thought for food

What does it mean to be a feminist in the kitchen?

I grew up wearing blue and purple, jeans, overalls, and clothes that I could play and get messy in. Frills tickled me too much to wear on a regular basis, and I loved trains and building blocks and sandcastles. Fairies and princesses were in there too, I know, but most of the princesses I read about kicked butt and didn't wait around to be rescued: my heroines were in the habit of rescuing themselves.

As an adult I try to emulate that self-reliance, handily rescuing myself, or my coworkers, or my man, still wishing to be a heroine, sometimes successful, sometimes falling on my face.  So why, when generations of women fought to be liberated from the tyranny of the kitchen, am I running joyfully towards it? Why am I tying myself to my stock pot and boiling water canner and roasting vegetables and rising bread, staying in a hot, sweaty kitchen with the unglorious duty of fruit chopping, and not chasing dragons? 

It seems so retro and uncool to want to perfect my pie crust. Being "like a 50s housewife" is not a compliment: the epitome of servility and a smiling facade, cleaning and cooking her way through a sterile, unimaginative life of waiting on others, as her own flies by without accomplishments other than the domestic. 

But that's not my life. 

My life involves the choice to be in the kitchen. I choose to spend my time smelling, tasting, sauteeing, pureeing, and creating. My spare time, my choice. Physically laboring to create what I consume connects me to my food, my body, my sense of self. It gives me a sense of accomplishment when I create or complete complex recipes, or experiment with wild, imaginative ingredients and tastes.  My cooking is for me: my pleasure, my palate, my imagination, my sense of fulfillment. I like reading about cooking, health, and what's going in to the food I consume, and I like the control I achieve by eating thoughtfully chosen ingredients cooked in a thoughtful, interesting manner.

I think, contrary to rejecting feminism, I may have completed the circle and carried the torch forward: I am in the kitchen because I love it, not because it's a requirement of womanliness or domesticity. And in that choice, feminism has been realized: I get to choose how to spend my free time, I get to find my own bliss. 

Maybe, in a way, I am saving myself after all. I've taken it upon myself to find and revel in my own happiness.

in a peachy jam

I made jam.

I have written and sung and emphatically pounded the table while speaking those three words over the past few days.

It's not perfect, this jam of mine.  Floating on peach-rosemary fumes, my nose couldn't criticize what my mouth later would: too much sugar, not quite the right amount of pectin. Pectin, the ingredient that brings fruit from a liquid state to a more solid state, was temperamental, clumping itself together before I expected it to.  Or maybe because I hadn't read the instructions for dry pectin as opposed to liquid pectin, that was, in some sense, responsible for the minor texture imbalance. The sugar content, sworn up and down as correct on three recipes, was a little too sweet for my taste, the rosemary a little too strong.

But somehow, the imperfectness of my creation doesn't matter in the overall picture.  In life, oftentimes, I wish I could just fast forward to the end result without the tediousness of the steady path: couldn't I just have a higher salary, a nicer house, a better brain, a healthier body, a villa in the south of France, and skip the grunt work? 

In the act of concocting food, though, I find myself taking time to revel in the boiling fruit bits. Watching the peaches go from whole fruit to simmering, succulent stew, I kept skipping around the kitchen, bearing witness to my creation as it perfumed the apartment.  Time slowed down as the fruit cooked, and I felt myself breathing slowly and fully, joyfully, even, as I watched the pot.

I think I'm a little surprised, too, by the depth of my happiness at creation. I can't stop smiling, and my jam, while admittedly not perfect, tastes so sweet not only because of its sugar content, but because of the entire creative process.  The success of creation is sometimes in the process itself, more so than in the result.

the joy of cookies

I was three years old when my little sister was born. I skipped down the hospital hall, excited to see my mom and my new sister, buoyed by a secret my dad had told me.  Hospital food, he'd said, was gross.  And that's why he had a pack of oreos hidden under his labcoat, a secret I knew, but wasn't allowed to tell, as we walked in to my mom's room.  Clutched in my little fist, the packaging on the oreos grew warm.  I showed my mom the cookies, furtive and proud, and her laughter confirmed that this was an awesome gift. We tore the packaging and shared a cookie, getting crumbs all over the bed. My perception of food transformed in that moment: it went from mundane to mystical, the cookies imbued with the joy of feeding my mom, sharing a secret with my dad, and meeting my sister.

I've never lost that joy. So happy birthday, Mom, and thank you for loving cookies.

Almond-Chocolate Cookie Sandwiches

The ingredients of my recipe are fairly standard chocolate chip cookie proportions, but the way to put them together is a little off-beat. Because the almonds are ground into flour and the chocolate chips are chopped up, the cookie texture is uniform and holds up well for sandwich cookies.

8 oz (1 cup) almonds, slivers or slices or whole
2 cups flour
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 cup softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package of chocolate chips


Food processor
Baking sheet

Use a thin spread of either peanut butter, nutella, or powdered sugar mixed with water between two cookies to form a sandwich.  To make extra special cookies, use whipped cream as the filler, and freeze for 30 minutes before serving.

1. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Put the almonds in the food processor, and pulse them until they create a coarse almond flour.

3. Empty the almond flour into a bowl, and mix in the baking soda, salt, and flour. 

4. In the now empty food processor, cream the butter.

5. Add the brown sugar, mix it in well, then add in the granuated sugar and mix again. 

6. Eggs and vanilla come next, and once it's all mixed, add in the chocolate chips. Whip them into a coarse paste, and add the dry ingredients. Mix. 

7. Grease the cookie sheet, and then add quarter-sized dollops up and down the sheet. 8 minutes in the oven for soft cookies, 9-10 minutes for crunchier ones.

8. Let the cookies cool, then spread a thin layer of your favorite filling.

9. Enjoy with your mom.

Cook for Julia

When I was a kid, my mom and I used to watch Saturday afternoon cooking shows on PBS.  One afternoon, as we watched the chefs dice and saute, a funny looking lady with a funny sounding voice was making things with funny names that looked funny and delicious.  I remember watching and getting hungry, seeing the food go from raw form to finished product with enthusiasm, vigor, and laughter. That’s how Julia Child first imprinted on my brain.

With such a strong first impression, I’m hesitant to admit that before this week, I’d never cracked open Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I had a variety of feelings towards the epic tome, as I thought the recipes were finicky and precise, and I was intimidated. I love to cook, but I don’t love following recipes: I cook on sensation and taste, and get irritated when I’m told to cook in alternate fashions – my  independent streak rears its giant head. And piling on to my independent streak, my pot and pan collection is eclectic and not always sufficient (what, pray tell, is an "asbestos mat" and where would I find one?). My spice drawer and liquor cabinet are miniscule. And, icing on the cake (!), I am a twentysomething with an entry-level-job-income and all of the limitations on foodstuffs and cookware that that imposes.

But it’s Julia’s birthday. She'd have been 100 today, her image fixed in our minds as one of the first chefs to become a pop culture icon, book and television star, her hooty voice brimming with adventure and good cheer as she whipped up her creations. She is historical and contemporary, a balancing act through the decades.  Her Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a staple of aspiring chefs and great home cooks and wannabes. And what better time to celebrate an iconic chef and conquer my fear of the book than by actually hiking through a recipe or two?

So I was flipping through the recipes, trying to find something that took under 24 hours and wouldn't break the bank or overly tax my basic cookware capabilities. And then I stopped flipping, started reading the recipes, and began falling for Julia. The woman could write. The recipes were serious, poetic, witty: instructions where the warmth of a generous personality beamed through. I was smiling as I read her recipes - have you ever done that? Read an ingredients list, and grinned? It puts you in the mood to cook, like a friend in the kitchen with you, lending a helping hand when necessary, and pouring you a glass of wine when things go more seriously awry.

Saturday's dinner menu was Coq au Vin, brown braised onions, and sauteed mushrooms from Julia (green beans and roast potatoes were my own basic recipes). I overcooked the chicken, but the sauce was a revelation. I’d never made a butter-flour paste and whisked it in to a boiling wine/chicken stock/bacon bits reduction, a method that seemed too complicated. But watching the elements meld together, thickening into a burgundy richness that I wanted to consume by the bucketful, I mourned for the sauces I’d missed. And the brown braised onions? Meltingly good. As were the mushrooms, buttery, woodsy, juicy silver-brown nubbins. All from following Julia. I've been cooking mushrooms and onions for years, but these techniques, quite frankly, elevated my cooking, making me rethink my exclusively DIY modus operandi. 

Dessert was clafouti, another Julia classic. A pancake-y batter encases cherries and blueberries: simple, stunning, bursting with sweetness, in an eggy shell. 

Julia encouraged innovation and a fearless attitude, accepting mistakes and incorporating them into her cooking. And from her letters, she revealed her own mile-wide independent streak, blazing past societal barriers to create the French golden-standard cookbook.  But it’s not just the laboriously tested, glorious tasting recipes that make us return: I think it’s the can-do attitude, the idea that food can be a fulfilling creative process, imperfections and all, with room for both a template and variation. And I liked it. I liked listening to her directions, putting in my own additions when I thought it would improve a dish to my taste.  And so my resolution is thus: keep experimenting, and learn from Julia. Happy birthday, Julia Child, and bon appetit!

flower power

If we were to divide the world into edible and non-edible, into which category would flowers fall?  My eyes, grateful for their beauty and elegance, say the latter, generally speaking, but I have to make an exception for squash blossoms.  Orange, green, yellow, ephemeral and delicate, the blossoms taste like zucchini, but milder, sweeter.  They are a rarity as well; supermarkets don't sell them because they'll wilt within a few hours. This summer, I've found them at the weekend farmers' market, sold by only one vendor, so keep your eyes open for the flowers.

It's an unexpected bliss, discovering a treat like this: eaten just hours after the gathering, the flowers radiate a nuanced, delectable taste of the earth and the sun.  The blossoms can be eaten raw with a little olive oil and sea salt, baked into eggs, paired with cheese, the possibilities are endless.  A classic, however, is stuffing them with cheese and frying them, and this is my spin on the recipe.  Enjoy!

to start:
8 squash blossoms
Olive oil for frying

filling:
1/4 cup ricotta cheese (or other curd based cheese)
handful of shredded basil leaves
1/2 egg
teaspoon of melted butter
pinch of sea salt

batter:
2 generous tablespoons flour
other 1/2 of the egg
3 oz medium temperature water
small pinch of sea salt

*Note: for a heavier batter and texture, add more flour so that it has a sticky, thick consistency.  The current proportion will give a very light batter that allows the squash blossom flavor to shine through.

1. To make the filling, melt the butter. As the butter melts, crack the egg, separating about half each into two different bowls.  Put one bowl to the side, as you'll be using it for the batter.  Swirl the butter and egg together, and then add the ricotta, basil, and salt.

2. Grab the bowl you put aside.  Mix in the flour and salt, then the water.  The batter should be more liquid then sticky for a lighter taste, and stickier if you'd like a heavier batter.  Keep both bowls within arms reach.

3. Heat a generous covering of olive oil in a frying pan on the stove.

4. As the oil heats, prepare the blossoms.  Open the delicate petals, reach inside the blossom and pull out the stamen (the mini-matchstick inside the flower).

Hand model credit goes to an accommodating (ie hungry) gentleman

5.  Stuff about a teaspoon of the filling inside the blossom, put the petals back in place over the stuffing, and twist the petals together at the top so that the flower stays together.  Dip the cheese stuffed blossom in the batter, then gently place it in the now hot frying pan.

6. After about 2 minutes on one side, flip the blossom over to the other side.  Cook about 2 more minutes.

7. Drain blossoms on paper towel, and then pop directly in your mouth.

a girl, an egg, and a whisk

The first time I made mayonnaise, it was breathtaking. Creamy, fluffy, pale yellow, perfectly salted, and scarfed up within 10 minutes. I dreamed about this mayonnaise, the delicacy and deliciousness, prideful in my amateur chef-ly skill of completing a complex sauce with ease.

The next time I made mayonnaise, it was a disaster. Slimy links of yellow swirling around with olive oil that would simply not mix.  I tried to fix the broken mayonnaise, plumbing the internet for tips and tricks. Boiling water didn’t work. Neither did an extra egg yolk. I threw the sloppy mess out, glum and tummy-sad.

My personality doesn’t really allow for failure, however, so I got back on the proverbial horse and tried again a few weeks later.  Same deal.  A gross liquid that wouldn’t turn into solid no matter how hard I whisked and what sad eyes I gave it.  There was a good deal more anger this time, possibly a little foot stomp, and a minor tantrum in the egg yolk’s general direction.  I threw the sodden thing in the sink.

Everyone knows third time is the charm.  Except when it isn’t. The third time was the worst failure yet, a smelly, slimy, sloppy mess that was watered with tears of frustration. I was doomed to never make mayonnaise again, time to hang up my imaginary chef's cap.

Fast forward several weeks, and I was reading a cookbook that mentioned emulsions, an act of forcing two liquids together to form a more solid cream. Drops of oil and vinegar, substances that traditionally do not mix, are forced to co-mingle, improving one another. In mayonnaise, the egg absorbs and further improves the goodness of the mix, turning it into a creamy spread.

Understanding a thing from the molecule up lights a spark of pleasure and confidence in my gut, and in this case, it sparked me on to one more mayonnaise attempt. This time, I mixed the mustard (which is made with vinegar) and the egg yolk first, instead of adding it after I'd tried to mix egg and oil. I painstakingly poured the oil droplets as slowly as my wrist allowed, while whisking gently and steadily with my other hand, transfixing the oil and vinegar molecules into a more solid state.  And this time, the mayonnaise behaved, following the principles of science and nature and taste. Pure triumph and a happy stomach on the complete satisfaction of successful creation.

And my very simple recipe follows. 


NOTE:

Organic, free range eggs are the best for this recipe – the yolks are more muscular, whisk in to the olive oil much better, are a bright orange-yellow, and (in my opinion) have a richer taste.  Since you’ll be eating these raw, high quality eggs are a necessity.

SERVING SUGGESTION:

The mayonnaise is very pretty with its mustard seed dotting, and I like to serve it with roasted vegetables, particularly sweet and white potatoes. Doubling the recipe is definitely possible, but the oil to yolk ratio will vary.

1/2 tablespoon whole grain mustard

Pinch of salt

Egg yolk

1/3  to 1/2 cup of olive (or canola) oil

Step 1:

Take the egg out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature, also allowing the bowl and whisk to come to room temperature.  The egg is easier to whisk if it's not super cold out of the fridge. It’s still possible to go from fridge to mayo, but to be completely foolproof, let the temperature rise a bit (approximately 45 minutes out of the fridge, depending, of course, on your kitchen's temperature).

Step 2: 
Plop the mustard, salt, and egg yolk in the bowl. Begin mixing gently. When the yolk and mustard become more solid than their original state (about 10-15 seconds), start pouring in the olive oil in a very steady, slow dripping trickle. Do not stop whisking. The amount of oil needed really does vary by egg, but once you see the solid forming, you can add a little more oil, but the egg-oil combination will become oily goop if you add too much. It should take about 1-2 minutes, depending on the moodiness of the egg, the quality of the oil, the time of day, etc. Mayonnaise is finicky. 

Two steps. That’s it. And once you've had homemade, you'll never go back! The taste, the color, the simple ingredient list, the absence of possibly harmful chemicals (google calcium disodium EDTA...) - all are good reasons to be a believer in the homemade alternative. 

the Boo Radley next door

Boo Radley lives next door.  And he gardens.


One of the selling points of my urban apartment was that our soon-to-be-bedroom overlooked the scraggly patch of grass and one sturdy tree that our real estate agent optimistically termed "the garden." It appeared untended, weeds in pots, nothing coming to fruition in the pale early May sunshine.  The back gate had a broken lock, there were remnants of trash, and I looked forward to putting up light-and-sound blocking curtains.  But when we moved in in late July, our "garden-view" was a leafy greenery of tomatoes, brave flowers, and pungent herbs, and the curtains remained in the box.


I've looked out at the garden countless times, wondering who tended it.  At first, I thought it was the realty company.  Upon further dealings with my misers-known-as-landlords, images of my landlord paying for apartment-ly improvements, such as a working buzzer or a kindly gardener, become laughable.  A tenant then, I presumed, but a tenant that I never saw.  No one had ever appeared in the garden to tend to the crops; they seemed to grow magically, rural accidents staking out their urban property.


Until today.  I still don't know his name.  I'd seen him sitting peacefully on a bench across the street from my building, smoking a pipe, arms contentedly crossed.  He'll nod to me, occasionally, as I come in after work, and after almost a year of the occasional head bob, we've progressed to shy smiles and a raise of the hand. 


I was sitting in the garden with my gent, sipping red wine and reading an intoxicating combination of The Omnivore's Dilemna and Julie and Julia.  We were getting up to leave when Boo came in, filled a watering can, and started on his crops.  I smiled tentatively, but he was engrossed in his work, coaxing leaves and fruits and flowers out of the old pots in our backyard.  


But I couldn't leave.  I'd seen Boo, seen him tending the garden unseen, and I had to thank him.  


"You make this garden, this backyard such a beautiful place."

He stared up at me, a little startled I think.  People sometimes ignore old ones, or the funnily dressed; maybe he hadn't heard a voice in a while.


"Thank you."


And with those two words, Boo came to life, piling my hands full of tomatoes, thyme, rosemary, and three kinds of basil, as much as I could carry, after I told him I loved to cook.  He told us about his life working for "Sam" (the government, we got, after a wink and a joke about working for his "uncle"), and asked timidly about ours, why we were Philadelphians and what we were doing in his city. 


Smiles and thanks and ten minutes later, I'm inside, gratefully smelling basil and so touched by this unassuming urban farmer, a man who showed us the best place to cut the herbs so that they'll keep growing, and encouraged us to come and take of the plants, as the taking will only lead to more growth.  A lesson in life, I think, as well as a lesson for my hopelessly black thumb.  Giving out what the plant will take, sharing your small wealth of smells and tastes will only multiply into more for everyone.  It's unselfish to the extreme, shyly growing sustenance for everyone in the apartment building, slipping away unnoticed and leaving behind a climbing, brimming tomato vine as the only evidence of your presence.


Thank you, Boo, for gardening the small things, tending to your quiet, green realm, and looking out for us "kids" on Spruce Street.