Food For Dinner

Disrespectful Food

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 09:49:51 -0500

Last night’s dinner was a marvel of roasted autumn vegetables and scalloped potatoes with your choice of sanely raised pork (supposedly) or smoked tofu. More later once my photographer (Bolivia) emails me the photos. But for now, I’m thinking forward: salchipulpo. All over Latin America it’s common to see salchipapas on the menu at informal restaurants. These are usually a plate or bag of deep fried hot dog pieces and french fries, served with various condiments. This morning I came across salchipulpos -- salchi, for the hot dogs, and pulpo for the octopus that it looks like. Tasty treat, right? Humanely raised? I doubt it. Interesting, though, because folk lore has it that pigs and octopi are among the smartest creatures of the animal world.

Days of Food

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 15:38:05 -0500

Ok. The grandparents were coming over for dinner the next day, and I knew I’d have no time to cook for them on the day of. So the night before, Violet and I got crackin’ in the ktichen, and in half an hour had assembled a magnificent feast (if you choose to look at this way, which I do; my glass is always half full, even when its empty). Recalling that Grand Dad Dale was from Texas, I figured we could make something very pleasing for him out of the half used boxes of cavatapi (also known as cellantani), and mostaccioli (mustaches) pasta that were in the cabinet. I picked up a couple of pounds of Sharp NY State Cheddar from the deli on the corner, and set Violet to work stirring a few tablespoons of flour into some melted butter, to let it cook for a bit before assembling the white sauce. When it was slightly nutty, she added milk, in mincing little pours, until I told her to go ahead and add a cup of two.
“Look dad, how thick it still is,” she said in amazement.
Bored to death the bechamel, I threw a section of dried star anise into the sauce, hoping it would add some mellow excitement to the meal (and fearing that it would absolutely ruin it; I haven’t used star anise very often, although I love the way it mellows Vietnamese pho). Seeking color, I added a little plastic capsule full of saffron threads, and Violet and I paused to watch the color of the sauce change from pale white to pale red-yellow as the threads saffron threads bled into the milk. Beautiful. Salt. Pepper. More milk, the sauce thickening. A pound of grated cheese. Still more milk to thin the sauce (we needed a lot). We boiled the pasta and drained it. Put it in a deep baking dish (a white ceramic thing from William Sonoma that holds about 50 pounds of mac and cheese), along with some cubes of Neiman Ranch ham. I knew from reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safron Foer, that this pork had been raised well, and treated well (before being killed and butchered and wrapped in plastic and sold at Trader Joe’s), or so I thought -- soon after buying this meat I heard that Neiman Ranch had been bought by a corporation that wasn’t so concerned about how animals were treated. You can never win. I poured the sauce over the noodles and ham, and set it in the fridge. The next evening, running late, as usual, I put a half pound of grated cheese on top of the casserole and warmed it in the oven. Some frozen peas, and pomegranete juice over ice, rounded at the meal, which the grandparents, kids, and I really loved. We’ve eaten it every day since, usually garnished with Thai sriracha sauce (chile peppers and garlic ground into a paste).

no more food

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:33:01 -0500

When they walked in on me slicing radishes from the farmer’s market, Violet and Emelia made faces and groaned. Then they turned their noses up at the homemade chili with beans and beef on the stove. That pushed me over the limit. My new manifesto: There will be no more food served at the table. From now on, everyone will have to go out to eat. I will only cook for myself. I’m tired of kids complaining about what’s for dinner. Starvation commences ahorita.

Rapido

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 17:06:22 -0500

Shioot. Many dinners and many grocery trips have passed since the last entry. A list: simple baked farmer’s market cod (they let Long Island fisherman into the market up the street), cauliflower with New York State cheddar cheese sauce and something else one night; friendly raised cow (probably not friendly raised butchered, however) stew with tomatoes, potatoes, onions and herbs, served as stew one night, and over orzo the next (even fooled my daughter Emelia, who doesn’t approve of leftovers); grilled cheese sandwiches; and, I think, just cookies and pie one night when we were thinking about other things. It’s now 5:10 in the afternoon, Diane is in Paris again (room service at The Four Seasons, lucky her) and I’ve got four younguns to feed. This morning at 7:30 am Fresh Direct arrived with five boxes of food, a few pounds of New Zealand mussels among them, so that’s what we’ll have, along with a salad and perhaps some frozen french fries. I’m going to melt butter, add garlic and lemon, and see how that goes. Should take a total of 40 minutes, by my calculations, as long as the kids don’t complain too much about the gross looking shells, or the fact that some are closed before they are cooked, or global warming (mussels are very “green”) or whatever. Wait a minute: how can mussels be “green” if they are flown in from New Zealand? That’s a big carbon footprint right there. Sheet. I had strawberry frosted pop tarts for lunch at about 3:00, so I’m not really hungry.

The Secret: no eggs

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:15:27 -0400

For years I’ve served various people, including my kids, a version of sphaghetti carbonara I cobbled together from movies like Goodfellas, TV chef shows from the 70s, and guesswork. Often, it was gloppy, or worse yet, eggyolky. In the last year, the kids rebelled against it -- it was beautiful and enticing due to the bacon, but really not that good. But yesterday I discovered the secret. My wife Diane and I had read an article in which The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver (a charismatic person, if ever there was one) mentioned serving orechiette with bacon and peas in a cream sauce to his kids. We thought that sounded good for our kids. I Googled a few recipes and picked up some cream and bacon. My son Beck had pleaded to help me with dinner last night, but as soon as I got started he realized he had some Lego things to build with his buddy Houston. So I diced an onion (in a kind of baroque method I have; my wife’s father, Roy, came over from England last Christmas and told me I was going through way to many knife motions to get the diced result, but I can’t remember the geometry of his suggestions), sauteed it in butter, threw some frozen peas in, and then let that simmer with cream. No eggs. Meanwhile, Diane boiled some penne (all we had). I grated a cup or so of Parmegana Reggiano over that, stirred it, then poured the sauce into the bowl. Wow. It looked great. And it tasted wonderfully of cream and onions and cheese. The peas were kind of a green, tasteless afterthought (I swear these overpriced organic peas taste worse than the non-organic ones -- probably has something to do with the processing. The kids dove in, and even at the salad we served alongside. There were no complaints -- although I noticed Bolivia only took one bite. Diane, pastaphobe that she is, ate tofu. And I wish I had too, because while pasta often tastes good, it rarely ever feels good. Here is a photo of me, in my office, trying to think of what to serve for dinner tonight.

The Best Meal Ever

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:56:35 -0400

Fresh Direct delivered four portions of Goan spiced all natural friendly raised (until the last few minutes, of course) pork. I was going to cook it with roast vegetables and quinoa but ran out of time (this, that and that), so I asked Aunt Jo, my kids’ babysitter, to fix it. She added soy sauce, for some reason, and it turned out to be the most beautiful dinner, with mashed potatoes, sliced tomatoes from the farmer’s market (grown upstate; sold on the corner) and an odd vegetable I’d ordered with the pork called broccolini. When I ordered it I mistakenly thought it was broccoli raab, which has a bitter taste I love cooked with garlic. The broccolini was more unusual, with small florets and long, thin stalks. And it had a delicious essence of broccoli without that vegetables heavy cabbagy note. I loved it. Turns out that broccolini is a hybrid mix of regular broccoli and a Chinese broccoli called kai-lan (or so says Wikipedia), that was developed in Japan. The name is trademarked, although I’m not going to capitalize it, and is also sold under the awesome names Asparation, Asparations, Bimi, Tender Stem. Tender Stem sounds like a porn film. But it tastes better.
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Tough One

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:57:31 -0400

I have truly failed in the food department this week. Friday night two of my girls were performing with their chorus at Radio City Music Hall, singing parts of the score to the movie Lord of the Rings, along with another choir and an orchestra. They had to leave the house at 11 am to rehearse in the hall, and then had a dinner break before the show. Violet, who at age 11 wasn’t allowed to leave the hall, packed a dinner of pasta, CheezeIts, fruit, cheese, and other things. Bolivia took some cash to eat out with the other highschoolers. I got home from work about five minutes before we had to leave, took a shower and grabbed my son Beckett and two of Violet’s friends, the twins Mimi and Dylan and ran to the subway. Mimi ate an apple on the way. I ate some Cheezits (for some reason, I’d gotten a carton of the snack packs), Beck and Dylan passed. in the concourse under Rockefeller Center, just outside the subway, the twins ordered chocolate frosted donuts from a leachorous counter man at Dunkin Donuts. “You are a very, very, very lucky man,” he said to me as I left, with a wink and a nod. Yech. The girls were grossed out. Up top, Beck drank a gatorade and ate candied peanuts from a vendor. Inside, I had a hot dog and a coke. Beck had two boxes of popcorn and some MandM’s. Mimi had a Coke and some candy, and Dylan had water and candy. After the show, which was great fun, Bolivia had a hot dog. Crazy junky eating this week. Egads. Tomorrow, of course, I begin a juice fast, followed by 21 days of kicheree (mung beans, turmeric, cumin, ghee and rice) and fresh juices. Need to lose 10 pounds before Halloween so I can fit into my Grim Reaper costume.

34th Street Blues

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:42:31 -0400

Thursday: what’s for dinner? How should I know? Rushing through errand after errand in Manhattan with Bolivia and Violet: doctor, American Apparel for black shirts for chorus uniform, subways, etc....we’ve eaten up so much time that with just 45 minutes to get from 32nd street to 122nd street for a rehearsal, we start hunting down chow. Pizza? I suggest, spying a dirty looking place near Penn Station. I don’t like pizza, they say.
Can we go to Nathan’s? asks Violet.
My stomach churns at the thought of these airport hot dogs, but it’s already churning from the clock -- we will barely make their rehearsal, which is very important.
I don’t like hot dogs, says Bolivia. How bout China Express?
Eyuck, I think. Violet is shaking her head slowly no, frightened of the buffet laid out in the window. A tout is trying to lure us in with offers of discount buffet grease.
Let’s have a look, I say.
Bolivia likes the sight of the whatever it is laid out on the steam table. All I can think of is swine flue from people sneezing on the stuff. Vio is clearly disgusted. We leave.
Ok, I say, getting bossy. I’m going to decide now.
I scan the intersection of 34th and 7th. Donuts. Korean tacos. Caramel peanuts. Meat on a stick. Oh my God, I’m going to fail these younuns. I lead them towards an Au Bon Pain.
They don’t serve dinner, says Violet.
What is dinner? I say. They’ve got soup and sandwiches. We’re in a hurry, you know.
She and Bolivia totally reject it. We exit: I have such great control of the situation.
Then I spot it: Andrews Coffee Shop.
I don’t want coffee, says Violet.
I ignore her. We walk in to Andrews and Violet immediately orders an iced cappuccino, and a burger. Bolivia gets grilled mozzarella sandwich and onion rings. I get a coke. We race through the “meal” and plead for the check and run to the subway and get stressed out with every stop all the way up to 122. We’re late! We’re late!
Whew! made it, just ten minutes late. The girls sneak in.
I pull an organic New York state Macoun apple from my pocket as I head back to the subway. Suddenly I realize I’ve left two two kids other kids at home, starving. I’ve forgotten to tell the babysitter that Diane and I are both out, and won’t be home till 8. I call, and she’s wondering if I want her to make dinner for the orphans.
Anything, I say. Anything they want. Cereal. Pizza. Snickers. Whatever. Thanks! I’ll do better over the weekend.
When I get home I have a slice of roast beef on a hot dog bun, and a teaspoon of fish oil for my heart.

Aggressive Scallops

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 12:09:03 -0400

Last night I knew what was for dinner, but I had no idea how I was going to find the time to make it. A few days ago the friendly guys from Fresh Direct dropped off a few boxes of groceries, including a plastic container of dry scallops. Supposedly, dry scallops haven’t been plumped up with saline solution like the cheaper, wet scallops, which makes it easier to get a good crust when you pan sear them. I while back one of my daughters took me to a little beach on Shelter Island to show me a scallop that had chased her earlier in the day. Sure enough, when we approached, the scallop started scooting towards us underwater along the sand, in clear attack mode.

So at 4:30 when I rushed home with the dogs from my office to prepare scallops for everyone before two of the kids had to run off to a choral rehearsal (live singing to the movie Lord of the Rings at Radio City Music Hall), I wondered if I really wanted to eat the little creatures. Looking at the scallops after I set them on the cutting board, i could understand their anger (though these were already dead). When one of my 13 year olds noticed the scallops and asked, “What’s for dinner?” I replied, “scallops,” and she frowned. Following my new rules of calm parenting, I ignored her distaste. In my rush home from the office I failed to pick up white wine and herbs, figuring I’d just use the lemons I snagged from a street vendor before entering the subway in Manhattan, again in a rush, earlier that day. The kids never seem to “get” herbs, although Diane likes them. I dried the scallops with a paper towel (dead trees), put rice on to cook (pesticides -- it wasn’t organic), cut asparagus fro the steamer (purchased with the lemons -- soaked in pesticides, I’m sure, but cheap -- from the Egyptian guy), and washed some radishes (a mix of organic farmer’s market bulbs and toxic regular store bulbs -- the toxic ones were prettier, and smaller). Then I heated olive oil (small batch, supposedly, imported by local Brooklyn Foodies named Frank who charge a lot for it) in the Le Crueset (is it really that good? I don’t know) pan, threw in some butter, and set the scallops in flat side down on medium high heat. Meanwhile, my other 13 year old informed me that she had eaten a sandwich for dinner after school and was going to meet a boy, improbably named Ball Orama, or something like that, at the corner for a walkaround. My nine year old walked in saying, “I love scallops.” The 11 year old was in her room, “starving.” I was very excited pan searing the scallops -- a first for me -- and felt happy when I flipped the scallops to reveal a carmelized crust. Wow. Just like Le Bernardine. Ten minutes left before we had to depart for chorus, and no one was at the table. I called my 13 year old and said, “Drop the Ball and get home.” The other’s arrived, except one 13 year old who was upstairs with her theater coach. Diane set the table beautifully, as always and I squeezed lemon and sprinkled chopped fresh Italian parsley over the scallops and served everything up. We raced through dinner. Diane, of course, cleaned her plate first. My God, the scallops were good. We argued over how many morsels per person there were (3 for everyone but me), which I took to be a good sign. Even Bolivia, the teen who had eaten a sandwich earlier, sat down and asked for one. The 13 year old who had frowned at mention of the bivalves ate them happily later in the evening. A success: a brilliant meal in 20 minutes, eaten in five.

Morning Routine

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 13:36:18 -0400

A Japanese film crew (I think they were Japanese; being an American, I really have no idea where they were from) filmed the morning breakfast routine at my house today. Here’s what they found:

I Adore Ladurée Macaroons

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:55:48 -0400

What the heck is for dinner tonight?
If it were just me, I’d eat a tomato with salt.
But there’s the matter of the children. And they ate pasta last night.
My 11 year old, Violet, requested tuna melts for dinner tonight. This was just after she’d eaten two brownstone fresh orange yolked eggs, from our neighbor’s chicken coop (I know I heard cats trying to break into the coop last night). These were Martha Stewart eggs, colors of ecru and pale oak etc.... Which reminds me, several times in a past life I spent time with Martha’s chickens in Connecticut, and there’s nothing to say but: Beautiful f’n birds. Their mother, or hostess, Martha, was pretty foxy herself. Anyway, the thought of tuna melts twists my stomach in a Denny’s sort of way. Reminds me of my first honest job (as opposed to selling tie-dyed t.shirts or washing postal trucks, both of which predated my honest job). I was 13 years old, working at a Sambo’s (yes, I grew up amid racial strife). I was second dishwasher, and working illegally -- I’d said I was 14. The lead dishwasher, a student of jui jitsue, found out I was underage and threatened to beat me senseless if I didn’t wash all his dishes too. I did. I liked my paychecks, which i would spend on Blind Faith albums and EZWIDER rolling papers. Anyway, lunch there was often a tuna melt. And I don’t want to regress. So I won’t be eating them tonight. But I think the kids will. My wife returns from Paris tonight, no doubt with Ladurée chocolates and macaroons in tow. Wow. I’m going to have to fight myself not to eat those macroons, which are the most sublime treat. They are crunchy and melty at the same time.

Pets Other Than Children

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:39:57 -0400

Willie eats meal worms, kale, water, and the occasional waxworm (too much cholesterol for regular consumption). I’ve been trying to get my daughter, Bolivia, to feed Willie (her pet) for a few days now. Last night she had a terrible headache (lack of sleep; not using glasses in class; school stress?), and I felt sorry enough for her to offer to feed Willie myself. I set him on the dining table (don’t tell Diane, who is still in Paris eating salads and good chocolate) and dropped a few mealworms on the table. They have to be wiggling, within sight of one of his two side looking eyes, or he won’t eat them. The mealworms were cold from the fridge, but as they warmed, they began to wiggle. He lapped them up, fork-tongued. I swear he smiled at me. Then I stuck my fingers in a glass of water and let droplets fall onto his forehead so they’d slide down his face and into his mouth. That’s the only way Willie drinks. I call him a he, because of his name, but really, he’s a she. Now he’s in his terrarium for another few days of artificial UV warmth.

Eggsactly What I Didn’t Expect

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 22:32:58 -0400

Working on my novel until 4:45. Worrying about dinner. Wife in Paris doing the shows. Call babysitter, say “Please make pasta, whatever you want to do with it.” Feel guilty for lack of meat course, since one of my four really likes that. (I don’t like to serve it more than twice a week.) Rush home to drop coonhounds off with family. Subway into Manhattan (group therapy). A cigarette (forbidden and deadly and that’s why I smoked it). An oatmeal cookie from City Bakery. Home: bow ties and tuna and cooked frozen peas in a bowl, room temperature on the table. Then I remember the eggs: the couple in the house behind us in Brooklyn has 6 chickens in the backyard that they purchased in July. Last night they dropped off a dozen beautiful eggs of varying colors and sizes. All the eggs are little. My daughter Violet ate two of the orangish colored yolks this morning scrambled. Delicious. But I can’t bring myself to eat anything that comes out of a Brooklyn chicken. So I pass. I eat some pasta (very bad for me) and an ice cream sandwich. Fortunately, I didn’t have to feed a single kid tonight.

Offloaded Three Kids

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:18:00 -0400

Ok. Only one kid can ask What’s For Dinner tonight, and he’s only 9, so I can handle him. There’s going to be no cooking in the house. Momofuku Noodle Bar may beckon. Will Mr. Beckett, my nine year old, share a bowl of ramen with pork belly and pressed fish cake with me? Maybe the cafe at Nueu gallery. Will I be able to talk a nine-year-old named Beckett into eating ghoulash and coffee with whipped cream? That place is near the Met, where we could see the Vermeer painting, now up, that’s never before been exhibited. All this sounds pretty elitist as I write it, and expensive. And fanciful. Because in truth, none of it will happen. It’s going to be peanut butter and jelly on toast. That’s what my nine year old likes. And that’s probably what he will get. Followed by a movie -- let’s say, Pokemon -- and gelato from Court Street. In truth, Beck (above) is a picky eater who rarely eats. So we might just skip it altogether. My three girls “have plans.” Thank God for weekends.