Great Expectations

My daughter made dinner last week.  This is not any kind of a remarkable feat.  She is, afterall, 13 years old and has mastered the only skill truly required to cook:  she can read.  Still.  It seems like it was 20 minutes ago that I was making airplane noises while I scraped pureed peas off of her lower lower lip with a plastic-coated spoon.  What the hell happened?  Apparently children grow up without your permission.  Who knew?

It didn't help that she pulled my volume of Julia Child off the shelf and decided to make supreme de volaille archiduc.  Really?  Chicken breast sauteed in onions and paprika in a Madeira-cream reduction sauce?  I had figured when I gave her the green light to cook dinner that we'd be dining on Cap'n Crunch.  Of course, as I gingerly turned over about $15 worth of chicken breast, I realized that we still might.  Indeed, I had visions that this poor chicken was destined to make a charred journey from shrink wrap-to stove-to trash.  Secretly, I wondered if I had any meat sauce stashed in the freezer that I could pull out after what I was sure would be a chicken cremation. 

I was mistaken.  The dish was everything you would expect of chicken breasts sauteed in butter and then slathered with heavy cream and booze.  It was amazing.  Eating my words never tasted so good.  My daughter had the whole family practically licking every morsel and drop of it off the plate with our tongues.  

I have often observed that the secret of successful parenting is to simply lower your expectations.  It seems, however, that the real joy of parenting is watching your children exceed them.


Supreme de Volaille Archiduc (something in French)
By Julia Child

1.   Rub 4 boneless chicken breasts with fresh lemon juice and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2.  Finely mince one medium sized onion (about 2/3 cup).  Drop the minced onion into boiling water for 1 minute; drain, run cold water over them, and drain again.  This technique lets you quickly soften the onion, but by pouring cold water over the hot onions, you stop them from continuing to cook.

3.  Heat 4 Tbsp of butter in a large saute pan until foaming and add the blanched onion and 1 Tb of  red paprika.  Cook the onions over very low heat for about 10 minutes.  Low heat here is critical.  Butter burns really quickly;  if your pan is too hot you can turn your back for a minute and wind up with a black slurry.

4.   Add the chicken breasts and saute until they are slightly golden. 

5.  Move them to a casserole dish and finish them in an oven pre-heated to 400 degrees, about 20-30 minutes.  Julia Child claims that the meat is done when it "is springy to the touch"--whatever that means.  I have to either stick a meat thermometer in it or cut it open peak inside, a fact of which I am not particularly proud, but which I passed down to my daughter.   

6.   Pour into the now emptied pan that you used to saute the chicken, 1/4 cup beef broth, 1/4 cup port, Madeira, or dry white vermouth.  We  used Madeira.

7.  Add 1 cup heavy cream.  Yeah, baby, yeah.  This recipe tastes amazing for a reason.

8.  Add back in the reserved onion and paprika mixture.

9.  Stir the sauce constantly over high heat until the cream boils down and slightly thickens.  Season to taste with lemon, salt, and pepper.

10.  Serve the sauce over the now fully cooked chicken breast and garnish with parsley.  Pair it with anything that will absorb the sauce:  risotto, potatoes, polenta and a fresh green, such as those frozen green peas that languish for months in the back of your freezer.
11.  Ask your daughter when she's making it again.

Do Bears Eat Muffaletta?

 Although I promised that I would report on how the muffaletta held up on the Appalachian Trail,* I'm truly and simply grateful that I survived the experience.  Wouldn't you know that 10 minutes into my inaugural hike into White Oak Canyon, my friends and I unwittingly stumbled upon a bear.  A black one.  A big black bear. To those of us who grew up in the 1970's, bears aren't all that frightening --at least initially.  I come from a long culture of cool, kind, bears.  There's Yogi Bear, Sesame Street's Fozzie Bear, Pooh Bear, and of course, the perennial favorite--Gentle Ben.  Which all explains, of course, my intial reaction to the giant black bear that ambled across the trail--less than 30 feet in front of us:  "Ahhhh, look at dat beeeaaarr."   And then, a split second later when I realized that I wasn't at the National Zoo with protective guard rails, but rather, was out in the wild, where arguably, I was pretty much an hors d' oeurves--at least for bears: "HOLY SHI*; that's a F******* BEAR."  Suffice it to say that I gave little thought to the muffaletta wrapped up tightly in tinfoil like a small nuclear device in my backpack.  Although if I'd thought about it, maybe I would have pulled it out in the hopes that our cool kind bear would have preferred to dine on it rather than us.  

None of that mattered.   Ranger Rick is right--unless you have the misfortune to stumble across a cub, most bears have little interest in humans.  We dutifully made a lot of noise, although we were still careful to do it in a manner that was neither aggressive or threatening.  Gentle Ben continued to amble along, gratefully, blessedly, away from us.   

My heart didn't stop pounding for another 45 minutes.  For most of the day every stump and bush looked like a bear, and the quick scurrying of squirrels in the leaves caused a sudden rush of adrenalin.  This all means that when we finally settled down to dive into my muffaletta that we had most assuredly earned it.  The muffaletta was amazing, although truthfully, it paled in comparison to the graceful dance of water on the rocks that is White Oak  Canyon.

     

*  See Hiking the Appalachian Trail (September 14, 2011) for the Muffaletta recipe and an explanation of why in the world you would ever pack one for a hiking trip.

Hiking the Appalachian Trail

The Falls at White Oak Canyon

I am going to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail this weekend.  Don't jump to any conclusions.  Unlike former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, I'm not planning a tryst with my Argentinian lover.  Remember that this is a boring suburban cooking blog.  I'm getting together with a couple of girlfriends and we're heading out to a place called White Oak Canyon in the Shenandoah National Park.  Technically, this canyon is NOT on the Appalachian Trail.  The "AT," to those in the know, is a trail from Maine to Georgia that follows the ridge line of the Appalachian Mountains.  Because this is a canyon, it isn't on the ridge, and hence, it's not exactly on the Trail.  Ah, purists-sort of the same mentality that hates jarred spaghetti sauce.  Ridge, smidge.  The way I see it, if I'm closer to West Virginia than to a Nordstrom's, then I'm on the Appalachian Trail.




OK, OK; poison ivy concerns me too.

  Candidly, this is my first ever real hike.  I'm a big walker, but that's about as rigorous as my exercise gets.  I'm told that hiking is different.  I suppose I should be buzzing about pulling together trail maps, a compass, water purification tablets, and studying Native American plant species, but I'm not.  The National Park Service states that this is a four-hour hike, safe for those between the ages of 6 to 60.  Hence, I don't think survival equipment is really required, and unless I'm eating them, I could care less about plants.  No; there's really only one thing that concerns me.  Lunch.

I figure that we'll arrive at the Park around 10 in the morning.  It's a four-hour hike, and unless we carry our lunch with us, we won't be able to eat until two o'clock.  Given that at heart I'm a namby-pamby, it might even be closer to three o'clock, what with all the multiple water breaks and rest stops.  I can do a lot of things, but waiting until two or three in the afternoon to eat lunch is not among them   Carry it in it is.  So here's the dilemma:  a really good picnic lunch is going to be heavy, what with the plates, utensils, and tupperware--not to mention the food itself.  I suppose we could opt for a utilitarian meal of power bars and raisins, but let's be honest: power bars are disgusting, and so are raisins--unless they are in an oatmeal cookie.  The obvious alternative is sandwiches, but they'll be a smushed up mess after being jostled in a backpack for two hours.   What to do?  What to do? 

I have an idea.  A muffaletta.  A muffaletta is sort of an antipasto salad wrapped up in a thick hunk of Italian bread.  The beauty of it is that you typically make a muffaletta the night before you eat it, and some recipes even call for you to to let it sit overnight under a heavy can or two in order to compress all the flavors.  Ah--you see where I'm going here.  All that backpack jostling will actually make my muffaletta taste better--part of the recipe as it were.  Ultimately, it's really just a sandwich, so it should be pretty light.  Add a couple of apples or oranges that carry pretty well, some canned chips, and a delightful lunch--worthy of an inaugural hike on the Appalachian Trail--might just be in our future.

Muffaletta

1.   Go buy a really high-quality whole loaf of Italian bread.  DO NOT BUY IT SLICED.

2.  Cut the loaf in half horizontally.  Place it on a large piece of tinfoil--sufficient to entirely wrap the loaf once it is fully stuffed.  Depending on how much you intend to stuff it, you may want to pull out some of the breading on the inside of the loaf.  Take the removed breading and immediately shove it into your mouth.  It's really really good. 

3.  Mix vigorously in a small bowl:  two Tbs of olive oil and one Tb of good-quality balsamic vinegar.  Drizzle this dressing on the interior of each side of the loaf.

4.  Generously spread each side of the load with any or all of the following:  chopped olives (green or black or both), thinly sliced red onion, slices of roasted red peppers, pesto, basil leaves, tomatoes, or chopped artichokes.

5.  Line the loaf with several ounces of your favorite deli meat:  ham, salami, turkey, roast beef, mortadella, or any combination thereof.

6.   Layer in a few ounces of your favorite cheese:  provolone, asiago, and/or mozarella.

7.  Reassemble both sides of the loaf to make one giant honkering sandwich.  Wrap it really tightly in the tinfoil. 

8.  Wrap it up again with another piece of tinfoil; put it in a large ziplock freezer bag and then put it in your backpack--on top of the water bottles, apples, and anything else that's heavy.  No need to take unnecessary chances with the smushing.  You want the flavors pressed in, but too much jostling and you run the real risk of turning it into a soggy mess.

9.  Drive out to White Oak Canyon.  Hike about 2 miles into the canyon with good friends and enjoy both your lunch and the magic of the moment.  Or at least that's the vision; I'll let you know how it turns out.

Wine 101

Wine intimidates me.  It's difficult for me to admit to this fact because I am married to a wine freak.  Pretty much every day we're popping open some varietal I've never heard of, and he's going on about the weather in Napa and what the Parker scores are.  Most of daily life is like Wine 101.  The problem is we've been married for 16 years, and by this time I should have my degree; instead, I'm pretty much stuck at Wine 101.  About all I can do is tell you the difference between a red and a white.  Um.  They're both good.


I think part of the problem is that hubby dearest knows
my palate such that I don't have to.  When it comes to wine, I get to be June Cleaver and let Ward deal with all the tough issues like how to disclipline Wally and the Beaver, and,oh yeah--decide what to drink. 

I have, however, learned two things.  The first is that when the right food is paired with the right wine, the experience and flavor of both is enhanced.  (And when the right food and wine are paired with the right people, well--that's pretty much a spiritual experience.)  For example, take my tomato sauce.  I pride myself on this sauce, and even my children know that jarred sauce in my kitchen is like ants at a picnic.  My Ragu-loving husband, however, can do one thing to make it better:  serve it with chianti classico reserva.  This higher-end chianti stands up to the acidity of the tomatoes and allows every single molecule of flavor to tap dance on your tongue.  Same thing happens when you  take a ruby port and serve it with the richest creamiest darkest chocolate dessert you can find, and suddenly your richest creamiest darkest chocolate dessert becomes utterly and simply:  MORE.  It's heaven.

The problem, of course, is knowing what pairs with what, and here is the second thing I've learned.   If you don't have a husband or a trusted fried that can pair your wine, find someone who can.  There are hundreds of such people; most of them own wine stores.  There is simply no shame in not knowing in how to pick the right wine.  There are about a million wines out there, and only professionals or weirdos like my husband can keep track of them all.  Note that I didn't say find someone to pick your palate.  Your palate is your palate.  It's sort of like sex, if it isn't good for you, then it simply isn't good.  The right wine guy will know this.

I don't frequently do shout-outs on this blog, but my favorite place to go for wine is Vienna Vintner in Vienna, Virginia.  The proprietor is guy named Victor Mendes, and he's about as approachable and unpretentious as they come.  You are greeted with not just with a smile, but on Saturday afternoons, he has a full spread of wine and food out for sampling at the back of the store.  Hit it at the right time, and you feel like you've walked into a really good party. Victor understands that wine and food are like a good marriage-each one does what they can to make the other better.  So when you sample his wines, you get a sense not just what they will taste like, but how they will hold up to particular flavors.  There's also usually someone there, if not Victor himself, who is more than willing to explain to you what it is you are drinking, and thus, after awhile, you start to learn what it is you like, and what you don't.  Go there often enough and you might actually learn enough about wine to graduate from Wine 101.

Confessions of a Kitchen Bitch



The She-cave.

 I have a small kitchen.  It's nothing that I'm ashamed of, and in fact, it serves as the perfect she-cave.  There's enough space for me, and for the occasional invitee, room for them as well.  The problem is when I have a house full of people.  Then my perfect-but-small kitchen becomes cramped. Take a few "helpers," and one or two people who "just want to keep me company," as well as the itinerant soul who just flits in and out to see how dinner is coming along, and the scene quickly becomes chaotic.  I have neither the patience nor tolerance to handle the situation gracefully.  I'm ashamed to admit it, but I get surly.  I need my space.  I knew I had a problem when one poor guest went to wash her hands at the sink, you know, so she could "help."  Unfortunately, it was at exactly the same time my pasta was a perfect al dente.  She was getting soap in the colander and my pasta was getting soggy, and although I never seriously considered pouring the scalding water over her hands, it would have gotten her out of my freaking kitchen. 

Did I just say that???

I also like to do things my way.  If you nuke the butter to make it soft, you better damn well know that butter softens in 11 seconds.  If you hit it with 30 seconds, and it becomes a soupy puddle, be prepared to field either a snarky comment or a dirty look.  I'm not proud of this part of me. 

Bread knife good (top); paring knife bad (bottom)

I knew that I had issues when my niece--one of my favorite people in the world--recently offered to help me make garlic bread.  As I assured her that she and she alone was welcome in "the zone," I watched in horror as she proceeded to stab a beautiful Italian loaf with a paring knife like she was cutting out the heart of a vampire.  And OMG she was doing it WITHOUT A CUTTING BOARD.  Deep breaths, deep breaths.  I smiled as sweetly as my bitchy heart allowed, and showed her what a bread knive is, and explained that it won't gouge and tear the bread (leaving unsaid "like you just did"), and that a good bread knife will cut a loaf into nice, clean slices, so that you can evenly distribute the garlic butter over each surface of the sliced bread.  She looked at me like I was a  crazy obsessive-compulsive freak.  Well yeah--because I AM.  But that's not the point. I mean, this was garlic bread.  Suffice it to say that things didn't get any better when she said "Well, you know, I just usually buy it pre-made." 

She does WHAT?  Buy garlic bread already made?  An item to which you simply add garlic butter, and she's got to buy it to make sure it has mylic acid and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose?  Really?  OK.  I may be a kitchen bitch, but I can damn well make garlic bread without resorting to Pepperidge Farm.

Garlic Bread

1.  Go to any ubiquitous grocery store and buy some bakery bread.  Hell, even 7-11 sells a halfway decent French baguette or Italian loaf.

2.  Soften 1 stick of butter.  The EASIEST way to soften butter is to remember in the morning that you plan to make garlic bread later in the day, and to take the stick out of the refrigerator to let it soften for a few hours.  If you forget, microwave a cold stick of butter in 5 second increments until you know your microwave and know how long it takes to get butter soft. You won't ever turn your butter into a soupy mess this way.

3.  Mince one LARGE clove of garlic (OK, 2 cloves of garlic) into the softened butter.  For this step, you will need a garlic press.  It's a small contraption that pulverizes garlic.  On those rare occasions (like when I'm at my Irish mother-in-law's house) when you don't have access to a garlic press, you can continually chop, chop, chop the garlic into a very small dice or try to smash it with the blunt end of a knife.  But it never works quite as well as a garlic press.  Blend the garlic into the butter.

4.  Slice your loaf or baguette with a bread knife, 3/4 inch slices, a bit on the diagonal. 

5.  Place the cut bread on a large sheet of aluminum foil--shiny side on the outside.  My lovely niece had the gumption (even after the paring knife debacle) to ask me why the shiny side had to be on the outside.  Two reasons:  (1) it's prettier; and (2) it better distributes the heat.   Deep breaths, deep breaths.

6.  Spread the garlic butter on both sides of each slice of bread.  If, however, your "helpful guest" nuked the butter for 30 seconds, just go ahead and sigh a big sigh and drizzle the garlic butter over each slice with a spoon.  It works well enough.

7.  Wrap the bread in the aluminum foil and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

8.  Admit your bitchiness; say your penance, and then revel in the flavor that is so delightfully unadulterated with chemicals and preservatives.