Choose Your Weapon

You need a big knife. A big knife can do anything a small knife can do, but the opposite is not really true. A small knife is not going to help you carry onions and garlic from the cutting board to the skillet, for instance. But, with a little practice you can do even fine detail things -- like peel the strings off a celery stalk -- with a big knife.

And a big knife is a great way to get the male of the household into an apron. Add some danger and men will try anything. Get a big knife for a Father's Day gift and promise a blow torch if they learn to make creme brulee for Christmas. Big, sharp blades and fire? Sign me up.

My weapon of choice is a Chinese cleaver. It is a more subtle version of the meat whacking blade we're all familiar with from old movies and cartoons. Mine is an old Martin Yan ("If Yan Can Cook, So Can You!") signature product. I'm sure Martin fronts for a different company these days. But, I keep this old blade. I've had it many years, it didn't cost that much and it holds an edge better than some of my fancier knives.

My cleaver is like an old pickup truck with 150,000 miles on it. Not as stylish as today's products, maybe even a little beat up from wear and tear; but it's comfy, gets the job done and I can't find a reason to replace it.

And it's big, did I mention that? Manly big. You nick yourself with this bad boy and your grandchildren will bleed.

Tuesday Night Special: Easy Mediterranean Wraps

My wife likes eggplant. Seriously so. If I didn't cook eggplant for her now and then I'd be out on

the street. Dom Perignon and jewelry are nice, but she wants eggplant. And don't peel the skin or you get quite an interrogation. "Why are you peeling it? What did it ever do to you? You expect me to eat naked eggplant?"

Fortunately, I discovered eggplant while I was still a single guy, prior to meeting my wife. I remember the grocery store checkout person eyeing my produce and saying, "I never thought I'd see a single man buy eggplant."

Little did he know, it was destiny.

So, she called me late Tuesday afternoon to say that she got held up with what she was doing and didn't make it to the store. "And remember, I'm going to the thing at that place tonight? We need to eat early and quick."

As a result, our dinner plans had been transformed from a carefully thought out process into a desperate foray into dark magic. It was up to me to conjure yet another Tuesday Night Special -- a quick, healthy dinner based solely on what we had in the house. I call this a "Tuesday Night Special" because, for reasons that I could not hope to explain, these situations always seem to happen on a Tuesday. Go figure.

In a moment like this, you need to be creative. When you open the fridge or pantry door, Wolfgang Puck will not appear with an already-prepared dish in his hands (and if he does, get your own darned blog). I look for elements I have and try to fit them into food stylings from different cuisines. You have to think broadly about these forms and the elements that fit them -- and often you'll be twisting the form a bit to fit what you have. What I found were the elements (veggies, cheese etc.) that generally fit the "taco" form, but are not usually considered Mexican ingredients. So this form is twisted a bit into "wraps." Playing the role of salsa tonight is sun-dried tomato tapenade.

Easy Mediterranean Wraps

Ingredients:

A couple veggie sausage patties (I used Boca Burger - noting that trademarks are the property of their owners who did not pay a dime for the plug - but you could use a little regular sausage, leftover chicken or just skip it altogether)

1 or 2 smallish, firm purple eggplants (back away from the peeler and nobody gets hurt)

1 or 2 large beefsteak-style tomatoes or equivalent, seeded, chopped

1/2 a medium onion, diced

About a cup or so of fresh grated parmigiano-reggiano

8 flour tortillas

For the tapenade:

2 decent-sized cloves garlic

About 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes

3 to 4 kalamata olives, pitted (buy them whole and pit them yourself)

2 anchovies or 2 tsp anchovy paste (OK, sure, it's optional you wimp)

1 tbsp capers

A splash of balsamic vinegar

Extra virgin olive oil

A bit of fresh herb (whatever you have, I usually put oregano in tapenade)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Slice the eggplant into half-inch rounds then into strips. Combine the eggplant, tomatoes and onions in a baking dish. Toss all that with olive oil and if you season it, do so just lightly. Put in the oven to bake, stirring the mixture now and then. You want it to just start caramelizing and in my oven that was about 30 minutes.

Put the tapenade ingredients into a food processor, with enough olive oil that you get something that's a loose paste though not really a sauce. Add the olive oil little by little as you whir it up. You can always add more, but can't remove it once it's in there. Adjust all the ingredients for your taste.

Microwave the veggie burgers, leftover chicken or if you're using regular sausage cook that up in a pan quickly. You want it shredded enough that it can be mounded in the wrap. For the veggie burgers, I just cut them into strips.

To serve, I put the eggplant mixture on the table along with the other elements and let people make their own Mediterranean wraps.

The kids ate it. The wife got her eggplant. Disaster was avoided. Dad was a hero.

Cussin' in the Kitchen

Unfortunately, men cuss (you heard it here first). We break a window in our heavenly palaces with each utterance, but there you have it. Cooking is no different from rebuilding a carburetor in that manner. You scrape your knuckles with a crescent wrench or a chef's knife and, well, it hurts!

Recently, my son and I had a talk about cussing. In watching the movie "Get Smart," he noted that the character of "the chief" had a moment of existential terror and related that his thoughts went something like this: "Holy 'Beep!' Holy 'Beep!' I was almost hit in the head with a swordfish!" Well, that's my son's version of the dialogue anyway and his rendition is far funnier than anything on the screen.

I told him that maybe we can cut people some slack when they stub their toes or slice their knuckles. But, I also pointed out that there is another genre of cussing that seems to me to be the product of a lazy mind and we shouldn't let our minds get lazy. So, the other day he was expressing his dissatisfaction with something and he said "Duhbunketah!" Not wanting to cultivate a lazy mind, he decided that he would make up a word on the spot to express any dissappointment. My goal is to adopt his philosophy in the kitchen.

Bang my head on an open cabinet? Duhbunketah!

Slice off a finger with the chef's knife? Duhbunketah!

Out of garlic? Holy Beep!

Rule #1: Save Dem Bones!

Right now, my freezer is loaded with chicken stock. The kids have trouble finding their ice cream and complain. But, they eat tasty stuff because of that stock and every cup of stock makes the chicken it came from that much cheaper.

Don't buy consomme or any of the other pre-packaged chicken stocks out there. I came to this conclusion in the grocery store one day when I literally had a chicken in one hand and two containers of chicken stock in the other. The chicken stock was going to cost me more than the chicken. But, it was loaded with salt, so it had that going for it.

Save Dem Bones and Use them! And don't worry that this sounds like it takes a long time. Your active participation in the process is only about 15 minutes or so.

Basic (Not sure there is any other kind) Chicken Stock

Ingredients:

Chicken bones (preferably those not gnawed on by any males in the family)

Water

A medium onion

A few cloves of garlic

2 or 3 regular-sized carrots

1 or 2 stalks of celery

Some dried thyme

Put the chicken bones in a stock pot. Try to include some breast bones as they usually have some meat that can be stripped later for yet another meal. Add water until the bones are covered by an inch or so (hey, you're gonna simmer it a long time). Bring it to a boil.

Turn the flame down to a simmer and add the other ingredients. Chop the carrots, onion and celery but you don't need to pulverize them. Do NOT salt the stock. Add any salt to taste when you actually use the stock to make something.

When I say "simmer," you're looking for a small bubble, like the chicken is relaxing in a spa. You're not boiling frogs here.

Now simmer the stock until the spousely person in your life asks, "Is this done yet?" a few times or three to four hours, whichever comes first. You're looking for it to reduce to less than half of what you started with. It should look like it's rich with flavor and any chicken meat still on the bones should look like the color of gray on the heel of a sweat sock (don't worry about "pretty" while you're still cooking; that's for presentation and that's another posting).

Let it cool, then pour it through a sieve, cheese cloth or other fine mesh gadget. Put that in the fridge overnight. Strip any meat off the bones and package that for a pasta or something.

The last step is to skim the fat off the surface with a slotted spoon, then package the stock in one-cup containers and freeze it. To use, pull it out of the freezer, thaw in the microwave and be sure to bring it to a boil first when you add it to whatever you're cooking.