A cookbook, a funny luncheon, and a doggie spa day

 

I was thrilled today to get copies of Kitchen Table Stories II, a publication of Story Network Circle. It’s a compilation of recipes contributed by various SCN members, each with the backstory of the recipe. And it’s those stories that distinguish this book.

Many of the stores recall childhood memories, grandmothers who cooked treasured recipes from other lands, mothers who invented frugal dishes, and mothers who didn’t cook at all. As Gretchen Staebler writes, “We pass on what we know. From one generation to the other, we want to share the best of what we knew growing up.”

The collection is remarkable for its cultural diversity—pierogi from a childhood in Chicago’s Polish community; mamaliga—Romanian polenta; latkes for Hannukah; Hungarian baked cauliflower; arroz frijole negro—and the memory of sorting beans; a Piranha dinner from Peru—and instructions for careful handling of the flesh-eating fish; miners’ pasties from Pennsylvania; a special barbecue sauce from a joint in Muskegon; sanguinaccio or Italian chocolate pudding; even the much-maligned beef (dried) on toast is tempting when it’s a childhood memory. The stories made me laugh and cry. Gretchen Staebler remembers eating Boston baked beans while sitting on the living room floor. Did her mother really let them do that? She doesn’t want to know the truth. You can hear Erin Philbin laugh about sloppy Joe with “salad” in it—not known for her cooking skills (her husband usually did the cooking), she had added chopped celery and her young son said indignantly, “Why did you put salad in it? We don’t like salad.” I wanted to comment, question, talk back as I read.

Hats off to Susan Schoch who edited and Sherry Wachter who designed. And guess who wrote the Foreword? Yep, yours truly. You got just an excerpt of my foreword in the above paragraphs. Some of my family are getting this for Christmas—shhh! Don’t tell them.

Kitchen Table Stories II is available from Amazon.

Yesterday I had lunch with an old friend, really the brother of an old friend who is now gone. He is living alone in a high-rise retirement community, and Jean and I were his guests at lunch. Alex, troubled by pretty severe hearing and vision challenges, had his sense of humor about him, and we laughed so loud I was afraid the few others in the almost-empty dining room would stare at us. It seems there has been a mystery car parked in Alex’s slot for some time and repeated calls to the administration have not been successful. Alex’s daughter uses the spot when she comes to visit. So yesterday, he confided he was quite sure there was a body in the car. I told him he was encroaching on my territory as a mystery writer. Today, he emailed that the car had been towed, but there was no word about the body, and he was now convinced that it was a cover-up for a cryptocurrency mining operation in the parking garage (he was not serious about any of this). I am threatening to get him a dictation device so he can write his mystery by dictation. I thought the addition of the cryptocurrency was genius.

Sophie had a spa day today. Nathan, the groomer we all think is so great, came t the house at three (right in the middle of my nap time!). I think Sophie is psychic—about ten minutes before he got here, she began to bark occasionally, the bark that says “Someone is here.” I asked Nathan if he’d been parked on the street for ten minutes or so, but he said not. I have no idea how Sophie knew he was on his way, but she did. And tonight she is fluffy and clean, her coat as soft as a baby blanket. With a thick layer of leaves on the patio, it won’t take long for her to get dirt and twigs and leaves in that soft, clean fur. But I do believe dogs have psychic powers beyond our understanding.

Looking forward to a nice weekend, with company for supper Saturday and Sunday. Last night, Jordan made rice bowls with black beans (which I just read have great health benefits), chicken, and fresh vegetables. Tonight I made what looked like a huge pot of white bean chicken chili—the three of us ate it, with maybe enough left over for one serving.

Oops. In my zeal to make crab bites late at night, I just nudged a container of cherry tomatoes off the counter. As you can imagine, they rolled everywhere and my only option was to sweep them up, which rendered them inedible and headed for the garbage. I think it’s time for me to get out of the kitchen! And maybe off to bed.

The week that was

Dinner tonight

Black bean enchilada with fruit salad

During quarantine, one of the most common complaints I read on the three cooking-related lists I follow is that folks are burned out on cooking, out of ideas, done with it, so ready not to cook but not yet ready to venture to restaurants. I read an article today about Baltimore chef and artist Krystal Mack who hails the return of the community cookbook. You know, those spiral bound cookbooks from the Junior League or the church sewing circles or whatever. My first signed publication was in such a book, put out by the auxiliary at my father’s hospital. I contributed a garlicky cheese dip, and there it was in round, childish handwriting—my name, Judy MacBain.

Today we fall into the trap of thinking cookbooks should have glossy, four-color photographs and complicated new recipes that challenge cooking skills. Not so, says Mack, who compiled a five-dollar book that includes poetry and activities. Titled How to Take Care, the book’s proceeds support national organizations that fight domestic violence. The recipes, gathered from her fellow chefs and artists, are simple and inexpensive. Recipes, she says, that give power back to the people.

Makes me think that my Gourmet on a Hot Plate fits right into that category. Recipes for non-cooks, beginners, families. You don’t have to be confined to a hot plate to follow them, but they too are simple and inexpensive.

During quarantine, Jordan and I have planned meals a week at a time. Not a rigid schedule, but one that gives us some idea of what to fix. This morning I asked her what was for dinner tonight and suggested the one take-out we planned for the week.

“No,” she said. “I want to save that for the weekend.”

Duh. This is the weekend. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Where did the week go?” she asked.

The answer is I’m not sure. I have developed a schedule for these quarantine days. I sleep as long as Sophie will let me—usually about eight o’clock but sometimes, groan, much earlier. After fixing my tea, I settle at my desk to answer emails, check the world news, study the writing lists I belong to, and check out Facebook. Believe it or not, all that takes way too much time. Then I am free for my projects—these days it’s mostly writing the novel I’m working on, but it is also my neighborhood newsletter, which has gotten much busier with quarantine. I think more people have time on their hands and also more are doing good deeds for others—those reach me as contributions to a Cheers column. There are blogs to write, and I have some personal legal documents to study.

Sometime after noon, I break for  light lunch and work until two or three when I get unbearably sleepy. After nap I change clothes (having worked in pjs all day), put away any dishes in the kitchen, and once again catch up with what’s going on in the world, take care of emails that have popped up, and drink a glass of wine with Jordan. We watch the news and then take our wine to the patio.

Most evenings we eat in the cottage. After supper I take a really short nap—sort of like Grandpa who used to fall asleep on the couch--and then I work or read until midnight.

I think I am a creature of habit. Routine makes me comfortable and secure. So now, with a project I’m really enthusiastic about, the days seem to flow into one another, and, yes, the weeks go by quickly. Yesterday marked nine weeks since I have been out in the world. And I’m okay with that.

My appalling recipe collection

October 9, 2018

Before I downsized from the house to the cottage, I had an appalling recipe collection, overflowing two large drawers in a Victorian secretary. Recipes were haphazardly collected in folders that bulged so that their spines tore. But they were organized—a folder each for entrees tried, entrees not tried, vegetables, appetizers, desserts, breakfasts. I saved some—they are in an out of the way file cabinet that I envisioned as part of my office—until I realized how limited space in the cottage is. Now the cabinet and the recipes are in my closet. Not handy. I’m not sure I could find an old favorite if I wanted to.

The irony is that I’ve started a new appalling collection, and it’s growing out of bounds. I just can’t resist recipes that intrigue me. Of course, my main cooking audience is my local family—Jordan, Christian, and Jacob. Truth be told, they are fussy eaters, and many of the recipes just aren’t on thei list of acceptables—spaghetti pie with eggplant, smoked salmon pizza, kalpudding (a meatloaf and cabbage combo). You get the drift.

My chef friend Heather said to just send her a recipe they won’t eat, so I did. She’ll make  spaghetti pie with eggplant for our lunch next Monday. Maybe kalpudding later—it sounds like a winter dish.

Some of my older recipes are preserved for eternity in my cookbook, Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books (blatant publicity Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-through-Books-Stars-Texas/dp/1933337338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539125500&sr=1-1&keywords=cooking+my+way+through+life+with+kids+and+books&dpID=51CkxYqaq0L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch ).

I’m excited to remind you that my new cookbook, Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Tiny Kitchen Tips and Recipes, will be available in early November—plenty of time to put it on the Christmas gift list for that senior living in small quarters or the college freshman just cooking on his or own on a hot plate in a dorm room.  A couple of my old favorites will be included, but mostly it’s new recipes and new cooking hints.

For instance, did you know to always add a pinch of sugar to tomato sauces to cut the acidity? Or how to make your own buttermilk. Or ranchero sauce? Lots more. I’ll be giving some hints as the pub date gets closer.

Meanwhile, think eggplant and cabbage.

Wintry weather

Cold and wet, a day for soup and chili. I had both today—what a treat. Neighbors Margaret and Dennis took me to the deli for lunch—we all had soup and shared a bottle of wine. Lovely treat at lunch. Good company, soothing food—I was a happy camper and came home to take a nice nap, while Dennis kindly included my groceries on his planned run to Central Market.

Jordan’s back had been bothering her for several days, but she finished it off with a real wrench last night and was incapacitated this morning, to put it mildly. She slowly got better as the day went on but she announced chicken soup or chili would be good for supper, and finally decided on chili. I rescheduled dinner plans and checked my pantry, pulling out two cans of diced tomatoes—only one turned out to be tomato sauce, so I had sauce aplenty but not much tomato (as I reread the recipe I realize it didn’t call for diced tomatoes and I was mentally mixing in my ubiquitous recipe for Doris’ Casserole). Chili is forgiving, and it was good anyway. Margaret and I talked about what we put in chili, and I forgot to tell her the essential ingredient: beer.

Not too many years ago, I wrote a book on chili, its history, the chili festivals—the big ones were held just last week in Terlingua, and lots of recipes ranging from the ridiculous to the really hot and complicated. I included my own recipe, which is also in my memoir/cookbook, Cooking My Way Through Life with Kids and Books.

I call my chili Judy’s mild and tentative chili—no chiles, etc. but you can embellish it as you wish. And, yes, I put beans in my chili. Heresy, I know. Here’s the basic recipe.

Judy’s mild and tentative chili

1 lb. ground beef

Enough oil to sauté onion, garlic and beef

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 8-oz. can tomato sauce

1 cup beer

4 tsp. chili powder or to taste

½ tsp. Tabasco (optional)

2 tsp. salt

2 c. canned beans, rinsed (I prefer pintos)

Note: the diced tomatoes didn’t hurt; go ahead and add them if you wish.

Brown onion and garlic; add hamburger and cook until all pink is gone. Add everything else except beans and simmer for 60 to 90 minutes. Stir occasionally, and add more beer as needed (you’ve got that open warm beer anyway). Taste and add more chili powder as needed. Add beans and heat just before serving.

My family likes to top it with crushed saltines (in your hand, of course), chopped purple onion, and grated cheddar.

Should you be interested, here are some handy buy links (I’m operating on the theory that one should never miss an opportunity to hawk one’s books).

Texas is Chili Country, https://www.amazon.com/Texas-Chili-Country-History-Recipes/dp/089672946X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510193157&sr=1-1&keywords=Texas+is+Chili+Country+Alter&dpID=617midHQgsL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Cooking My Way Through Life with Kids and Books, https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-through-Books-Stars-Texas/dp/1933337338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510193215&sr=1-1&keywords=Cooking+My+Way+Through+Life+with+Kids+and+Books&dpID=51CkxYqaq0L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Cooking, Cookbooks, and Writing

I am a firm believer that the Lord works in mysterious ways to make his will known. I’m beginning to believe he wants my writing to turn more toward food writing, just when I have several mysteries in mind to write.

My reading choices make me think this for one thing. I am reading Ruth Reichl’s My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes, that Saved My Life. It’s a chronicle of her life the year after Gourmet Magazine, of which she was editor, abruptly went out of publication. When your career is pretty much the source of your identity, as hers was, that’s one of life’s major blows. She dealt with it by cooking. Only Ruth Reichl can get away with prose recipes, but she does and makes them so appealing and generally simple that the reader is drawn in, as though to a novel.

Next on my list is Give a Girl a Knife! by cookbook author and James Beard winner Amy Thielen. It starts with her life in the kitchens of upscale New York restaurants, with dishes I’ve never imagined let alone heard of, and follows her move back to the basic food of her Midwestern roots. I’m looking forward to reading it.

And then there’s the fact that I’ve been cooking more and more lately, sometimes for myself—scallops for supper last night the way I like them, sautéed in butter, nothing fancy—and figs stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in prosciutto for company. I’ve made Welsh Rarebit, fettucine with smoked salmon, guacamole with feta, southwestern tuna with cumin and chilies, beans on toast (an old dish now elevated to trendy status and new to me), lamb chops with garlic, capers and anchovy, from scratch tomato sauces, orzo with spinach and feta, a new cucumber and avocado salad with a tang to it (and the feta I added), stuffed zucchini, a sardine pate,

The list of things I want to cook is as long as that of the dishes I’ve made in recent weeks. So maybe the Lord is telling me something about that memoir I keep talking about writing. Maybe food, along with writing and child-rearing, has been a staple of my life. Witness Judy’s Stew which was designed to be a mix of writing, cooking, and grandmothering—and that was eleven years ago.

I’ve done one memoir cooking, Cooking My Way Through Life With Kids and Books, but that was eight years ago. Perhaps today I would bring more depth and insight to such a project, making it less a chronicle of what happened when and more a memoir that explores, if you’ll pardon a dramatic phrase, the depths of my soul. I have lots of new recipes from those eight years to share.

The idea is rolling around in my mind. I had intended to write about my year out of life, due to deteriorating physical and mental things, but maybe one of the most significant things is that I didn’t cook during that year. And now I’m cooking again—with gusto.

Mysteries and food--which came first?

Sometime in the last few months I was at my son’s new house and in the kitchen I searched for the wooden spoons my daughter-in-law has always had. Gone! “He threw them out during the move,” she said, “because he wants everything to match.” She was left with black plastic utensils. I was horrified and I think as said as much to the son involved. My other daughter-in-law routinely puts her wooden spoons in the dishwasher. I explained that would dry them out, but the next time I emptied her dishwasher, there they were. “Habit,” she shrugged.

To me, wooden spoons are special. Most of mine speak of years of cooking; a few are relatively new, some of most interesting woods. But I reach for them for almost anything I cook. I found today a blog titled “Pen, Spoon and Dagger” with a post that talks about the heritage and importance of wooden cooking spoons. I printed it out because—shhh!, don’t tell! I have a lovely engraved wooden spoon put away in my gift closet for the daughter who lost hers. I'll include a copy of the blog with it.

But the blog combines cooking and mystery, a frequent combination. I’ve often wondered why we have so many culinary mysteries. Is it because food is one of the biggest comforts of life? Maybe we combine it with murder—the ultimate disaster—to soften the horror? Maybe to humanize the protagonist? I love culinary mysteries, and with Murder at the Blue Plate Café have edged close to writing one.

Traditionally chefs were always men. Nero Wolfe was the first to make food a character in his books and you can still get the Nero Wolfe Cookbook. But today’s culinary mystery protagonists are almost uniformly women, while a man may be the antagonist, if not the villain. Does that have to do with women’s equality? Julia Child?

The relationship between food and mysteries is one I have long wanted to explore. The list of culinary mysteries is almost endless, but I haven’t untangled the thread yet. Anybody got any ideas? Maybe another time I’ll list some of the mysteries, and some of the cookbooks—by gosh, there’s even a Nancy Drew cookbook and I don’t remember a word about food in those books.