May 2006 Archives

In the film adaptation of Emma starring a very young Kate Beckinsale, there is a scene where everyone goes on a marvelously indulgent picnic. They pile into carriages and tromp into a fine, sundrenched field accompanied by footmen and linens and roasted joints of meat. Every time Stephen and I tromp to the beach or the park with a quilt and a chunk of cheese, I can't help but think of myself in this context.

Even if I had access to be-wigged footmen (or could convince my Dear Boy to don a powdered hairpiece for my amusement), this isn't the type of picnic I'd enjoy. Still, there is something about nibbling out in the fresh air and sunshine that makes me think about history, both literary and factual. I wonder how many leisure activities have remained pleasurable through the centuries as well as picnicing. The unremarkable act of eating transforms into a nearly Dionysian, indulgent pastime when performed while lounging on the grass. If Manet is to be believed, this has long been so.

However, just because I'm in the mood for a picnic doesn't necessarily mean I'm in the mood to plan an elegant yet casual meal suitable for packing and transportation. Hardly anything makes a girl feel less like a relaxed Elizabeth Bennet than rearranging plastic containers of salami and olives to make them fit better in the backpack.

I really, truly love to cook. Generally, the kitchen is my refuge when the rest of my life becomes chaotic. But sometimes, even the most fervant kitchen devotee needs a break. For the past week or so, given the choice between thinking of something to make for dinner, shopping for food, then cooking and blinding via grapefruit spoon, it might have been time for me to learn braille.

The nice thing about this blog being a group effort is that when one of us needs some time off, if one of us is exhausted or busy or mostly eating pizza and takeout Chinese, it's reassuring that the other person is there to make sure the site doesn't sink into nothingness.

So, I'm back (did anyone even notice I was gone?), and I've eaten some very fun, yummy things lately (nary a container of kung pao to be found in my apartment at the moment) that I can't wait to share.

Isn't this English Breakfast turning rather...Continental!

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? It's chicken marinated in smoked paprika, ancho chili powder, chipotles, garlic, and lime and orange juices. The marinade smelled tangy and spicy; I had high hopes for it. I was looking for something to do with chicken thighs other than braise them, when I remembered that I like them on a roasted chicken, so why not roast them by themselves? I cooked them on a rack so the fat could drip off and the skin get crisp, and I reduced the leftover marinade with honey to make a sweet hot glaze. I made careful notes about the recipe, intending to share it here.

And you know what? It sucked. I don't know when I've made a dish I liked less. Nothing about the recipe worked at all. The fat didn't out of the meat very well, so most bites were squishy and greasy. And although I cooked them in basically the same way I'd cook a whole chicken, the chewy texture didn't live up to that example. Despite eight hours in the marinade, it didn't taste like anything other than gray, sinewy chicken thigh.

Today, during the hour or so which I rest my crêpe batter, I learned of an extraordinarily coincidental fish that made the BBC headlines. A two and a half kilo tuna caught fifty miles south of Mombassa whose scales, apparently, had grown into a verse of the Koran: "you are the best provider," it read. This Kenyan Koranic tuna.

When the National Museum came to get the fish, they found it had been stolen a few hours previously by National Museum impersonators! Who knows what they're planning--a careful textual-tuna comparison, a bumpy, ice-packed matatu ride to Nairobi experts, sashimi? There are photos of course--for who'd believe such a thing without photos ?--on the BBC for sceptics to dismiss.

This confession explains the coincidence: a Madonna and Child once appeared to me on a fairly ordinary evening, cooking with friends (witnesses!) in Maida Vale: a clear, olive skinned duo on one side of a delicate, brown butter scented crêpe. Really! And not the usual crêpe bubble that, yeah, fair enough, might pass as mother and baby if you cocked your head, squinted, and licked a psychoactive toad--and don't, The Church of the Toad Light is fed up with people reporting visionary pancakes, not to mention the misleading term "licking"--but a proper woman's soft-featured face, and chubby baby, seated on a chair. And, as one sober witness declared, possibly breastfeeding.

Mae West said that too much of a good thing is wonderful; I'm apt to agree. Rarely one embrace self denial, I'm often up for one more glass, one more scoop, one more kiss or one more chapter. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, resulting in headachy mornings, larger pants sizes, chapped lips, and sleep deprivation.

Sometimes, my penchant for pleasure works out for the better, because not all of the things I hate to abstain from are bad for me. Take, for instance, my nearly baccanalian consumption of vegetables. I'm never content with five asparagus spears or a half cup of peas. I happily eat plates brimming with sautéed broccoli and mashed carrots, can go through a bag of mesclun in one sitting, and will eat a whole bunch of radishes with sea salt as a hearty snack. My passion for produce is especially obvious when it comes to pasta.

It depresses me to order a dish with a name like Penne with Mushrooms, Spinach, and Peas, only to recieve an enormous, America-sized pasta portion sprinkled with nine peas, six leaves of spinach, and two sliced mushrooms. When I make such a dish, I lean ever closer to a 1:1 pasta to veg ratio. It may not be classic or authentic, but I want the vegetables to be the star.

"Just look at those curved loins and muscular buttocks--just what we'd expect from a fit, racy bitch," I overheard. But by the time I managed to get a peek at the telly, Glyn must've already changed the channel: something about Birmingham, Crufts, and an Australian Shepherd taking the pastoral round.

I teeter between being cuted out (as in, I find every dog so cute that I squeal as one affected by severe cuteness) and being mildly piqued by the limiting of genetic pools to preserve the idea of breed. It's the cultural and ethnic mutt in me--the bitch, one might say--that finds the frighteningly detailed classifications of these carefully bred pedigrees, or purebreds, distasteful.

Don't get me wrong: I rooted for the Welsh Springer, and my family had a little tricolour King Charles Cavalier, rightly named for pedigree and year with the letter H, bred by the Renard family of La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, whose mother was a French national champion and whose puppies were worth a grade A liver on the Parisian black market.

A glass of Cabernet Franc in front of a field of Cabernet Franc at Chateau St. Jean.

I'm fairly sure I had feelings about the taste of the wine at the time, but as it was our fourth and final winery of the day, I don't perfectly recall what they were.

...in a not bad modern Asiany food, Norwegian sparkling water, very white linens, equally white square plates, staff in all black, soju menu, sort of place! Then again, there was no espresso bar...

I have no patience for lunch. Unless we are talking me and a girlfriend, fancy salads, and maybe a naughty midday cocktail, the idea of lunch doesn't rouse me at all. I am exactly motivated enough to think of and prepare one interesting, reasonably healthy meal per day. Most of the other daily eating is just a trial providing little pleasure and much resigned eye rolling.

I always wanted to be the sort of person who could placidly eat a tuna sandwich or bowl of chicken noodle every day for a week. Or, even better, one of those truly blessed souls whose tummy rarely rumbles at midday, the sort who often "forgets to eat." Instead, I feel a slight hollowness beginning at 11:30 every day combined with a fickle desire for variety. This does not, of course means I have the interest or motivation to meet my own luncheon needs.

Many Halloweens ago, I had a fairly wild party at my apartment in Boston, though it did not even begin to compete with my neighbour's wild parties: weekends of electron-polka, screaming into the night, and a floor made entirely of mattresses--you could sort of see on tiptoes, standing on my garden wall. But that's my business.

The point is: Martha dressed as eighties style Strawberry Shortcake. She was a little bit too sexy to be the freckled cartoon character, but she paid respects to the original Strawberry we all loved from old Strawberryland, the one who skipped about in a pair of barely peeking bloomers, striped stockings, and an enormous bonnet, trailing a green ribbon and sweet Custard the Cat close behind.

Strawberry, to my complete distress, doesn't look like a lovely human cupcake anymore (Martha doesn't either, she changed right after the party). And I find they've modernised Strawberryland to seduce a whole new generation with a world that hints at the delicious psychedelics of scratch n' sniff dolls: where one's hair is perpetually perfumed by berries, unlocked houses are built of eternally ripe, massive strawberries, the gentle landscape is a rolling frosted cake layer, and the only chocolate tree-forts are in a neighbouring land run by a boy, obviously--most likely banished from society for his embarrassing, dessert theme name and naughty pet, Devils Food Ruddy Shelduck. Or something.

I love how intimate and low-key Sonoma can be. Napa has big wines and striking architecture. Sonoma, at it's best, is more like a lovely afternoon in a friend's living room. Stephen's parents are visiting, so we're spending a few all too brief days soaking up the sun and the terroir in our favorite of the wine-growing enclaves.

We've said it often enough, but it remains true; Stephen and I aren't sure we'd see as much of our parents if we'd moved to, oh, Iowa. Filial affection has powerful attraction, but well-balanced, cool-climate pinot noir sings its own siren song. On this trip, we took them to a particular favorite destination, the Mayo Family Winery Reserve Room.

We first had Mayo wine in their tasting room on the square in Sonoma. Although we had little interest in the wine country tchotskes sold there, we were impressed by the intimate connection between the winemakers and their wine. Their careful blending and attention to detail make for fascinating wines and intelligent people who honestly care about what they're pouring.

Up the truly picturesque highway in Kenwood, the Reserve Room offers tastings of seven wines paired with small bites of food that go beyond slivers of cheese or chocolate served standing at a bar. The room is simple but bright, with tables and chairs and a frequently changing menu that chef Billy Oliver designs to showcase both seasonal produce and Mayo wines. Even though the pairings are serious, the atmosphere certainly isn't. You explore how wines compliment or contrast with foods, while sipping, laughing, and eating with your fingers. On our recent trip, the chef and Mayo's president Jeffery Mayo served us; they both wore shorts. Sonoma casual intimacy at its best.

Though Jeffrey Steingarten can get away with cooking snacks for his dog (Sky, was it?) and writing about it, I fear that there are certain stigmas (crazy cat lady crazy cat lady) attached to cooking for one's cat. Which isn't actually the reason I've never done it; the cat is rarely interested in what we eat and always made happy by the opening of the Beatrix Potter tin in which his dry food rattles.

But I was roused unusually early from bed by Glyn to watch the cat tossing the body of a rather large rodent around the garden in a disturbingly vicious and playful display. By the time I got slippers on to get a closer look, the cat had begun a reckless, bloody vivisection around the belly, and the beady little eyes had turned into a pair of cartoon x's.

Ew.

After my initial blood/rodent disgust, I felt a strange sense of the natural order of things, the wildness that resides in the domesticated, and the cat's innate desire for protein rich snacks that scamper and hide. That struggle. Not that I've ever pounced to kill, or sunk my teeth into a squirming victim, but I can imagine that both reward with a certain kind of satisfaction that a half cup of Iams Original for Adults 1+ does not.

My sweets consumption has noticably increased in recent days. I can only attribute it to all the time I spent thinking, planning, cooking (and then consuming) my Whats for Pud? entry. I guess I'm having a hard time snapping out of sugar high mode.

I had every intention of using the half can of coconut milk to make a Thai curry for dinner some time this week. I swear, as I pressed down the translucent blue lid on the storage container, I said aloud, "It'll be nice to have some curry. I can use some of the pork loin in the freezer. All we'll need to get is veg. How thrifty." I really think I mean it.

Last night, a cold wind blew in off the ocean, obliterating the fine sunny weather of days past. I tucked a blanket in around my feet and said, "Stephen, should I make some hot chocolate?"

Never one to deny himself the possibility of a treat, he readily consented. So I guess I could as easily blame the jet stream, the Pacific Ocean, or Stephen for the fact that I've had to rummage through the cupboards, looking for alternate dinner inspiration.

When I was a child, I ate ice cream as a child, but when I became an adult, I put childish ice cream away. I no longer revel in ice cream loaded full of enormous candy chunks and topped with both gummy bears and sprinkles. I prefer my ice cream creamy, without undue textural intrusion. Even some Ben and Jerry's flavors I used to adore now strike me as excessive; all the ice cream melts away while I'm chewing the chunks. I just don't want a whole section of a chocolate bar in my ice cream. The pleasure of chocolate is that it melts, sensually, at just below body temprature. When it's frozen in ice cream, chocolate just strains the jaw and waxily coats the teeth.