The Year in Food: Chef Dad Style

We had a quiet Christmas with no extended family plans to create added stress.  So, it was not until I fought my way through the grocery store that it dawned on me that Christmas had arrived and it was too late to do a posting for that holiday.  Apparently, stressful moments mark time at the holidays.  Whodathunkit?

So, I swore to do better for New Years.  Enjoy below a brief look back at 2009 with The Year in Food: Chef Dad Style.  By “style” I mean no discernible pattern organizes these paragraphs.  Things are presented more or less as they really were, though liberties might have been taken at the margins.  To paraphrase Groucho Marx, the opinions expressed below are my own, and if you don’t like them…I have others.

The family started a garden in the neighborhood community garden in the spring.  We quickly discovered there was just as much “community” as “garden” in this checkerboard area of family plots.  The various gardeners joyfully share their bounty and gardening provides a common language for a multi-cultural neighborhood.

Hunting made a comeback in 2009, but with a twist.  The New York Times reported on the formation of bands of urban hunters attempting to get in touch with their inner Daniel Boones, learning how to shoot dinner to feed the family in tough times. So, let me get this straight:  Armed stockbrokers, ad executives and lawyers stalking food to shoot at?  Do trendy restaurants object to guns on the premises? 

In a sign of how pervasive food blogging has become as an international lifestyle, digital cameras now come with a “food” mode.

“When Dad Cooks” entered the blogosphere in 2009.  Coincidentally, bloggers also came under scrutiny during the year as being somehow paid off to blog about products from generous companies.  So trust us newbies.  We can only aspire to corruption.

Part of the plot of “The Next Iron Chef” on Food Network included chefs who cheated, hiding ingredients from competitors.  So much for the integrity of the food system.

My son learned to make baby back ribs and grilled cheese sandwiches on his own, in addition to making a great Caesar Salad.

The White House established a working garden for the first time since the FDR Administration.  Eleanor Roosevelt’s garden was plowed under to symbolize that happier post-war/post-Depression times had arrived.  Lawn was the thing, land that could be wasted as ornamentation.  The White House Lawn was a synecdoche of suburban lawns everywhere.  Today, we read of people planting “recession gardens” so a through-the-looking-glass version of that symbolism still holds today.

The movie “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” entertained young and old with a story about a food system run amok.  Special kudos to the producers for treating food allergies seriously rather than as a cheap joke.  Mr. T voicing an acrobatic overzealous police officer provided more than enough cheap jokes.

In other movie news, “Julie and Julia” reminded us all what a grand lady we lost in Julia Child.  Fresh from that blog-turned-book-turned-cinematic success, Julie Powell carved out an expertise in irony, moving on to…uh, well, look it up, that’s why God gave you an Internet.

Trend or Bust?  A quick look around the web suggests that “Peruvian” food was supposed to be all the rage in 2009.  Anyone?  Anyone?

The media was on top of things as ever, defending the First Amendment and all that.  Cooking at home became an identified trend with major coverage pretty much everywhere.  Eschewing food riots as a mere blip, the media jumped on a story of domestic cuisine that would have been cutting edge journalism…at the end of the Neolithic Era.

Happy New Year, from our kitchen to yours.

What's in a Name?: Stir Frying Eddy's Mommy

Edamame.  It’s a sleek, exotic name.  If it were a cat it would be a large, black predator.  If it were a car, you couldn’t afford it.  If it were a spy, Sean Connery would play the role and introduce himself as:  Mommy.  Eddy Mommy.

But, edamame is none of those things my friends.  It’s, well, soy beans.  Not sleek.  Not exotic.  Not even an international spy.

Bean.  Soy Bean.

It took a Japanese word to turn a pedestrian staple crop into an exotic ingredient. Soy beans are not the only trendy food to undergo this bit of rhetorical magic.  Chilean Sea Bass became so popular it was overfished.  Yet it is not from Chile and is not a bass, though it does come from the sea, so there’s some truth in labeling for you.  The words “Chilean Sea Bass” are like a marketing sauce ladled over the Patagonian Toothfish to make it go down more sweetly.

But, I was talking about (say it with me now)…e-d-a-m-a-m-e…

Edamame and soy beans inhabit a cultural and marketing paradox in the food system.  If you’re on the hunt for edamame (put a lot of breath into the vowel sounds, it’s more fun that way), you might have to look around a bit to find it.  But that’s not at all true for soy beans.  What is not based on corn in the contemporary U.S. processed-food diet is based on soy beans.  These odd little buggers are in everything.  Unlike corn, though, most people don’t know what soy beans really are.  Kids don’t beg for soy beans on the cob on a hot summer day.  You’ve never wrapped soy beans in foil and put them on the grill alongside steaks.  Even the Texas State Fair does not offer deep-fried soy beans on a stick (although they will deep fry anything up there, so it would not surprise me).

It’s also a fun word to say, though Patagonian Toothfish raises a chuckle as well come to think of it.

Most packaged edamame that I’ve seen are already shelled, though you can find them still in the pod.  Shelled, they are just about the size of things you worry your toddler will stuff up his nose.   And now that you have that disturbing image in mind, let’s talk about cooking these bad boys.

They are quite versatile, providing great texture and just enough of their own flavor that you can blend them with pretty much any other flavors.  From the frozen package, they will thaw quickly with just a little water run over them.  They are also packed with protein rather than calories, so they add both protein and texture to an otherwise simple dish.  This posting is the result of a quick stir fry with lots of onion and colorful peppers for a visual delight (helps get the kids to eat it), with shredded Napa Cabbage for bulk.  In a stir fry like this, the sauce is the thing and where there is a sauce in a stir fry, you need to ready a slurry of corn starch and water to thicken the sauce once it’s done its job of flavoring every nook and cranny of the stir fry.

Sauce:

~1 tbsp minced ginger

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup soy sauce

A splash of rice wine vinegar

A couple splashes of apple cider vinegar

A splash of Mirin (Japanese sweet sake)

~ 1 tbsp honey

~ ¼ cup sunflower seed butter or your favorite nut butter (peanut butter is just fine, crunchy is better than smooth to this family’s taste)

A whisper of your favorite hot sauce (optional, but - deep down - you know you want to)

Mix all these ingredients together and then play with the proportions until it hits your taste.  It should be sweet, savory, salty and buttery.  Let it sit while you tend to the stir fry.

Edamame versus soy beans.  Goes to show that we eat with more than just our senses.  We eat with cultural sensibilities as well.  Come on – if Chilean Sea Bass were called the Patagonian Toothfish all the way to the plate would it have been so popular it was overfished? And just how many erstwhile escargot lovers have spluttered a delicious sauce on themselves discovering the everyday name of that delicacy?

Chicago, Restaurant Musing, Cousin Elsie's Ghost, and Risotto redux

As I write, I am flying back from Chicago, having attended a hoity toity conference of really smart people.  Me…I’m just over-educated as the banner above says.  I came to talk about food and what we’re doing with it these days (Do you know some people are taking pictures of their dinner and posting them on the web?  What’s up with that?)

The really smart people let me in anyway, saying something about the holiday spirit and just try not to talk to anyone.  Strangely enough, I was reminded of my Cousin Elsie the other night, someone who was neither hoity nor toity and never took a single picture of her dinner despite being a great cook.

Living and cooking in the South, I am often reminded of Elsie.  She lived with my Grandma Helen in Georgia, having come to comfort Helen after my grandfather died in the ‘60s and she just never left.  Elsie was my mother’s cousin by marriage, I guess, or something like that (I could never keep track of the many nooks and crannies of the extended family, no Facebook back in the day).  Anyway, Elsie was a great cook.  As we used to say, when you went to see them in Atlanta, you ate one meal a day…it began at 10 am and continued until 10 pm.

Elsie did not often go out to dinner.  She was never fully satisfied because she knew she could do better.  Being a southern belle, she would always find something about the meal she could compliment.  “That sure was a nice fresh salad,” she would tell the waitress, ignoring the fact that she thought her steak was overdone and her beer not quite cold enough.  Elsie always remembered her southern manners unless someone else forgot theirs.

But, I was talking about Chicago before I detoured to Atlanta.  After having to be smart all day, I was hungry and went out to dinner with an old friend.  The concierge got us in at a local bistro specializing in northern Italian cuisine.  The place had all the right signs and symbols of a trendy Italian restaurant: brick ovens and wait staff dressed in black (and what’s up with that BTW; don’t understand how dressing like an emaciated wraith became trendy in restaurants).  And there was a risotto special.  Northern Italy here I come. 

I’m sure you know where this is going.  “Sure was a nice fresh salad,” I told the waiter when he asked about the meal.  The risotto…not so much.  Just not enough THERE there.  But, in such moments I often feel Elsie's presence and cannot tell them what I really think.

Risotto is a food of love.  A food of love is like a dance of many veils and this serving was naked by comparison.  Yes, mine is better.  As it happens, I had just made risotto a few days before heading to Chicago.  So here it is.

Mushroom Risotto Etc. Etc.
Ingredients:
1 medium onion chopped into medium dice
~1 pound shitake mushrooms, stems discarded and sliced fairly thin
A few cloves of garlic
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1 cup of white wine
1 quart (give or take) of chicken stock (you made it yourself, right?)
1 tbsp butter, plus a splash of olive oil (raises the smoke point of the butter and adds some flavor)
~ 1/3 of a cup of half and half
1/2 cup or so of grated fresh parmigiano reggiano
Some fresh herbs to finish it (whatever you have)

Whip it, whip it good
Bring your stock to a boil for a minute, then turn it down to a low simmer.
Heat your butter and oil until the butter foam subsides.  Add the onion and saute until the onion is translucent, then add the mushrooms.  Stir that from time to time.  Depending on the pan you're using, the whole thing might produce enough liquid that it starts to stew.  Don't panic.  Shitakes do not have as much moisture in them as basic white mushrooms so that will subside fairly quickly.  You'll know things are working when you hear it start to sizzle again.  Get a little color on your onions and shrooms.
Add the rice and stir it to coat the rice with all the juices.  Stir it until the rice is becoming translucent (it'll work from the outside edge of the grain inward).  Add the wine, stir and then let the rice absorb the wine.  When it's close to dry, start adding the broth, about a half cup at a time and letting it absorb.  Most recipes will tell you to stir the rice constantly and that's just a bit of an exaggeration.  They tell you that because they don't want you to forget about your rice because you're yelling at the Chicago Bears quarterback after he threw yet another interception for the season (guy couldn't catch a break on the morning news shows around here, but apparently he can't throw one either).  As long as you are paying attention, stirring faithfully and don't let it go dry, you'll be fine even if you stop stirring now and then.
Somewhere in here you want to season it with salt and pepper, but remember that the cheese will bear some salt as well.  Taste from time to time until the rice is the texture you want (Al Dente is what most recipes call for but Al's softer brother Luigi might be more to your liking).  Add the half and half a bit at a time until it gets as creamy as you like.  Then toss in your herbs and once they're incorporated, add the cheese a small handful at a time until it all comes together to taste.  Adjust any seasoning at the end.
This is a great dish on its own.  On this particular night, I grilled some halibut (yes, yes, just for the "halibut" if you will) to put on top of all this.  If you're adding a whitefish, you probably want to add some flavor to it that will give you just a little contrast to the risotto, maybe paint it with a vinaigrette or something.

Elsie would approve.