h o m e * e c o n o m i c s

February dinners

I am emerging bleary-eyed from a trance induced by online real estate, and this on top of a heck of a bread bender--the first thing I did yesterday morning was to preheat the oven for a pizza made with Tartine dough, an appetizer for Bellinger Tartine loaf #3 (longer, colder rise; less dramatic holes; wimpier crust; excellent taste, especially good with salami). (And since I really am in danger of having "bread" become my only hobby/primary interest, I must add that Tartine Bread offers a pizza technique new to me, which is to use your fingers to press in a little trough 1/2 inch in from the edge of your dough round before you begin to stretch and shape it, thus ensuring that the crust is full of air bubbles. Perfect!) Ahem. Houses. Few things are as engrossing as click click clicking through all those pictures, imagining all the slightly different ways of living; but it's hardly productive, since I'm not there to see them right now. I told myself I'd do something before bed, and so I'm going to post our February dinners. One less thing knocking around this drafty mind.

Web log

OH, HI. Yesterday when Bee and I went for a run in Golden Gate Park, I varied my route slightly. The walk home (you didn't think I ran the whole way, did you?) seemed to be taking an awfully long time, but I figured I was just tired. This side of the park is so much quieter than our side, I thought, and I remembered how amusingly worried my parents used to be when I told them I had gone for a jog in Central Park (which, on a pretty day, the kind of day I might actually jog, is as crowded as the subway at rush hour). Then I came over a rise and saw the ocean, looking much, much closer than it should have. Ever such a small change in our routine, and we ended up at the continent's edge. It was a mistake, but as long as we were there, I thought we should check out the beach. By some miracle, Andrew had gotten out of work early and was able to come rescue us. It would have been a long, chilly walk home!

The whole month has been a little like that--best intentions, hard work, wrong turns, husband (or grandparents) ex machina. I've resumed work on a long-dormant freelance project, which means that I bounce back and forth between days that are horrifically productive and evenings when I'm horrified to discover that I've done nothing but read and noodle. Just before bedtime one night last week, Bee grabbed Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking from a stack of cookbooks and started dashing about frantically and shouting something that sounded like, "I'm fine! I'm fine! I'm fine!" So that's where we are...FINE, THANKS, WHY DO YOU ASK? 

Anyway, I haven't been feeling a lot of inspiration in the getting dinner on the table department, and yet it keeps showing up...usually. Having a farmers' market down the street is like living a block away from the gym; when it's that close, you just go because there's truly no excuse not to. I've neglected my Web logging for a good long while now, but the scribbled logging of what we ate has been faithfully performed and is now ready for transcription:

Marcella Hazan's asparagus risotto

My parents recently came out to California to visit us, and what this meant--what this always means--is lots and lots of Tartine. I snapped this picture while developing my new theory that the most seductive thing about good croissants is the variety of textures they offer--the shattering top, the substantial bottom, the almost gooey interior. I have heard some people say that Tartine's croissants are too big and too buttery. Some people have no sense of pleasure!

I spent a day or two before my parents' arrival "hanging art," which at my house is done with masking tape. Before visitors arrive, I always do some emergency cleaning and decorating. I've often thought that we should have company once a week if only for the positive effect such a schedule would have on our housekeeping, but it never pans out.

The Cavallini carrot poster is in Bee's room, right over her little Ikea bookcases full of toys. The flower pictures are from a learn-to-paint workbook from the 1960s, which I bought years ago at John Derian. Obviously, they didn't make the decoupage cut, so to speak, but I thought them quite decorative. Besides, I couldn't resist some of the commentary. I don't know if you can read the caption above, so I'll type it out:

WALL CORSAGE. I attended an art demonstration once and the artist said, "The first thing we need when we start to paint is enthusiasm." I would like to go even a step farther and say, "If we lack enthusiasm and become discouraged, go ahead and try anyway, and as you paint you will enjoy it and forget your troubles. Perhaps you will end up being enthusiastic in spite of yourself. You don't have to be a good artist to have fun painting." I know this works for I have tried it. We all tend to procrastinate--it is very easy to do.

I mean, truer words were never, right? I need to have this tattooed on my forearm. ("Carpe diem" would be more concise, yes, but I always hear it in Cher's voice from Clueless: "Carpe diem, okay? You looked hot!")

On Saturday, Andrew had a surprise day off, and for once we did seize it, driving up to Healdsburg for lunch and a splash of wine. Despite a grueling bout of traffic at the bridge, we made it home just in time for baby's dinner and bedtime, after which I made Marcella Hazan's asparagus risotto. I am scared of Marcella Hazan (so stern!) and risotto (which, as far as I can tell, comes out however it want to--I've had successes and failures), but this week the stars  aligned for me. Marvelous.

MARCELLA HAZAN'S ASPARAGUS RISOTTO

Rinse 1 pound asparagus and break off the woody bottoms. Put the asparagus in a saucepan or skillet that will hold it in a single layer and add water to cover by about an inch. Remove the asparagus, add 2 teaspoons salt to the water, and bring to a simmer; when simmering, slip the asparagus back into the water, cover the pot, and simmer for 4-5 minutes, until the asparagus is tender. Remove with tongs--do not discard water--and when cool enough to handle, chop the asparagus into bite-size pieces, setting aside the tips.

Put the asparagus water in a saucepan and add enough broth to make 6 cups of liquid altogether. (Marcella says chicken broth will not do--but that's what I had. I had about 3 cups asparagus cooking liquid and 3 cups chicken broth.) Bring to a simmer. In your risotto pot, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons minced onion and cook until translucent. Add 2 cups arborio rice and the chopped asparagus stems and cook, stirring, until the rice is glisteningly well coated. Start adding the simmering stock 1/2 cup at a time, stirring almost constantly and keeping the heat high. When one ladle of broth has disappeared, add another. Keep at it until the rice is plump but still firm. This will take about 25 minutes, but you should start tasting at 20, and it might take as long as 30. You may or may not use all of your broth; I had less than 1/2 cup left at the end. If you run out of broth, start adding water.

When the risotto is finished, stir in 2 tablespoons butter, the asparagus tips, some freshly ground pepper, and a big handful of grated parmesan. Taste for salt and pepper and serve. And if you think this does not make tasty leftovers, I think you are a real stick in the mud. You probably want croissants to be smaller and less buttery, don't you?

What else did we eat last week...

• 4.26 twice baked potatoes with kale, cauliflower salad (everyone loved this meal)
• 4.27 quinoa, black beans, queso fresco, broccoli
• 4.28 quinoa, roasted carrots and turnips
• 4.29 hanger steak, asparagus, fried egg
• 4.30 refried black beans, steak and chard quesadillas
• 5.1 asparagus risotto
• 5.2 refried beans, tortillas

I take it back

I shouldn't have let testiness inflect my last post. Now I see that the desperate moment inspired a sense of "if we have no order in our homes, by god, let us have it in our sentences!" But the desperate moment passed, and I found the safe deposit box key (eventually) (along with the passport I feared to be lost), reflected on my own stylistic shortcomings, and went on to have a lot of luck with various customarily-irritating logistical details over the course of the week. By this I mean that customer service representatives were unusually human and helpful, as was my local shipping center, whose small staff and long wait times usually drive me into a rage. 

To cap it all off, the baby was an angel on our just-the-two-of-us flight from California to Texas. Since I hadn't flown with her since she was small enough to do a lot of ear-soothing nursing during takeoff and landing, I was terribly nervous, especially when she began to holler while we waited to board, attracting the deathly attention of every one of our soon-to-be fellow passengers. Never have so many eyes been so invested in my performance: will the mother of that screaming toddler be a capable soother? Well, my fellow passengers, you owe your pleasant flight to Bee's good nature and the forbidden fruit juice I plied her with during ascent and descent.

Before we left, we ate

• 3.22 cold rice noodles and spinach and Asian-y seasoning, Madhur Jaffrey's radish salad, tofu fingers broiled until tough and brown (exactly as delicious as it sounds)
• 3.23 sauteed ling cod, cabbage, toast
• 3.24 brik eggs
• 3.25 sweet potato, quinoa
• 3.26 lasagna (Lucinda Scala Quinn's, pictured above), salad
• 3.27 penne with cauliflower, bacon, and capers--outstanding; I make this frequently but never know how it will turn out
• 3.28 picnic supper on airplane: quinoa with edamame, feta, and mustardy vinaigrette, surprisingly delicious

When I leave Andrew alone, I try to leave the freezer full of lasagna and baked ziti. So I ate only that tiny missing corner of this one, and it took a lot of restraint not to eat more. Since I often make vegetable lasagna, I was pleased by how quickly this one came together, with no produce to wash and chop and blanch. Italian sausage isn't so needy--it goes straight into the skillet. The other key to success here was the slightly spicy tomato sauce, which ensured that you never got a bland mouthful of ricotta. I used only a half pound of mozzarella on top, which was half the recommended amount. More might have been better, but less was sufficient. Anyway, since my last lasagna (cheese, from the Dean & Deluca cookbok) was disappointing, I was extra pleased to turn out a stunner.

in which we give a $%^& about an Oxford comma

1. I had to admit today that I don't know where anything in this apartment is. Today while searching for one of those bits that connect one Apple product to another, I happened to find a photo I had wanted to scan and put in my last post, which photo I had emptied several boxes looking for last week. That one album had ended up in a box of computer equipment instead of a box of photos and journals. I spent time hunting for at least two other things today. (Andrew uncharitably says it was ever thus, even in New York. I disagree, but this is a very big subject indeed.) Tomorrow I have to hunt down the spare key to my safe deposit box and have a bad feeling in my gut.

2. Friends! Strangers! Casual googlers of the word "gougere"! Whoever you are, I'm issuing a general reminder that we do not take essential identifiers and set them off in commas. For example:

Los Angeles chef Suzanne Goin wrote a real humdinger of a cookbook.

A shocking number of bloggers would put commas around "Suzanne Goin" in that sentence. Those commas are wrong, because the name is essential to the sentence. Try dropping the name: to whom does "Los Angeles chef" refer? One can only speculate. Nancy Silverton has written some pretty good cookbooks, too.

Suzanne Goin, the Los Angeles chef, appears on the back of her cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques.

In this example, you use commas because they contain nonessential elements; that is, if you remove "the Los Angeles chef" and "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" from the sentence, it still communicates the same core message.

This just drives me crazy. Why is this the way we use commas? I can't tell you, but it is. This rule does not go both ways, like the Oxford comma ("red, white, and blue" instead of "red, white and blue"). (Personally, I think the Oxford comma should not be optional.) I'm sorry to bring it all up, but it's late. I'm testy and tired of seeing commas pressed into service when they should be nibbling on something and watching Gossip Girl. We all make plenty of mistakes in whipping up these blog posts--I certainly do--but my editing fingers get terribly itchy when I see these things over and over again and it becomes obvious that they are not just slips.

3. L.L. Bean Signature and Lands' End Canvas, discuss. I do not need new clothes but am kind of fascinated.

4. what we ate...

• 3.15 zucchini and mushroom tostadas with Homesick Texan's uncle's salsa...this salsa was the hit of the week for me. I was skeptical that canned (or in our case, boxed) tomatoes would taste right, but they were terrific--and how brilliant to be able to make a nice, fresh-tasting salsa in March. We used only 1 serrano chile and half the amount of chile powder, all ancho.
• 3.16 polenta with pulled pork and a salad
• 3.17 quinoa, roast sweet potato
• 3.18 pork chops with onions, quinoa, sweet potato
• 3.19 cauliflower macaroni and cheese, broccoli vinaigrette
• 3.20 mac & cheese
• 3.21 according to my records, we did not eat dinner on Sunday...sigh

a woman's work

In New York, I never lived in a Rear Window apartment. My windows always gave onto the street and therefore never afforded opportunities for neighborly peeping, facing as they successively did, a warehouse, Prospect Park, a garage, and a glassy office tower. Here in San Francisco, our apartment runs the length of the building, from the street to a back garden jammed in among other fenced yards. Our main glimpses of neighbors, however, come not out back but through the window next to the kitchen sink, which gives onto a sort of central shaftway that accommodates the rickety wooden staircases we all use to get down to the dumpsters in our basements.

Our upstairs and downstairs neighbors are rarely seen (although someone upstairs took up smoking just outside his door in the months since we settled here and is therefore frequently smelled). Our neighbor across the shaftway--that is, someone who lives not in our building but in the adjacent one--I used to see much more often, though not as often as I thought I should, given that he, too, seemed to be in his kitchen. I assumed there was, invisible to me, a large part of the kitchen where preparing and eating food happened.

He is a middle-aged man with a cap of graying hair. Neither large nor small, he always wears a t-shirt. A framed picture of a soccer player bearing the legend "GOOOOOOOAL!" was until recently my only clue about his life. On Halloween, he had a party, which surprised me very much; the crowd, which skewed younger than I would have thought, congregated in the kitchen and drank what looked like strong drinks out of plastic cups. I had never seen another person there, and now he had a whole houseful of friends?

And then last month, a woman showed up. Not just a woman, a woman with a young child, maybe in the kindergarten age range. Not just a child, but a child who resembled neither her nor the man I had come to know.

What We Ate

Young Almanzo Wilder's favorite thing to eat was apples & onions. This blew me away when I was a little girl--onions and fruit?--as did the facts that he frequently ate pie for breakfast and that his sisters, who were probably my age, knew how to make ice cream and pound cake. Now apples and onions make perfect sense to me, but I hadn't actually put them in the same skillet until last Thursday. Thanks again to Lucinda Scala Quinn...I love this book. What else did we eat?

• 2.8 leftover bean gratin and polenta
• 2.9 baked sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli
• 2.10 Madhur Jaffrey's pupusas, cabbage slaw, and rice
• 2.11 pork chops with apples & onions, wheatberries with butter and thyme, sage, tarragon, and cinnamon (would have been better with mashed potatoes or bread, but these wheatberries would be good for something else)
• 2.12 roated beets and rice (Bee), slaw and cake (me)
• 2.13 pizza (one with onions and thyme, one with tomato and mozzarella)
• 2.14 wheatberry salad, green salad with grilled chicken

Last week had some yummy moments (finally!). This isn't the prettiest styling (go to Lottie + Doof to see how it should be done), but that caramel cake up there is seriously good. Lottie + Doof also led me to Jim Lahey's brilliant no-knead pizza, which I had somehow never even heard of. Andrew deemed it not quite as good as my best pizza but far better than my usual quickie whole wheat version. I loved not having to make multiple calculations about kneading and resting and punching down and stretching--just one stir, about 2 hours, and one stretch. I was skeptical about tossing the onions with cream, but the results were brilliant. I'll be making pizza this way again.

what we ate

As I have mentioned, I've been in a cooking slump. Boo! Nevertheless, I've been chugging along. Every once in a while I reflect at the end of the day on what I've done in the kitchen, and the sheer number of action-items exhausts me. For instance, last Friday:

• breakfast oatmeal
• pot of coffee and two pots of (herbal) tea
• drained homemade yogurt
• roasted bones for stock
• made stock
• cooked a pot of beans
• made tomato sauce
• mixed up some no-knead bread dough

Each of these accomplishments is itsy-bitsy, but taken together they wore me out. I will admit, however, to taking no small amount of pleasure in the efficiency of having three pots simmering at once.

This tomato sauce has been popping up here and there lately. Although it isn't our absolute favorite on its own, I've made it a few times before because it's what Marcella recommends for gnocchi. Even made with runny strained tomatoes, which I bought by mistake, and served atop brown rice pasta, which was embraced with surprising warmth, it made for perfect happy-exhausted Friday night eating.    

• 2.1 green salad, leftover jicama salad, chocolate tart
• 2.2 King Ranch leftovers
  
• 2.3 a bad experimental pizza: kale, bacon, and ricotta
• 2.4 went to a party with burgers and sausages
• 2.5 brown rice pasta with simplest and most buttery tomato sauce
• 2.6 French onion soup, bad no-knead brad
• 2.7 navy bean gratin and polenta

Sorry about the bones. I've been leafing through the Old English section of the Norton Anthology and have charnel houses on the brain. I'll be back tomorrow with something sunnier.