought us this Southwestern dip — lots of chile, and dried onion and garlic, and other tasties — that you’re supposed to mix with sour cream and use for chips and veggies, but we never got around to using it for its intended purpose, and there it sat until inspiration struck. Thanks, Deb.

17. A Taste of Murder, by Jo Grossman and Robert Weibezahl

I’ll confess I’m somewhat hesitant to include this on my book log for this year. Cookbooks are not exactly linear narratives. Even if one reads them straight through from cover, there is much in any cookbook that is eminently skimmable, unless one happens to be using a particular recipe. I pretty much know that most baked good recipes will begin with butter and sugar being creamed together, for example. I understand the general process by which one assembles a marinade. Unless I happen to be doing this things, I’m unlikely to give the details my full attention.

By the same token, this is a novelty — perhaps it is more accurate to call it a vanity — cookbook, which means it contains content over and above the recipes in question. Not much content, I will grant you, but enough to mean that this book involved actual engagement, and actual reading.

My own self-imposed ethical quibbles notwithstanding, this is a disappointing book. It doesn’t succeed terribly well as a cookbook. As a marketing tool for the contemporary mystery genre, it is a miserable failure.

As a cookbook, it never rises above the level of one of those self-published church fundraiser compilations. That is to say, there are a few recipes here and there that look interesting enough to try — one for coq au vin, and another for Cincinnati chili come to mind, and I’m enough of a fan of Harlan Coben’s writing that if I ever had a need to make potato latkes, I might give his version a try — but these are few and far between. The chaff to wheat ratio is depressingly high.

A good cookbook can be literature. It has an energy, and a flow, and an inexorable momentum. A vanity cookbook is merely a collection of information, loosely organized and slightly repellant. I mean this in the magnetic sense, to be sure. There is no attraction between or among recipes that helps to carry the reader along. There is no unifying voice or controlling culinary aesthetic that makes the collection make sense.

And as for the contributors, they are variously precious, self-referential, or just plain annoying. While I have no doubt author/editors Jo Grossman and Robert Weibezahl approached this book as a labor of love, I don’t imagine many readers or mystery fans approached it in the same way. I argue that the function of a book like this is to introduce potential readers to new authors whose work those readers — who are theoretically disposed to try new things in the genre — might be inclined to check out.

Unfortunately, the author/editor blurbs try too hard. Readers encounter too many variations on “My character, so and so, hates to cook, but if they had to, here’s what they might make…” or “Well, when I, the author, decided to get all cutesy and meta and ask my character for their favorite recipe, here’s what they said…” or an implicit “Here’s something that has nothing to do with my work, but since it’s easier to send you something pointless than it is to blow you off entirely, here you go, and I know you’ll use it despite it being not entirely appropriate because you have pages to fill…” The result is a collection that tells the readers nothing of substance about books and characters they might enjoy, and does it in a way that may actively turn off potential new readers. Indeed, the book is so poorly constructed that it may go so far as to turn off faithful readers based on the annoying persona adopted by their favorite authors.

All except, of course, for Anthony Bourdain. Anthony Bourdain is a badass in any medium.

Marrakesh Palace Restaurant, Washington, DC

I had occasion to visit Washington, DC, on business recently. While in the city, a colleague and I had dinner with a friend of mine from high school. It was great to catch up, and to meet her husband, and to hear about her work, which overlaps with ours sufficiently that the evening offered opportunities for both shop talk and socializing in relatively equal measure.

My friend recommended Marrakesh Palace, a Moroccan restaurant in the Dupont Circle section of the city as the venue for our reunion slash business meeting. It was an ideal choice all around: wonderful food, a nicely appointed, comfortable atmosphere, attentive but unobtrusive service.

I began my meal with Kefta Cigars, spiced ground beef wrapped in filo dough. The beef was delicately flavored, and had a dense, almost sausage-like texture. That is to say it wasn’t a loose, taco-like ground beef, but something far more solid, something that held together within the fragile filo shell.

I followed the appetizer with the Chicken Mkali, a tagine of chicken with preserved lemon and Moroccan olives. As with Indian food, the meat in a Moroccan tagine is almost beside the point — almost. It is a delivery system for the rich and complex blend of flavors within the dish: the lemon, the olives, the spices. The chicken absorbed the flavor of the sauce, and the result was tender and delicious.

I chose a Finca Antigua Tempranillo to accompany my meal, largely on the strenght of the Finca Altos de Luzon I once enjoyed at the Dali tapas restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While the Antigua didn’t hold up to my memory of the other Finca, it proved a fine match to the meal. At first, I thought it was a bit thin; it didn’t hold up to the starter terribly well. As the meal developed, I found the wine offered a pleasant compliment and contrast with the acidity of the preserved lemon and salt of olives.

While I enjoyed my meal immensely, I’ll confess to turning a covetous, even a predatory, eye on the Merguez across the table, and to my friend’s lamb Couscous Tfaya. It’s always a good sign when dining at a new restaurant when you look around the table at what your dinner companions are having and think “Yes, I would have been very happy had I ordered that. Perhaps next time.” That’s why professional restaurant critics customarily make multiple visits to an establishment as part of the reviewing process. They need a chance to try many things to get a full scale of what a restaurant has to offer. Based on one brief visit, I will simply say I recommend Marrakesh Palace without reservation, and leave it to the reader to render their own judgment on the fine details.

Marrakesh Palace
2147 P St. NW
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 775-1882
http://www.marrakeshpalace.com

Simple joys

I’m paraphrasing, but there’s a bit in My Dinner with Andre where Wallace Shawn talks about the appreciation he finds in life’s simple things. In particular, he talks — more or less — about waking up in the morning and knowing there is a cold cup of coffee from the day before waiting for him in the kitchen, and about how much he looks forward to that cold cup of coffee.

I know how he feels. Indeed, I have taken to making extra coffee in the morning, so that there will be leftover coffee the next day. I don’t have Wally Shawn’s fortitude; the thought of cold coffee first thing in the morning, especially a chilly winter’s morning, is more than I can bear. But a good cup of reheated leftover coffee, dropped into a saucepan and brought up to a boil and drunk strong, hot, bitter and black? There are few things better. Sometimes I finish it, and make a fresh pot for The Lovely Wife. Other times, I share it out, so we both have something to drink, but I don’t have to bother with the mechanics making coffee. Some days, such simple tasks elude my early morning capacity to accomplish basic tasks.

This came powerfully to mind this morning when I dragged myself out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to attend to the first of what I assume will be three or four rounds of shoveling related to DoomStorm 2007. The storm didn’t drop as much snow as anticipated overnight, but I always like to get a head start on it, so that if work and school are on, I don’t have to rush the rest of my morning. As I finished the shoveling, that leftover coffee was powefully on my mind; when I came in, I made a beeline straight for the saucepan.

Looking at the snow blowing outside my window as I write this, and thinking ahead to the next time I go out to shovel, I’m glad I made a fresh pot this morning, so I’ll have something waiting for me when I come in from the cold.

Thai-ing one on

For Christmas this past year, my not-quite-on-account-of-she-and-my-brother-have-yet-to-make-it-official-
but-they’ve-been-together-so-long-that-it’s-pretty-much-a-conclusion-
so-foregone-as-to-be-a-meaningless-distinction-so-let’s-just-go-ahead-
and-say-it’s-a-duck-and-call-her-my-sister-in-law gave me a copy of The Ultimate Soup Bible (Anne Sheasby, Consultant Editor; published by Barnes and Noble Books; ISBN 0760774498, if you care about such things).

As so often seems to happen with really good cookbooks, my intention to sample a broad range of recipes has been thwarted to date by the fact that I found such a damn fine recipe first time out of the gate. It’s a recipe for a Thai chicken soup that is simply out out this world. It’s a chicken soup that features coconut, lime, peanut butter, and noodles in supporting roles. The recipe also calls for cilantro come garnish time, but I can’t abide the stuff. I didn’t feel the soup was any the weaker (and to my taste buds, it was a damn sight stronger) for the omission.

I’ve made it twice so far, and it took a little bit of trial and error to get it right. The recipe calls for coconut cream or coconut milk. Not being able to find coconut cream in my neck of the woods, I used coconut milk the first time. It was good, but it didn’t have sufficient richness, body, or sweetness to carry the coconut flavor forward. The second time, I used cream of coconut, the sweetened stuff used in umbrella drinks. It made for a much stronger, and much more flavorful soup.

It was one of those recipes that resembles something you might find in a Thai restaurant, without being like anything specific I’ve ever found in any Thai restaurant I’ve been too. It falls somewhere between a soup and a curry, too complex for a simple soup, but not quite thick enough to qualify as a restaurant-type curry. In that respect, it shifts away from restaurant fare into something more like home cookery.

With hundreds more recipes representing a host of global cuisines, I can’t wait to continue my world tour of soup. Wherever else my soupmaking roams, I know I’ll come back to this one again and again.

7. Don’t Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World’s Greatest Cheds, edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Andrew Friedman

An anthology of things that didn’t go according to plan, Don’t Try This at Home demonstrates that while amateurs may fail, it takes a true professional to fail spectacularly. There’s something hearting about this notion; even experts get things wrong. Indeed, when experts get things wrong, they’re playing on a sufficiently high level that their mistakes are correspondingly large.

That said, many of the chefs who contributed essays to the book look back to the early days of their career, before fame and celebrity and television shows and eponymous restaurants, when they knew just enough to be dangerous, and frequently were.

Through these personal essays, which are simultaneously frank and (one suspects) exaggerated for dramatic effect — because while watching the mighty fall on their face is practically an American spectator sport, rooting for the underdog is ever so slightly more popular — several common themes emerge:

1) Culinary disaster! Followed by “of course, this was in the days before cell phones, so I couldn’t just call someone to bail me out.”

2) Cross cultural hijinks: “At some point after starting to make my bones in New York, I decided it was time to do a stage in France. It was simultaneously utterly humbling and a definitive moment in my career.”

3) I @#$%ed up. Fortunately, I got away with it. If they happen to read this, it will be the first time such and such a person learns the truth behind my error.’

Or some combination of the above. Indeed, if there is a single common thread running through the forty or so essays in the book, it is this: biting off more than one can chew. In the kitchen or out of it, I suspect that if there is a formula for success in life, it includes healthy doses of both hubris and humiliation, garnished with just a sprig of breaking the odds.