Constant Craving - My Style

(Dedicated, with affection, to Andrew, who inspired this).

When any of us dig into our "taste library," or our "foodbank," we all find those things that are just touchstones for us. Not necessarily good things, or comfort foods (I sort of think all food is comforting), but those foods and dishes that we find ourself "wanting" or, in a deeper sense, craving.

The stories of pregnant women craving certain foods while they carried their pregnancies are well documented, but I'm not using "craving" the same way. There's a whole body of evidence that says those cravings are brought about by the need for certain nutrients, or vitamins, and whatnot. A woman who is in severe need of iron, for example, finds herself craving spinach. And sometimes those cravings come across as needs for "non-foods." I remember reading a whole bunch of scientific articles about women who hate tremendous cravings for chalk while they were pregnant. Reason? They weren't drinking milk, because they didn't want to get TOO fat. No, the cravings I'm talking about reach deeper: they're like the "taproots" of our food memories, and we all DO have food memories.

I can sit down and eat an enormous meal of well prepared foods, enjoy each of them thoroughly, and come away lacking something, especially if I didn't eat some form of familiar starch during the meal. Pasta, bread, rice, will all do it, but pasta trumps all. Conversely, I could sit down and eat several pounds of sweet potatoes (which I DO love), and still be hungry: it's not a "familiar" starch for me, not a "lodestar". I find myself craving something else.

Not surprisingly, I find most of my cravings coming out of the things I remember Nana cooking for me, when I was very, very young. Chicken with toasted breadcrumbs and oregano (which I never make). Meatballs. Plain boiled spaghetti with garlic infused olive oil. Salad that I can eat with my fingers especially with slices of cucumber and lots of vinegar ("sometimes it's ok to eat with your hands, ragazzo. People had them before forks, you know." And my mother would shake her head and look away as we sat there and ate that wonderful salad by the handful). And then there are the cravings that come out of seasons. Christmas without cranberries isn't Christmas for me. And Easter without asparagus is unthinkable. Even if I DO have to get them from California (Easter is early this year and Peruvian asparagus may be all that's available. Stay tuned to see what I do, cause I dunno). But once we move into February, I don't need to see a cranberry for the rest of the year. And once July is upon us, as I say goodbye to the last stalk of "Jersey grass," as they call asparagus, I can wait for this good friend to come back in the spring.

Then there are the constant rituals of food that I treasure. My inspiration for this blog refers to the BF as his constant. Sitting down to a bowl of soup with mine (of 23 years. I guess that's more than a bf now, huh?) on Monday night, even if the soup on a particular night isn't very good. The "TGIF" glass of wine at home on Friday before we go out. Friends are visiting this weekend, and at some point, there WILL be macaroni and cheese. There always is. If there isn't some, we didn't get together.

The rituals are important. And you know what, as Ruth Reichl once wrote "it's not about the food." The weekend assignment: identify your food lodestars, your constants, and hold onto them. If it's caviar and blini, that's great. If it's MacDonald's on Wednesday for lunch, that's equally great. So is meatloaf from the corner diner. I hate to use this phrase, but "it's all good." Food that connects you to something bigger than nourishment, that feels good longer than it takes to swallow the mouthful, is more than food. Pay attention to these things. Medicine tells us that "food heals." I suspect that our pundits and PhD's don't know how right they are.

Pineapple

Last night, sort of drifting in and out of sleep after a really lovely intimate birthday party, I was flipping through the channels, and found a cooking show with one of my favorite ladies: Daisy Martinez. Daisy was talking about a condiment she makes at home, called "vinagre," which uses, among other things, the skin of a pineapple. You don't actually EAT it, but you use it in a concoction with water, vinegar, onions, and spices.

I've never heard of the thing, and I'm "kinda thinking" about making it. What was more interesting to me, however, was her comment about pineapples generally. She said something to the effect of "I think people see these in the grocery store and walk past them because they're frightened of them."

She may very well be right. Many, MANY years ago, some friends went with us to the Bronx Zoo (we didn't have any children to bring with us, but what did it matter? If the thought of four, forty something year old men going to the zoo bothers you, GET OVER IT), and we had brough components of a picnic lunch. One of our components was fruit salad, based on pineapple. Our friends are fairly sophisticated eaters. One even eventually became a personal chef. But they 'fessed up to never using fresh pineapple. The salad was a turning point.

If you don't use pineapple at home, I'll say it for the second time in this blog: GET OVER IT. They are not scary, they're delicious, and they're really good for you (unless you have had an organ transplant, and then you can't eat them because of the enzymes in them).

I think that one of the reasons why people shy away from pineapple is because, when we were younger, buying a ripe pineapple was not an easy thing to do. Pineapples do not ripen once they're picked. They just rot. And transporting pineapple to New York means a long, LONG trip, with a lot of waste and lost. So what we got was unripe, hard, and tasteless. Sort of like.

Oh, never mind. In any event, those days are over. You can buy what are called, generally "golden sweet" pineapples, and they really are golden, and sweet. I really like just eating fresh pineapple, but I want to give you a dessert today that is actually the work of Jacques Pepin. Some years ago, public television presented a series called "Fast food my way," with Jacques Pepin. I was RIVETED by the show, as I watched this true master of elaborate, fancy French cuisine, make the most wonderful dishes in minutes. This was one of them. Now that we're in deep winter, and tropical fruit is all we have, unless you want to eat YET ANOTHER apple, or YET ANOTHER pear, or dried fruit, this can be a real delight.

I have modified his recipe a bit, and I want to explain a few things along the way, based on my cooking of it.

Pepin says that this serves four, and perhaps it does. I find that a big serving, especially if you serve it with ice cream, so I would say eight, or four piggy servings or something like that.

It is, ultimately, a pineapple of simplicity (that's an allusion to an Oscar Wilde play. Some of you will get it).

You need one large golden sweet pineapple. You also need 1/3 cup of brown sugar, dark if you like stronger flavors, light if you don't, and 1/2 cup of fresh orange juice. PREFERABLY you will have blood orange juice, but if you don't, plain old will do. You will also need a couple of tablespoons of unsalted butter.

Get a big, nonstick pan ready. Put the sugar, the butter and the orange juice in it, and mix it to a slurry. Don't start heating it yet. Let's get the pineapple ready.

To prepare the pineapple, make a horizontal cut at the crown, to get the leaves off, and then another one, at the bottom. Then, make vertical cuts with a big knife, getting the skin off. Use the back of your knife, it will make things easier. Then examine the naked pineapple, and cut away any "nasty bits" you see. You will see a core in the center. Make a big cut in the middle of that core, which is not edible, to split the pineapple in half. Then make a vertical cut in each half to have four quarters, and then horizontal cuts in each quarter, to get eight pieces. If you're afraid of people biting into the inedible, hard core, make vertical cuts to remove it, but otherwise, don't. It helps the presentation.

NOW, turn on the heat, and stir the ingredients a bit. When you get a bit of bubbling, put in the pineapple wedges, one cut side down in the sugar mix. Lower the heat to medium, and leave them alone, for about six minutes. Turn one and see if it's browning. If it is, turn them all over to get the other side, and if not, give it a few more minutes. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes to do the first side. When you turn to do the second side, cover the pan, and lower the heat some more, and cook for the same length of time. Take the pineapple slices out, and heat the caramel just a bit longer, until it's nice, thick and stickly. Off the heat, s queeze in a bit more citrus juice to soften it, and pour the whole mess over the pineapple. Then, serve it with vanilla ice cream, or cookies, or creme fraiche, however you like.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Not that rich, huh?

I'm getting braver about Daisy's vinagre. I'll let you know.

"Wrap it Up"

Betcha you thought that this was gonna be a blog on one of those hideous sandwiches where huge, multicolored cardboard tortillas are used as the bread, huh?

Did I just reveal a prejudice against them? Really? I MUST learn to moderate my language.

Well, it ain't. This is about a wonderful classic technique that I had forgotten about called cooking "en papillote"

Now, the Francophiles out there may have very good reason to complain that I am, yet again, fracturing the French language. And when the purists amongst you read the rest of this, you may feel that I am not staying true to the technique.

Get over it. Do I sound crankier than usual today? Could very well be.

But to the root of things "en papillote" means "in paper." It's a style of cooking where you enclose what you're making in parchment, seal it up, and then bake it, at a very high temperature. When it works, the gasses from the food cannot escape, they blow up the parchment, and when you bring the portion to the table, in the paper, you get to warn the guest "keep your face away from it when you open it, it's HOT," and then s/he cuts it open, wafts of delicious vapor come up, there's the "MMMMMM" sound and everyone sits down and eats a wonderful meal.

There's a lot going for this technique. Probably the one that will interest us all here is that it is FAST. When food is encased like this, heat cannot escape. So food cooks faster. A relatively thick piece of fish, for instance, takes fifteen minutes. Another thing going for it is that you don't have dishes to wash. Remember that stupid commercial for aluminum foil where "Betty" says "No, let ME clean up," and then crumbles the foil and tosses it? Well, that's what you'll be doing here. Now, NOT that any of us are worrying about things like FAT... but this is a way to make a relatively low calorie dish as well. Again, because everything is staying right where it is, your flavors are concentrated. You get a very light water based sauce, and a very easy dish.

Fish and chicken lend themselves to this technique best, as do vegetables, by themselves. In truth, I only use it for fish. I'm not much of a fan for steamed chicken, or vegetables, but fish, probably because of its structure and flavor, works really well to my palate. But not ALL fish do. While you CAN use what I call the "red, muscular, steak" fish, like tuna and swordfish, I think this is a waste of the instrinsic qualities of those fish. Steamed or baked swordfish is just ok, steamed or baked tuna is vile. Stick to the "white" fish, like monkfish, cod, or, as I made it last night, grouper. If you're staying local to the NY area, at this time of year it's going to be monk, cod, flounder, or maybe pollack if you're lucky. Not much else this time of year. You could do it with skate as well, but again, this is a fish that tastes better to me in the pan rather than the oven.

The first times that I made this, I spend a long time prepping vegetables, cutting them into teeny teeny bits, so that I could make sure that they cooked fast enough. I would carefully spoon a tablespoon each of celery, carrots, potatoes, leeks, or whatever else I was using in with the fish. These days, I don't bother. I make the veggies separataely. What I DO use with the fish are things like slices of citrus (last night, it was meyer lemon), herbs, a bit of olive oil or butter, olives (without the pits), things like that. Here's how it goes.

Preheat your oven to 425. Then, get a big piece of FOIL (you CAN do this with parchment paper, but 'fess up: you got any of it in your house? If you do, grand. Then instead of folding the foil at the end, crimp the edges together, maybe painting a little egg white to keep them together. The rest of you stick with the foil directions.). Put down a "bed" for your fish, of something like sliced onions, or citrus, or something like that. The reason you're going to do this is to make sure the fish doesn't stick to the foil. Then, your fish goes on top of that, and season it. Use salt, pepper, thyme, anything you like on a baked piece of fish. Put about a scant tablespoon of good olive oil over each portion of fish (by "portion" I'm talking 6-8 ounces here), or the equivalent of unsalted butter. Your choice. Add some more citrus if you want to, and some incidentals, also if you want to, like pitted olives, chopped scallions, cat yummies (NO. Just seeing if you're paying atttention), very fine diced veggies if you're feeling ambitious, and then perhaps a splash (not more than one or two tablespoons), of white wine or vermouth. Then fold up the foil TIGHTLY. Do this for each portion of fish. Now, lay them all on a baking sheet, and pop them in the oven. You'll bake this for about twenty minutes. Let it rest for a few minutes when it comes out of the oven, because what they say about gas escaping IS true.

You can serve this in the foil, but if you've been hitting the wine while you're waiting, as I so frequently do, you don't want to risk getting foil stuck in your teeth, or your guest's. So get a spatula or pancake flipper or something like that and move it all to a plate. Make sure you pour what sauce is in the packet over the fish as well.

I made this last night with grouper, together with saffron rice (do you need for me to explain how to do that? I will if you want), and some steamed broccoli with olive oil. If I were serving it for guests, I might have used broccoli, because white fish, with a white vegetable, made for a bit of blandness, while the bright yellow orange, with green and white, would have been real pretty. And I timed myself. It took less than 40 minutes to bring this to the table, together with a spinach salad in a creme fraiche dressing (Ok, I'm going to teach you how to make your own creme fraiche. Take a pint of cream. Put it in a quart container. Spoon in three or four tablespoons of yogurt or buttermilk. Seal the container, shake it, and leave it on a counter, UNrefrigerated for three or four days. Leave it longer if you like it more sour). Then refrigerate it. ).

A 40 minute dinner that is good for you, healthy and easy, without much of a clean up? I think we can all use that .

So give it a try. If you want to, substititute chicken, but do know that chicken can take longer. It's a denser protein than fish, so it will take more time, perhaps as much as half an hour. But it will still be good, and healthy for you.

So go and have some ice cream

"If you know it, SHOW it"

The title of the entry today comes from an old, schmaltzy favorite song of mine, by Stephen Bishop, called "On and On" . In the last half of the song, he gives some really good advice about what to do when you know you love somebody: "If you know it, show it." He goes on after that, but that's a subject for another day.

"If you know it, show it." Everyone who reads this and cooks, take note of this. It's not advice. It's an order. And I'll tell you why. In brief, you can write all the recipes you want, all the blogs you have strength for, and talk and yak and yak and talk, but you will only be effective as a teacher if you SHOW someone what you KNOW.

I got this really strong this weekend. I taught two friends how to make pizza. From scratch. Using the recipe I give in another blog, using the tomato sauce I give in another blog, and using my noggin. Like I said, I have tons of fancy equipment for making pizza. These folks don't. I love pizza, so do these folks. Pizza you make at home is better than storebought, period.

And I can guarantee you that if I had taken those blogs, covered them in gold leaf, wrapped them in fancy paper and kissed them with bright pink lipstick, these folks would NEVER MAKE THEIR OWN PIZZA. Now they may. And it's not just an option to teach people how to cook: it's a duty. At least that's my feeling.

And you know what? You get more out of it than just satisfaction. You learn something. By going over all of the steps that I take for granted, and do mechanically, I found that there were things I could improve. And last night, making a pizza for me and the fabulous second tenor who is such a part of my life, I used what I learned. And the pizza was better. Know what I learned? You don't have to be a fussbudget about the crust. Handle it as little as possible. It's better that way. And I probably learned more things that I will realize at another time.

So "if you know it, SHOW it. " And tell me what you wanna learn. If I know it, I will show it. That's a promise.

The pizza I made last night involved artichokes. I still had some of the marvelous artichokes that Sandra "La regina di carciofini" had sent me, and I wanted to use them. So, with brutal efficiency, I dispatched them in the way that I had for the artichoke compote, and used those as a pizza topping, using the standard "pizza margherita" combination of sauce, mozzarella, and a sprinkle of parmesan at the end.

What else did I learn? Well, anyone who ever complains that artichokes are too expensive better not be around me when they say it. I can buy a package of frozen artichokes for 2.49. There will probably be about six or seven artichokes in total in that box. Go ahead into the kitchen now, and clean seven artichokes to the specs of the ones you bought frozen. Was that 2.50 worth of your time? Uh huh. And what about the farmer, who grew them, the packer, and so on and so forth.

So, folks, something else I learn everytime I work with good ingredients. Don't kvetch about what it costs. Be glad someone did the work for you. I could never have grown those babies. I did the easy part. And if someone else is doing the hard part for you, it's yet another reason why you should show it.

Bring someone into your kitchen. Show him or her how to make your specialty. You'll make a friend for life.

The root of all sweetness

I think that we all know, either explicitly or implicitly, that vegetables have sugar in them. "Sweet peas," "sweet corn," we speak of tomatos being sweet, and so forth. But the big question is: can you guess what vegetable has the highest sugar content of all of them? And no, it's not sugar beets.

Did you guess onions? If you did "you know your onions," as they used to say (what does that mean, by the way, and why don't we say it anymore?). Onions have the highest sugar content of all vegetables. It's not apparent when you taste them raw, or even cooked quickly, because those sulfur compounds block the flavor. You have to get rid of them first, and then you have to break down the big carbohydrate molecules to reduce the sugar. So, long, slow cooking, will give you a wonderful product - something akin to an onion marmalade. We're gonna make it today, because it fits in with the current pizza series, in a wonderful French variation on it, and also stands on its own.

This is a "recipe" that really reflects how I like to cook. Few ingredients, not that much work, and a really fine product. What you will need are three pounds of onions - the simple yellow ones, a quarter cup of olive oil, a teaspoon or so of salt, and if you have them, a few sprigs of thyme.

Peel the onions, half them, and cut them into fairly thin, half moon slices. You will be amazed at how much volume this takes up. You're going to be more surprised later, but we'll get to that.

When you've finished slicing the onions - and it will take a while - heat up the quarter cup of olive oil, and add the onions and the salt, as well as the thyme. Soon, you'll get a sizzle. Lower the heat to half of the maximum volume, stir, and cover the pot. Set your timer for 45 minutes, and come back every fifteen minutes or so, and stir. (This is something good to do when you're reading the paper, or watching tv, or doing something that does not involve full attention. I do NOT recommend it if you're making love, practicing music, natting lace, or something like that).

After that 45 minutes with the cover on the pot, you will be amazed to see how much liquid you have, and how much the onions have shrunk in volume. Now, you're going to keep cooking for another 45 minutes, with the top off, at the same level of heat. Some interesting things are going to happen. First, all of that liquid is going to go off, and the onions are going to shrink some more. And after about a half an hour, you're going to have to start doing some work. During the last fifteen minutes, you should be stirring those onions, leisurely, but keep them moving. The reason for this is that most of the water has gone out, they are going to begin to carmelize and get nice and sweet, but if you don't keep them moving, they WILL burn. And your pot will NOT be easy to clean (ask me how I know. I'll tell you).

After this second 45 minutes, you're going to have just over a cup of very reduced, very brown, very wonderful, tasty onions. That's right , just over a cup. From three pounds of onions. You have what is at heart, the "essence of the onion." Taste a strip. Good, huh? Makes you want to have a hamburger. We'll get to that.

If you want to make this even more intense, get a quarter cup of cheap balsamic vinegar, add that, and cook until the liquid evaporates. Now, you'll have even darker, even sweeter onions. This is up to you. I don't do it.

So, what do you do with the onions? Well, bluntly, anything you want. How about some toast with the onions and a slice of cheese on them? Perhaps you made some lamb chops and you want a "little something" to dress them up? Remember that hamburger I mentioned? Or a steak if you're feeling flush? They really seem to go well with heavy duty starches, and with meat. I really want them to work in risotto, but I haven't been pleased.

But since we're talking about pizza: the French have a wonderful dish called pissaladere. It's made all over France, with different dough bases. Some use puff pastry, some use a pie crust, and some use a yeast dough remarkably like pizza. Let's try it.

You do need the full, double recipe of pizza dough we made in the last blog. Do your best to stretch this out over a 13x18 baking sheet (for the numerically frightened, that's a standard baking sheet). If you don't get it to stretch all the way, relax. This is peasant food, and you're going to cut it into pieces. After you've stretched it as much as you want, get some anchovy paste and smear it over the dough.

Ok, stop saying "EWWWWWW" I used to do that, too. But one day, I bravely bit the bullet and spread the paste all over the dough. It does NOT taste fishy, but it DOES give a wonderful "back" to the dish that is very, very pleasing. There's probably something going on here with that fifth element of taste that the Japanese discovered some time ago, but I'm not going there with this. I cook. Anyway, leave it off if you really don't want to, but try it, please? Just squirt some out of the tube and spread it thin. Then, spread all of those onions over the dough. Now, you need some olives. Traditionally, the dish calls for nicoise olives. They're good, but the onions are so sweet that I like the balance that a more bitter olive, like oil cured black ones gives. Be as free or parsimonious with the olives as you like, and press them into the dough. We're cooking European style here, so we're keeping the pits in. Warn your guests.

Now, put that construction into the oven, at 500, for about twenty minutes. It will puff up some, but not a lot, and brown, but not a lot. Let it cool, cut it into squares, and eat it hot, if you must. I LOVE this at room temperature though, especially with a glass of champagne or something apertiffy.

So, if the pissaladere sounds too challenging, just make the onions, and use them on something else. We have a new friend coming over for dinner on Thursday, and I'm excited. I'm going to make the onions and put them over shoulder lamb chops.

Hey, no reason not to have a new friend start saying "DAYUM you're an awesome cook?"

feeling comfortable

I used to figure skate. Many many years ago. I have mixed feelings about it, looking back. But the good was VERY good. Today, on the radio, I heard the section of music that always made me feel most comfortable o n the ice. Music from the third act of Carmen. The flute part always made me feel like "I was home."

There are things that I make in the kitchen that make me feel that way. I make them often, move away from them, and come back And it always feels like "welcome home Annalena" when I make them.

Pizza is up there. I love making pizza. And everyone is amazed. They think it's so hard. But it's not. Today, I was going over the process of making it, because I'm teaching it tomorrow. It's easy. I want to share it. And I want you to make it.

Now, first of all, know that it's silly to make dough for one pizzza at a time. So I'm going to give you the dough recipe for two. They freeze beautifully, and you can make as many of them at one as you like. It involves yeast. Don't be afraid.

You need a tablespoon of yeast. That's one package. CHECK THE EXPIRATION DATE. And add a cup of water COLD water, and keep a third of a cup in reserve. Now add three tablespoons of cornmeal if you have it, and three tablespoons of olive oil a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of sugar. Stir it up. Then add three cups of flour. Use a spoon and stir it. If you don't get all the flour together, add the other third of a cup of water. When it's all blended, dump it out on a surface, and start kneading it. How do you knead? Easy. Pretend to be folding a letter from the top, turn 90 degrees and keep on doing it until you get something smooth and silky. Maybe five minutes. Put it into a bowl, cover it and let it rise for an hour. Then, punch it down and let it rise for another thirty minutes. Now you're ready .

During the last thirty minutes of rising, kick up your oven to 500. Yup, 500. Now, take half of that dough, and roll it out, or smooth it out if you're good with your hands (I'm not, so I roll). Take a baking sheet and turn it UPSIDE DOWN. Put a sheet of parchment on that, and then the pizza dough. Take some tomato sauce and spread a thin layer on it. Be stingy. Then put on some mozzarella. Half a pound , cut into cubes, is plenty.

Notice I didn't say anything about parmesan. Wait. Get this into the oven, and bake it for about fifteen minutes. Keep an eye on it. When the mozzarella stops bubbling and starts browning, you're ready.

Protect your hands and take the whole sheet out of the oven. This is the hardest part of the process. If you have a cooling rack, move the pie to it. NOW you grate your parmesan on it. You waited because, at 500, the parmesan will burn Many toppings will.

But you're done. Let it sit for ten minutes, get a big knife, hack at it, and enjoy it.
There are many toppings you can make. Some of the ones you would put on after the pie is cooked include parmesan, truffle oil (if you must), cooked greens, ricotta, and arugula.



I'm going to post more pizza options in days to come. Start with this one. Get comfortable with it. Ultimately, it's so much better than having to buy the crap from the corner or the chainstore.

The basic black dress

Back when the food network actually was gutsy enough to show programs about cooking, they had a wonderful show called "Cooking Monday to Friday." The host was a wonderful woman named Michelle Urvater. The theme of the show was, basically, "ok, you just walked in the door after working all day and you have to get dinner on the table. What do you do?"

And they cancelled it. I guess we don't need a show like that, huh? And how many hours of Emeril screaming BAM have we got available to us ? Bobby Flay has a very cute face, but if I see one more of his "throw downs" I'm going to throw him down and step on his cute face. And yes, there is plenty of eye candy on "Iron Chef America," (admit it, c'mon: you've got a thing for Alton Brown. He SAYS he's straight, but do you believe it? I don't. I want to think that the whole cast is going back stage at the end of shows and. Oh, dear. I'm getting carried away aren't I?)

Anyway, back to Michelle Urvater. Her shows were wonderful. I still make some of her recipes. And she published a cookbook, which included a chapter on couscous, which she referred to as "the basic black dress " of her kitchen.

Now, for Italians, a "basic black dress" is part of every women's wardrobe. Not because they go out a lot, but because they have to be ready for their husbands to die at any minute. You think I'm kidding? HA. Must be a WASP reading this. I think the tradition is ending, which is unfortunate, but you could go to church and see dozens of these ladies, of various lumpy shapes in their black. I always thought that they must have had twelve of the same dress, but my Nana would never tell me that (she, by the way, did NOT subscribe to this black dress thing. In many ways she was a modern woman).

Ok, I'm digressive today, aren't I? Back to couscous. Making couscous from scratch is a very tedious process, that is done in Morocco and other areas of North Africa, and in Sicily , where it's called cussucussu, and served only with fish. The stuff we get is already "pre-cooked" sort of like Minute Rice, only the couscous is good, and you don't have to be scared by the list of ingredients on the side, if you don't get the flavored kinds. Try to get organic varieties, and stick to plain (which looks like little golden pastinas), or whole wheat (which looks like little brown pastinas).

This is the thing to have in the house when the thought of cooking a pot of pasta seems too opressive. Here's how you cook couscous. You put the couscous in a pot. You cover it with enough water to cover it by about an inch. You put a teaspoon or so of salt in. You bring it to the boil, cover the pot, turn off the heat, and change your clothes or do something that takes 5 or ten minutes. It's ready. Really. It is. I swear.

Unless you want to play with it. And here's the easiest way to play with it. Put a big piece of butter into it, and stir. Want to get fancier? Add some peas, even if they're still frozen. Or some other vegetables. Looking for heartier? Get a handful of peeled raw shrimp and stir them in while it's hot. Wait a few more minutes.

Want something sweet? Stir in some milk or cream, and some sugar. Maybe some preserves or some fruit. And you've got a breakfast. Now, this is a VERY good thing to know how to do. I mean, let's face it. At some point you're going to bring someone home who you want to come back again. That means breakfast the next day. And you know you're good horizontal, but how many people are? Yeah, a lot. But how many can make an interesting innovative breakfast without injuring themselves ? Sure, he probably wants blueberry pancakes, but are you up for that? French toast? COME ON. You want to give him something fast and tasty because, well, you want the fun to continue. Pull out the couscous. It keeps in the cupboard for months, and it's always there for you. Sort of like Annalena.

Remember your audience, BUT

Now these thoughts are inspired by one of the most fun things I've done in a long time. Our friend Andrew, of "Andrew's balls" in prior blogs, was doing a bingo fundraiser for Guy's chorus. I was asked if I would do the food for the fundraiser.

Would I? Ask me to cook for people? I'm there. And because the whole point of this thing is to sell lots of drinks, I started thinking savory and salty. After all, the evidence shows that when people eat sugar, they stop drinking strong alcohol, while if you give them salt, they keep on drinking. Why do you think bars have peanuts on the counter?

So, since I'm a very big fan of "anything worth doing is worth overdoing," I got started on this project a month ago. And when the smoke cleared, I had ten dishes to serve up at this affair. Yup, ten of them. In retrospect, that was overdoing it. I had never done an affair like this before, and now I learned. In fact, several people told me that at this kind of thing I should "make a lot of a few things." Boy, ain't that the truth? I made 75 meatballs. If I had made 300 meatballs, it would have been too few. My intentions WERE good. These are gay folk remember. So some are not going to eat red meat. Some are not going to eat meat at all. Some are going to be vegans. So I tried to straddle all positions. Meat, like the meatballs. And duck. Chicken sausage. Fish mousse and shrimp. Artichoke dip. Fava beans for the vegans. And so on and so forth.

Know what? I could have made 300 meatballs and everyone would have been happy. Oh yeah, I said that already. Seems that, once you get into a bar, dietary rules go out the window. I guess that makes sense. In an odd kind of way. And had I gotten out of my "box" and thought this through, I might have seen this. But I didn't. We really didn't have that much food left over, but of course, even though no one made weepy eyes, the fact that people didn't get meatballs and might have wanted them, does get to me a bit.

So, yes, remember your audience, but also, remember: if you're not having fun doing it, then don't do it. And if having fun means you make something that no one eats but you, who cares? That's why whenever there are events like this, I make a "bean spread canape.'

Many of us are old enough to remember when we were kids and "dips ruled." No, I don't mean the President, or the governor, I'm talking about when our folks entertained. Remember that ghastly combination of sour cream and onion soup mix? Or was it mushroom? No, mushroom was with thawed frozen spinach and looked like an autopsy of someone's lawn. And let us not forget those combinations of clam and salt, where you had to hunt for the clam, and saw your blood pressure rise 20 points with each cracker.

And then, I remember "Mexican bean dip." You remember that one? Kidney beans, a half teaspoon of hot pepper (let's not be TOO adventurous), grated cheese, sour cream, and avocado. All piled on a toast.

It sounds pretty good doesn't it? Well, I gotta tell you, this is a case of the whole being less than the sum of its parts. Notwithstanding that, there are some good ideas in all of these travesties, and it's the job of we cooks to come up with what's good and run with it. Hence my bean snacks.

I love beans. I have never met one that I don't like. I love the texture, I love the versatility, and I love the fact that they are actually good for you. And they blend to a wonderfully creamy texture. So, I make a lot of combinations of beans and "stuff." For example, my standard one for years was a blend of cooked cannelini beans, sage leaves, garlic, and olive oil. Just piled up on toasted Italian bread, it was sophisticated for a beginning cook. It still is. And I still love it. But I've "branched out." Now, black beans get mixed with hot chilis and lime juice, with cheddar on top. Or lentils get mixed with cumin and a little carrot. And so on and so forth. For this party, I used the last of my frozen fava beans from teh summer. I cooked them until they were really soft (can't give you guidelines. You have to keep testing), and then peeled them (Oi. Did that take a while). Then I combined them with a bit of cooking water, ONE clove of garlic, salt, pepper, and the chopped peel of half a lemon. This all went into the food processor, with me adding olive oil to get a good consistency. (If it looks a little too loose, don't worry. You're gonna refrigerate it). When it was done, I tasted, and corrected the salt. And that's it.

So there's your "paradigm" for these dishes. About two or three cups of cooked beans, your choice. An accent ( a strong one), like sage, or lemon peel, or hot peppers, and liquid, like water and olive oil, or stock and olive oil. You should use a water type thing and an oil, for richness and smoothness. Also salt and pepper. Think about your bread too. French bread works with just about anything. Stronger t asting bread, like pumpernickel, will overpower the lighter tasting combinations, but will work well with something strong. And when you're done, if you want to put a sprinkle of cheese, a dollop of creme fraiche or truffle paste, or a half of a cherry tomato be my guest. It will make it pretty, and make you feel like an artist.

Make more than you think you'll need. Why? So you can eat them shamelessly. We don 't waste food around here

"Kicking it up a notch"

OH GOD do I hate that phrase. But I'm using it because it's apt for what I'm writing about today: a group of lovely things that we call "compound butters." What are "compound butters?" Simply put, they are butters with "stuff" in them, that you use as butters nonetheless. I will confess that I have never had too much patience for them, but last year, I started using a really neat one: nasturtium butter. In the early spring, when all of the greens are just a bit "biting," like dandelion, and other early, bitter or sour greens, the first nasturtiums come out. Traditionally, what you do with these butters is let them soften, and then blend the additive to them. For nasturtium butter, you simply stir up some soft butter with a good handful of nasturtium leaves, let it harden again, and then put it over something hot, so it melts down. The theory is that it's not quite the same as putting the additives, and the butter, on the hot food. The flavors are supposed to mingle, and add something that wasn't there before.

Well, with the nasturtium butter, I'm not buying it. But I like the color of the nasturtium FLOWERS in the butter, so what I do is mix those, and then add some chopped leaves with the butter. But that's for the spring. For now, when all of us are looking for the first asparagus, the first warm spring breeze, the first buds on the tree, the compound butters are a little sturdier, and lustier with their flavors.

The one I made recently is sundried tomato and walnut butter. And the strangest thing happened. A day after I made it, we saw it on the menu of one of our favorite menus, served on lamb chops.

I had made it to put on lamb chops, and then decided it would be much better on our starch, which I think was couscous. And know what? I would NOT mind having it on a piece of toast. It's a good thing to have around. And it's such a snap. Here it comes.

You need two sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature. You also need a cup of sundried tomatoes, the soft ones, (from oil or soaking), that you chop up. This doesn't take long. And you also need about a half cup of walnuts, toasted if you have the time. Finally, a good squeeze of lemon is nice to have as are a few leaves of parsley.

Put this all in your food processor, and pulse. If you use the simple "on" switch, you risk separating the liquid from the solid and making a mess. By pulsing, you never give up control (a very big thing with me, if you haven't figured it out yet). Then, take that nasty blade out of the machine, scoop the butter out. "Accidentally" get some on your fingers so you have to lick them clean. Then get some more on them. When you've finished, stuff it all in a container, and then refrigerate it, and use it as you see fit.

Know where this would be good? Go read 'STUFF IT' Freeze some of the butter, and put the frozen stuff inside the chicken breasts, and proceed. You'll love it.

Have any good ideas how to use it? C'mon , this is about SHARING.

The one that didn't get away

It's been a bit of a while since I told a story about cooking from my past. This is one of the better ones. I hope you laugh about it. I still do.

We're back when I was in law school now. 1980/81 probably, because I was in my first big apartment, with my first real kitchen, and my first real roommates: Steve, Chad (whom I've written about), and Brian. We took turns cooking the meals, but of course, since yours truly had the "bug," I did more of it than anyone. It was my way of forgetting how painful law school was. Or that I was dying to go out on a date, or so many other things.

I was a more adventurous cook then, than I am now. Playing with things like Indonesian food, Brazilian, and for this story, Chinese food. And never one to crawl before I could walk, I decided that I would do a banquet for my roomies, complete with whole steamed fish.

Well, the preferred type of fish for this preparation is carp. Have you ever seen a carp? Sure you have. They are those big, goldfish you see in ponds in cities, that look like they have bloated bellies and big eyes. Those are decorative carp. "Eating carp," (although you CAN eat the decorative party type), are UGLY. They are brown and green, with faces that I doubt their mothers love, big whiskers, and horny scales. But this is what I was buying to cook for dinner. And I was buying it live. "Authenticity is all." Even then I was a pretentious fop.

So, after morning classes were over, I toodled down to Chinatown with my cooler, and bought a live carp. It weighed between 8 and 10 pounds. That's a big fish. And in a cooler, with water, it weighed, big time. But I slogged this thing back to the apartment.

OK, NOW what do I do? My Chinese cookbook was decidedly silent on this, simply saying "kill the carp right before you cook it." Gee, that was helpful. So, turning to the always reliable "Joy of Cooking," I learned that "carp are raised in muddy water and should be allowed to swim freely in clean water for several hours before preparation."

Yup. The bathtub. I filled it with cool water, dumped in Mrs. Carp (the females have tastier meat, the Chinese cookbook told me. They didn't warn me that female carp get pissed off big time, but we're coming to that), and then went to my bedroom to pretend to study the intricacies of constitutional law . I had this view, that somehow, by highlighting huge sections of the casebooks, the law would "come to me." Never did.

Anyway, while I was engaged in this losing battle, Steve came home from rugby practice. He said hello, I muttered something back, and he said "I'm filthy. Think I'm gonna take a shower."

Steve was 6' 4" and about 220. With a size 13 shoe (sorry gang, straight as an arrow. I tried). I could hear him trod to the bathroom, stop, and then trod back to the front of my bedroom. Steve was used to odd behavior patterns in his roommate and looked at me and asked

"About that fish in the bathtub"

I looked up "uh huh?"

"Is he staying for dinner?'

"He's a she and she IS dinner"

"That's what I thought. I'll shower later."

The patience of a saint. A Lithuanian saint. From Philadelphia.

So, after three hours or so, I realize that I now have to dispatch this creature. Unfortunately, The Joy of Cooking is also noticeably silent on how to do this. We didn't have the internet at that point, so I'm standing there thinking "how am I going to do this?'

I had killed live fish before. I had killed trout. And I had done it by taking the fish firmly in my hand, and smacking its head against a counter. This actually doesn't kill them, but stuns them enough, so that you can drop the fish into boiling vinegared water, to get a bright blue color on the beast. "Truite au bleu" is one of the highlights of French cooking. Having done it once, I'll never do it again. But this was my model for dispatching a fish.

It never dawned on me that those trout I had killed were about six ounces each. Mrs. Carp weighed at least eight pounds. But, undaunted, I put on a gardening glove, grabbed her by the tail, hauled her out to the living room, lifted her over my shoulder and SLAMMED her down on the table.

The Bitch didn't die. She just got angry. And carp have teeth. They have BIG teeth. So, I did what any killer would have done. I slammed her down again. NOW, she's getting REALLY angry, and going for my wrist. And I'm panicking. I'm panicking BIG time, and I start slamming her against the table, over and over again. Steve by now has heard this and comes out, as I'm jumping up and down, with this poor beast.

"What in the name of God are you doing?"
"I'm trying to kill this fish"
"Well why don't you just cut off the head?"

I swear this happened. I paused, the fish in its death throes in my hand, looked at him and said "Steve, that's the most barbaric thing I've ever heard."

Then I went back to work pounding her into submission. N O, not THAT way, you bunch of PIGS. (Although that WAS the year I learned that women were not for me.)

So, at some point, Mrs. Carp expired. I don't kn ow if it was the beating, suffocation or what, but I was finally able to get her curled up in this huge wok for steaming. Yes, the evidence of attorney brutality was there, and Steve and I discretely covered it with pieces of broccoli and cauliflower before dinner. It DID taste good. But people were finding scales in our carpet, and in odd places for months.

Steve never questioned my odd cooking methods again. So when he came home one day, and found three chickens (dead ones), in the sink, hot water running on them, he just walked past and said "I'm not asking, I'm not asking, and I don't want to be here when you do God knows what"

Hey, what can I say, ya live and learn, right?

Keepers

You've all heard, and used the expressions "this is a keeper," or "it's a keeper," or, as we objectify, not necessarily in a bad way "s/he's a keeper," right? Well, this is about "keepers," how important they are to me, and how I try to make sure the "keep" me.

The phrase, as I understand it, comes from fishermen. My grandpa was a fisherman, who drove a truck for a living, so I learned very young that "keepers" were the fish that you didn't throw back. "Yeah, Fritz, it's a keeper," one of the other men on the boat would yell when Tati brought in a fluke - his specialty - if it were big enough. It meant you could keep it, withtout breaking the law.

All of us meet, everyday, people who are not "keepers." Even if they are in our lives day in and day out, they are not people whom you would miss if you moved on. And then there are the "keepers, " those people who's absence would make your life a little less complete. And dare I say it, perhaps "KEEPERS," those people whom, when you think about it, you feel "how did I get this far without knowing......." Yeah, those are the real "KEEPERS."

We don't cook for people who are other than KEEPERS. I was thinking about all of this this past weekend, as we had our monthly dinner. Everyone who was invited has enriched our lives in some way, perhaps intangible, but I for one am enriched by knowing these men. I can remember the first meeting I had with each and every one of them. And you know, within seconds, if the person is not a keeper, or a "Keeper." It takes a little longer to know if they're going to move into the all caps category, but for me, there's usually no question. I can usually tell (although not always), who the KEEPERS are , within five minutes. I knew it with each of these guys. And I only hope that I reach the same standard for them.

So when you cook for those people who enrich your lives, what do you do? On one level, the answer is simple: your best. Do you show off for them? I'm not sure that "showing off" is the best way to say what I try to do; rather, I try to take what I know about cooking, and perhaps present a meal that maybe shows a dish to them for the first time, or a dish that they know, in a new light. On that second point, I recall a concert I went to years ago, where Leonard Slatkin was presenting that war horse "Pictures at an Exhibition." BUT. What he had done was to have reviewed the 100 plus different transcriptions of this work, and picked out his favorite parts of each and put them together. Before he played the work through, he told us what he was doing, showing us some examples of different reads of different sections, and he said, before they performed "and if you leave tonight having experienced a familiar work in a new way, then we've done our job."

Well, I don't think about entertaining as a "job," but if I can take ingredients that every one knows, and present them in a way that is entertaining, interesting, tasty, and engaging, then I guess I did my job.

This past Sunday, I tried to do that. And I also did something that I think fits into the whole idea of how a person is supposed to treat their 'KEEPERS', in my opinion.

The original first course for the meal was a whole fish, baked in a salt crust, with braised fennel and blood oranges on the side. Nothing wrong with this, absolutely nothing. It's a wonderful combination. Then.... two days before the dinner, Sandra, another KEEPER, sent me a box, a HUGE box, of artichokes from her family's farm, with the note "these don't look very nice, but they taste great."

Well, as I told Sandra, she clearly had never shopped for artichokes in NY. They looked quite fine to me. And artichokes are not easy to prepare. I've said that before. But how often do you get a chance to eat home cooked artichokes? So, maybe it was a bit of a show off thing, but maybe not. I'm not sure. I'm the worst judge of my own actions, as you are of yours, gentle reader, but I decided to put the fennel and the blood oranges into a salad, and pull out an artichoke recipe.

It was a good one, too. Years ago, at Chez Panisse, I had eaten "Paula Wolfert's artichoke confit with oranges. " I remember loving it. And there were both artichokes, and oranges in the house. Yes, it takes a while to make. In fact ,it is from a cookbook called 'The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen.' Well, to me, just about anything slow cooked is good. And "slow" is a relative term. This is a dish that takes about an hour to make. Much of it is unattended time, but the things you have to do are very tedious. This is not a dish for someone just fooling around in the kitchen, but that's not you are you?

Seriously, the people at the table that night who cook are all passionate cooks. And the ones who don't cook are appreciative eaters. Not that the cooks aren't So, this is for all you boys who were invited on Sunday. Give it a try. If you want, leave out the last step, which I don't think is necessary. But do the rest. You were there, you had it.

To start, you need two lemons, and six, really big, GOOD artichokes. Big is easy. How do you know if they're good? Squeeze them. Do they squeek? They're good. Now, here's where things get tedious. They always do with artichokes. Get a bowl of watear and squeeze half of a lemon into it. Now, start pulling the leaves off of the artichokes. Bend them back until they break, and keep on pulling them off. This is going to take a while, and you're going to hate me. If you're a KEEPER, now you know how much I love you. :) You'll wind up with the core of the artichoke, even if it looks a little unkempt. Now, cut each one in quarters, and then scrape out that choke part. You can be careful, but you won't get all the way through without damaging a few. It's ok. People you love and who love you won't say a word. If you are fortunate enough to have artichokes with long stems, cut off the very base, and peel them with a vegetable peeler, and then get them into the acidulated water. Then, squeeze enough oranges to get half a cup of orange juice. DON'T use the stuff in a box. Squeeze it yourself. And peel three or four garlic cloves, and have your GOOD olive oil at the ready. You'll need about four tablespoons, in a small pot. You're doing a braise, so you don't want it too wide. Put in the oil, add the garlic, turn the heat to medium and when it sizzles, let it cook for two minutes or so. Add your orange juice, and then squeeze in the juice of the remaining one and a half lemons. Keep your face back. It will sizzle. Add about a heavy teaspoon of salt and a few turns of fresh pepper and then the artichokes. Add 1/3 cup of water. Now here's the interesting part. Get a piece of parchment, wet it, crumble it, and put it on top of the artichokes (I think this helps keep it from burning. Who knows? It works). Then put a lid on the pot, lower the heat as far down as possible, and go read a book or something for forty five minuts (You all know what I mean by "something." It will make you hungrier. Trust me on this....)

Now, after this forty five minutes, you are done. You can serve these just like this, or perhaps sprinkle some orange juice over them, and serve them hot or at room temperature, as I did. And they'd be fine. Maybe better than the next step, which I wish I hadn't done.

Peel three oranges, and section them as best as you can. Put them in a pan with the juices of the artichokes, a touch of ground coriander, and a tablespoon of sugar. Let this cook at low heat for about five minutes, leaving it alone as much as possible. Then, add the artichokes back into the pan and cook them for another five minutes. Now, you're done.

To me, that last bit was unnecessary. I would have just taken the artichokes, dressed them with some more olive oil, and served them. And if there had been only three or four of us, I might have put this out with some bread and said "enjoy your lunch." However you serve them, find some of your KEEPERS and share this with them. Show them how precious they are to you. It's worth it. Again, trust me on this.

STUFF IT

I'm stepping away from corn now, and talking about another one of those things that happens at restaurants, that amaze us, at times, but is so simple to do at home that you COULD do it every night.

We all know about things liked stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbage, stuffed tomatoes, all those lovely veggies that we make ridiculously fattening and unhealthy by shoving full of cheese, meat, etc, etc, etc. I'll be damned if they're not tasty though.

But have you ever thought about stuffing proteins? Fish? Burgers? Chicken? Let's start with chicken, one of my favorites.

Chicken breasts are a perfect "foil" for taking something that is good tasting, albeit bland, and making "special". And it's not hard to do at all. You just have to get over one, or maybe two humps.

One is the hump of skinless chicken breasts. When did we all become wimps and stop eating chicken skin? "Oh, it's so FATTENING." Like the snickers bar you ate wasn't? Unless you have really serious health issues, there is no reason to take the skin off of chicken breasts. Leave it on.

Second hump: boneless versus bone in. Now when did we all get so afraid of bones? CMON. Are you really going to choke on it? You DO know how to use a knife and fork don't you?

Oh.

Well, learn. And this is how you do these wonderful things. First, as far ahead as you can, for example, the night before, uncover your chicken breasts, with the bone and skin :). The day that you're going to cook, turn up your oven to 400, and get a big pan that will hold as many chicken breasts as you will cook in one layer. Cover the surface with oil.

Now, your filling. What to use? Anything you want. My favorite is chopped prosciutto with fontina cheese, maybe with a little fresh sage if I have it, but you could use just sage leaves, you could use just ham, you could use just cheese. The key thing is to NOT overstuff. You dont' want filling falling out and burning in your pan. A tablespoon per breast is fine. One and a half is plenty. Two is overfill. So be cheap there (I know, that's a new one on me). Breadcrumbs with spices are good, so are crumbs with mushrooms, so is spinach with feta or fontina.

I like to include a cheese in the filling, because it melts and gets gooey. You don't have to though. You could recreate the classic "chicken kiev" by putting some kind of butter in the chicken as well. If you go that route, freeze it a little to keep it firm and cold. A compound butter, that is, one where you combine the butter with other things (I make a sun dried tomato/walnut butter. Want the recipe? Maybe I'll give it to you...) will work really well.

Ok, so you've made your filling. Now you have to get it into the bird breast. Make a horizontal cut in the breast, not all the way across. Just try to "make a pocket. Separate the layers a bit, and then gently spoon in your filling. Don't do anything like toothpick it closed, but just press the chicken back together. And then heat up the oil and put your chicken breasts, skin side down, into the pan. Cook them that way, for four minutes or so, then turn them over and cook for another two. that six minutes is establishing your flavor base: the browning and carmelization. Then put the whole pan into the oven, afteryou've turned the chicken skin side up again. Bake for fifteen minutes.

NOW, you have to be careful. I used to forget this, until I got burned a few times. That pan is HOT. Wrap your hand, take out the pan and put it on the stove. Take the chicken out for a minute, and pour off that fat. You don't need it now. And the pan is nice and hot, so you don't need to put on the heat for this step. Get a nice heaping tablespoon of a jelly of some kind, and put it right in the pan. It will melt away, and you should just turn the breasts in this (be careful of your hands), and look how nice and shiny that chicken just got. I use "savory" jellies, like jalapeno pepper, but you could use currant, or apricot, or anything you want. I would stay away from strawberry though, but I think seedless raspberry might be tasty.

And there it is. So now, when you tell your loved one(s) "we're having chicken tonight" you don't have to feel apologetic. Not that you ever should. Hey, you're the cook. You just busted. But now , you can smile about something new and tasty. And you can probably figure out other things you can do this with too.

Polenta

When I was growing up, we didn't eat polenta very much at all. If we did, it was because one of Nana's sisters had made it for "that no account Northern husband of hers." Nana's culinary prejudices ran deep: REALLY deep. Bread, pasta, potatoes, all on the table, almost every day. Corn? Not much chance of it. Occasionally, she'd bring home a cornbread, or even make one (it was always pretty bad), but that was rare. And she had no patience for polenta.

Well, when I got old enough to eat in restaurants, polenta had been "rediscovered." And it was everywhere. It seems that every single entree came with a side of polenta, whether it was appropriate or not. And I ate every grain of it.

Nana was NOT pleased. "Why can't you just eat pasta like normal people? Isn't that how I brought you up?" It was pretty serious: I mean, I could have told her that I was giving up Catholicism, taking up a new Eastern faith, renouncing the church and wearing dresses from now on (and I DID tell her all of that, except the part about wearing dresses), and her response would be something like "well, it's all for the better. It's important that you try something new, and let me know if you like it because maybe I'll do it, too." (I think that if I HAD told her I wanted to wear dresses, she would have given me magazines for ideas and would have told me NOT to dress like my mother, but that's sheer, mean spirited speculation on my part. It IS probably true though).

Well, polenta's day in the sun has pretty much faded, in that it's not the "star" of menus anymore. You don't see stupid things like smoked salmon on a bed of blueberry polenta (I am not making that one up folks), but you DO see good things like polenta fries, and polenta with dishes like chicken, or lamb, etc. In fact, I came close to combining cultures as I designed the menu for this month's dinner party. I'm making a Flemish dish: carbonnade, which needs a starch of some kind, and I really seriously considered polenta. I'm sticking with noodles I'll cut myself though.

But I digress. People buy polenta in restaurants, but not too many people cook it at home. I think that is in large part because it has absorbed a mystique about it, like risotto, that simply is not true. It's NOT hard to make, some of the rules you're taught in cookbooks do not need to be followed, and even when you're not using "instant" polenta, or, heaven forbid, those disgusting tubes of the stuff that you cut into slices, it's very easy to make. I'm going to explain how to make it, how to finish it off, and then give you a second recipe for folks who are STILL a little intimidated.

First, basic polenta. You have to remember a 1:4 ratio. You need one part polenta for every four parts of liquid you use. Normally, that liquid is water. But you could use stock, and you could use milk, for example. You would use milk if you were going to make a breakfast polenta, which is really good.

Now, cookbooks tell you to bring your liquid to the boil and then slowly add the polenta, letting it trickle through your fingers.

Right. Like I have time for this? Like you do? Okay, this is how you're going to do it. You're going to have a big spoon ready. You put some salt (or sugar) into the liquid, and then while it's still cold, you add all the polenta. ALL of it. Don't be shy. It's not gonna bite you. THEN you turn the heat to medium, and you start stirring. You really DO have to keep the thing moving, because it will burn if you don't. Scrape the spoon into the corners of your pot to keep everything going.

Be careful. As polenta starts to cook, it thickens, and it bubbles. It bubbles HARD. And it's hot. It's VERY hot. If, for example, some of it were to hit the side of your neck, after you got it off, you could like and tell people you got a hickey the night before (How do I know this? Remember. A minimum of one large, very dry martini for that information). Watch how the polenta almost "opens" like a flower. You'll see a change, as it goes from a liquid mess, to a thicker, dull colored one, to a shiny thick one. When the polenta is pulling away from the pot as you stir (it really DOES do this), you're ready. Now you can "gussy it up." You can leave it as it is, or you can stir in some olive oil or butter. And then you've got a great side dish. You can also stir in butter, milk and sugar, and you've got a real good breakfast with some fruit.

There are ways to use leftover polenta, after it has hardened, but I honestly have never found them to be too successful, or too tasty. So I'll leave that to you to discover on your own. Now, onto another recipe: polentina soup.

I really like this soup. It's a nice, light, pleasant dish that is reminiscent of summer corn, but is really easy to make. I make it sometimes with garlic broth, and sometimes with just plain chicken stock. And sometimes, if I have some "tomato water," one of those exotic, fancy schmancy ingredients, I use that half and half with the stock.

So, get a quart of liquid ready, and this time, SIX TABLESPOONS of polenta. That is all of about 1/3 of a cup. So if you would rather not measure out six tablespoons, use 1/3 of a cup. It's fine. Again, put the polenta into the liquid cold. And bring it to a slow boil. Stirring is not as important here, but it is important. You need to keep the grains moving otherwise they will settle out and burn. Again, you'll see a transformation as your soup gets thicker, but it will never get "thick." Of course, you'll season as you go along, to make sure it tastes the way you like.

By itself, this is a pretty meager dish, but you CAN eat it that way. I can't dream of doing this, however, without putting in some greens. If it's a tender green, like spinach, or baby chard, I'll put it in raw and let it cook and melt in the heat of the soup. For a sturdier green, I'll cook it beforehand. and then chop it up and put it in. You can also add some sausage, or some other kind of meat to it. Cooked chicken is good, but so is cooked sausage. So is duck, if you have some leftover cooked duck lying around (Please don't ask, but I frequently do).

It's a good luncheon soup, or a good dinner meal, with a salad, or perhaps some pizza.

Nana loves me, still, from beyond, but I may have ticked her off with this piece. Ah, the risks of cooking. You never know WHO you're going to offend.

Heard of hominy?

This is one of those foods which, when I first had it, I found myself thinking: how did I miss this? This is GOOD. I think I had it as part of posole, in a tiny Mexican restaurant in San Francisco's Castro District. Those were the days when the boys showed it on the street a whole lot more than they do now, i.e., well before we started chanting "we're here, we're queer. Let's get an espresso." Remember those days?

Don't lie. Of course you do. Very few of you are that young.

So, anyway, for a plate of food to engage me more than the parade of lovelies that were walking in and out and on the street meant it HAD to be good. And it was different. And while that restaurant is long gone, and the tone of Castro Street has changed somewhat (Armisted Maupin gets it right. OH, does he get it right), my taste for posole never left.

One of our favorite restaurants serves it regularly as "drink nibbles." They basically pan fry the posole until it's got that nice, crispy flavor that you associate, oh, with popcorn that's just a little burned, before it turns to that charcoally kind of BLECH that gives you heartburn when you eat it. Guy and I stole half of the plate of it that our friend Laura and her guest ordered one night, and it made me think of the stuff again. And now that we're exploring corn, well..

Remember how, in the prior blog, I told you how corn matures? Well, posole is mature corn. And when an ear of corn matures, it is NOT pretty. Think of someone with really bad teeth. REALLY bad buckteeth. That's a ripe ear of corn. The kernels get so big they push each other out of the way, the lines are awkward, it's hard enough to hit someone with, and certainly NOT something you can treat like corn on the cob for eating.

Mexicans dry this stuff. And it dries very well. And when anyone wants it , they soak it. And they soak it. And they soak it. A 36 hour soak is not unusual. Then they cook it. And cook it. And cook it. A three hour cook is not unusual.

Think I'm making this up. NOPE. I've done it. It was good, but this is clearly a preparation designed for folks who stay at home. Or who are restaurant professionals, and can spend all that time on this stuff. So this is one of those cases where I countenance using the canned stuff. It's cooked already, and it's nice and soft, and if you wash it, it's pretty good.

Hominy is a wonderful addition to soups, especially meat soups. If you have some left over chicken, raw or cooked, heat up some stock, or even water, add the chicken, the hominy, perhaps some green chilis and whatever veggies you have around (spinach or other greens are especially good), and you've got a hearty, main dish soup. Just heat it up, add some butter (for some reason, this just goes better with butter to me, than with olive oil), and you've got a nice side dish, almost a cross between pasta and couscous. But the way I like it... Well,the hell with temple days. Let's fry it.

Now, you CAN deep fry posole, and it's wonderful. I stay away from that preparation, because it's very hard to get canned posole dry enough to not feel like you're one of those ducks on the wheels at amusement parks, where people are shooting at you. The spitting oil WILL get you. I promise (I'll show you the spot on my hand). So when I fry it, I pan fry it, the way I will tonight with some lamb chops. All you do is this. Drain the can of posole in a colander or something like that, to get the "lion's share" of the water away. Then blot the stuff. If you're obsessed with this kind of thing, the way I am, spread out paper on a baking sheet, then spread out the posole on that, and blot it with another layer of paper. Just get it as dry as possible. Whenever you fry something, the drier it goes in, the nicer the crust is going to be when you get finished. Water steams things when it heats up. Dry things caramelize.

So you've got your dried out posole, and now take a nice wide pan, and put in a few tablespoons of butter, or if you want to feel more virtuous, half and half with vegetable, or olive oil. Get it hot, add the posole, and listen to the sizzle.

Learn to listen when you cook. That loud, vigorous sizzle, is the sound of liquid going off. You won't get anything brown and crispy until you stop hearing that sound. When it fades to a slow, almost crackling, browning is happening. Stir it now, and you'll see what I mean. Try to distribute the posole so that the non-toasted portions are now hitting the metal of the pan, and keep on cooking and stirring, until you have something as nice and brown as you like it.

There's your side dish. Or, if you're a pig, your lunch.

I should say that you CAN do this with corn OFF the cob. I don't like it as much, but you can do it.

If you try this, tell me how you like it. And if you gussy it up, please tell me what you do.

Number One

Quick. No thinking: what's the number one crop in the United States? Betcha you got it wrong. It's not wheat. It's corn. By several factors. Yup, corn.

It may surprise you, but remember, I didn't say what crop produces the most "food." Think of corn oil, corn syrup, corn starch, corn meal, and also keep in mind that corn is a major food crop for animals. So that corn on the cob that you had in the summer and miss right now, is merely a fraction of the corn crop every year.

In fact, that corn on the cob is considered "green corn," or "unripe corn." when corn is ripe, it's hard, almost indigestible without help ( we know the preparation as posole), and really does not look very pretty.

Now I'm writing this as someone who , in a very unamerican way, does NOT LIKE CORN ON THE COB. I could eat six ears of it, and need to go back and eat pasta in order to feel like I've eaten. It just does nothing for me. Maybe it's the Italian side. There's no corn on the cob in Italian cooking, and I can't really think of a recipe in any European cuisine that does. But it doesn't mean that I don't like corn. Polenta, corn tortillas, posole, yup, love em all. I'm going to be exploring the uses of corn, other than cob, niblets, and cream for the rest of the week. Wanna come along?

Let's start with an underappreciated ingredient: corn STARCH. You probably have a box of it in the cupboard somewhere, and I would suggest you immediately dump it and get a new box. It's probably rancid. If you've used it at all, you've probably used it as a thickener, and indeed, it does an excellent job in thickening fruit liquids for pies, or in thickening milk for custards and that kind of thing. I'm going to suggest that you use it the way you would use flour: not to make bread, but as a coating.

If you eat a lot of "Chinese food," and especially if you eat a lot of FRIED Chinese food, you're eating cornstarch. "How do they get this pork so crisp?" It's the cornstarch. Again, think of corn fritters, corn tortillas, corn chips, and you'll see: corn fries to a lovely crunch. So, let's use it to coat something.


How about fish? Well, yes, that sounds like a good idea. I knew you'd like it. Mix equal amounts of white flour, and cornstarch in a bowl, and add a good pinch of salt. If you like spicy, add some cayenne pepper or something like that, too, but you don't have to.

I used cod to do this. The nice thick firm pieces were a good contrast to the crispy coating. I simply coated the fish fillets in the mixture, and then put them into a pan of hot oil. I cooked them for five minutes on one side, and then turned and finished them for another three on the other, drained them on paper towels, and BAM. Dinner was ready. With some spicy Thai dipping sauce, spinach and mustard greens, and rice, there was dinner.

Some hints. Fish can be hard to turn in a pan, and the bigger the piece, the harder it is. If your fish is longer than, say five inches, cut the pieces in half. Also, and this is very important. Make sure your oil is very hot before you put the fish in . A good way to tell is to drop a teaspoon or so of the flour/cornstarch mixture in, and see if it browns fast and sizzles. If it's not good and hot, your fish will stick to the pan, making it harder to turn.

Ok, I KNOW you like fried fish. And this is so tasty, you should make it often. Well, maybe not THAT often. It IS fried you know.

Tomorrow? We're going to visit posole. And you'll be glad we did

The secret ingredient(s)

"I can't get it to taste like it did in the restaurant." How many times have you said that when you were trying to copy a dish you had when you were eating out? Eating at restaurants can make you feel like a failure at home, but as Whoopi Goldberg puts it "Let's ANAYLZE this."

In the restaurant, someone cuts the vegetables. Someone makes the sauce. Someone cleans up. Someone cooks the meat or fish. Someone plates everything up so it looks nice. Five people there, and we haven't even gotten started. So, where's your entourage? That'd be YOU. So we start there.

Let's add that restaurant stoves get to temperatures that are illegal in homes, and we've got another level. But there's one more and this is one you CAN work with. Restaurants are cagy about ingredients, and you'll frequently NEVER have anyone tell you that there are two ingredients no restaurant cook could do without.

You ready? I'm almost gonna whisper this to you: water, and salt.

Yup, that's it. If you watched someone in a restaurant kitchen cook your meal, you would say something like "I would NEVER put in that much salt. " Well... someone just did. Remember that most restaurant food is somewhat more complex than you'll make at home, so the saltiness disperses a little. But that's one right there. And the other secret ingredient is , in fact water. Water plays a very important part in soups, sauces, and just about everything else that you get in a restaurant. I'm going to show you its importance in an "exemplar" dish. By exemplar, I mean I'm going to describe it for one kind of cheese, but you can do this for anything.

The dish, is "pasta con cacio e pepe." This is one of the simplest of all Italian pasta dishes, which means it's downright simple indeed. It also means, for better or worse, that it's a "balance beam" dish. By that I mean that you have to walk a very straight, narrow line. You can mess it up very easily if you try to put twists and twirls to it. Don't gussy it up. Make it straight on like this. And pay attention to the water.

Here's what you need. You need pasta. How much? Well, how hungry are you and how many of there are you? Guy and I had this for lunch on Saturday, and we ate half a pound of dry pasta between us as the lunch dish. We could have served four people this as a first course. You'll also need cheese. How much? How much do you like cheese? Again, for us, I used just under a half a pound of "cacio" cheese.

Now, let me explain cacio cheese, which is a bit hard to find, even in NY. Hard cheeses, like pecorino fulvio, or pecorino romano, don't start that way. They start as soft cheeses, which dry out and age. Sort of like me. :). Cacio, as I understand it is the "young adolescent" version of the adult that is pecorino romano (hey, that's not MY purple prose. I copied it from someone else. I'm just trying to make a point, guys). If you don't have cacio available, use some other slightly firm cheese. Or even pecorino. But keep the taste of the cheese in mind. The stronger it tastes , the less you should use (and for heaven's sakes, TASTE it before you start). Grate your cheese on a three sided grater, using the teardrop grater. Put it aside, while you bring a pot of water to a boil.

Have I already written that there's no reason to start with cold water when you're making pasta? Well, if I have, I'm saying it again. There's no reason to start with cold water when you're making pasta. Use hot water, use lots of it, and cover the pot. This will bring it to the boil faster. And when it's there, take off the lid, add a big tablespoon of salt, and add your pasta. You can use fresh, or dried, just keep in mind that fresh is going to cook really really fast.

Next to the pasta pot, have a big, wide skillet ready. A minute or two before the pasta is ready, take out a cup of the water and put half of it in the skillet. Drain the pasta, add it to the skillet and turn on the heat to low. Add the cheese. Watch what happens. The cheese will start to melt into this wonderful goo, but it will be way too "tight" to eat, and not all that attractive. Add the rest of the water. and stir, and watch a wonderful cheese sauce form.

Know what ? You are basically done. All you do now is get some fresh pepper and grate it into the pasta and cheese, and toss it. How much pepper? How much do you like it? It's up to you.

If you had this in a restaurant, they would charge you about 11 dollars a portion, and you'd pay it gladly, because it's that good. You just made at least two portions, and it probably cost you a grand total of about six bucks. And you made it better, because you controlled the sauce. You also controlled the pepper.

See? You CAN do it.

And as I think about this, I'm going to add this dish to the items I teach when I teach cooking. Yes, this will hook them on pasta.

Now as an exemplar, you have the skills for making dozens of pasta dishes. The use of water to loosen a sauce can be used for just about anything that looks too thick and gunky. I weep when I write this, but if you were really in a bind, and all you had was a can of that ghastly cream of mushroom soup that we all used in the sixties, you could turn it into a pasta sauce as well, using this technique.

Just don't tell me you did. Please.

"and now we are old, with debts and regrets"

Anyone remember that line from a Carly Simon song? "It was so easy then." In fact, didn't it all seem so easy THEN, whenever THEN was? I have been thinking about "then" recently, prompted by the events of the last week (which all did end up happily, more more than less), and reminiscing about my dear, dear departed friend Oscar.

I met Oscar when I was an undergraduate. It seems to be a thousand years ago, but it was only 28. He was a graduate student, and while there was nothing on paper to say this should have happened, we became friends. I hesitate to use the word "best," because I don't know what that means anymore, i.e, what's a "best friend?" I think the best way to say it is that we became "soul mates," or something like that, but there aren't adjectives or descriptors that I have that will name the relationship correctly. Will it suffice to say that 14 years after he died, I can still see Oscar's face, and that I still miss him, just about every day? I miss the phone calls, I miss finishing each other's sentences, I miss the friendly name calling, the meals together. I miss it all.

There's a line in the most famous of Japanese novels, "The Tale of Genji, " that every student of Asian literature has memorized by heart: "Genji died, and there was no one to take his place." And that's how I felt and still feel about Oscar.

My Nana was still pretty much all "there" when Oscar died, and I told her the story. I remember that she had two wise pieces of advice. One was "Feel bad, but feel worse for his parents. No parent can understand why their child dies before them, and they never will " (Nana had lost a daughter right after she delivered her). Her second piece of advice was "If God decided you were entitled to a friend like Oscar, there will be another one. But God is very busy, Norman, and you will just have to be patient."

Well, there are times when I think God should unbusy him/herself a little, and deal with some issues that are way more important than one gay man feeling heartsick at missing his friend. But she was right, as she so frequently was, and is. And about two years ago, someone came into my life, who will never replace Oscar (and would never try), but who filled that space that was absent for so, so long.

And if you're a careful reader of this blog, you'll know who that is. Any guesses? C'mon. And if you're reading this and you know it's you, 'fess up. I know you peek in from time to time.

So, in thinking about Oscar, and new friends, I thought of a dinner that I cooked for Oscar and his then boyfriend. Oscar was housesitting at this incredible apartment, where even the bathroom overlooked Central Park West. I don't remember all of that meal, but I remember that it was cooked with the recklessness that only 20 and 30 somethings have: there must have been butter, oil AND cheese in that meal, and for dessert, "floating island" or "oeufs ala neige." Now this is a dessert that has long gone out of fashion. I went and looked it up the other day, and all of the warnings on it "difficult. Very difficult. Very time consuming." Well, I don't remember it that way, and as I read through the recipe, I don't understand the warnings.

But what was amusing to me, as I read it, was I kept on thinking "Oh, heavens. We would NEVER eat that these days. Way too rich. WAY too fattening. WAY too much cholesterol."

This was immediately after I had just choked down half of a ruben sandwich at the Carnegie Deli that probably gave me enough calories for the week, and sufficient cholesterol for a month. And then I compared it to some of my other desserts.

NONSENSE.

It's time this dessert came back. It DOES take some time, but it's a show stopper. Leave out the caramel if that scares you, but make the meringues and the custard.

You out there, buddy? You reading this? Up for an afternoon of having fun making things we shouldn't eat? C'mon. I'm waiting for you to accept the invitation. It's no scarier than being my friend is.

You start by separating eight eggs. This may be the hardest thing to do in the recipe. Put the yolks to the side for a while ,and get out your mixer to make the meringue. Start beating with the whisk attachment, and slowly, like by tablespoons, add half a cup of sugar, until you have very stiff, firm, glossy meringues. This will take a while, but they will stay stable enough while you make custard.

To make the custard, pour a quart of milk WHOLE milk and put a vanilla bean in it, in a wide saucepan. Bring it slowly to a simmer. When that happens, start taking nice big scoops of meringue and drop them into the custard, and poach the meringues for three minutes on each side. It's very easy to just scoop them up and turn them over, and you'd be surprised how resilient these "islands" or "oeufs" can be. Put them on a tray and to the side. You won't need them for a while.

Now, beat the eight egg yolks with a half cup of sugar. Use the mixer, and the paddle if you can. Beat for longer than you think you'll need to. You want something thick, lemon colored, and unctious. Maybe five or six minutes. Then, when you've done this. Clear a space and be a bit careful now. You're going to pour about a third of a cup of that warm milk into the eggs, to temper them. Then pour the whole thing back into the pan, and stir. Stir gently, until you see a distinct change in texture. That's creme anglaise you just made. Take out the vanilla bean, and take the stuff off the heat.

Now, you can serve this immediately, which is how it's mostly done, but I like it better cold, so I chill the creme anglaise, and chill the meringues, and put them together at the end. If that's what you're going to do, put off making caramel until you're ready to serve. And when you are, pour a cup of sugar into a saucepan and start heating. Don't stir it. WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T STIR IT. You'll watch the process happen. It's very neat. When it's a little less brown than you like it, stop the heating. Serve up your creme anglaise with a nice meringue in each portion and pour the caramel over it.

You can flavor the creme anglaise with rum, or anything else you like, to be honest. I like it just the way it is.

This is enough for eight people. If you think that through, it's not that bad a dessert, and even we 50 somethings can eat it, although not after a ruben sandwich.

"It WAS so easy then." It's not so easy now, but some things are. I think that if my friend doesn't figure out I'm talking about him, I'll make this for him the next time I see him.

Hey, Oscar didn't get the subtle either.

O, if you're reading this from heaven, you know who I mean. You also know I still miss the Saturday morning calls from "The empress of the north" and I wish you were still around.

marinades II

So, like I said, I was playing with two marinades this week. And now that the experiment is finished, I have to confess that I have no clear answers. What I believe that I can say with certainty, is that marinades certainly get the taste of anything they carry into the meat, and I'll come to that in a minute. Do they bring any of the actual marinating "liquid" with them? Very hard to say. What I CAN say is that they change the way you have to cook the meat, and that is a lesson I will remember.

Yesterday's marinade was a yogurt base. I had some sheeps milk yogurt from Karen, who sells grass fed sheep products at the Farmer's Market (on one level, her prices are very high. But I will also tell you that we have never enjoyed lamb, sheeps cheese, or yogurt, as much as hers. I think her farm is called Three Corners. She's from Shushan NY). I mixed about a half a cup of this stuff with salt, a shake of red pepper flakes, a WHOLE lot of chopped fresh ginger, and finally, a big teaspoon of honey. I mixed it all together, and then put it in a bag with four small, boneless chicken breasts. I rubbed everything together, and then put the bag in a bowl, and let it marinate, for the whole day : 7-7 .

When I took the chicken out of the fridge at night, I noticed something right away. Just about all of the liquid from the yogurt was gone. I have to assume that it was absorbed into the chicken, but I don't know that for certain. But of course, if it was in a bag, then where did it go? I had little clots of yogurt left, plus the chunks of ginger, so I just kind of spread the stuff over the chicken, even the ginger chunks, got out my grill pan, and went to work. I oiled it with olive oil, got it hot, and put the stuff down.

Now, here's where something different happened. At this point, I know how to pan grill so that the meat doesn't stick. This meat, stuck. There was no way that I could prevent it from tearing a little. What I THINK happened is a combination of the "chemistries" of things. Honey is, of course, a sweetener. It's sticky. And chicken breasts are low in fat. And they were wet. So all of those things came together, and while the chicken cooked the way it should have, it also stuck. I was able to turn the meat carefully, and minimize it, but it did happen.

I cooked it for four minutes on one side, and two on the other, before finishing it in the oven for ten minutes. The breasts took on a nice sear, they were very juicy (more evidence of absorbance of the whey from the yogurt), and the taste of ginger was the clear, winning voice. No taste of heat, interestingly enough, and no taste of dairy. But probably the best ginger chicken we have ever had.

We ate this with fried potatoes, and from out of the freezer, spring peas we put away in June, and some pesto we also froze. I want to give quick instructions for the potatoes, because when I told people we were having them, well, I could have "had" anyone I wanted.

To make them, I peeled a pound of yukon golds (but any potato except a red waxy would do), cut them into thick slices and boiled them in salted water for ten minutes, while I was making the marinade. Ten minutes later, I took them out (ten minutes made very soft potatoes. Do it for less time if you want them firmer.). Then I let them cool to room temperature, and refrigerated. When I was ready to make dinner, I heated a nonstick pan with some vegetable oil, and just put the potatoes in. They sizzle. When the sizzling stops, I turn them. When it stops completely, I'm done. Maybe ten minutes.

So , where am I on marinades? Undecided like the unwashed electorate. I'll use them again, just don't know when. But I am interested in anyone else's experiences on this.

I will also again point to the convenience of getting food ready in the morning for later that evening. Let's face it, boys and girls. All of us have ten or fifteen minutes to spare in the morning. It took me fifteen minutes to both make the marinade, and to get the potatoes ready, and I was able to get dinner on the table when I got home in about twenty minutes. Now how good is that? An investment of ten minutes, for a home cooked meal that will make you smile, and make you feel good?

COMING UP: I owe a blog to my friend Ben Whine. And I know what it's gonna be about. But I have to try the stuff first. For Ben, we're all gonna make a cake that does not use butter, does not use lard, but uses fat. Any guesses? Intrigued? Tune in this weekend.

Marinades, Part I

One of the facets of cooking that fascinates me are marinades. I haven't quite decided whether they work or not, to be honest. And professional chefs seem to be split. I know of cooks who swear by them, and marinate just about anything and everything. And then there are others, such as the Queen of vegetarian cooking (who is NOT a vegetarian, by the way), Deborah Madison, who says that in her experience, marinades never get far enough into a product to do any good.

I marinate occasionally. Sometimes, I wonder why I do, and then there are times when I think they do absolutely no good at all. Today, I marinated again. And when I thought about this one, and how it worked, I believe I have at least a partial solution.

Some time ago, I picked up some boneless, heirloom pork chops. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. They weren't nearly big enough to do a pan fry, and I didn't see them working in a braise. And since they were small (five of them came in at just a bit over a pound and a half), they presented a lot of surface area, and they weren't that thick, so the chance of a marinate doing some good was high.

I mixed up a few things. I still had some of the sour chinottos from Citrus Bomb Kim, and if I didn't, I would have used blood orange juice. I mixed the juice from four of them with a big tablespoon of honey mustard vinegar. And I also added a few sage leaves, and a big pinch of salt. It seemed to me that, since brining meat works so well, putting salt in a marinate would be a big help. So, too, would something acid, like the citrus juice. In fact, I think anything acid would help, and in another marinade I'll be working with tomorrow, the acid is buttermilk or yogurt.

This marinate was very thick. And that was a good thing, because it seemed to me that enough of it would stick so that, when I cooked it, I would get a nice crust. I put the marinate and the pork into a plastic bag, sealed it, and put it in a bowl. This, too, proved to be a good thing, because the plastic bag had a small leak.

I put all this together at 7 in the morning, and tonight, at about 7pm, I heated up the oven pan grill, and heated the oven to 300. Most recipes involving a marinate tell you to scrape the marinate off before you cook. Don't do it. I didn't, and I did not have the clouds of smoke and dangerous kitchen conditions that they would make you think are inevitable.

When the grill pan was hot, I cooked the pork on one side, for five minutes, and got an incredible brown, crispy sear. I then turned the chops and cooked for two minutes, and then finished them in the oven for about 7 minutes.

And that was that. It took me all of about five minutes to put this together in the morning, and then cooking the meat at night? Maybe fifteen. We ate them with sauerkraut from an organic farmer, brown rice and the fruit compote I wrote about a few days ago.

I'm beginning to like marinades more. Chicken is up tomorrow, and there's gonna be another one. I'll tell you all about it. Cross your fingers and hope that it turns out as good as this one does.

And as I think about it, I would bet the marinade I used on this pork, would work just as well on chicken, maybe even on a nice, fatty fish like pacific salmon, or swordfish. Someone wanna give it a try and tell me how it turns out?

When is it stealing

and when is it varying on a theme? This question comes up a lot in the cooking world, and much more so as we become a more litigious society, and cooking has become a competitive sport. Oh, for the good old days when you could safely predict that if you asked Aunt Sadie for her recipe for chocolate chip cookies she'd smile and say "but of course, dear, " and sit down and write it out. Of course, she'd "forget" something like the vanilla, or OOPS, say a tablespoon of baking powder instead of a teaspoon, but this was part of the game, and everyone knew it. And we all knew the generous cooks, who would not only give you the recipe, they would talk you through it, and perhaps even show you how to make it. Sometimes, that gives you more information than you want. I remember how my grandmother once showed her sister how her chicken was always so juicy. "Oh, I test it to see if it's the right temperature. If I can spit on my finger, and put it on the bird and it evaporates." And then she demonstrated. "The bird is just right."

She did do that you know. Do I do it? I'll never tell.....

But seriously, there is always a time, usually many times, when we go to a place to eat, be it a friend's , a relative's, or a restaurant, and there is "something" that we just MUST have. Now, the truth is, that if you are a regular at a restaurant, if you ask for the recipe, they will almost always give it to you. You're not the competition, let's face it. And they are more than happy for you to come back and say "It didn't work right," and order it from them again. Restaurants use way more salt, way more fat, and way more heat than any of us do in our kitchens. But that doesn't mean you can't get a good idea and play with it. What I suggest, is that if there is a dish that you like, ask what's in it. Don't ask how to make it, because you're going to have to vary it. Play with the combination of ingredients.

This happened to us on Saturday night at one of our favorite restaurants, Alfama. We've been going here for years. The food has been good, very good, okay, good, and now it's freaking FABULOUS. It is so fabulous that on Saturday, we did something we love to do. We handed back the menu and told the staff to pick for us. Interestingly, they basically picked precisely what we would have ordered had we done it on our own. Are we too predictable?

One of the dishes was an unbelievable serving of lamb shoulder, served with rice and a fruit compote that made me want to go back to the kitchen, distract the cook, steal the pot of it, and sit in a corner and spoon it out into my mouth. Spoon, hell. Scoop it out in handfuls. It was that good. What was in it? Golden raisins, kumquats, and apples.

And here is where you have to learn to be flexible, because for me, we have a problem with the kumquats.

We buy our citrus from one farm, and you've heard about the citrus bomb and the gang. Their kumquats won't be ready for a little while. They are late, and they're worth the wait. And I was not going to compromise and buy some from a big Florida farm. No sir, no ma'am.

BUT.... I had chinottos. Those sour little fellas I wrote about in the red snapper recipe. And if I hadn't had them I would have combined some blood oranges, and a lime , or something like that.

Does the dish taste the same as at Alfama? Absolutely not. Is it good? Uh YEAH. We're having some pork chops this week and I'm using it on them.

The lamb? Oh yes. UNBELIEVABLE. And that's one I will not try to copy. It was lamb shoulder, cooked to the point where it shreds (no mean feat), then reformed, into a pave' or block, probably with some added fat to it to hold it together, and then seared to crispness. Different textures in a wonderfully succulent piece of lamb. I did NOT ask for the recipe. I want to go back for more.

But here's my version of the fruit compote.

When making dishes like this, you can't give exact proportions. If I say "2 cups of apples," you may have way too much. What you will need is half as much golden raisins, and half as much citrus, as you have apples. This is hard, especially when I tell you that you do the apple last. Well, ESTIMATE you silly nit. You really don't want yours to come out the same way mine did, did you?

Ok, excuse me. A bit testy tonight. Soak the golden raisins in some water for about fifteen minutes, and chop the citrus into small pieces. Keep as much of the peel as possible. Then, peel the apple, core it, and chop it into pieces that are a bit bigger than the citrus.

Now, get a small pot, and put in equal amounts of water and grand marnier. Say two tablespoons of each. You COULD use orange juice, but I don't recommend it. Orange juice can scorch at low amounts like this, and the alcohol will go off in the cooking.

Add all of the fruit at once, and turn the heat to medium. When you heat the liquid begin to sizzle, stir gently, and keep stirring (I use a spatula, because a spoon seems to break things up too much), until the apples begin to get tender. Taste it. If you want more citric notes, add some juice now. If it's not sweet enough, try some white sugar, but be frugal with that. And then let it cool down.

THERE . Now go and grill yourself a chop of something meaty and delicious, and put it on that meat and you'll see what it does.

And here's food for thought : when you get right down to it, what distinguishes one dish of grilled lamb chops, or pork chops, or anything else, for that matter, from another? It's things like this. Be creative. Start mixing and matching. You may wind up with a sauce, or compote, or chutney, on everything. That's not necessarily a bad thing ,but moderation, my pigeons, moderation