A Cooking Life

Soul Food

I was recently reminded of the power of food to soothe and heal when, earlier in the fall, I had to put down my 17-year-old cat, Miles. He'd been slowing down, and very early one morning I was wakened by his crying and found him crumpled in a heap on the laundry room floor; he'd lost power over his back end, and I knew in a heartbeat it was time to let him go.

Oops

I don't mean the turkey. It was perfect, all 21 pounds of it. Actually, all of the food was perfect except maybe the stuffing, which was tasty but a little bit dry. Nope, no family mishaps or uproar; my family is the best. My husband shopped, rearranged furniture, made pie, cleaned up after me. The kids ironed linens, set the table, peeled potatoes. And my friends: my friends saved the day.

No, “oops” because just as everybody was getting settled in and jolly, and I was about to enter the sprint for the finish that is the last hour of making Thanksgiving dinner, as I was chopping mirepoix for the brussels sprouts, being simultaneously tormented, entertained, and distracted by one of my hilarious friends, I very nearly severed the tip of my left pinky. Lucky me, I only got about halfway through.

Edible Creamed Onions

Raise your hand if you love the idea of creamed onions at Thanksgiving but find yourself disappointed by the reality of them...

I thought so. A certain amnesia always inspires me to put them on the menu, but I always end up leaving them uneaten on my plate. And I'm not alone. They seem to be the one item that routinely gets scraped from plate to compost, and the plastic tub of leftovers ends up growing a fascinating culture at the back of the fridge. Not so surprising, really. I mean, come on: boiled onions, butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper – a little nutmeg, if you're lucky. Sounds like a perfect definition of bland.

The last time I hosted Thanksgiving dinner, I tried a new approach to creamed onions. They were all eaten, and I'm quite certain the bowl was licked clean (and not by the dog). The key difference lies in roasting the onions.

Quincidence

A few weeks back, I spied a small basket of ripe yellow quinces at my local year-round farmstand. I greedily snapped up four of them, thinking I'd make a sample batch of quince jelly. If it was any good, I'd order up a quantity of the little darlings and go big.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

© 2007 Dan Grossman; Hosted on Fotki

We haven't had a very autumnal autumn this year, but the weather pattern appears to have shifted in fall's favor late last week. Saturday broke dark and heavy, with pelting rain shot from a lowered sky – an excellent day for a track meet.

My husband's youngest daughter, Isabel, took up cross-country running when she got to high school this year. It's quickly become very important to her, and we've scheduled weekend visits carefully to allow her full participation (the kids live with their mother in the farthest northwest corner of the state, just shy of the Canadian border; we see so little of them as it is, we'll take them however we can get them). The state championships were held Saturday up in Thetford, north of here by about an hour-and-a-half's drive. Isabel would be traveling there by bus with her team; we arranged for the other kids to be delivered to the meet, where we would collect them all for the remainder of the weekend.

Goodbye Again (A Farewell Dinner)

My good friend and mentor, Pierre, is moving away from Vermont – again. Pierre is the chef under whom I served as sous chef in my only restaurant cooking gig. He took a chance letting me into his kitchen; I met the challenge and he taught me well. It seemed only right to send him off with a fine meal in the company of close friends.

Hot Tomato

Jaune Flammée d'Orange. It's the name that does it. Or maybe its flawless beauty. Or maybe its perfect tomato taste. Put them all together, and this tomato gets my vote for The One Tomato I'd Grow If I Could Grow Only One.

A Simple Summer Lunch

Friends from out of town came to visit last Saturday, to do a little shopping at the farmers' market and have lunch. I needed to make something simple – a little do-ahead and a little à la minute, and a lot from the garden.

Insanely Great Chocolate Ice Cream

We had a confab last week with my husband's family – his mom and two sisters, all of their kids and three of ours – at his sister's place in New Jersey. We've done it for several years now, descending on Carolyn's house for a few summer days of hanging out by the pool, cooking, eating, doing a lot of nothing. I'm not sure who it was dubbed the joint “Rancho Relaxo”, but that pretty much covers it. The house is big enough that everyone can cooexist without driving one another apeshit, and that includes 8 cousins ranging in age from 6 to 16 – all playing happily together. I managed to forget my camera, so no pictures of the food. The photo above is from 2 years ago: all of the cousins plus a few friends.

A Massive Canning

I've fallen perilously behind on production of jam, etc., owing to stacked up deadlines that just keep pressing. I completely missed out on summer raspberries (the reds, that is) and will have to wait for the fall crop to make jam, and hope that the sun in September is hot and plentiful. Loyal patrons have been begging for hot dog relish – my hairdresser takes it in trade for lopping my tresses – and I've been sold out of artichoke tapenade for over a month. There were gorgeous figs at a local farmstand last week (brought in from California) and I couldn't help ordering up two cases for making fig conserve (another late summer bestseller). I delivered another big project on Thursday, so I had a window in which to get sort of caught up before the next book hits. Friday was a 12-hour day in the kitchen; I put up 32 jars of fig conserve, 20 of artichoke tapenade, 16 of hot dog relish, and 10 of an experimental fig mustard that will age for several months before I pass judgment on it.