Melissa Clark's Rustic Shrimp Bisque with Fennel

A little about me —

There is no way I can cook

if the counter isn’t clean.

Some will say

it’s an inherited characteristic, a seemingly

random thing that isn’t

random at all.

Like sweaty hands, a sweet tooth,

or whether one sees the glass as half empty

or half full.

By the time I am home

on the day before giving thanks

my mind is somewhere else —

far from the counter — and the

fennel, leeks, and twin stalks of old celery

float towards me

waiting aptly for my hands to

find the knife.

I clean as I go; an itchy pleasurable pain.

At four o’clock my kitchen catches late day sun

the way I need it to catch sometimes

to remind me of what I have and to stop —

Melissa Clark’s Rustic Shrimp Bisque with Fennel

is the recipe

where the butter pats lose shape

in a piping hot pot with salt, shells, wine, two caps of brandy,

six cups of water, thyme and a bay leaf.

I take stock —

On the ottoman by the window

and wait fifteen minutes to

strain into a bowl,

pressing on shells before discarding them.

There is lint on the kitchen tile

I wouldn’t mind discarding.

I pick it up — I have to —  and immediately feel

better. Not unlike the feeling when

the shrimp turns pink

in two to four minutes like the recipe says

and the vegetables sauté soft

until softer.

All is going according to plan and that

is the Libra in me.

A few days ago I cooked

a perfect baked ziti in a record

ninety minutes.

Left to get Joe, left

the ziti in the oven to keep warm —

Ruined an otherwise perfect baked ziti,

like I said.

This soup though,

as they say,

was everything.

Because Pesto

There’s a bucket of basil leaves sitting in my hallway right now, a hallway that usually smells like sawdust. There’s something so pleasant about basil, its scent so refreshing, its color so grassy, and it really has this magical power to metamorphose mood, to turn that frown upside down, to rouse a few minutes of writing on a sunny day after snipping its leaves with scissors. (Snipping leaves with scissors is also a truly pleasant activity in case you haven’t tried it.)

But remember pesto? I had forgotten about fresh pesto made by hand. And not someone else’s hand because while, yes, Frank Caputo makes a damn good pesto by hand, my hand works, too, and pesto is just too gratifying a pursuit to pass the satisfaction off to somebody else. And as tempting as it is to google a recipe for it, don’t. Basil, garlic, olive oil, parmesan, nuts, salt and pepper. Fill your food processor by eyeballing all of it. Taste it. Eyeball it again. Adjust as you go. Pulse, pulse some more. Dip your finger in for a lick. More nuts? Sure. More cheese? Do it. Make a few containers, refrigerate one, freeze the rest, maybe hand deliver one to someone you like a whole lot. Serve it on your favorite pasta. (I’m still deciding between spaghetti or shells for tonight.) Drizzle a tablespoon over scrambled eggs. Add it to a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. Brush it onto bruschetta. Mix it into a summery quinoa salad. Combine it with potatoes. Fold it into scones. Make a freaking pizza. Because pesto.

A Cookie for Paul Flatow Day

I love a good Dad Day celebration as much as the next short, blonde daughter who loves her Dad, but, man, is it getting harder and harder to find him a gift. Flatows love their massage, but I'm tired of slipping a gift certificate into a card each year. He loves to fish, but he's got his poles and lure and hat. He's back into tai chi these days, but I don't think anything special is needed to encourage the practice. He reads, but prefers picking books up off the sidewalk. He's a gardener, but works with plants and flowers all day err'day, he's got the goods. He's a cook and that's why Max bought him a new pan. So that's out.

One year, I baked him his own batch of chocolate chip cookies because Dad also loves sneaking into the kitchen to eat cookies before bed. And when he can't sleep at night. And with his coffee in the morning. Without thinking, I made them the way my mom and I like them, like the cellophane-wrapped plastic container of Tate's: thin, buttery, and crispy. Apparently, Dad does not enjoy this type of chocolate chip cookie. He'll eat them, but he won't love them. So this year, because it was only fair, I decided to gift Dad with his kind of cookie: soft, super chocolaty, and in a category of cookie all by itself. Much like Dad. 

The first time I tried this cookie was back in February. Michael and I were upstairs in our friends' apartment watching the tail end of the Superbowl, slouched on the couch from too much chili, when all of a sudden, a plate of hot cookies appeared before us on the coffee table. Surprise! You can't leave yet. We still have cookies. They were big. Bigger than CDs. Cracked and wrinkled with gooey shards of chocolate poking through; they were the color of a good porter or stout. "Wh-wh-what are these?" I sputtered, taking a bite, closing my eyes, losing all consciousness. "How, how, how did you make these?" 

It's the Jacques Torres cookie. Anybody familiar? I certainly wasn't. These are the cookies you make when you love someone a ridiculous amount because only they can bring you to drop $20 of fancy chocolate into a batch of cookies, the volume of chocolate surpassing the volume of cookie dough. The cookies that say, "Sorry for that time I made you a Mom's Day cookie for Dad's Day."

Jaques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies for Paul Flatow

Makes 26 cookies | For a richer taste, make the dough up to 24-72 hours ahead, which is what I did. 

Ingredients:

• 4 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 cups brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 3 cups pastry flour
• 3 cups bread flour
• 3 tsp salt
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbs vanilla extract
• 2 lbs 60% cocoa dark chocolate (disks or cut into small pieces) 
• Sea salt

Directions:

Sift together the pastry and bread flour, baking powder, soda, and salt into a medium sized bowl. Set aside. Using a stand mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugars until light and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla. Slow down the mixer and add the flour mixture slowly until just moistened. When thoroughly combined, fold in chocolate. Press plastic wrap against dough, making sure it's completely covered, and refrigerate for 24-36 hours. When you're ready to bake, bring the dough to room temperature (leave out for approximately 2 hours) and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper and scoop the dough using an ice cream scooper (or scoop about 3 tbs worth for fairly large cookies). Don't press the dough down; let it stay the way it is. Sprinkle the cookies with a bit of sea salt. Bake 10-12 minutes for smaller cookies and 18-20 for bigger ones. Allow the cookies to cool slightly on your baking sheet, then move them to another surface to cool completely. Store in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to three days, or freeze for up to two months.   

An important element of the Jacques Torres recipe is that the dough be made ahead of time and refrigerated to help loosen up the gluten. The dough you see here was made Thursday morning as the sun was coming up. I used to go for runs before work, but now I'm thinking of replacing that with early morning baking. 

Marcella Hazan's "No Good" Tomato Sauce (Except It's Really Good)

We bought a box of ravioli from Borgatti’s just off Arthur Avenue last November. We didn’t know it at the time, but Mario Borgatti, the 97-year-old pasta daddy legend, had passed away a month prior. After a long day spent roaming the Bronx in typical Michael+Sylvie walking adventure fashion, I was promised a food destination to end all food destinations, even tho I was the one tasked with pulling one up on Yelp. Yes, I did find us a great sandwich spot called Tino’s where we polished off the perfect eggplant parm hero, but then Michael made eyes with a ravioli specialty shop and we were both lured into a mouse hole filled with oils, jarred sauces, dried porcini, carrot, and squid ink noodles, and the entire Borgatti family behind the counter in a garrulous production line---running pasta through a hand cutter, dusting ravs with cornmeal, wrapping them up in butcher paper---but talking about things like doctor appointments, new movies, and what Joe said the other day as if making ravioli at the store was something they all did to bide time before sitting down to dinner. We carried our box of twenty-seven handcrafted cheese raviolis back to Brooklyn and stored them in the freezer for a rainy day.

This past Saturday wasn't rainy, but I did want to cook something despite not having much to work with in the kitchen, since I also didn't want to go grocery shopping because Michael and I are both going away this weekend. Looking around, I came up with a can of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes, an onion, and the butter I almost never use because I don’t do a lot of baking or bread toasting. And that’s when I remembered the tomato sauce I’d been reading and reading about for years: Marcella Hazan’s 3-ingredient sauce. Out came the ravioli.

Michael’s grandma lives around the corner from us, so I told him to invite her over for dinner because there was no guiltless way I would be leaving either of us alone in the apartment with a big pot of sauce and ravs. Wonderful things like that are simply left for the heavens. I also figured we could send her home with the leftovers, which would help obtain our fix while simultaneously avoiding the coma.

Tomato sauce made with the usual kiddos---olive oil, garlic, oregano, parsley, basil, tomato paste, wine, etc.---is all well and good and I have been sucking down tomato sauce that way since I was a baby in a highchair, but there are times when I want to try something different, especially when something different requires little to no effort. According to Marcella, all I had to do was open the can of San Marzano, peel the onion, cut it in half, slice off 5 tablespoons of butter, plop it all into a saucepan over medium heat, add a pinch of salt, and let it cook uncovered at a slow but steady simmer for around 45 minutes. With very little prep and cleanup to do, I moved into the other room to do some writing and to feel good about myself. It soon became hard to write though because of how glorious the apartment was beginning to smell. Clearly, butter, tomatoes, and an onion is all that is needed to stir the baby awake… or put it to sleep… it has to go both ways. I took breaks to stir and taste, stir and taste. Afraid that I might lick the whole pan gone, I turned my attention to the ravioli.

www.mortadifame.blogspot.com

For the record, I will be eating ravioli from the Borgatti Family from here on out. I want to cry they were so good. Sauce or no sauce.

Speaking of sauce, that sauce was the bomb and tasted even better spooned over the ravs. Two people begged to differ. Michael’s grandma told my mother-in-law, who told Michael, who told me, that the sauce was “no good.”

Silently thinking to themselves: "No good."

“No good?!” I say, my voice raised. “No good?!”

“Yeah, it was pretty horrible,” Michael says bluntly.

“You’re crazy, it was delicious!” I shoot back.

“Did you follow a recipe? I bet you followed a recipe. You don’t follow a recipe for sauce.”

“I did not follow a recipe,” I lie.

“Ehh, I think you followed a recipe,” he says.

“What the hell was wrong with it? It was tomatoes, onion, butter---”

“Butter?! You don’t put butter in tomato sauce,” he says.

“You do! You can! People do! They are!” I am sputtering.

“Just leave the sauce to me from now on,” he says.

And then it’s all I can see: the address book out and the phone calls being made to extended family members letting them know that her grandson’s wife cannot make sauce.

I can make sauce! 

Maybe it's Marcella Hazan who can't.

No, but seriously, her sauce is amazing. Here's the recipe.

---

Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce (Adapted from the New York Times)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups tomatoes, with their juices (for example, a 28-ounce can of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes)
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, peeled and cut in half
• (Salt)

Directions:

Combine the tomatoes, their juices, the butter and the onion halves in a saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, mashing any large pieces of tomato with a spoon. Add salt as needed. Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta. This recipe makes enough sauce for a pound of pasta. (Although Michael and his grandma thought otherwise.)

Across the Street with Sweet Potato and Chorizo Soup

I came home from work yesterday and went straight to bed. Nothing was all that wrong. Some throbbing in my head made worse by meddlesome light and a small but irritating lump in my throat. Many people carry on their days this way. Not me. I wrapped myself in the down of our blanket like someone dying of frostbite and waited for Michael to come home. While I waited, I stared out the window with half-closed eyes and straight into the apartment of the people who live across the street. They are a young family of five---a mom, a dad, their two kids, and a dog. They live in a fishbowl; their life is a TV show I watch on mute. From where I lie, I see right into their kitchen, living, and dining area. A huge open space that gets utilized fairly often. I don’t know them personally, at least not yet with the weather this cold and all of us hurrying into our mouseholes, but I imagine come springtime, we’ll all be outside, coming and going, meeting and greeting, the kids doing things on the stoop that I find cute, and me in a folding chair drinking with a book. The seasons will bring about a change in everyone’s day-to-day, but until then, their huge flat-screen TV remains on all winter with one kid sitting at the dining room table doing what I’ve convinced myself to be crafts while one parent futzes around the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets. I lay there and watch, waiting for something different and interesting to happen. A surprise guest who will jump out of the closet. A family dance-off I can judge from bed. And then I wonder if they see me here, a single face peeking out from blankets in a darkened room like a sloppy spy. I wonder what they say about me. When Michael comes home, he lays in bed with me, covering my eyes with his hand because I have complained about there still being “too much light.” I say goodnight, Michael’s hand and my heavy eyelids the blinds to this family's bitter cold Friday night home life.

Today, Saturday, I am feeling better, and have come up with three things to do. Do yoga, write words, cook soup. Three things! What a luxury it is to only have three things on my plate. The family across the street must have thirty things on theirs. At least that’s what the television script has planned.

My favorite soup: Sweet Potato and Chorizo 
From Smitten Kitchen
Make a big ol’ pot.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 chorizo sausage, cut into ¼-inch slices
2 medium onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered, cut into ¼-inch slices
3 small white potatoes, peeled and quartered, cut into ¼-inch slices
6 cups chicken broth
A heaping handful or two of fresh spinach

Directions:
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add chorizo; cook until brown, stirring often, about 8 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Add onions and garlic to pot with rest of oil and cook until translucent, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Add all potatoes and cook until beginning to soften, stirring often, about 12 minutes. Add broth; bring to boil, scraping up browned bits. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Using potato masher, mash some of potatoes in pot. Add chorizo to soup. Stir in spinach and simmer just until wilted, about 5 minutes. Stir in remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt and pepper. Divide among bowls and serve.

Beauty Issues

I’ve got a cupboard of excuses for why I haven’t been recipe journaling much lately, and I can either delve into them or not delve into them, but the fact would remain the same: I have not been recipe journaling much lately. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking, I have! There is a brand new six-burner cooktop that sometimes I take selfies with when I am alone, bright white counters that get scrubbed incessantly when Michael is both looking and not looking, and a fridge I have to struggle with to not fill entirely with cheese. I am also crazier than ever. Max leaned casually against the fridge one night as he watched me put elbow grease into a crusty tomato sauce splatter. “Wow,” he said. “You’re Mom.”

So, yes, I’ve been cooking, but not recipe journaling because when I’m not being a lunatic about cleaning the kitchen, I’ve been trying to enjoy the normalcy of cooking just to cook. You know, cooking like a normal person. I find that when I’m not photographing the disarray of a chopped vegetable atop my cutting board, I get to think luxuriously about other things, the first three of them being: don’t slice your finger, don’t slice your finger, don’t slice your finger. (I am very careful when it comes to my fingers.) How nice it has been to tend to a bowl of marinated chicken thighs and not think to myself: Shit, I forgot to shoot the marinade. I tend to exhaust myself for no good reason when it comes to documenting the process. And I never want to take pictures at night anymore because the light is so much better during the day. There’s a hashtag on Instagram called #postitfortheaesthetic, a collective space of creatives and wannabe creatives who are posting pictures just for the prettiness of it. They’ll post their legs on a bed amidst crumpled bedsheets drinking coffee next to a stack of magazines. They’ll post someone else's pretty hands delicately holding a bag, a book, a pear. They’ll post a pair of scissors, some ribbon, flower petals that look like they’re blowing away, so far away across a wooden table. 

Life has always been beautiful, but now there are so many of us noticing it together, in public, and so, so, so often. I'm overwhelmed. Am I the only one?

Sometimes I just miss the simplicity of seeing something or doing something and no one but myself (or myself and Michael) being around to take it in.

Like that time I went to Rome and sat in a big ass window wearing one of my favorite dresses.

Made Entirely with Good Eggs Produce: A Breakfast Scramble with Crimini Mushrooms, Kale, and Onion

Picked up by the Good Eggs NYC tumblr

---

Bad Soup

It started out innocently with me just wanting to cook some soup. It was the last day of September and it felt wrong not to usher my favorite month in with fall-y flavors. In front of me were blameless ingredients. Beef broth, black beans, pumpkin puree, a can of San Marzano tomatoes, an onion, a shallot, half a bulb of garlic, and some chopped ham. The scene looked great. No one was home. My in-laws have a bright, open kitchen with windows facing their garden and my plan was to rock a chef’s knife back and forth while smiling and watching a bird. I’m generally a slow cook (I see my future kids falling asleep at the table while my foot goes down on needing whatever it is to marinate properly), except this time I was motivated to race the sunset -- a telling sign since what I did to this poor soup was clearly due to impetuousness and rash decision-making, not two of my better traits. I did beat the sunset but that warm and tingly feeling of having just made something wasn’t filling me up. And since no one was home to congratulate me on my win, I turned more attention to the soup. This soup came together too quickly. There are times I like that and times I don’t. I know the pleasure of throwing together a fast and easy meal, but sometimes to feel productive, I need to feel like it took many steps to get there. I anticipate the pains. So I wasn’t concerned with eating the soup anymore. I was concerned with flittering about in the kitchen and taking more steps. 

Again, it started out innocently. 

Salt. Pepper. Stir. 

Where’s the cumin? No cumin? 

They have paprika, I’ll use paprika. 

It’s not spicy. Maybe some of that hot sauce over there. Shake, splat.

Too hot? We can sweeten it. A squeeze of honey. Squirt. 

Not bad. What else? 

I want it heartier. 

It all goes downhill when I open the fridge and the plastic containers of my aunt’s leftover Rosh Hashanah foods are front and center. Spiced cauliflower. Herbed mushrooms. Eggplant salad. Spicy, Israeli tomato sauce. I took her food home for a reason and it’s because all of it is delicious. Full of flavor. The perfect toppings to pair with crusty bread. Instead I treat each container like a different spice. Plop, plop, plop, and plop. The wooden spoon can barely make a full swirl without soup spilling over, the spits upsetting the flame. I taste it and have no reaction. There is so much going on here. 

I back away slowly but I keep my eye on it even though someone should clearly be home right now keeping an eye on me. I turn the flame off. I cover the pot with a lid. I retreat to the living room to watch dvr’d episodes of Jacques Pepin. I fall asleep on the couch without my dinner. 

In the morning, half-asleep, before he leaves for work, I tell Michael to take some soup with him for lunch. There’s so much of it, I think. And it’s so bad. 

“How was the soup?” I ask him later in the day.

His response is perfect. 

“Well, at first it tasted like vomit, but then I ate all of it.”

I'll spare you the recipe. 

Fried Eggplant (Brown Family Tomato Tasting Style)

The week leading up to a Brown Family Tomato Tasting can turn a house upside down with tomatoes of every shade, shape, and size taking over the tables and countertops, some quick to be rinsed and shined, some still gritty from the vine.  There are recipes the color of old, as delicate as lace, and strewn like playing cards across the kitchen island, my mother-in-law’s notes-to-herself crammed into the inches of a margin. 10 lbs pasta not enough, 8 loaves lard bread plenty, more basil needed, less garlic okay. Grocery lists are written, shopping trips are taken, and all the while we help to unload the copious bottles of olive oil and vinegar, the spinach and the eggs, the pine nuts and mozzarella, the cellophane-wrapped packages of appositely chosen red plates, napkins, and cutlery, the tomatoes just keep rolling in, some formed, some warped, but all of them graduated, grown up, and grown with love. 

We laugh at the slightly misshapen Brown tomatoes.

It’s an annual tradition that takes a family of effort, glasses of wine and plenty of whines included, but it’s what sets Browns apart - that intrinsic desire to be of help in any way one can be of help to their family, whoever may need it, whenever it is needed. (VIP friends incorporated.) I’ve always been slightly lovesick over how hard this family works to take care of each other, and how naturally it comes to want to share the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor with a guest list the size of my wedding. I’ve been with Michael going on six years now, which means I have only been around long enough to see six tomatoes crowned king, and this summer’s invitation made a point of saying that retirement looms. Throwing the party is nothing short of hard work, and I realized this more than ever this particular year, but it feels like a tradition too good to see go. There are many ways to bring a family closer together, and the tomato tasting is just one of those ways. 

Clearly there is bonding happening here.

In obliging Brown fashion, I took the day off of work to pitch in and help my (justifiably frazzled) mother-in-law with just one of the many complementary dishes served alongside the starry-eyed tomatoes. Her fried eggplant is the last recipe of attack and we wake early to start cooking platters upon platters of them the morning of the party. It requires full attention, patience, and the use of all five senses. It is my most favorite thing to eat at the party and I’m sure there’s a margin note somewhere that says to make “more than enough” since I’m sure all parties have pointed to the eggplant coming in as runner-up to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place tomatoes. Just in case this was, in fact, the last tomato tasting party ever to be thrown, I’d certainly like to remember the shit out of this recipe. 

Ingredients:

• eggplant
• breadcrumbs
• eggs
• olive oil
• pine nuts
• basil
• pitted kalamata oives
• garlic
• apple cider vinegar

Method:

Slice the eggplant into rounds and dip each one into a wash of egg and breadcrumbs. Stack them neatly on a plate while you heat a heavy skillet with a good amount of olive oil, enough to cover the rounds about half-way. When the oil starts to make tiny waves, you'll know it's hot enough to start frying. Put as many rounds as you can into the pan. You don't want them on top of one another, but don't be afraid to pack them in. As soon as they hit the pan, you'll hear them start to fry. When the sizzling sound comes down in volume, they're ready to be flipped. Carefully stab at them to check. Are they a nice golden brown? That's the color you want. A little bit crispy, but not too crispy. When the other sides are done frying, remove and place them on a plate with a paper towel. Continue to stack them this way, flip the plate over, and place a heavy plate on top of them all.

In the meantime, combine 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar with a couple of large garlic cloves, grated. Shake it up and splay across a platter, laying the eggplant rounds on top. Once the platter is filled with rounds, drizzle some more of it on top. Let the eggplant rest for a few hours before serving.

As a garnish, toast some pine nuts and mix it up with some chopped basil and chopped kalamata olives. Sprinkle over the eggplant before you serve.

An Ode to Dairy, Specifically Mushroom and Onion Egg Salad

When you’re a kid, there’s always that rotating cast of dinners your parents are apt to prepare. Chicken cutlet Mondays. Spaghetti and meatballs Tuesday. Franks and beans Wednesday. Hamburger Thursday. Chinese take-out Friday. Out to dinner Saturday. 

But then Sunday rolls around. And if you didn’t come from that big Italian family with the mother who can make sauce in her sleep, then you’re Jewish. And it’s time to eat dairy.

“What’s for dinner?” my brother and I would yell from our downstairs lair, making small butt indents in the rug, our eyes fixed on Mario and Luigi, our shrinkydink stomachs grumbling close to 5 o’clock. 

“Dairy!” my parents would yell back. 

Dairy, for us Flatows, consisted of one or more of the following: scrambled eggs with sauteed apples and onions, or bright gooey orange cheddar cheese omelettes, some sort of melon (speaking of, did anyone read this article on lame-ass honeydew?), tuna salads, whitefish salads, egg salads, lox, toasted bagels with Philadelphia cream cheese and ramekins of seedy jam, and just about anything else my parents could pull from the fridge to make room for the week, not to mention my Dad’s running collection of random condiments and food in jars.  

I will admit that I’m not a big leftovers person. Michael will joke that if it’s been in the fridge for a day, then I probably won’t eat it. I don’t know how this came to be, but I’ll willing to bet it stems from a laziness over having to reheat something in a pot or pan on the old-fashioned stovetop. (My parents lived microwave-free my entire life!) Patience is everything and sometimes I just don’t have it. Which is why dairy is so great. It’s quick, easy, delicious, and if you want to dump tabouleh on a flatbread cracker with a little bit of hummus and call it dinner… you can. 

On July 22nd, 2014, my nephew Miles Kermit Flatow was born and on July 30th my parents hosted a bris at the house. 

“What are you serving?” my brother and I yelled at them. (Not really, more like asked inquisitively.)

“Dairy!” our parents yelled back. (Not really, more like replied to our question and then asked our opinions for what to make.) 

It was a dairy feast that night. A basket of warm bagels. A platter of red tomatoes and a mix of red and white onions. Whitefish salad. Egg salad. A really good broccoli and cabbage slaw my Mom loves to make. Challah. Wheels of manchego and brie, and the berries to border. A watermelon carved to look like a baby carriage. Three kinds of pie. Two kinds of sweet bread loaves. Wine. Coffee. Yes, a watermelon carved to look like a baby carriage.

I have to say the egg salad stuck out. I watched my Dad make it earlier in the afternoon and I knew it was going to be special. (Mushrooms! Onions! No mayo!) I was having such a brissfull time that I almost missed my chance of trying it that night. Luckily there were a few spoonfuls left by the time the house cleared out and it was every bit as delicious as I imagined it to be, although it could have used some more salt. I vowed to make it for myself next week, with a couple of slight alterations.  

And here we are. 

Ingredients:

(Serves 4)

• 6 eggs
• 5 tbsp canola oil
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 packages of white mushrooms
• 1/4 cup dill
• 1/2 lemon
• 2 tbsp dijon
• salt & pepper

Method:

1. Hard-boil your eggs. Set aside. 

2. Chop the mushrooms into tiny pieces and heat over medium-high heat with 3 tbsp of canola, stirring frequently until they're lightly browned and smelling great, about 15 minutes. Set aside in the bowl you will use to combine everything else.

3. Slice the onion into wisps and in the same pan as the mushrooms, cook them over medium-high heat until they soften, then slow cook them on low until they get all caramelized and fragrant, another 15 minutes. Add to the bowl of mushrooms.

4. Add the hard-boiled eggs and start mashing with the back of a fork. Or, if you have a potato masher, I bet that would work wonders. 

5. Add the dill, lemon, and dijon. Keep mashing.

6. Salt and pepper to your liking.

7. Eat it however you wish. I put mine over a patch of arugula with some apricots and red onion, but I was secretly wishing for a good chunk of bread to schmear it on. 

Early Morning Backyard Chickpeas

When my parents leave the neighborhood for a few days, I am typically the one charged with watering their front planters, their various herbs and tomatoes, their window boxes, the backyard. It all takes time but little do they know it is like my favorite chore ever. Much like writing, it is solitary and relaxing and I get to feel like I am taking care of something while also nourishing a small part of myself. The thought of ten whole days, just me and the watering, sounded brilliant. I did it for three and it was damn near blissful, but then weather spun the chore wheel and her name landed on the job, and when you don't have to stand there anymore with a hose listening to the occasional plane fly by over the chorus of Brooklyn balcony chimes, your next best bet is to head inside for a snoop around the kitchen. Because maybe there's something to make. 

Truly undeserving of a blog post because simple simple simple, everyone can make it, all you need to do is storm your parents' kitchen one early morning to see what they've left behind for you to cut and play with, once they've driven away to the Buffalo Colony for yet another July 4th weekend in the mountains. 

Anyone who has been to their house knows they have a refrigerator famous for housing the craziest number of jam jars, ramekins, foil-wrapped plates, saran-wrapped bowls, too many condiments, batteries, and nothing to drink but seltzer that you ever did see, and when I came by this morning to prepare a little July 4th something, I almost fell over when I saw the contents of the fridge.

I came away with a lemon, some shredded parmesan, a can of chickpeas, their olive oil, their sea salt. Wah wah, and yet! Sometimes I like a trouble-free, plain jane recipe. It's not very Fourth-y, but so be it. Maybe tonight I'll surprise myself with an ear of corn and a barbecued burger, but for right now, while the rain does my job, it'll do.  

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chickpeas
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Quarter of a lemon
• A sprinkling of shredded parmesan
• A pinch of salt

Method:

Combine and refrigerate. Eat on its own, or wrapped in a big piece of lettuce. Hell, serve it at your July 4th party.

I should probably take those cushions in.

Zucchini and Cheddar Miniature Quiche

Originally written for Life & Thyme

With photos by Max Flatow

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and butter your mini muffin tins.
2. Mix all of the ingredients together.
3. Bake uncovered until golden brown, approximately 30 minutes.

Hoppin' John

I don’t know much about good food writing, but I know it when I see it, and the paperback I just finished contained some of the best consecutive pages of writing I’ve read this year. I never left the book alone. I tied it around my wrist like a friendship bracelet. It was threaded with three of my favorite things in life:  language, memory, and food. When it was time to dog-ear a page, and I could afford the minute, I would stare at the cover in a moment of digestion, much like the way one might need a walk after dinner, and in my head, hand it to the author for the distinctive, nearly flawless way in which she traversed themes. She did it so well. And whenever I read books this good, this appetizing, I just want to run away. Cook and write. 

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I judged a book by its cover and took home a dark and stormy stack of pancakes in a syrupy downpour of butter, stuck in time for only the hungriest of book buyers. It was called Blue Plate Special. I’d never heard of the writer. Still I managed to lick the autobiographical account of a stranger’s years clean, sections of life's time marked by location, chunked like potatoes. A story lit up by the backdrop of appetite, from a soft-boiled egg and buttered toast crumbs in the writer’s childhood kitchen in Berkeley, C.A, to hummus sandwiches and chocolate bars on a cold, windy mountain in Glacier National Park, to heartbroken plates of green curry in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Her words kept filling me like an actual meal, only these I couldn’t keep from stealing bites from beneath the tinfoil. 

Knowing what other people are eating is really satisfying for me. I think back to my waitressing days at Judie’s, home of the popover, in Amherst, M.A., and the intense satisfaction that would slowly soak me like sponge cake after writing down someone’s order. I never knew what that feeling was all about and I still don’t, but I don’t always let myself eat everything I’d like to eat, so maybe the cravings got put to bed that way. And it was an easy way of connecting with someone without the pressure of having to be their friend afterward. I still love asking Michael what he ate for lunch, even if it’s an answer as simple as “soup” or “salad” but one day I’m hoping he’ll feed me a rich Blue Plate Special-esque description where lunch was “bean burritos fried in plenty of vegetable oil, enormous flour tortillas wrapped around mounds of grated cheddar and dollops of canned refried beans -- big, crisp, savory bundles of fat and carbohydrates.” I love swooning over food almost as much as I love eating it. 

I read and reread lots of paragraphs throughout the book. One that sticks out is the description of the New Years Day parties the writer would throw with her ex-husband. He took on the two roasts and a glazed ham, and she’d make the sides: “a huge pot of hoppin’ John -- spicy black eyed peas with long-grain rice and andouille; two trays of oozing mac and cheese with a crusty top; collard greens stewed in cider vinegar and lardons; and jalapeno cornbread with a honey glaze.”

Starting at four o’clock, our house began to fill with people and music and cigarette smoke; someone always lit a fire in the living room fireplace. People brought desserts, liquor, interesting presents. Often, later on, we all danced. 

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I wanted to be at this party, with this person, these people, this house of delicious happy so incredibly bad that the only way I could think of getting myself there was to attempt her recipe for hoppin’ John. A dish I had never heard of because I’m not from the South, but as it turns out, a dish that is said to bring good luck if you eat it on New Years Day: the black-eyed peas depict pennies, and the pork suggests optimism because pigs forage forward, never looking back. We may be six months in, but I can always use some good luck, and there's nothing wrong with cooking up a piggy-flavored pot of bean stew. And the act of making it -- all that chopping and stirring and tasting -- made me feel like a real-life friend of the writer. I guess sometimes, if I really like what you’ve ordered, or how you’ve ordered it, I will want to be friends afterward. 

The recipe for hoppin' John taken directly from Blue Plate Special by Kate Christensen.

Saute 1 chopped onion; 2 ribs celery; 1 each green and red pepper, chopped; and many cloves of minced garlic in plenty of olive oil. Add while it's all cooking generous dashes of cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, thyme, as well as 2 chopped jalapeno peppers and a bay leaf. [Note: I didn't have a bay leaf.] Add two chopped turkey andouille sausages and saute until everything is fragrant and soft. [Note: I used smoked pork and chopped four of them.] Add 2 cups of chicken broth, a can of diced tomatoes, several shots of Tabasco [Note: I used Gator Hammock Gator Sauce], 2-3 cans of rinsed black-eyed peas, and 1/2 cup long-grained white rice. Make sure there's enough liquid to cook the rice and have it wind up just a tiny bit on the soupy, rather than dry, side. Taste -- adjust seasonings -- cook until rice is soft. Serve with Tabasco.  

Cold Beets with Capers and Camembert on Toast

Saturday night after the rain, as I tuned in to the preparation of these beets, Michael sat on the couch sifting through sleeves of yesteryear’s photographs. Every so often I would stop dicing to take a peek at the old NYC skyline or to see him posed with two monks on a trip to China or to glimpse the koi pond his dad built in the backyard of their old house on Gerritsen Avenue. We were hours and hours into the holiday weekend so the night felt more like a Friday night, hugging the sanguinity of not having to meet Tuesday so soon. Sunup saw us reaping the benefit of a good night’s sleep, feeling rested and awake enough to watch morning movies with small onion rolls with butter and jelly, napkins, and large coffees. After lounging through Bad Boys 2 and 21 Jump Street (because I'm the good wife) with a head against his shoulder, we dressed and walked 3rd Avenue into Sunset Park on a wood flooring and kitchen/bathroom tile mission that had me daydreaming of doing unremarkable but rewarding things like writing letters to friends with new babies in front of windows or using two hands to open the french doors of a refrigerator to see a drawer stocked with cheese. The sun shone until clouds, drenched grey, began to brush the sky faster than we could cross streets. We followed the speaker blasts of Latin music up 46th street, hoping for a greasy party but of course unfazed when we uncovered the normal Saturday soundtrack of a car wash, then collapsing into a lunch of chorizo nachos and soft tacos at Tacos Matamoros where Michael caught that important soccer game and I took iPhone pictures of the food. When the game went into overtime, I asked Michael how to say “can I take your picture?” in Spanish so I could snag a picture of the guys behind the counter, the guys making tacos, without looking weird and sneaky. A long shot since I moseyed back to our table feeling extra weird, just a little less sneaky.

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It would have been optimal to walk back to Bond Street but the rain had begun so we caught the B63 down 5th Avenue and walked back from 3rd Street, stopping off at Whole Foods to grab six beets and their leaves for me and a container of cut watermelon for Michael. I thought this beet recipe would take no time, but it took time, the good kind of time, the time that keeps a good day moving along, with no rush to finish and no reason to stop. I wanted to study the old picture of Michael standing next to an antique apple press on his grandparents’ farm wearing short shorts and a white collared shirt buttoned all the way to the top, but the beets were staining my hands and I knew the picture wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was the day, neither was Michael. Or so it felt. 

Adapted from Food52's Community Pick Recipe for Beet Tartare with Dijon and Capers

Ingredients:

(Serves 4 as an appetizer)

• 6 beets, roasted, peeled, and diced
• 2 tsp capers
• 4 tbsp red onion, minced
• 4 tbsp parsley, minced
• 6 tbsp scallion, minced
• 3 tbsp dijon
• 2 tsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tsp worcestershire
• 2 tsp olive oil

Method:

Wash the beets, then wrap them loosely in tin foil and place on a baking tray to roast in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour. Let them cool for a bit. Take a paper towel and scrub the skin away, staining your hands in the process. Dice the beets and set aside. 

In a small bowl combine the remaining ingredients. Pour this over the beets and mix well. Serve on crackers or toast or bagel crisps with a schmear of camembert. I was going to go the goat route but shied away from it to please someone else. The camembert was a great substitute and I would use it again. 

Malloreddus with Kale and Hot Sausage

I miss Michael when he goes away and it's because I love him. You miss the ones you love, that's just how the love stories go. When he's away, I lose the warm legs to slip cold feet between, the hands to hand me water bottles, and without a television I still don't know how we get those new episodes of Louie to watch online, so I guess I'll have to wait. (Perhaps why it is kept secret.) All that and yet my love story goes something like this: Michael tells me he's going away for a few days and I practically race, tripping over feet, to open my Google calendar because oh man those days can't come fast enough. Yes, I will miss him when he goes away but there are thrilling liberties that come with his departure and they are these lovely, miniature birthday gifts I am burning to tear apart with teeth. I've had this conversation numerous times with friends and it is agreed: there is nothing like the rabid anticipation of that first full day and night of not having your husband anywhere near you. You decide what. You decide when. You decide where. You decide why. When Michael goes away, I am in sweatpants faster than a speeding bullet, lighting candles and swaying ever so sexily to the closing campfire music I have compiled for a Spotify playlist I like to call "Not Your Boyfriend's Music." (This playlist has been around a while.) While the pings of Michael's texts can be heard throughout Joan Baez's version of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," really what I'm more concerned with is the type of pasta I am going to cook on this inaugural night left alone to my own devices. They are the best of nights.

Ingredients:

(Serves 1 with leftovers)

• 1 cup or so of small pasta
• 1 hot sausage, chopped 
• 3 big handfuls of kale, chopped 
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• white wine, a splash
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• crushed red pepper, a dash
• dried basil, a dash
• 1/4 fresh lemon, a squeeze
• grated pecorino, a sprinkling
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Get a pot of salted water boiling. 

Prep and get the sausage, garlic, and kale chopped. Olive oil into the pan over medium-high heat. Add the sausage. Cook until brown. Make room and throw in the kale. Next up, garlic. Stir over low heat. Add a splash of white wine and let it cook down.

When the pasta's ready, run it under some cold water then toss it into the pan. Mix it up and add basil, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. A lemon squeeze to bring out the flavors. Sprinkle with pecorino.

Enjoy.

Matzo Balls

I don’t feel bad posting a recipe for matzo balls mid-Passover week because if you’re anything like me, you crave them year round. And since I failed to make enough to hit that sweet ratio of broth to ball in my mom’s pot of chicken soup last night, I’m now tempted to hit the drawing board again this weekend. While matzo balls are rarely tampered with, because let’s face it, they’re old-world and perfect, there is one recipe I know of from an Orthodox Jewish kosher cookbook writer named Susie Fishbein who dabbles with a tricolor version – a green matzo ball made with pureed spinach, a yellow one made with turmeric, and a red one made with tomato paste – and really I just hope I’m never at the Seder where this soup gets ladled. I know it must be temping to fiddle with the matzo ball as the ingredients are bland and few, and so many of us enjoy the search to reinvent traditions, but I do feel strongly on leaving the matzo ball alone. A good matzo ball has everything to do with a good broth, so maybe fiddle with that instead? 

Ingredients:

(Makes around 15 balls)

• 1 cup matzo meal
• 4 eggs
• 4 tbsp. any kind of fat
• 4 tbsp. seltzer
• a good shake of salt and pepper

Method:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. 
3. Bring a pot of water to a boil. 
4. Wet your hands & start rolling balls, but don't handle them too much. 
5. Drop them in one at a time. 
6. Cook them covered for 30 or so minutes.
7. Plop them into your favorite broth-y soup. 

Item B on the Shared Google Doc: Bruschetta

A couple of weekends ago, I packed a bag and some cough drops and escaped New York for Denver, a state that looked to be one week ahead in terms of sunshine, the warm kind. You could say it was a perfectly timed trip in that it was the absolute right instant to ditch everything here -- the cherry raw winds, the fluctuations of mood, the inhuman squeeze onto trains – but it’s not like I went out there and hiked the Rockies with a CamelBak. No, the weekend visit to a favorite faraway friend took a turn for bad health (and this time it had nothing to do with smoke). My New York cough had spiraled into a legit sick and so thank god for my friends’ wide couch and world’s softest blankets because that is where I spent most of my time and within a weak arm’s reach of the tissue box and mugs of hot.

But there were a few things I couldn’t let slide, no matter what, and they were: talk time in the backyard and/or front porch (a shared Google doc of “things to remember to discuss” had been purposefully typed up days prior), the preparation of some sort of homemade food (between the number of links to recipes we email each other, it’d be a shame not to put one to use), and the unleashing of 70-degree dry heat all up in my face (and all the while New York was getting rained on, even better).

So, wrapped in a blanket and wearing sunglasses, I followed my friend, who carried with her a cutting board, out into the backyard sunshine. In alphabetical order, she plopped down the basil, garlic, olive oil, pepper, salt, tomatoes, and vinegar.

“Bruschetta,” she said. “It’s all I eat.”

If there’s one person I feel like I’ve grown as a home cook alongside, it’s this particular friend of mine. The one halving tomatoes and mincing garlic effortlessly while listening to, understanding, and making sense of item A on the shared Google doc.

About seven years ago, the two of us read our first Real Simple magazines before boarding a flight to Santa Barbara. We were visiting a guy friend, one who lived with his own guy friends amid their very guy-like things (video games, bathroom Maxims, forgotten bottle caps, hot sauce and salsas) and while we’d prepared ourselves for the onslaught of many grilled meals, we knew we would have to come bearing ideas for greens (and not the ones that go up in smoke). At the back of the magazine, Real Simple had a salad recipe that mixed tuna, white beans, pickles, and red onion together. Whew, OK, we had this. In the boys’ California kitchen, we cobbled these ingredients together, together, step-by-step, recipe direction by recipe direction, exact tablespoon of olive oil by exact tablespoon of olive oil, until we knew we’d found ourselves a new leisurely pursuit. Look, Ma! We’re cooking! In California!

I watched my friend cut and slice, chop and mince, and measure without measurement. Maybe it was the sick talking, but suddenly I felt so proud of her. Of me. Of us! We’d come such a long way from Real Simple recipe tear outs, and I’d literally come such a long way. It didn’t matter how physically awful I was feeling all the way out in Denver, I was just happy for it to be a cutting board, and nothing else, separating me from an old cooking buddy. 

Ingredients:

(Makes enough to keep for the week.)

•    15 basil leaves, rolled up and sliced lengthwise
•    6 cloves garlic, minced 
•    2 tbsp. olive oil
•    Pepper, sprinkled
•    Salt, sprinkled
•    1 ½ cup cherry tomatoes, halved
•    1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar 

Method:

Combine the ingredients in a bowl, except for the garlic. Sauté the garlic in an olive-oil pan over medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes until fragrant, not burnt. Pour it over the combined ingredients. Refrigerate. Later on, eat with goat cheese and crostini. 

For the Purpose of Transformation: Pickled Onions

The last few weeks stormed in like an unwanted anyone. Michael and I were running on different schedules, our chances of collision slim, so I was simultaneously missing him and resenting his ship for passing mine in the night. I was going at everything angrily because I knew no other way to go at it. Work people were getting sick; I could taste my cough just around the corner. The weather was playing games like a teasing idiot with one day feeling almost nice (see: me running in the park) to the next being down right freezing (see: me running hands under warm water). My shoulders felt stuck in a constant state of hunched.   

In my head I’d been whimpering over this one pair of socks I used to have. Navy blue socks that reached my knees, that I was convinced if in my possession, I would feel better. “Bring me my socks!” I said to no one. I knew they were packed away in storage, which is why I refused to buy a new pair, but I was straight up angry for not having my socks.

Then I posted a status update on Facebook one day offering up a free ticket to a Brooklyn Historical Society lecture on the Gowanus Canal and not one person wanted to go. Not one person. And then I went to a mac n cheese tasting competition (as a taster) and did not taste one good mac n cheese. Not one good mac n cheese. These are not things to get angry about, and yet I felt like throwing fastballs at walls like a crazy.

Everything was making me mad. The only signs of Michael coming home at night were the empty yogurt and hummus containers he’d leave in the sink (see: me with a grimace). It was hard not to take any of it personally.

Did I mention I was reading Gone Girl in the midst of it? Slowly at first. A chapter here, a chapter there. And not because it was slow going but because it was too good to finish too fast. (I eat the way I read.) So to top it all off I had these two appalling people ruining each other’s lives in the very back of my psyche.

Something had to change. I needed a quick fix. I needed something to work and for it to work properly. I said out-loud: “I think I have to pickle something.” I’d never pickled anything in my life and yet all of a sudden I had this severe desire to get it done. I knew there’d be a pleasure to pickling, taking just three normal, everyday ingredients - salt, sugar, and vinegar - and using them for the purpose of transformation.

Who says change has to start with yourself? I say let it start with an onion.

Ingredients:

• 2 small red onions
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tbsp. dark brown sugar (the only sugar I had in the cupboard)
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt

Method:

1. Slice the onions.
2. Whisk together everything but the onions in a small bowl.
3. In a mason jar, pour the mixture over the onions.
4. Let them sit at room temperature for 10 minutes if you want to eat them soon. Otherwise, wait a day and enjoy them then.  

The Highs and Lows of Hamantaschen

While my days of coolly sauntering into the crepe papered community room of Kane Street Synagogue dressed as Esther are over, my undying enthusiasm for Purim pastry does remain. If you haven’t noticed, Jews go crazy for their hamantaschen. Going out on a limb here to say that it has nothing to do with the taste and everything to do with our ownership over it. (Gasp!) Yes, the same people who defend the taste (or no taste) of matzo (“It’s good,” we uphold, “just put some [fill-in-the-blank] on it”) are the same people waiting to spin a mean, metal grogger in your face if you so much as try to come between them and their three-cornered Haman hat. We’ve got poppy lovers; we’ve got prune lovers. We’ve got folders; we’ve got pinchers. For me, the filling and aesthetic matters zero as long as that hat strikes the balance between soft and crisp, and with just the right ratio of filling to flour. If I’m being honest, the community room never pulled this traditional cookie off. Too much dough, or too much filling, too cakey or just slightly burnt. I don’t know if they were homemade by congregants or if too massive an order from Lassen and Hennigs was placed, but I do know we ate them regardless of how so-so they always were. It wasn’t until this past weekend, preparing and baking them for the very first time with my mother and Amy F. that I realized: Adonai, this is a difficult dessert. Between my mother’s insistence that we fold the three corners and Amy’s negation that we pinch, the fact remained that our prunes and apricots were continuing to oven erupt, and our overall uncertainty over baking time wasn’t helping the matter. And yet, when my father coolly sauntered into the room (dressed as Paul Flatow) for the first of his many tastes, he had nothing but good things to say, defending the ooze, defending the burnt corners, defending it all. As expected. 

Hamantaschen

(Makes about 35 hats)

Adapted from Shiksa in the Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• the zest of 1 orange
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• your favorite jam(s)

Method:

In one bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, oil, zest, and vanilla. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly spoon the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, stirring continuously until you've got some dough on your hands. Knead until smooth and slightly sticky. Then wrap it tightly in saran wrap and refrigerate for about an hour. 

***

Preheat the oven to 350.

On a lightly floured surface, use a (lightly floured) rolling pin to roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick. Use a 3-inch cookie cutter or a 3-inch rim of a water glass (what we did) to cut circles out of the dough. Don't let your dough scraps go to waste! Roll those out and keep cutting circles. 

Place a teaspoon of your favorite jam, or filling, into the center of each circle. (We used apricot and prune.) It's so important to go easy on the filling, otherwise you're looking at some pretty messy eruptions. 

To fold: Carefully take the left side of the circle and fold it towards the middle. Do the same with the right side, creating a triangular tip at the circle's top that overlaps the upper left flap. You'll have created a triangular tip at the top. Take the bottom flap and fold it up towards the middle, tucking the left side beneath the left flap and the right side over the right flap. Pinch the corners to secure the hat. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the hats on it evenly spaced. Bake in the oven for about 12-15 minutes, just until the corners are slightly browned. 

Advice: Don't eat them hot. Wait a few hours for them to soften up. 

ENJOY!

Nothing Fancy, Just a Damn Good Meat Sauce

The beets were in season at Blue Hill last weekend. Plain as day. First, beet sliders the size of quarters. Next, beet bolognese over polenta. Last, beet tartare. All of it perfect, all of it memorable. The wordplay? Adorable. Returned to Brooklyn only wanting the real thing. Yes, very cute those beets, but now I’d like some beef.

After five months of living with my parents, we’re finally living in our new place. And by new place I mean in our friend Nick’s apartment. Not with Nick, of course, but amongst Nick’s things, such as the triceratops piñata that sits atop a television speaker in the living room. I’m enjoying all the things that come with settling into new settings, such as new windows I can spy through on my walks to and from the train and acclimating to a different shade of morning light when waking up in a new direction. Above all, though, and what I’ve truly missed, is settling into a kitchen – a kitchen I can have all to myself. And with a Whole Foods I can see just past the canal.

The weather is still cold. Soon, the weather won’t be cold though and it won’t be one-pot meals I think about at the tail end of my workday. It’ll be peaches and margaritas, mint and lime. But until then, how does one warm up a space that’s not her own? And with a triceratops piñata giving me the evil eye? Homemade meat sauce. 

Ingredients:

(Serves 2 with leftovers)

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 2 packages baby portobellos
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 3 oz. tomato paste
• 1 tbsp. oregano
• 1/2 tbsp. basil
• 1/2 tbsp. parsley
• 1/2 tbsp. rosemary
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne
• 1/4 tsp. thyme
• dark brown sugar, small handful
• 1/2 lb. your favorite pasta. (I used cavatappi.)
• olive oil, couple glugs
• butter, couple cuts

Method:

In a skillet over medium heat, cook the mushrooms in a combination of butter and olive oil. Don't move them much; cook them slowly until they release their moisture. After about ten minutes, add the sliced onion. Stir together, then just let them be. You want them soft and brown.

Chop up the meat and throw it into a heavy pot with some olive oil. Add the garlic. Cook together for a few minutes over medium heat. Add the crushed tomatoes. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cook, stir, and taste for the next hour or so. 

Spoon it over your favorite pasta and enjoy.