So, today was a trial. A few doctors appointments. Some of them mine.

A few tears. Ditto.

A friend said "stop torturing yourself." Because I do. Don't you? Don't you wake up at three a.m. and start fretting, sure that you can't possibly wait until the morning to start setting things right?

A friend said "maybe you don't have to do all of it, right now." Because I'm sure I need to. Right now. Not later. Now.

::

And then,

Callie.

Again.

I know it was just because the crowd had shifted out in the park, and she was bored.

But she rescued me.

She came in and said "can I help?"

She chopped and she sauteed and she cried (onions). And she learned (how to cut an onion.)

Mostly, she just stood in the kitchen with me.

And then,

Lindsey.

She came in and said "oh! can I set the table?"

::

Look, this is not the way it goes, all the time.

But, tonight,

they rescued me.

Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

::

In the doctor's office, I read an article while I waited that said that happiness is not found in having all the material things one wants, but in having "successful interpersonal relationships."

Fancy.

But,

I'll buy that.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

p.s. tears unrelated to the doctors' appointments. just to save you any unnecessary fretting.

p.p.s. are you tired of leaf pictures yet?

In which I make up a post as an excuse to use this picture of pears.

I absolutely love cold-weather cooking, and I've been immersing myself in doing just that lately.
The girls held a tag sale on Saturday, and while I wasn't (and didn't want to be) involved, I obviously had to stick close by and monitor the traffic situation while they were out in the driveway. I basically wore a path between the kitchen and the front door all day.

I can't say I minded one bit.

One of the things I made was a roast chicken, for the sole purpose of making stock. This is one of the last frontiers for me (the other one being homemade pasta), something that not only seemed daunting and involved, but unnecessary. Surely, someone else can do this better? (I feel this way, by the way, about most baked goods more elaborate than cookies and brownies.)

I couldn't have been more wrong. First off, what's the easiest thing in the world to make? A roast chicken. Secondly, the next easiest thing to make is chicken stock.

I've been using a version of Ina Garten's recipe for chicken + croutons; I slice up some onions and toss them with olive oil, and then roast a chicken (or two) over them, simply stuffed with a cut lemon and some thyme or rosemary.

Well, the logical next step, once the chicken is carved, is to put the...um...carcass (sorry to my vegetarian friends. Is this indelicate?)in a pot with the onions, cover it all with water, and get it cooking for a good long while. Then strain it well, and there you have it.

The term liquid gold comes to mind every time I think about this, but I do feel like a bit of a dork saying that out loud.

Anyway, I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you, any of this. I imagine you've been doing this for years (and making fresh pasta, to boot).

But, while I'm sharing, I've been staring at this cookbook , A Platter of Figs, for almost two weeks now, and I've decided that I'm not bringing it back to the library yet; that online renewal thing is my friend.

I'd tell you to "check it out", but that would be a bad pun, huh?

I'd love to hear what you're cooking these days.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Dinner to go::or, another over-long food post

Our first night at the beach on Sunday brought to mind a few lessons I learn every year, and then promptly forget. Mainly, that it's really more hassle than it's worth to do the actual grilling of food down there.

Better to bring something ready to eat, so that Tim doesn't have to manage a fire, we don't have to pack and carry the kitchen sink, and the food can be handed out to kids on a need to eat basis, rather than trying to get everyone to sit down all at once while it's hot.

We're there, after all, to let them run and play, and to have a chance ourselves to relax.

So, I've been thinking about the next meal down at the river, and I've come up with a few ideas.

Some sort of cook-ahead chicken recipe seems to be one answer, and if I buy a mix of breast pieces and drumsticks, I'll have something I can hand off to a hungry wet child with out having to even slow them down for a plate.
Erin's go-to chicken recipe sounds like the perfect thing. I used to use the Silver Palate's lemon chicken recipe, but like everything they do, it required way too many ingredients, and every pot and pan in the house. Let's make it a little easier on ourselves, why don't we?

In the Magnolia cookbook, there is a great pepper and onion relish, which I usually make to go on top of burgers, but I think would be amazing on the chicken, or any sort of sandwich. I can make that at home before we leave for the beach, too. And if there is any left over, I can attest to the fact that it makes the most amazing lunch the next day, as a filling with goat cheese in a quesadilla.

Tim's always pushing the sandwich idea, but when I picture a smushy pb&j, it just doesn't jive with my vision of the beach club dinner. But, of course, it doesn't have to be like that. With good bread and a few nice things-some turkey and apples, or salami and pickles, or mozzarella and tomato, that relish-well, sandwiches sound just about perfect. Plus, everyone can put theirs together themselves, freeing me up to sit and drink wine, so they get what they like.

Green salads don't usually go over so well at the beach: whether it's that they're too hard to dress and eat at a picnic or whatever, I've learned that they just don't get eaten. Better to make something like cucumber salad, panzanella, or even a simple mozzarella+tomato+basil. Plus, leftovers of these sorts of salads fare much better than greens.

For years, I brought tablecloths and napkins, jelly jars for wine and candles, cutting boards and thermoses full of tea. And it was lovely. But exhausting. And, I'll grudgingly admit, a bit of overkill.

I'm not ready to go totally bare bones: a tablecloth is easy enough, and covers up what might be a messy picnic table, but napkins? I think we can make an exception and use some (recycled) paper ones. And I can probably enjoy my wine out of a plastic cup just as much as a jelly jar, but I do like to have some votives on the table; once it gets dark, this is actually useful as well as pretty. And tea, although really comforting on a chilly night down at the river, is often the straw that breaks the camel (that's...ahem...me). We get enough tea at home.

But, when it comes to dessert, while cookies and watermelon, or brownies and grapes all get gobbled right up, there's one thing the kids are looking for, and one thing that can buy us that extra twenty minutes, while the grown-ups finish talking, have another beer, maybe. And that's roasted marshmallows.

I guess Tim is going to have to get up and start that fire after all.

Magnolia pepper + onion relish::
Saute 2 cups chopped mixed yellow/red/orange bell peppers and 1 1/2 cups chopped onions in 3T olive oil + 1 T butter. Toss in one clove of garlic, minced, and season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes, until very tender and slightly caramelized.

Nana's Agurke Salat (Danish cucumber salad)
Peel and slice cucumbers very thinly. Make a mixture of 1 C water, 1 C white vinegar and 1 t sugar. Mix well to dissolve the sugar. Add a generous amount of black pepper, and pour over the cukes. Add 1/4 C chopped fresh dill. If you need to, add equal parts water and vinegar to cover the cucumbers. The longer you can let it sit, the better it will be.
{two notes: you don't really have to peel the cucumbers if you don't want to, and, some people salt the cucumbers first, but I don't add any salt at all to this. Just lots of black pepper.}

What do you make for dinner to go? I'd love to hear your ideas/favorites/suggestions.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Book Club Cooking

Tim and I are on a big push to finish our book club book. Especially high stakes this time, as we picked the book; Rabbit Run. We are notoriously bad book club book finishers. But I think we've got this one in the sack, so to speak.

We've been sharing one copy for the last couple of weeks. I know, I know. But we honestly couldn't get a copy from the libraries (we tried several), or the used bookstore, and ended up buying it new, and it seemed frivolous to buy two. So.

In the meantime, the real point of book club looms large for me: the eating and drinking of good food and wine, and having amazing conversations with all the ridiculously smart people in our book club. They're really something. And they don't even make you feel badly when you can't keep up. Or, ahem...pipe down. Well. Anyway.

Everyone brings something to the table, literally and figuratively.

As we tend toward vegetarian at book club, I've pulled out of my recipe stash Carrot Dill Soup.
This is one of the first things I ever made, back when I first got my hands on my own kitchen, and joined a mail-order cook-book-of-the-month club. When my father, still reeling from college tuition bills, caught wind of that, he asked me if I was going to "get a job, or just stay home and cook."

I knew what the right answer was back then, but we both, my dad and I, have come a long way since. I now essentially do the latter, and no one is a bigger fan of my soup than my dad.

I used to follow the recipe from The New Basics like science lab instructions, but now I rarely follow much of anything. I started switching in vegetable broth for chicken broth a few years ago, as it seemed so unnecessary-almost an affront to the carrots. And those Silver Palate girls always had to complicate everything. Creme Fraiche? I'm still sketchy on what exactly that is.

So here's my idea of carrot soup: veggie, organic, fresh and easy. Even easier if you buy a couple bags of those baby carrots. Also, I don't have a blender around anymore, but I have one of those hand blenders, which you just plunge right into the pot and puree everything right then and there. Eliminates all sorts of issues.

Carrot Dill Soup

::saute in 1/2 stick of melted butter, 1 chopped onion, until wilted
::add 2 lbs carrots (either baby or diced), 2 celery stalks + leaves, chopped, 1/4 c fresh dill
::add in 8 cups of vegetable broth
::salt + pepper to taste, pinch of cayenne pepper (don't skip this!)

::bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover, cook for 40 minutes.
::transfer to a blender, or, if you have one, definitely use one of those hand blender things, to puree the soup to a texture that pleases you.
::check for salt + pepper, and sprinkle with a little more fresh dill, to serve.

I hope book club enjoys this as much as I enjoy them. And if you're reading, Dad, I'll save some for you.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Blooms in a snowstorm.

Go ahead. You be the one to tell her she can't wear her sundress yet.

One word got me through this day. And that word is not faith, nor hope, nor wine.

Cooking.

I made bread. I made steel-cut oatmeal. I made omelets. I made brownies. I made corn chowder. I made garlic toasts. I made a white bean gratin.

I made school lunches for tomorrow.

Maybe hope did get me through, a little bit.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

A small, deeply disturbed following.

I have to confess that I have never read M.F.K. Fisher. Not a word. I have always meant to, but really, never come close. Don't have a book on my shelf, waiting with the others. Haven't gotten one out from the library and left it untouched until the due date. Nothing.

I don't know why, and I don't know why I think it matters, other than that I love food, I love writing, I love true stories about people and love and life, so this seems like something lacking in my literary experience. Even, lacking in me.

But, I've read every word that Laurie Colwin ever wrote.

If you've read-or even think you've heard of-Laurie Colwin, then we can just frown, nod, and shake our heads in unison. You know what I mean. You and I are among the small, deeply disturbed followers* of a great writer, great food writer, and all around lovely human being, who died way before what anyone would consider her time.

If you've never even heard of her, then please look her up and read one of her books. They are, honestly, all the same to some degree. The same character, wrestling with similarly domestic crises of heart and home. Big, thoughtful heart, and comfortable, but often stilted home.

I say this with all due respect and admiration. Because that is what Laurie Colwin engenders: respect, admiration, loyalty, and deep affection. Both for her characters- flawed as they may be- and herself. She makes you feel that she is writing just for you, giving you kindly but unflinching insights into people you might know, and sometimes, even, yourself.

And her food writing (two volumes of collected essays and pieces written for magazines) elevates to an art form cooking that has perhaps fallen out of fashion in these days of flashy, flash in the pan, celebrity chef vanity books. Food that you and I actually can live with, can cook for our families and our friends, and build a community of love and comfort by sharing-simply-a meal.

Sadly, the lexicon of Laurie Colwin is finite. Some of my favorites: Goodbye Without Leaving. A Big Storm Knocked It Over. Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object. And, most of all, Family Happiness. I found several at a used book store in Connecticut over Thanksgiving weekend (I once owned all of them but have pressed them onto so many friends over the years that I wound up without any) and bought every one they had there.

So, I'm starting over. I find that I'm such a different person than when I first read them-eighteen years ago!- and so I read them differently. But that somehow, they've grown with me. When I'm done with them this time, I'll need to move on again.

Sounds like a good hint for a Christmas present. Some M.F.K. Fisher would be perfect right about now.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

*Bonus points if you recognize this quote from William Hurt, in The Big Chill.