In defense of James Beard

 

Cube steak in a crockpot
My kind of recipe

I had let copies of Bon Appetit stack up on the corner of my desk, so last night I decided to leaf through them. When I came to a recipe for Filipino spaghetti, my first thought was I like the recipe I already have, one that’s passed down from a friend’s mother. Why would I choose one with hot dogs in it? Kind of like I don’t need musubi (Filipino sushi with Spam). Smoky chicken and avocado salad—might be good, but I’m not fond of smoked fowl. Pumpernickel panzanella is definitely out—seems to me the pumpernickel would overrule the rest of the salad. Pollo guisado – chicken stew with sofrito, but why use the Mediterranean version of mirepoix when the standard French/English/American version has served me well for years. A recipe for salmon candy—which is really salmon strips smoked long enough to be salmon jerky. Why call it candy? A pork shank recipe that announces right off the bat that it requires “advance planning.” I cook dinner for four in a tiny kitchen—on a hot plate and a toaster oven. I really don’t need something that will take advance planning and probably won’t work in my kitchen anyway. I can’t, for instance, start something in a skillet and then pop the skillet into the oven, a common technique these days. That blasted handle simply won’t let it fit, though I have thought of a skillet without the long handle.

My point in all this rambling is that most of the recipes in cooking magazines these days are irrelevant to the way I cook. Southern Living is perhaps the exception, though a personal quirk of mine makes me wish they wouldn’t use so many shrimp recipes (I’m allergic). I want the kind of cooking James Beard was a spokesman for. PS: I have let my subscription to Bon Appetit lapse and had sometime ago let go of my subscription to Food and Wine. My source for new ideas and new recipes now is the internet.

An American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality who became known as  the Dean of American Cookery, Beard had a television cooking show before Julia Child ever thought about it. He taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, Oregon and lectured widely, always emphasizing American cooking, prepared with fresh, wholesome, American ingredients. Americans, just becoming aware of their own culinary heritage, followed him intently. Beard, raised in Oregon by a mother equally interested in food, grew up on fresh seafood, fruit, and vegetables. After years in France as an expat, he returned to the States where he saw it as his mission to save American cooking, even while introducing French dishes to the American palate. His insistence always was on the freshest and best ingredients available.

Once on a return visit to Oregon in the early fifties, Beard was horrified to find the local food page touting a pineapple Brown Betty made with marshmallows, graham cracker crumbs, pineapple (presumably canned), and nuts. 1950s food influencer Poppy Cannon equally horrified him, and he complained that she made a vichyssoise of frozen mashed potatoes, a can of Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, and one leek sauteed in butter. Beard introduced the American palate to such European delights as cioppino, paella, beef salad Parisienne, pastitsio, and ragu Bolognese. But his tastes for American food ran from meatloaf to coleslaw to shortcake. He taught home cooks to make quiches and frittatas and soups from ingredients such as homemade broth. In all his cooking he had no use for prepared or convenience food.

 

Beard needs no defense, but I do, and he has become my personal culinary hero. When I feel the need to justify my growing devotion to American cooking, I refer to Beard.  Some think I am not adventuresome enough when I shy away from peppers (do NOT like the flavor or the heat) or refuse to try the various versions of tofu or kale (I did make one salad I liked). But when people question my return to the cuisine of the Fifties, I turn to James Beard as not just an example but a trendsetter. In this day when recipes call for gochujang (a spicy, fermented paste from Korean cooking), harissa (a Tunisian spicy chili paste), or kimchi (seasoned, fermented vegetables common in Korean cookery), I can take refuge in pointing to Beard’s distinguished record (many awards and now coveted culinary awards given in the name of his foundation). Like Beard, I like meatloaf and coleslaw and shortcake. Along with salmon croquettes and mashed potato cakes, roast chicken and leg of lamb and Welsh rarebit and a hundred other dishes I remember from my mom’s kitchen. I love tuna salad and deviled eggs and I almost always serve a green salad with a proper dinner.

 

I am seriously thinking of changing my Thursday food blog from Gourmet on a Hot Plate to From My Mom’s Kitchen. I doubt the content will change much. I’ll still incorporate new techniques and new recipes, but they will mostly fit in with the basics I learned cooking with my mom in our kitchen in Chicago in the fifties. I welcome your comments, suggestions, ideas. Let me hear from you.

 

Fun in the kitchen

          

We had a fun dinner tonight—chicken wings. I found a recipe for marinating them all day in olive oil, lemon, oregano, garlic, etc. The recipe called for baking them an hour, stirring frequently—Christian did them in twenty-five minutes in the air fryer.

I have not been a fan of air fryers and InstaPots. In fact, I’ve been outspoken about not wanting such gadgets. I have no counter space for them, and frankly, I don’t need all that fast, convenient cooking. If I want to cook something all day I can. But Christian really wanted an air fryer, and so it was my Christmas present to them.

Unbeknownst to me, he uses it all the time. I think tonight though was only the second time he used it for an entrée. Worked wonderfully. The wings were tender and juicy. Served with a sauce of olive oil, lemon, a bit of cayenne, and a bit of garlic, then topped with chopped parsley and feta. Made a lovely presentation.

The recipe came from Bon Appetit, so I can’t share it, but if you cook at all, you can probably approximate it. This was one of the few recipes I’ve found lately in cooking magazines that really speak to me. Increasingly recipes are too complicated—and too unfamiliar. Friend Carol sent me an article today by a chef about the virtues of absolutely following a new recipe to the letter and not trying to impose our own cooking experience on it. I confess I am guilty in several ways—I am increasingly less interested in trying recipes, say, from the Middle East or Africa (I don’t like peanut sauces) and more interested in exploring the wide variety and depth of traditional American cooking. And when I do explore, I superimpose my own tastes on the recipe—just what the chef said not to do. But I am leery of spicy things—or should I say my stomach if leery—and if you say fiery to me, I bolt in the opposite direction.

From time to time I think about discontinuing all my subscriptions—think of the paper footprint I’d save—and relying on the web. But then I come across a recipe like our supper tonight and I weaken.

I still have a ginormous folder of recipes to try. We went through it tonight and I picked out Swedish meatballs and lamb ragu to try next week. Think I”ll serve the ragu over polenta. One night this weekend the kids have plans and so I sorted through things I want to cook for myself that they won’t eat. My choice came down to a couple of bean and tomato dishes—Christian is a meat and potatoes man and doesn’t think a bean supper is really dinner. But I decided on an old favorite that many decry—creamed chipped beef. Done right with a really rich cream sauce, it’s a delicious treat. Think I’ll accompany it with some crisp green beans.

I’m so glad to be back to having fun in the kitchen and enjoying my meals. Can’t wait for leftover chicken wings for lunch tomorrow. Trying to think of ways to make food writing more central to my career, but all I’ve come up with so far is a title for a mystery: “Helen Corbett Cooks Up a Little Murder.” No plot, no victim, no idea—just the title. I’ll keep working on it.

Everything but the kitchen sink

This cold spell has had me housebound, which means I’ve been in my little kitchen more than usual. One of the best things I fixed was what I call kitchen sink soup. You can guess why—yes, it has everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. I “build” it with leftovers, carrying on my mother’s lifelong habit of saving a dab of this and a dash of that. Leftover chili but not enough for another serving? Put it in the soup pot. The same with casseroles, bits of meat, whatever. When there’s enough to consider it soup, I usually add some broth, either chicken or beef, and a can of diced tomatoes. Depending on what’s already there, I may add frozen corn or peas, some potatoes cut up or pasta of one kind of another. I don’t add rice, because it absorbs the liquid and swells up until you have stew rather than soup.

I used to make this for my kids when they were in high school. We called it “Soup of the Week,” and laughed because it always came out brown. But it was good, and they liked it. I told Christian I had homemade soup and asked if he wanted some. “I’d have to know what’s in it first,” he replied. I told him that was an impossible question to answer. Actually, the soup I ate the last two days was definitely tomato based, and I detected shredded chicken, pinto beans, corn, and two meatballs. The rich soup had a hint of lamb, and I think that was from the meatballs. Yesterday I did as I would do with chili and stirred in a dab of sour cream just before eating. So good.

I also experimented with chicken thighs recently, but I think I reported that—some success both with a recipe for garlicky thighs with lime and soy and a version of smothered chicken—delicious but didn’t keep well for the next day. And my other accomplishment in the kitchen was to cobble together several versions of the classic salmon dip that everyone makes and come up with the version I like best. Simple ingredients—cream cheese, sour cream, scallions (why bother grating onion?), canned salmon, a bit of lemon, maybe a dash of Worcestershire. finely chopped parsley for color, dried dill if you like it.

While I was in a kitchen mood, I tackled the stack of magazines that accumulated on my desk, mostly Bon Appetit and Southern Living. The arrival of Bon Appetit used to be a red-letter day for me, but lately I find fewer recipes that interest me. I’m not sure if it’s me, not moving ahead as cooking trends change and grow, or if it’s a change in focus by the magazine. Probably a bit of both. But I’m not interested in putting kale in everything I cook, and many contemporary health-food trends leave me cold. Southern Living has remained more traditional, and I cut out such recipes as a warm apple compote with cheddar, or Capitol Hill Ham and Bean Soup (Now, see, the leftovers could go in the soup pot), or an herbed sour cream and smoked salmon topping for the latkes I never did make this holiday season.

A recipe I found and really liked was for Rigatoni with Silenced Smartphones. Now if I could get hats off the head and elbows off the table, I’d feel it was a civilized dinner table. Call me old-fashioned, go ahead. I think I’m proud of it.

A fine food day—and a big oops

Today was a fine food day. A friend and I were going to lunch, wanted some place casual, debated barbecue vs. Swiss Pastry and ended up going to Swiss Pastry, where I had my usual bratwurst, potato salad, and kraut. On the way home, we went through the drive-through at Railhead and I brought home bbq for supper. So good!

Jordan and I had our occasional food talk tonight and settled several thorny issues: what I will fix for a friend who had recent surgery, what we’ll have Sunday night if indeed we have Sunday night supper (may be a version of what I fix for the friend), what we’ll offer Monday when Elizabeth comes to visit—she wants to see a couple of the neighbors, so we’ll invite them for happy hour and then fix sloppy Joe for supper.

Elizabeth is a special friend. More years ago than I care to count—twenty-five, maybe? —she was a work-study student in my office. We clicked and remained friends after she finished her schooling. I saw her through a broken romance, several not-quite-right jobs, and a happy marriage that eventually went sour. After her divorce, she lived in my garage apartment for a year, fixed it up so it was quite cozy. And we had a wonderful year of parties and wine on the deck late at night and long talks about the meaning of life.

She has moved on to a new career and a new partner, happily settled with Brian in the outskirts of Philadelphia where she is a yoga and wellness instructor. But her family and her heart remain in Texas, and she comes back often, combining visits with teaching opportunities. We’re always happy when she fits in time for a visit here, and I think she feels it is a sort of homecoming. For Mother’s Day, she sent me a wonderful card that essentially said she knew I wasn’t her mother but without me she wouldn’t be a functioning human being. I hold that thought close to my heart—I care about her and am so glad I could be there when she needed someone.

So that was a food thing—how to handle Monday night. We’ll fix appetizers for a happy hour with the few neighbors she has asked to see and then sloppy Joe for dinner. It’s heavy for summer, but stretches and everyone likes it. Jordan will make a big salad.

So we settled all our menu things, I upgraded the grocery list and printed off the sloppy Joe recipe—mine uses red wine and is like no other, but that’s another story. Somehow, I saved the wrong file, the recipe instead of the grocery list, which I wiped out. So now I’m trying frantically to reconstruct it. I may not get another shot at groceries for a week and a half, so I’ve got to get it right.Darn.

A saving grace for my goof: I got not one but two food magazines in the mail today-Bon Appetit and Southern Living. Always a good day when I have recipes to prowl through.

My appalling collection of recipes

I am, I admit, hopelessly addicted to recipes. I clip them out of magazines, though I’ve narrowed my subscriptions down to two: Southern Living and Bon Appetit. But I can’t resist, “Oh, that sounds good” and I tear it out with never a thought about whether I’ll really fix it or not. The result is that two drawers in my mother’s antique secretary are filled with files labeled Entrees Tried, Entrees Not Tried, Vegetables and Sides, Appetizers, and Desserts.

New Year’s Day, the Burtons and I are hosting a small neighborhood potluck so that everyone gets their ham and black-eyed peas. Friend Subie tells me we must also have collards for prosperity—collards are a bad childhood memory for me, but I want to be prosperous so I’ll eat a few bites. My neighbor Susan said they have a huge ham left that they will bring, so relieved of getting the ham I decided I should provide another side—like mac and cheese or cole slaw. That sent me to my vegetables and sides file, which was huge. I probably threw away half the recipes—going through one by one (took me an hour and a half). I had several criteria: since the Burtons will be merging with my household, I threw out recipes I knew they wouldn’t eat—squash and zucchini, things with anchovy, spinach, a chicken liver salad (sounds good to me) etc. A lot of those I know how to fix for myself. Most potato salad recipes went—I have a couple of stand-by potato salads that I love, so I’m not likely to try others; I also discarded recipes that looked impractical, like a lot of work. I think I’m beyond that in my cooking.

It was fun to discover things I’d forgotten about that I’d like to fix again—an onion and vinegar slaw to put over green beans, Aunt Reva’s asparagus, corn pudding. But I came up empty on cole slaw (well I did find one recipe that included apples which sounds great to me, and another for vinegar and oil slaw but Christian doesn’t really like cabbage in any form). The one tempting mac and cheese recipe was built on a foundation of a box mix for mac and cheese. Not what I had in mind.

I finally decided that to go with our peas and ham sliders I’ll fix a recipe a friend gave me. She got it from her stepmother, and it is delicious. I close my eyes and overlook the prepared foods in it. Here’s Louella’s rice:

1 cup Minute Rice
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 can cream of celery soup
4 oz. can green chilies

Mix and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Serves four. I’ll double it. I’m sure my source, Barbara Bucknell Ashcraft of Mississippi, must at least triple it for her huge family. Thanks, Barbara, for your contribution to our dinner.

A loverly day

This morning I woke up with a sense of euphoria--usually it takes me ten minutes to transition from whatever dream I was having to the real world (I dream deeply and usually remember them, at least for a while). But I felt optimistic, my hips didn't hurt as they have been, and I felt ready to take on the world. Except I didn't have to. Over the weekend I finished the third edits on a manuscript--it's ready to go to readers before I send it to my editor--and I finished the book I was reading, plus cooked Sunday dinner for six people, had a lovely lunch with friends, and had two other friends in for wine and cheese. Yeah, it was a good holiday weekend.
But today I'm an author without a project--I honestly don't know what project I want to do next, and I'm fairly compulsive (mild understatement) about having work on my desk. I read something about the difference in prayer between talking to God and listening to God. Perhaps I'm waiting for Him to tell me what to do...or waiting for inspiration to strike me--they both may be the same thing.
But I convinced myself today that I didn't have to do anything. So I spent a nice hour or so going through the accumulated food magazines on my desk--have to check them one more time for recipes I might want to try. I ran some errands. I cleaned up a few odds and ends.
And tonight I checked my books on Amazon. Some authors do that daily. I don't, haven't done it in a long time and was pleasantly surprised. I don't have a lot of reviews but the ones I have are so good they're liable to give me the big head. Maybe that's a clue to what I should do next--keep on doing what I've been doing.

I did have one surprise--an audio edition of one of my books that I didn't know existed. I swear I never signed a contract, never saw the cover art, never heard of the narrator, and never got a penny of royalties. I'll have to look into it, since it's probably been the best-selling book I ever wrote since I put it up on Amazon at a really low price...and it's gathered something like 130 reviews. I think it would make a great audio book, with the right narrator, but I'd like a piece of the action, thank you very much.
I expect to drift through tomorrow...and maybe the rest of the week in the same fashion--taking care of some aspects of my life I've ignored (four loads of laundry today) and reading and waiting for inspiration to strike.
And oh boy did I have a good nap today. The kind that really makes it hard to wake up.

A writer's staycation

Last night I told Jacob we were going to sleep as late as we wanted. We had nothing particular to do on Saturday morning, and we could sleep. I woke with a start at 8:30 (haven't slept that late in I don't know how long!) to see him standing by my bed, asking, "Can I have waffles now?" (Praise be the day he can fix his own toaster waffles!) As you may have read on Facebook, the day got hectic after that because his mother called almost instantly and wanted him dressed, fed, and teeth brushed in 15 minutes. After the flurry of getting them off to cheer for a friend doing the 5K or 10K of the Cowtown Marathon, I had the whole day before me. And I decided on a staycation. I have not written a word today except this blog and a few emails.
Not surprisingly, I spent most of the day at my desk. I was amazed at how much time I could spend reading Facebook and emails when I put my mind to it. And then I turned to checking the food magazines on my desk--they stack up fast, and today I went through four, pulled out a few recipes, and consigned the rest to the trash. I still have one to do and a clothes catalog that came today. And then there's that novel I want to read.
I did spend a fair amount of time on household chores--just making the beds, picking up clothes--Jacob flings them everywhere--and doing a load of "kitchen" laundry--hand towels, napkins, place mats, etc. And I spent an hour or two in the kitchen: made dirty rice for dinner guests for tomorrow night, tuna salad for my lunch, pea salad for those dinner guests, and an open-faced sandwich for my dinner tonight.
Christian came in and asked who was coming for dinner tomorrow. I told him my neighbors (to whom he is close) and I said, "You were invited. You declined." Christian: "Oh. I did?" Jordan had said he wanted to watch the Oscars comfortably at home--never mind that the Oscars are next Sunday. I said too late, I only bought four quail, and they both began to sputter about how they couldn't have come anyway, they have too much to do to take an hour out of their day. I wanted to point out that when I cook a big meal for company I expect them to stay more than an hour! Oh, well!
I think my mind needed a vacation. I have felt rushed, pushed, and pulled by deadlines and an urgency to get this, that and the other done. In truth, most deadlines are of my own making--if it's on my desk, I want to get it done. But nothing couldn't wait a day, and I loved my lazy day. May do it again tomorrow.
Got to go read that novel now.