Brandon Eats

Recipes and the Women of Julie and Julia

 I once read an interview with Meryl Streep where she said something to the effect, "In the world, I'm a movie star; at home, I'm a waitress." It's not an exact quote, but as a mother of two who has done her time getting up from the table constantly to cater to the needs of small children, I've been comforted by the fact that no matter how famous you are, all mothers are ultimately equal when they're at home. Every family, in other words, takes you completely for granted.

The good folks at Glamour sent me a link to a great piece (on newsstands tomorrow, August 11th)  with the women of Julie & Julia. Meryl Streep writes about making a roast chicken last all week, Amy Adams shares her recipe for guacamole and Nora Ephron explains how to  make a pasta dish that almost exactly resembles the one I make for myself when no one is at home to pester me to make something else they like better.

Best of all, they include Julia Child's recipe for tarragon chicken. I had forgotten all about it. My mother made this recipe every other week throughout my childhood, and it was really wonderful to be reminded of it so that I, too, can add it to my nightly repertoire.

You can see the full story and recipes on Glamour.com
Link: http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/2009/08/hollywood-cooking-julia-child-is-making-you-dinner

Child of the Sixties

Rabid foodies, beware: what you're about to read will revolt you and utterly destroy any shred of respect you might have had for my culinary acumen.  You're better off clicking over to Chocolate & Zucchini and seeing what Clotilde is up to these days.  This post is an exercise in pure, unapologetic nostalgia for a time before a lot of my readers were even born.

But don't you wish you were born in the sixties, you youngsters?  I know you do; you yearn for the days when a four-year-old and her mother could sing "Feelin' Groovy" without irony, and when "Leavin' on a Jet Plane (Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again)" sounded like the height of sophistication (I want to ride on a jet plane!). You'd beg your mom for candy cigarettes and drive home from the grocery store without a seat belt pretending to flick your imaginary ash out of the front-seat window just like your mom was doing that very minute. Kellog's Frosted Flakes with an additional spoonful of white sugar on top were part of a balanced breakfast, and later on, if your mom would let you back in the house (come back when it gets dark!), you'd guzzle Kool-Aid by the pitcherful.  And that same beautiful mom would talk to guys at parties with enormous mustaches and a compulsion to clash patterns and stripes in the most annoying way possible while your dad snapped photos with his Instamatic.

It was fun and kind of dangerous to be a kid in the sixties.  Our parents were way too young to have children and, looking back, we're all lucky to have survived to adulthood.  Although my mother experimented with Julia Child and went through a long, long love affair with a box of curry powder she found god knows where, she also served a lot of beeforoni casserole (don't ask) and my all-time favorite, Swedish meatballs.

I think my mom first started making Swedish meatballs as party food but it quickly became a staple at our house.  It was a big Sunday night dish, and she inexplicably served it with mashed potatoes instead of noodles, which just ramped up the richness factor.  Only three or four of these meatballs each, swimming in their thick, creamy, salty gravy and topping a mound of fluffy mashed potatoes, would send the entire family reeling to the living room, where we children would collapse, stomachs distended, full-length on the floor to wait for The Wonderful World of Disney to come on at 7:00.

It's still a sure-fire recipe for kids.  I've lightened it a bit and injected a modicum of healthiness into my mom's recipe by replacing the evaporated milk with fat-free evaporated milk (you can't tell the difference), reducing the amount of sodium-laced beef bouillon, and sneaking in 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of shredded zucchini (children will think the green flecks are parsley--especially if you tell them that's what they are). And although I love the mountain of mashed potatoes with a crater of pooled sauce and meatballs, whole wheat egg noodles (tossed with a little butter and fresh Parmesan) are a healthier choice (I hope).  My 21st century Swedish meatballs still retain their sixties' glamor, however, and they put me right on a jet plane back to childhood with the first bite.

Recipe after the jump.

Wake Up and Smell the Garlic

My taste buds must be catatonic most of the time. You have to whack them with garlic and shock them with lemon to get them to wake up. Subtlety is frequently lost on me. In fact, I think the word "subtle" generally means bland. Don't you? Or is that just me?

Imagine how excited I became when I found Andrew Carmellini's new book, Urban Italian. The combination of garlic, lemon, and chopped red onion is hardly new, but I'd forgotten all about it until I started flipping through his book. And I was flipping through his book because I had a pound of shrimp, not much else, and no ideas. 

I did have the aforementioned shrimp, a can of beans, and some salad. Although technically an antipasti, this recipe is perfect for two, with a few of the shrimp dispersed among the children who are willing to eat them. Add a lovely, crisp Pinot Grigio (for authenticity) and you have a meal that can be whipped up in fifteen minutes or less. Because the only cooking involved is a moment of garlic sauteing and a quick sear of the shrimp, it's perfect for an unexpectedly unbearable hot May evening.

I made a few alterations--children demand to be accommodated, after all (and although you're supposed to ignore that kind of thing, after all these years I'm too, too exhausted to fight that endless fight. My line in the sand is that they must eat what we eat--with a few, um, accccommodations).

Andrew Carmellini's Rock Shrimp with Cannellini Bean, amended

Bean salad:

1 15-ounce can cannellini beans (I actually used Great Northern beans because that's what I had)

1/4 cup red onion, minced within an inch of its life

1 large garlic clove, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

Freshly ground pepper

Splash of hot sauce

Drain and rinse the beans; mix all of the ingredients together and let sit while you make the shrimp.

Carmelli says you can add a little pesto (actually, I think it would be nice drizzled underneath or around the perimeter of the plate--unfortunately, I didn't have any).

Shrimp:

1 lb. shrimp (brined)

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large garlic clove, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

2 teaspoons fresh rosemary or more (I didn't want to kill my fledgling rosemary plants by completely denuding them)

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tablespoon parsley or more, chopped

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt (if you didn't brine)

Freshly ground pepper

Sprinkle of red pepper flakes (Carmelli suggests 1/2 teaspoon and I would have used this if I hadn't had children hungrily staring at me. As it was, I put this little bit in when they weren't looking).

Blot the shrimp thoroughly and in a wide skillet, heat the 2 tablespoons of oil over high-ish heat. Add the shrimp and cook until pink and white. Turn down the heat immediately.

Pull your pan off the heat to avoid burning the garlic (which it's now time to add), add a little more oil, plus the red pepper flakes. Put the pan back on a medium-low flame and saute of for a minute or two and remove from the heat again. Add the last two tablespoons of oil, thyme, rosemary, lemon juice, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Spoon the beans on two plates and arrange the shrimp on top, remembering to toss a few on another plate so your children won't starve. Naturally, if your children eat beans, double the above bean recipe. Mine don't, so I made a little pasta with butter--the default--on the side. Drizzle it all with a little more olive, if you like.

Ahhhhhhh. So easy and so wonderful!

Virtuously Vegan

Mark Bittman could tell me to how to eat worms and I'd probably follow his instructions to the letter. Fortunately, all he wants me to do, in Food Matters, is veganize my menu before 6:00 pm, and then he cuts me loose after that.

I can mostly follow that. I've got a weakness for dairy--oh, the siren song of yogurt at 4:00 in the afternoon--but I'm getting along pretty nicely. Helpful in my transition to a lesser-meat lifestyle is a book about which I can never say enough nice things. Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, created in their book, Veganomicon, a meatless compendium even the most dedicated of carnivores can love. Really.

Along with Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, you can revolutionize the way you eat and not even notice it. There's more chopping to do, yes, and granted, I still bitch about that and probably always will. However, a lot of my complaining in the past has been because the pay-off never seemed worth it in the end. My lackluster, tamari-laced meal,* the result of at least a solid hour of chopping and sauteing, rarely felt like the effort involved was rewarded.

Not so with Veganomicon (or Bittman). Below you'll find a recipe that my entire family ate without a blink, without a shudder, without even a tiny, sad sigh. Shock ensued when I informed them that it was vegan. This was clearly and definitively a success, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I don't know if it's your three names each that make you so magical with the culinary plant life, but I have to hand it to you--you've won me heart and stomach.

*Vegetarians sometimes seem to think that if they pump up the umami with a little tamari, anything will be palatable.

Recipe after the jump

In Between Days

In between winter and spring, we seem to still be stuck with winter—as far as vegetable choices go.

Wintertime sucks the resolve of good intentions dry. At least when it comes to your pledge to eat local food. Remember that one? You made it when the bounty of last summer had your kitchen overflowing with tomatoes, squash, green beans, and every kind of berry you could imagine? You felt so good about yourself, so virtuous, so pure, and yes, just a little bit smug.

Winter slaps all of that self-satisfaction right out of you. Not a lot grows around here between fall and spring. And the stuff that does grow is kind of funky: things like collards or turnips or cabbage, and of course, the ubiquitous winter squash. What kind of food is that?

It sounds a lot like the kind of food grandmothers used to serve. And although grandmother food is technically considered comfort food, winter vegetables don’t really do it for me. They’re decidedly unsexy and all of them seem to be pretty stinky. Greens have a lot of sulfur compounds, and they annoyingly billow out from the kitchen while you’re cooking, masking whatever little allure they originally might have had.

Guilt, however, informs a lot of what I do and what I don’t do. Over the winter, I managed to join three co-ops which have had me driving all over town each week. In order to justify the endless driving, I’ve been forced to figure out how to cook the available vegetables in a way that doesn’t drive them from the plate straight into the trashcan.

Pork fat is key.

Please stop screaming now, I can explain. Pork fat (otherwise known as LARD) is actually making a comeback. In some circles, it never even went away. Here's a link to reprint of a piece I wrote for Style Weekly's lovely, glossy, offshoot Belle a while back that goes into the particulars.

The short version is this: Despite recent reports,* more compelling studies have shown animal fat really isn’t all that bad for you.

Now, I’m not advocating throwing large amounts of lard or butter into everything you cook. I don’t, in fact, advocate throwing large amounts of olive oil into everything either (although it’s one of my very favorite things). All I’m trying to do here is preach a little variety along with moderation.

But I’ve veered off course. Back to the vegetables. Not too long ago, I looked with suspicion at a head of collard greens sitting on my counter. Most recipes call for a quick five to ten minute sauté, and I almost always end up with a lot of chewy, fibrous greens that make me feel virtuous because they taste so healthy.

Recipe after the jump

I Say Potato

Sometimes I wonder if the potato is an evil mastermind-tuber bent on the destruction of all mankind. You've heard about how one bite will immediately mess with your blood sugar and your insulin? And how that kind of thing is really, really dangerous and leads to diabetes and a host of other bad, bad things I can't remember right now?

I'm tired of that trash talk. I love potatoes. I used to fix them for dinner five or six times a week. Excessive, yes--I admit that. Then, succumbing to all of the anti-potato propaganda, I cut them out of the menu entirely and discovered the great big world of grains. Although this was a truly wonderful, eye-opening journey, I missed my poor little shunned potatoes. Were they really all that bad?

One potato (with the skin) is 278 calories, has seven (count 'em!) bulgy grams of fiber and a whopping 48% of the vitamin C you need for the entire day. Granted, it has 63 grams of carbohydrates but there's also 7 grams of protein in there. That sounds like a whole lot of good stuff to me. And if you're worried, why not minimize carbs during the day, and eat a potato at night?

I mean, really, why not?

So, potatoes are back on the menu, but not nearly as often as before. I have too much spectacular quinoa, beautiful bulgur, and so many beans I can't name them all to eat as well. When I brought a bag of brand-new potatoes back into the house, I decided I wanted to avoid the old ways of mashing, frying, scalloping, and lavishing with butter and sour cream (although that's really a method that will stand the test of time, as far as I'm concerned) and get going with some newer, less familiar potato recipes.

Below you'll find one of my new favorites, inspired by The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper by Lynne Rosetto Kasper and Sally Swift. Like a lot of variations on recipes, this one was born of an all-to-common necessity around my house. I didn't have all of the ingredients, and with the clock ticking and my back against the wall, was forced to improvise instead.

The basics of Greek potatoes are there, however: the fruity tang of olive oil, the sharpness of lemon, and a screaming garlic base that together edge the potatoes into territory that is rapidly becoming happy, familiar terrain.

Greek Pot-Crushed Potatoes

5 garlic cloves

2 pounds potatoes (avoid Russet potatoes)

1 tablespoon olive oil

Shake of red pepper flakes

1/4 cup Italian parsley leaves

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt and plenty of black pepper

Bring a large pot of generously salted water to boil. Thinly slice potatoes and garlic with a food processor (or expertly wielded knife). Put the potato slices in the water and simmer for around six to eight minutes (or even ten). Save a couple of tablespoons of the water and drain.

In the same pot, add the olive oil and gently heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes,along with the saved water. Bring to a simmer and cook for about five minutes until the garlic is soft when pressed with the back of a spoon. Add more water as necessary to avoid burning the garlic.

Return potatoes to the pot and gently crush (NOT mash), along with the garlic. Gently stir in the lemon juice, parsley leaves, and salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4 ardent potato lovers.

We're All Irish at Heart

I raise a glass of Guinness to all the Irish and all those who wish they were Irish today. Let's chase that down with a shot of Jameson's and take a look at the recipes I've been posting on RVANews for their big St. Patick's Day extravaganza of what to eat, what to drink, and where to go.

The Perfect Irish Stew

Colcannon

Braised Bacon and Cabbage

Guinness Ice Cream!