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THURSDAY 29 AUGUST 2001
I am having a renewed love affair with beans, due in part to the cold weather and also in part to the Budget. Last night I had red beans and rice, made with a Corralitos ham shank, and they were so good. Last week it was pinto beans – they were intended to be refried beans, but we ate them before I could mash them up. I have a new way of cooking them, taught to me by my friend Rene. He says that his mom (in Mexico) never soaked the beans and never let them boil. She just cooked them very, very slowly for 6 or 8 hours - no onion, no garlic, salt only after they were cooked. I do put onion and garlic, and a bay leaf for that matter, and I add salt halfway through. But the not soaking and not boiling really makes a difference. The beans are whole, with unbroken skins. I cook them on a day I’m not working, or cook them for four hours or so at night– being very careful to set the timer so I don’t leave the stove on when I go to bed and burn the house down (Catherine will cringe when she reads this!) – and then cook them the rest of the way the next morning. Everyone should eat beans!
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WEDNESDAY 29 AUGUST 2001
Have you ever noticed that when something new turns up in your life, it turns up more than once? The thing I'm talking about, in this case, is Julia Cameron's idea of Morning Pages. I first heard the idea on Loobylu, then another site had excerpts, then I was at the library and saw a book by Julian Cameron.
The idea of Morning Pages is that first thing in the morning you write three full pages in longhand. Doesn't matter what you write, and you shouldn't go back and read it right away. The idea is to use writing as a meditation to clear your head for the day. For me, it's just nice to take half an hour in the morning to do something calm and thoughtful instead of my usual routine of washing dishes, trying to get something accomplished on the computer before I have to go to work, getting the living room picked up, and generally rushing around. You might want to try it.
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SUNDAY 26 AUGUST 2001
We had dinner last night with my parents, my brother, my cousin, and my sister and her fiancé. I had so much fun, and I was incredibly (and uncharacteristically) relaxed. Since I didn't know ahead of time that they were coming, or that they were staying for dinner, I didn't plan (what to feed everyone, where we would sit, what to have for dessert) or worry (was everyone having a good time, did the house look nice enough). Instead of spending the last hour before dinner rushing around the kitchen, I spent it swimming in the ocean with my family. Everyone helped with dinner and dishes and everyone had fun and the dinner was good. I can't wait for the Christmas when I finally get to have everyone over to my house - I hope that one day I have a house big enough!
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MONDAY 20 AUGUST 2001
Two or three mornings a month I wake up with a new entrepreneurial idea to get myself back into a kitchen - with pay. I'm sure I thought of it this morning because we had dinner with Tom & Mima, owners of Carried Away, last night. It's nice to talk about food, and also very satisfying to cook something that has a positive response. I made homemade matzos, and everyone liked them. Even a two-year-old and a six-year-old! Anyway, here's my idea of the morning: cooking classes.
Carried Away is closed on Sundays, and I'm pretty sure they'd let me borrow the kitchen for Sunday classes. They've thought about doing this themselves but never have, since it'd mean they'd work seven days a week instead of just six. (Mima's probably reading this - good morning Mima! What do you think?) They'd have to be demonstration classes as opposed to hands-on, for the most part, because it's a working kitchen not a teaching kitchen. But the students would get to be in the kitchen and would get to take turns helping if they wanted to. I'd go to the market on Saturday to get the ingredients, and students could also come with me if they wanted to hear about how to shop or learn about the different farmers at the Saturday market.
I could do a late summer supper with produce as the star. Autumn could either be a dinner-party menu or a lesson on appetizers for a cocktail party, since it's the start of the entertaining season. Of course, I'd give them a packet of recipes, and the lesson would end with eating - we could get a white tablecloth for the main prep table and sit on tall stools. I'd charge between $45-55/person, depending on the menu, although I'd have to do the numbers and see if I'd make a profit, after buying all the ingredients and paying someone to help. In this economy? Can anyone afford this? What do you think? Anyone want to sign up?
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FRIDAY 17 AUGUST 2001
If I ever have a cookbook, I will have one chapter called "Eating Alone." Eating alone is different than eating with company, whether company means one person or twelve. Tonight Catherine is golfing, and I don't feel like cooking. For dinner I had a can of tuna fish and a couple of tomatoes, and it was all delicious.
Right now we have temporary neighbors, two people renting the house next to us for a couple of months. They live on the other side of the hill in Sunnyvale, but are also living here for the summer. They bring us tomatoes that are obviously grown in the sun - real sun, not the kind mixed in with fog like we have here. They are very very red and very sweet.
And the tuna. Lately, Shopper's has added a new brand of tuna in olive oil. It's called Flott and it's from Sicily and it's really good. The regular kind of tuna in olive oil (that I can't remember the name of right this minute) is also very good, but Flott is nice and salty. Tonight I put in some chopped red onion and a little lemon juice, but that's it. I sliced the tomatoes and sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and that was my dinner. Pretty easy. I could have eaten a whole other can of tuna, but I left it at one.
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WEDNESDAY 15 AUGUST 2001
I'm back to my old rule of only cooking things for dinner that can be on the table in less than 45 minutes. (My OLD old rule used to be 20 minutes, but that's only feasible if you don't eat meat.) Since Catherine doesn't like fish, lately my standby has been chicken. Specifically, boneless chicken thighs. This is where my cooking skills pay off, because I'm pretty fast at boning a chicken, or chicken legs, so I don't pay the extra money to buy them already boned. And I get to make stock out of the bones.
So what I've been doing is to bone the chicken while I'm heating up the pan. Salt on both sides (but a little extra on the skin side) and then skin-side-down into the pan. They stay on that side for about 10 minutes, until the skins are nice and brown, and then I turn them over and put a lid on the pan. While they're cooking, I'm making whatever else we're having - sautéed vegetables or tomato salad or whatever - and I'm also browning the bones in a small pan to make chicken stock. When the chicken is cooked (about 10 more minutes) I take the lid off and flip it back onto the skin side so that the skin gets extra extra crispy while I plate up the salad (or whatever). That's it. If there's company or I'm feeling like it, I'll make a sauce (bacon vinaigrette was the latest one, but a simple squeeze of lemon is good too.) But I do deglaze the sauté pan with a cup or two of water and add that to the chicken stock pan, along with a bay leaf and 1/2 a small onion and a clove of garlic.
Crispy skin. That's why I love this. Which reminds me of John Thorne. I've admired him for a long time, in fact he and his wife Matt made it onto my Top 20 Books list, but he became a permanent fixture in my mind when I read about him making and eating chicken skin tacos. He was cooking chicken thighs ahead of time for a recipe the next day, but only needed the meat. Instead of throwing the skins away, he made tacos out of them. Can you think of anything more delicious (or more self-indulgent) than that? Soft corn tortillas, crispy skin, a little salsa. . . that's as good as it gets, right there.
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SUNDAY 12 AUGUST 2001
Been running around so crazily that I even skipped the farmer's market this weekend. I'll have to blast through the Wednesday market instead - they sell until 6:30, so if I leave work on time I have just enough time to shop before they close.
I did have time today to write up a new recipe, though. It's a very basic and easy recipe for people who think that they can't cook. If you are one of those people and somehow this recipe doesn't work for you, please email me so I can figure out what went wrong!
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SATURDAY 11 AUGUST 2001
I FORGOT . . .
to ask you to please let me know what you think about the site and the newsletter. Comments, criticism, and encouragement are all welcome!
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TUESDAY 7 AUGUST 2001
HELLO AND WELCOME
So every Monday morning I get an email that is a stats report about this site - how many hits, how many unique URLs, many other things that I don't quite know how to use yet. The report usually has about 25 total hits from 5 unique URLs and those URLs are pretty much me, my mom, my dad, my sister and maybe one friend. Yesterday's report was quite different than the usual. 900 total hits from 66 different people! Suddenly people unrelated to me by blood or affection are visiting me. Crazy! I couldn't figure out what was going on until I realized that Megan (who trolls Martha so you don't have to) had put a link to me on her site. Thank you, Megan, and hello to everyone new! Having new people here has given me new energy to start updating more frequently. I'd been letting myself slack off, but no more. Journal entries are going to be more regular, and there's going to be a new recipe in the cooking section this weekend. Keep coming back, it's lovely to have visitors!
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SUNDAY 5 AUGUST 2001
WHAT TO HAVE FOR DINNER - CATHERINE'S VERSION
I had a history professor in college that told me that a martini and a good steak could cure any type of emotional malady. Malika and I both had challenging days, so we decided that a steak dinner was the cure we were looking for. We also decided that we had just enough of a bad day to make onion rings and cole slaw for the curative side dishes. Here's how you make this dinner to fix all that ails you.
Get two rib eye steaks. Get organic meat if you can. If you can't then get a good steak from your local butcher, nice and marbled. Marinate them some olive oil, red wine, fresh chopped garlic, onion and bay leaves for at least two hours. While the steaks are marinating make some batter for your onion rings and the cole slaw. The batter is really simple. Take 3/4 of a can of beer (I like Bud best), 1 egg, 3/4 cup of flour, and a pinch of salt. Mix that up and let it sit for 2 hours. We didn't wait to use the batter and it worked fine but you do whatever you have time to do and let us know if waiting makes the batter better.
The cole slaw is also ridiculously easy. Shred some really fresh cabbage, the green kind, maybe 1/4 of a good sized head. Add 1 grated carrot and 1/2 a small red onion sliced thin. Start your dressing for the cole slaw with: 2 tbsp of mayonnaise, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, salt pepper to taste. Add more of whichever ingredients you need to make the cole slaw taste how you like it to be. Let that sit for a few hours. You will of course let that sit in the refrigerator (warm mayonnaise won't make you feel better).
Get your grill started about 40 minutes ahead of time. Unless you are a lucky person with a gas grill. While the grill is heating up you can start on your onion rings. Cut some yellow or white onions in fat rings and put them in a bowl of ice water. Let them sit for a while. Don't ask me why. Just do it and you will have firm lovely onion rings. Then heat some olive oil, or vegetable oil in a pan, enough to cover the onion ring once it's submerged. When the grill is hot slap the steaks on and start battering and frying your onion rings.
When the steaks are done let them rest for ten to fifteen minutes. Then crumble some Blue Cheese on top and serve with your onion rings and chilled cole slaw. Have a nice red wine and I guarantee whatever was bothering you before dinner will seem less bothersome after such a nice indulgent meal.
We also had melon ice cream for desert. But, Malika will tell you how to make that another time.
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