Year: 2010

Posted on by — 1 Comment

What’s Eggplant?

“What’s that?” she says, spinning the drum with pictures of vegetables next to the register.

“It’s eggplant.”

“Oh. What’s eggplant? I’ve never had any. What does it taste like?”

Repeat this conversation with, roughly, half Huntsville’s grocery check-out clerks and it starts to be a theme. And not just eggplant, but shallots, zucchini, leeks, any peppers other than bells or jalapeno, mango, kiwi. There’s a list, and it’s not short. One clerk, somewhat overweight, doesn’t eat any vegetables. None. “How about macaroni and cheese?” she asked a friend as I listened. Is that a vegetable?” No, particularly if you’re mixing an orange powder from a box on top of some noodles.

I guess it could be worse. The British chef Jamie Oliver is finding out that West Virginia children and their parents know very little about what it is that they’re eating. In a recent televised interview, he held out some tomatoes on a vine to some ten-year-olds, asking them, “What’s this?” They had no idea. Never seen such.

It’s the result of sixty years or more of factory food, mixes, frozen entrees and the like, I suppose. Kraft and General Mills, fast-food giants like MacDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, packaged-food purveyors like Sysco, factory farm monster companies like Archer Daniels Midland, all have virtually total control over food production and the food messages people get. And the message is all about fast, easy, pre-packaged and never mind the chemicals.

So what can you do?

Just keep pushing fresh, handmade, non-pre-fabricated, non-manufactured food. Nothing from mixes. Nothing, if at all possible, that isn’t fresh. We constantly suggest vegetable-heavy recipes and combinations for our parties and events.

And we’ll be happy to introduce anyone who’ll try it to eggplant. We’ll prepare it sliced, sauteed with herbs in olive oil, and stacked with marinara, pesto and cheeses. Or we’ll use slices of eggplant as a substitute for pasta in lasagna. Or stuff it with shrimp and it’s own pureed insides. Or whip up some with cilantro and scallions. Or, with the long, skinny Japanese variety, grill some with a little oil and herbs and eat it with goat cheese. Or, in the heat of mid-summer, put some in ratatouille. I could go on.

Do your part for the food education. Eat an eggplant today. Give some to your friends. Try a little adventure in good eating.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Cooking is Sensual

Last week, I was in the middle of putting together an oriental noodle salad, mixing the noodles with a soy and sesame oil marinade with a lot of chopped green onions. The only way to do it right was to dig your hands into the bean-thread noodles and the marinade and squish it around until nicely blended and everything coated.

The interesting thing, besides a delicious salad, is how good it felt to be up to my forearms in a giant bowl of fragrant sauces and oils and the stringy, slippery bean threads, mashing and tossing and squeezing it all about. This is to say that cooking is often a very sensual experience. Sensual in the sense of more physically enjoyable than erotic.

Every bread baker knows this. When you are kneading risen dough by hand, you are fondling something alive and growing. Bread dough at this stage may start out ragged, sticky and recalcitrant, but it soon becomes plump, supple, firm but puffy, and – with a touch of olive oil – slippery smooth. As bakers who are also parents know, it’s the feel of a baby’s bottom. And you know that after a time in the oven, it will be wonderful, warm and satisfying. The staff of life.

More vigorous, yet no less sensual, is the making of polenta. Polenta is just corn meal in stock or water that you stir for 20 or 30 minutes or so. It starts out easy, just sloshing around in the hot liquid. But slowly it picks up some bulk and starts resisting the spoon. This gets harder and harder to stir and you start to work up a few beads of sweat and your arm begins to feel the strain. For a firm polenta, the kind that sets up thick and you cut and put on a grill, then you’re really working, waiting for the mush to coalesce, fold in on itself and start to pull away from the side of bowl. When it’s just right, and only experience can tell you when this is, you fold in some parmigiano and a bit of cayenne and pour it out into a pan to cool. A job well done.

Roux is an another matter. In this case, you are after the right color – in a spectrum from light blond to black – that is right for the recipe you’re preparing. Starting with nothing more than a pot, a wire whip and a cup of flour and oil, you heat the oil to near smoking, add the flour and start stirring the mixture with the whisk. It’s over high heat and the color gradually changes from whitish to gold,  from gold to reddish brown, from reddish brown to deep dark red to black. And beyond black, burned and inedible

 If your final dish is a gumbo and you want a black roux, the whisking gets faster and faster as the roux changes color. The key is to  keep the roux from burning. It’s a good idea to have on serious oven gloves – both hands,  and shoes (not sandals) – while you work yourself up into a frenzy, with droplets of burning oil flying all over and with smoke pouring off the roux at the red stage and increasing as it moves to black. At times you have to blow away the smoke in the pot to see the bottom, watching for just the right moment when the dark red changes to black. Then, you toss in a bunch of chopped onions/pepper/celery that explodes in the roux in a cloud of steam and frenzied bubbles. This instantly stops the cooking process, cools the roux and lets you step back, catch your breath and wipe your brow and rest a minute. A climatic event, finishing this stage and worthy of some applause, if you have an audience. The real work, and the fun, is over and the final addition of seasonings, stock, sausage, seafood and other ingredients is something of an anticlimax.

I can think of more: making mayonnaise with a wire whip and a bowl, squeezing peeled plum tomatoes in your hand to make a rustic marinara, you get the idea. Cooking is a lot more than adding ingredients to a bowl. It’s sensual and fun.

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Memorable Meals – The Art of Waiting Tables

One of my English professors maintained that “art is the fulfillment of expectation.” A line of poetry, a musical phrase, an early visual in a movie all give us a sense of something about to happen. When it does, and when it surprises, delights or shocks, we are satisfied.

In a few notable restaurants, the same definition can be applied to waiting tables. And when the waiters are trained for service in a great French restaurant, it is art indeed. Waiters at Taillevent in Paris in 2002 were, I assure you, artists at the height of their powers.

My son and I enjoyed a meal there on a culinary tour of France that included Paris, Lyon and several towns in Provence. The main course, a lamb dish, was superb and the cheese plate a gastronomic adventure, but what I remember most was the service. Considerate, efficient, virtually invisible and performed by a team as impeccably prepared and practiced as the ballerinas we had watched earlier at Opera Garnier. When the thought began to first enter your mind that a bit more wine would be just the thing, it was there at your hand. When you were finished with a plate, truly finished, it disappeared somehow. When your palate had sufficiently recovered from one taste sensation, washed down with a perfect sip of perfectly matched wine, the next would appear just at the very instant when you were beginning to think that a little something else might be lovely.

We didn’t wait for our table. We didn’t wait for our first glass of wine. We weren’t introduced to the waiters. No one asked if we were still working on our plates.

When we wanted advice, as in what to choose from a cellar with over 3,000 choices, they were expert guides. When we asked for a glass of champagne without specifying which one, their choice was outstanding.

But they did more. My son, at the time still a smoker and feeling the need at mid-meal for a Marlboro, asked a waiter who was escorting him to the suite of restrooms (you were always escorted), if it was possible to  have a private smoke. I was not to be told that he still had the habit. Here’s what the staff did. They procured a pack of the right brand. They set up a table in the salon, with table cloth, chair, ashtray, lighter and a small glass of wine to sustain him while he smoked. Then, a waiter stood guard in the hall in case I decided to walk in that direction. He relaxed, enjoying his cigarette at his leisure in a beautiful room in a beautiful restaurant, then returned satisfied and ready to tackle the cheese plate and dessert.

A restaurant that has served the rich and famous, from Nicolas Sarkozy to Vladimir Horowitz, practiced its art for us, giving both of us a memorable meal.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

A simple bag of onions, celery, carrots

Though not much a fan of helpful hints for cooks in the Heloise style, I think this one is worthy of your consideration: keep a container of carefully-selected, chopped vegetables in your refrigerator

Just as mirepoix – a mixture of onion, celery and carrots – is the starting point for countless stocks, sauces and stews in French cooking; and the “trinity” (onion, celery and green bell peppers) is the foundation for Cajun gumbos, jambalayas and other dishes, so a carefully chosen vegetable mix can make your life in the kitchen easier and your food more interesting.

There are plenty of good choices. For example, the rough preparation you see in the picture is about half a large white onion, two small carrots, a half a large yellow bell pepper, half a small zucchini and a bunch of green onions. All are roughly chopped.

Onions predominate because they are foundational. I have a friend, an excellent cook, who when asked what’s for dinner, says, “Oh, I don’t know. Go chop me a couple of onions and I’ll think about it.”

So what can you do with your bag of chopped vegetables?

Sauté a handful in olive oil with a dash of thyme, pepper and salt. Whip one egg with a tablespoon of cream, pour into hot olive oil or butter, swirl. Add sauté and a bit of cheese. Instant breakfast.

Or, put half a handful in a pot over very hot oil, add a bit of rub (I make my own, but store-bought work fine), stir until onions start to soften but not blacken, add a cup of rice (sushi-grade is wonderful, but use what you’ve got) and stir to cover with oil. Pour in a 1 1/2 cup of stock (or water), bring to a boil and then simmer covered until done.

Or, sauté the entire bag in olive oil until softened. Add chopped tomatoes, or in winter, a large can of whole tomatoes ( l like to pour in the juice and then hand squeeze the tomatoes to crush them). Season with thyme and kosher salt (no iodine taste) and freshly-ground pepper. Use as a topping for pasta, as the core of a lasagna, or put it on top of a piece of broiled or fried fish.

Make your life a little better – and healthier. Chop up a few vegetables and keep them around.