Category Archive

This year my garden is producing few peas, I don’t know why, and many many more radishes. Growing up I wasn’t a fan of that little spicy red thing, but now, oh yum. But anyway, I’m still not so enamored of the straight up radish. I like it slightly marinated in Rice Vinegar, a little salt, a little pepper and I’m gone. By slightly I mean about five minutes. That seems to take the bitterness away and leaves the clear taste of the radish.

Even better than that just straight is a salad made of fresh greens and herbs straight out of my garden, seasoned with salt, kosher or sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, add a dash of really good olive oil. Then pour the bowl of marinating radishes over the lettuces and toss. Oh my lanta! That’s a really good salad. You can add a touch of grated Romano, but you don’t have to. It’s nearly perfect exactly the way it is.

When I was a teen I wanted to learn to cook, and I did, badly. Later I learned from a neighbor to love Mexican food, so I started buying regional Mexican cookbooks. From there I gained an interest in all kinds of cuisines. I’ve quite the collection now, it even includes a Transylvanian cookbook. The recipe for sheepshead makes for good reading, but it will remail good reading, I ain’t cookin no sheepshead.

My mom cooked because she had to, not because she loved to, she had a family of nine to feed, and so her cooking was perfunctory at best, at the worst it was succotash. That was bad, but she loved it. Dad can manage in the kitchen and is at his best with the grill. I think that’s because it’s a really big power tool that cooks steak. My older sisters can all cook, with varying degrees of skill and specialty, Jen can make cake and pie, Martha is the goddess of the vegetable, Laura can do Sri Lankan curry and Camy can casserole anything. Because there were so many in my family, we had to cook, and we had to cook from scratch if we wanted something like cookies more than once in a blue moon, because we just didn’t have the extra money for bought cookies. I’m comfortable around raw ingredients and actually prefer to make things from scratch. I know how I want it to taste and can usually get there, occasionally failing, but mostly able to produce realiably edible meals.

Watching commercials and walking through the grocery store I’m constantly assulted (to me) by convenience foods. I’m glad they are available for the people who need them, but I worry that we are losing something wonderful to gain something questionable. Home cooked chocolate chip cookies are incredible, and incredibly easy, they contain no preservatives, only the pure and happy ingredients and the difference is in the taste. They really don’t take much longer and are sooooooo much better. The same is true with roasted chicken, at least the taste part, that does take time and some know how. Not a ton of know how, just enough to know when the chicken is done. But seriously, even just rinse and thrown in the oven without any seasoning, no salt no nothing, the chicken is so much better than the bird with the fake sauce in the plastic from the store.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s that I can taste the preservatives and just don’t like that flavor, but it makes me sad to see how many boxes of waffles, cookies, pancakes, ready made rice, mashed potatoes, insta-bag meals are sold when I’m in the grocery store. I’m not advocating a 6 course French high cuisine meal. Just fresh happy ingredients, simply prepared in healthy portions, that’s all.

Dry turkey is a cursed thing, one that can not be cured no matter how much gravy you throw at it. If your Thanksgiving turkey is dry you may as well just give up on the dinner and head for the pie table.

Every year, I dread the thoughts, nay, fears, of being responsible for a dry turkey on Thanksgiving Day. This year I was perusing Nigella Lawson’s excellent FEASTS and came across a recipe for Brined Turkey. Yup, brined, as in pickle. Water, salt, sugar, maple syrup, honey, lime, herbs & spices were mixed to form a highly fragrant bath for our 18 pound turkey. Then we dumped it in and let that sucker sit for two days. Chilled of course, stirred, not shaken. Then an hour before lift-off we take the turkey out to dry it off and warm it up to room temperature, cause apparently everything likes to be treated like a frog. That is, food likes to be room temperature before you apply heat to it, it cooks and tastes better if you do that.

Dad freaked out a bit about the turkey soaking, but after reading the recipe, he calmed down and rolled with it.

Then pop that bird into a hot oven, 450, for 1/2 an hour, then set it to 350 for the rest of the time it needs. 3 1/2 hours to cook an 18 pound turkey to perfection. I mean perfection, it was golden brown and oh so yummy. It was juicy and TASTY stone cold out of the fridge the next day too. The gravy was a breeze also, but then I make stock ahead of time and use that to be sure that we have plenty of that nectar of the gods around for leftovers.

I recommend that book. The recipe and timing was dead on. Plus her commentary is hilarious. I’m using her recipe for our Christmas Goose this year.