Opening Boxes

 

Sometimes I decide to accept a minor event as a sign pointing me in a particular direction.  I go with it and take the ride.

After reading several tributes to the Italian Cookbook author, Marcella Hazan, who died recently, urging readers to go out and buy Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking as a way to honor her, I wondered if I ought to do just that.

A few days later, I was going through some boxes in a third floor closet, looking for some childhood photo albums and scrapbooks.  While I didn't find what I was looking for, I did open a box containing items from my mother's apartment that I had quickly packed up after she died and we were preparing to sell her place. 

It was like Christmas morning, when I pulled out The Classic Italian Cookbook.

This edition is a re-print published in 1980, and my mother must have received it as a gift.  The edges of the jacket are a bit torn at the top, but otherwise it appears to never have been used.  

I thought I'd try dedicating myself to it, at least the recipes not containing meat.  I've been feeling lately that I want to settle in and learn from a master cookbook author.  An opportunity has come knocking. 

I know Marcella wouldn't approve of our eating a bowl of spaghetti as our main course like we did last night, but the tomatoes for the sauce did come from my garden, so I hope she would forgive our American ways.

Give yourself about two and a half hours to prepare this sauce, and while it simmers, putter about and wash that sink-full of dishes from the day, pour yourself a glass of wine and spend a few minutes with a book you're in the middle of reading. 

Maybe take a moment and think about who or what this slow-cooking sauce might connect you to.

Sughi di pomodoro

Tomato Sauce I

adapted from The Classic Italian Cookbook

2 pounds fresh, ripe plum tomatoes

1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion

1/3 cup finely chopped carrot

1/3 cup finely chopped celery

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar

1.  Cut the tomatoes in half, lengthwise.  Cook in a covered saucepan at a steady simmer for 10 minutes.  Uncover and simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours more.

2.  Puree the tomatoes through a food mill into a bowl.  Discard the seeds and skin.

3.  Rinse and dry the saucepan.  Put in the olive oil, then add the chopped onion, and lightly saute over medium heat until just translucent, not browned.  Add the carrot and celery and saute for another minute.  Add the pureed tomato, the salt, and the sugar, and cook at a gently simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.  Stir from time to time while cooking.

Serves 4 as a main course

Packing My Appetite

I went to Cape May with a good appetite.  Judging by the non-clothing items I packed, I would say I brought with me an appetite for inspiration.  I stuffed totes with magazines, non-fiction and fiction books, camera, sketchbook and colored pencils.

I wanted to be ready for Cape May to seep into my mind.

Into my book bag I tucked In The Kitchen With A Good Appetite, which had been my pool reading.  Enjoying it so much I didn't want to leave it behind for two weeks, it became my vacation bedtime book. I devoured it, finishing before our trip's end.

I knew I wanted to start cooking some of Melissa's recipe's as soon as we were settled back home. The stories preceding each recipe, however, were what pleased me most.  She is at once serious and amusing, and deeply confident in seeking her vision of a dish.

It made me laugh, how she repeatedly admitted how she can never leave someone else's recipe alone, she can't help herself from tweaking it to meet her own tastes and desires. 

Perhaps what surprised me most lies in the types of foods she excludes.  Pasta, grains, muffins, scones, soup, these clearly never played a role in her growth as a cook.  Her preferences shaped by her upbringing and early professional experiences, she holds fast to what she likes.

Her confidence and focus inspire me to pay more attention to flavors and textures I hope to replicate.  Sometimes I think I need to nudge myself beyond my starting points, which tend toward focus on the most perishable items in my kitchen, and be more like Melissa--in-tune with my appetite, deciding what I want to eat and going after it.

Given then, how Melissa cooks according to her own tastes, I shouldn't have been so surprised when I wanted to slightly alter many of the recipes I tried.  I truly expected each to stand perfectly.

It taught me to trust in my own tastes and create a personal vision, using her version as inspiration.

So, I don't toss off the granola recipe I found too sweet and sticky or the fennel frond pesto that caused me to say too salty, instead I have tried again with the season's last fennel bulb in my garden and plan to return to the granola when we have emptied the jar.  The kale salad cried out to me for hazelnuts, but alas, I experimented with the last of my Tuscan Kale until the Fall.  The chicken fingers said meatballs, and I plan to give that a try this coming week.  I don't think Melissa would be offended, I expect she would consider my deviations perfectly in order.

The chocolate ice cream, however, churned beautifully before our eyes and turned out to be one of the best ice creams I have yet to make.  Olivia and I made it together, and then sat on the couch savoring our puddles of richness on a hot Summer family movie night.

I have a bag full of fennel fronds, and may be making fennel frond pesto for some time to come, no doubt finding different ways to use it.  The lovely bed of caramelized fennel bulb and onion will hopefully reappear in Autumn.

Fish Fillets with Fennel Frond Pesto

adapted from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite

1 fennel bulb with fronds attached

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons pine nuts or slivered almonds

1 small onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 fish fillets, such as Tilapia or Arctic Char

1.  Chop off the fennel fronds and coarsely chop enough to measure 1 cup (discard or save the rest for another batch of pesto).  Put the chopped fronds in a food processor.  Add the garlic, nuts, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and a generous pinch of pepper, and process until finely chopped.  Add 4 tablespoons of the oil and continue to process until the mixture looks like pesto.  Adjust salt to taste.  Set pesto aside.

2. Halve the fennel bulb and pull off any browned outer layers.  Using a small knife, cut the core out of the bulb, then slice the bulb as thinly as you can.

3. In a medium skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat.  Add the fennel slices, onion, and a large pinch of salt and pepper.  Saute the vegetables until caramelized and softened, about 20 minutes.  (After 15 minutes, you may need to add a tablespoon at a time of water to keep the mixture from drying out while it finishes cooking).

4. Cook 2 fish fillets simply, according to your preferences.  We have both baked and grilled Tilapia and Artic Char with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Spread the fennel-onion mixture onto two plates, and place the fish fillets on top.  Top with dabs of pesto or serve at the table.

Serves 2

 

Let Yourself Love What You Love

I love to read about the creative process of others.  It doesn't matter if they are painters, songwriters, bakers or bloggers.

Sometimes their process is directly related to their art, as is the case with Tamar Adler, in An Everlasting Meal .  Other times it is a lifestyle choice that encourages and supports an artist's ability to work regularly.

Tamar devotes a chapter to what she does when she finds herself occasionally in the fitful mood of resenting cooking.  "How to Build a Ship" explores her method for falling back in love with cooking when she's mad at it, or has simply forgotten why she ever loved it in the first place.

 My answer is to anchor food to somewhere deep inside you, or deep in your past, or deep in the wonders of what you love.

...I say:  Let yourself love what you love, and see if it doesn't lead you back to what you ate when you loved it...

...I may not remember what I ate...but I will remember how the day felt on my face, and my creative soft self will have been awakened.  So I listen hard.  I listen with the purpose of remembering.  And this digging into sounds and into days I have heard and felt roots future meals in the unchangeable truths of past ones.

...Tug your memories back into the kitchen with you and you'll find yourself less separate from the idea of making food.

I could quote you this whole chapter, it speaks to me so.  I love it because it commands you to make a connection between how you are feeling and what you are creating.  This inner search is a meditation on reawakening connection and purpose, more than a pursuit for new ideas (this is necessary, too, yet different.)

While reading this chapter, I recalled a startling food memory from a trip to Venice.  We were in a museum, and I was standing near an open window looking at something on display, when suddenly I smelled frying seafood.  I realized it was near lunchtime, and I could hear the clattering of plates from outside.  I went to the window and looked down to street level to see bright blue and red umbrellas shielding outdoor tables set for lunch at all the restaurants along the canal.

This vivid food memory stayed with me because of the contrast of being in a dusty, old museum, and being pulled by such life being lived in the present--elsewhere.  Sunshine, fragrant aromas, a cacophony of voices and clanking dishes, and color everywhere--outside.  It was so out of context, and yet so Italian.  In the States, museums are such sealed, artificial environments (as much as I love to look at art and artifacts!)

If I were to take this memory and Tamar's advice to heart, the point wouldn't be to run out and buy seafood to fry, but instead to think about how I felt standing in that museum at that moment.

 It actually makes me want to gather a bowlful of lemons.  Lemons are the color of sunshine, which was abundant at that moment, and which I crave regularly.  They go beautifully with seafood, and to me they represent Mediterranean cooking, my favorite cuisine.  I would probably make a shrimp or pasta dish with plenty of lemon and fragrant herbs, and set my table with blues and greens and yellows.  I would serve some chilled white wine, open a window, and sit with people who make me feel bright and happy.

Kneading again, Books Two and Three

The past two weekends, I have been baking bread. Baking bread the kneading and multiple rising way.

If you look around this blog a bit, you will see that I have been baking bread the no-kneading way, specifically according to the method in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Herzberg and Zoe Francois. I have been baking by this technique for over two years now, and have been supplying our family with bread weekly.

But happy as I was, baking by the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method, I have to admit that my mind was wandering a bit. I was starting to feel limited, and found myself staring at conventional bread recipes.

I thought about making some of these recipes, but I would ask myself why. Why spend hours making a couple loaves of bread when you can make a whole tub of dough in no time, and take it out during the week to whip up baguettes in an hour?

Would conventionally made bread be better? Would I feel like a real baker because I was kneading?

So, the past two Saturdays, I went back to the first bread recipes I ever tried, from The Vegetarian Epicure, by Anna Thomas, and Still Life with Menu, by Mollie Katzen.

What really caught me by surprise, was being so involved in the process. I felt like I developed a relationship with the dough, willing it to succeed, yet not being sure it would. Then the feeling of triumph when taking the breads out of the oven looking like, well, home baked bread.

Part of this relationship was living with this evolving process during the course of the afternoon. I made the dough for the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread, set it to rise in it's bowl, all covered and warm. During the first rise I cleaned up the considerable mess, and ate my lunch. During the second rise, I took the dog for a long walk. After I shaped the loaves and put them in their pans to rise a final time, I rushed off to CVS to pick up a prescription for A. I came back with just enough time to preheat the oven and pop them in. While they baked, I gave O. and A. baths.

Five hours passed maybe, with my coming and going, peeking under the tea towel, punching down, kneading, worrying, and then I gave birth to two beautiful loaves of bread.

I can't say that I have missed the kneading, but the long afternoon nurturing really has me captivated. It's a rewarding accomplishment that feels slightly sacrificed in the faster method.

I am grateful for the Artisan Bread in Five method because I could never keep us supplied in bread all week long otherwise. I am not sure that one type of bread baking results in better tasting bread one way or another. It's just all satisfying, yet very different bread.

I adapted Mollie Katzen's recipe for Country Bread a tiny bit, melting the butter instead of just softening it. I also applied the tray-with-water technique for baking to give a firmer crust in place of spraying the loaf every 10 minutes with a spray bottle, as she recommends.

Country Bread
adapted from Still Life with Menu

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 1/4 tsp. dry yeast
3 or 4 tbs. packed, brown sugar
4 tbs. melted butter
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups oat flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (or rye flour)
3 cups unbleached while flour (more or less)
oil, for the bowl and the dough
corn meal for dusting the baking sheet

1) Place the water in a large bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and the sugar, and let it stand 5 minutes, until foamy.

2) Add sugar, butter, and salt. Mix well.

3) Add flour, 1 cup at a time, beginning with all the oat and whole wheat. Then add as much white flour as needed to make a firm dough. Mix between additions with a wooden spoon at first, and then use your hands if needed.

4) Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead for 5 to 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Add small amounts of additional flour if it gets sticky.

5) Oil the bowl, put the kneaded dough in the bowl, and oil the top surface of the dough. Cover with a clean tea towel, and set it in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk. (This can take anywhere from 1 1/2 to 2 hours).

6) Punch down the dough, and turn it out again on a floured surface. Knead 5 minutes more and then form 1 large or 2 small loaves, either round or baguette shaped. Make a few small slashes on top of each loaf with a sharp knife.

7) Sprinkle a baking tray generously with corn meal. Place the loaf or loaves on top, and let them rise for about 45 minutes.

8) Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place a broiler pan with 1 cup of water anywhere in the oven. Bake for about 50 minutes (large loaf) or 40 to 45 minutes (small ones) or until the bread gives out a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom.

Where I Started From, Book One

Recently I started thinking about my first cookbook, Jane Brody's Good Food Book.

Toward the end of my senior year in college, Jane Brody came to speak there. I bought her nutrition book in the school bookstore, and poured over it.

That year I started changing how I ate. By the time of graduation I was almost-vegetarian, eating fish, and had become very health-conscious.

Like many of you, I grew up with the dinner plate being composed of the protein, the
starch and the vegetable. My mother was a very good cook, and pretty traditional in an American sort of way.

After graduating, and while living with her in New York City, I bought the Good Food Book.

A couple nights a week, I began cooking dinner for us, trying some of the recipes from the book. The ingredients called for are fairly common, nothing too expensive or hard to find.

I can't say everything turned out great, but my mother never told me not to cook, so I persevered.

So, when recently I started thinking about this book and where I started cooking from, I remembered the one recipe from this book that really changed things for me. It was Company Rice with Beans.

It was so easy and satisfying, and I think this was part of the appeal. It more or less taught me how to cook for myself. It showed me that once you learn a method, the variations are endless.

Long after I had made this recipe a few times and had committed the idea to memory, I no longer needed a recipe. I stopped measuring.

Rice, beans, vegetables and some cheese. For quite a while, when I was living on my own, I would go in the kitchen some evenings, and put together a bowl of these components.

It sounds so obvious maybe, but the idea had to click. To this day, my favorite recipes are a rough guideline that I can fly with.

So, the other evening, for the first time in years, I made Company Rice with Beans. I wanted to see if the recipe still seemed significant in any way.

What struck me most is how my idea of simple, easy and healthy have changed. Simple to me now is something like spaghetti with garlic, olive oil and crushed red pepper.
Healthy is using the freshest local ingredients I can find. If I don't cook with fish or poultry, I don't even think of the meal as vegetarian.

Jane Brody says the inspiration for this came one night when she had unexpected guests and needed to prepare a meal out of what she had on hand. I'm not so sure I would make this for company, but it's a great dish to make for a simple supper for yourself or for those you feel very comfortable with.

I had all sorts of ideas to revamp this simple fare, but in the end, I tweaked only a little, wanting to stay close to the heart of the idea. Jane Brody says this was so easy that she was able to talk to her guests while preparing it. That image stopped me from getting too fussy.

She made this in Summer with fresh tomatoes and zucchini. She served it along with beans from her garden and salad. I kept it as a one bowl meal, so it served 3, instead of 4.

I am sure most of you readers are well beyond something like this, but it's still a good dish to pull out in a pinch, a pantry sort of recipe.

I never cook like this anymore except for assembling different ingredients for a salad. I can't remember the last time I put together some grains, legumes, and vegetables, and called it dinner. It sounds like a pretty good place to revisit every now and then.

Pass this along to someone you know who is just starting out, or make it yourself as a reminder of how simple meals can be sometimes.

Without further ado, I bring you the dish that opened a door for me.



Company Rice with Beans
adapted from Jane Brody

1 cup white rice
2 cups water
1 TB. oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely minced
1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced (I used baby bella)
1 medium zucchini, or 1/2 lb. of vegetable of your choice, coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp. dried oregano, or 1 TB. chopped, fresh herbs such as oregano, thyme or basil
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, or other beans, such as kidney, black or navy
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup shredded smoked cheddar, or other cheese such as cheddar, gouda, or swiss

1. In a medium saucepan, combine the rice and water, bring the mixture to a boil,
reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer the mixture for 20 minutes. Keep the
pan covered until the vegetable mixture is done.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet, add the onion and garlic, saute them
until they are soft.
3. Add the mushrooms, zucchini, and oregano. Cover the skillet, and simmer the
vegetables until they are tender.
4. Add the chickpeas, and simmer the mixture, stirring it occasionally, until it is
heated through. Season with salt and pepper.
5. To serve, spoon the vegetable-bean mixture over the hot rice, and sprinkle the
cheese on top.