Cooking Therapy

I know this looks like I'm up all the time, but I do get a lot of rest. It was just that on these days, I was restless.

What's Cooking at 6am (February 17, 2010)
I can't explain why I'm cooking at 6am. I just am. Today, I'm making two firsts today though I can only eat one of them. I'm trying my hand at split pea soup with ham made from ham stock. I've never made the stock or the soup before. But I can't eat them today (it's even cheatig to taste for seasoning) as it is Ash Wednesday. Thus, the apartment is filled with the lovely smell of ham, but I may not partake. Ah well, later there will be Sole Meuniere a la Julia Child. That's also a first for me. I'll reveal how they turn out in Sunday's Blog. If I remain on schedule this week, I'll also be able to talk about the elsuive Mediterranean fish soup that both Julia Child and Anthony Bourdain rave about. It was a dismay failure when I made it last year, but I've gotten better at seafood stock since then, and Julia's recipe is far simpler than the others I've tried. I may even take pictures.

What's Cooking in the Wee Small Hours (Feb 23, 2010)
I have to get up in four hours, but I'm wide awake. I'm having the long awaited Oncologist appointment which is probably why I'm wide awake. The scent of roasting pork isn't helping matters either. There was a massive pork shoulder on sale at the market today. It was under ten bucks for something that looked like Fred Flintstone's dinner. I grabbed it, oiled it up, rubbed it with a mix of Herb de Provence, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper then threw it in the oven on low for about eight hours. It should be fork tender by the time I leave. I really love pulled pork, but decided I wanted it without the barbecue rub. The Herb de Provence rub was what I came up with in its stead. The result is quite lovely. Alas, I will have to leave the succulent pile of pork having had just the the tiniest taste. It does give me something to look forward to when I come home. I will have to make a stop at some point during the day for a suitable bread or bun to hold those tender morsels. Or I may just shovel it in my mouth by the fistful. In the privacy of my kitchen, who's to know?


Friday Night Snacks (February 26, 2010)
There are a lot of things I still miss from Philly (where are my pretzels, brother dear). Among the things I didn't expect to find is a really good bagel. My standards are high as I worked in New York City for a year. Luckily, there is a company out here called Noah's Bagels that has some real New Yorkers making things. Luckier still, Noah's provides bagels for our local Costco (we get a dozen fresh baked bagels for $.99). I like the everything bagel (onion, poppy seeds, sesame seeds). Jon likes cinnamon raisin. Anyway, my favorite bagel snack is something I picked up from one of the crew guys on "Demon Under Glass.' He liked his bagel toasted with a nice layer of cream cheese with a slice of tomato on top. My variant is that I chop the tomato then gently press it in the cream cheese so that it stays put. I sprinkle a little bit of salt and pepper on the tomato. I love the arm crunch od the bagel with the softness of of the cream cheese and the warmth of the bagel against the cool of the cream cheese. It's just a great combination, And, as a snack, it's not that unhealthy (I only have a half a bagel-tomato at a clip). As for the other things I miss from Philly? I do fairly well making steak sandwiches (steakums on a supermarket French baguett is really good. I make mine with garlic infused olive oil on the roll instead of mayo). And I've just found a recipe for soft pretzels that's really easy that Jon and I will probably try next week. And I even found a recipe for scrapple that is probably a lot healthier than the real thing (it uses pork shoulder and fresh hocks cooked with corn meal rather than snouts and offal). It may not tast as yummy though. Still, I'd like to give it a try. More cooking later. I hope to have a report from the nearby farmer's market as well.

Photos of Our Hood

Reminder: Click on the highlighted and underlined phrases to get additional information.

Jon and I took a walk along Fisherman's Village in Marina del Rey today (don't hate us for the weather). Jon took some photos and I grabbed some off the web to show you the area. The boat called Tortuga is one of the many piers that offers charter fishing trips.

Click on photo to enlarge.

There are a lot of different restaurants around the Marina including a Cheesecake Factory with a great view of the water and the boats.

More to come later. Stay warm!

Pasta Fears and Noodle Mutilation

I don't know why, but I've had a fear of making lasagne. Perhaps it was because my cousin's was so good, I didn't think I could ever top it. Maybe it's because the list of ingredients is so long. I've tackled making a baguette but not this particular pan of pasta and sauce. The baguettes were more like bread sticks...dense, rock-hard bread sticks. We're still trying to figure out where that went wrong. But I digress. I got a craving for the dish once my appetite returned (I actually craved bacon first – still do, but that's beside the point). The frozen variety wasn't cutting it for me anymore. I decided enough was enough with avoiding the recipe. There was plenty of time to experiment. I even have someone that can share the big pan of food. Jon loves pasta, but the average lasagne recipe yields way too much food for two people even with freezing some of it. The time had come. Oh, and don't worry about my over doing in the kitchen. I'm taking breaks between each step and doing as much prep as possible sitting down.

The first thing I realized as I tackled Tyler Florence's recipe for The Ultimate Lasagne, is that all that time I spent getting coq au vin and beef bourguignon right came in handy. I can prep Mirepoix in my sleep now. I really enjoy chopping the veg and the herbs. It's like meditating, I suppose. The rest of the recipe involved steps I've done a lot lately like browning meat and reducing sauces. The only thing that set me in fits were those danged noodles. They were big and hot and slippery and annoying. I broke a quarter of them getting them in the hot water. The cooked ones weren't very cooperative either. Jon pointed out that a relaxing past time shouldn't involve angrily muttering at cooked pasta. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I will take a time out here to sum up my feelings about the 2009 Football season for the Philadelphia Eagles. Sigh. Early on, I had the mind set that the team was not going to do very well. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised at how the regular season finished. I felt that any headway made in the playoffs would be a delightful bonus. I wouldn't mind them losing two weeks in a row to those accursed Cowboys if the losses had been less lopsided. The Eagles aren't that bad and, more importantly, the Cowboys haven't been that good. Thus, the season ends for me with a sense of dismay and supreme annoyance. I take solace in the remaining playoff as there are a lot of really great teams. The games should be fun to watch. My only hope is that one of those exciting teams crushes Dallas' ambitions in the most humiliating fashion possible. In other football related musings, I was not that disappointed that Temple U lost its first bowl game in forever. I was shocked that they got to go to one in the first place. I was never a big booster of the team as I thought the University's money would have been better spent in other areas. But for Bill Cosby's sake, I was glad they finally made it to the big time. Maybe next year.

The lasagna is now in the oven. The kitchen is a mess, and I am quite certain that my handling of the noodles would get me a stern reprimand from Mr. Florence. It couldn't be helped. Things just went sideways when I was trying to wrangle the hot, steamy noodles. Then, they got more tangled as I tried to find ones that I could use in the pan. The end result looks okay and the meat sauce tastes good enough to eat out of the pot (which I've been doing though I spoon it out into my little tasting bowl). The apartment smells wonderful. I think it will be delightful. Sometimes, delicious cuisine is not pretty.

One of the great things about the blog in the past couple of months (aside from the great support I've received from you all during the illness) have been friends and readers sharing their recipes and cooking tips. I mentioned writing a recipe from an experiment by a good friend of mine. As it often happens when you really want to make something, Nick was missing a key ingredient. Going out for some smoked pork for his collards was unappealing. He found that he had hot Italian sausage in the house. So he took the sausage out of the casing and browned it with some onions and garlic, quickly sauted the greens then added liquid to braise. He used water. I use chicken stock. The result was a spicey soul food dish with an Italian twist. I replicated the recipe with my own tweaks. It turned out quite nicely though I can't eat something that spicey too often even though a nice piece of buttery cornbread works to cut the heat. I enjoyed the experiment. Moreover, it was really fun to chat back and forth about food. I'm always looking for new ways of making chicken or roasts or soups, so if you have a favorite recipe, do share. As I've said, I have lots of time to experiment.

I was going to do an epic treatise on Daytime TV and how it's driving me insane, but that will have to wait for next time. Meanwhile, I will leave you with my new favorite quote for the week. This is from CSI: Miami. What would cause the biggest pop star in the world to burst into flames? Yes, the new shows are back.

Stay tuned!

What's Happened and What's Next

Well, it wasn't just the flu that had me in bed for weeks. During the umpteeth visit to my doctor in three weeks, she heard something in my abdomen. Four hours later, I was in a Santa Monica ER floating along on some really powerful painkillers and realizing that I watched The Godfather far too many times. I'm not going to get into the details of all of what went wrong. I don't feel entirely comfortable putting all that personal detail up on the interwebs. You can call me or e-mail me privately if you want to talk about it.

However, I can share that I have been the object of fascination by scores of perky interns and my super savvy surgeon who'd never seen anything like my case (that does a lot toward making a patient feel like she'll recover).. I've been pushed through silent, dark hospital corridors in my bed like Vito Corleone being hidden from hit men ( found a clip HERE but it doesn't have any audio).

I've been asked many detailed questions about my job at the Archive during some very embarrassing physical exams (apparently electronic archiving is the bees knees with medical personnel. I wouldn't have minded it I wasn't exposed for all the world to see much of the time. Somehow, I was able to answer in great detail. That was probably the morphine pump. I found a way to pass an entire day by watching nothing but court reality shows. I don't normally watch much of that kind of programming. It's too much like Jerry Springer but without the fighting (then, what's the point). That choice of viewing may have been because of the pump. It was more likely that I was trying to find any programming that did not mention Tiger Woods. That was really hard to do without the Food Network. I really missed the Food Network while inside.

I have never been hospitalized in my entire life. Yet, in one visit I managed to have procedures that I've only read about (and some I'd never imagined). I even had the mask over my face in the OR with the counting backwards from 100. I really don't remember thinking 99. While most of this will do wonders for the depth of my writing. And there were some amusing 'only in the Entitlement Zone' aspects to the hospital. They don't bring food around at intervals. You have to order it from room service. Let me say again, you have to order it from a menu from room service. And there were lovely aspects to the care like back rubs and a pedicure (the nurses found out the day after my surgery that I had never been hospitalized and wanted to calm me down so the meds could work, I suppose). That was really nice, but all in all, I would have just assumed skipped the whole ordeal.

However, life is what it is. I had a serious surgery and a long road to recovery. I'm not allowed to think about anything but eating and sleeping for the next few seeks. I'm writing today because so many people needed to hear from me. I really appreciate all of the well wishes and offers of help. I accept all of it including the rain dances. But worry not, knowing me, I'll be writing now that I'm more clear headed. It helps my state of mind. I plan on doing a little cooking at a time. I have to eat, and I like my cooking best. The cookies will not be in time for Christmas, but there will be cookies. Jon has been assisting me for years. I can talk him through most of it from the sofa. I need to have that cheery smell in the air. I am home with the hubs, the love and support from my extraordianrily strong family. I love you all.

That's all for now.

The Sinking, Soggy Hush Puppy

I really love hush puppies though I haven't had them often. The ones up north at fast food places are awful. We never could get them to work well at home. I only had the good ones when we went to Georgia in the summers to see the relatives. That was also the only place we had sweet tea, but that's another story. Anyway, since I've become a foodie, I've wanted to make my own hush puppies. I figured since the hubs loved fish and chips, I could get him to like catfish and hush puppies, right? My efforts were not successful at all. I never got to the point in the recipe where the dough would float on top of the oil just before it turned golden brown. My hush puppies always sank. They'd stay down there at the bottom of the dutch over not turning brown really. Just getting sad and soggy. I never even found out if I got the spices right. The hush puppies I made back then never really drained completely, so all I could taste was the oil.

Many years pass. I found myself watching a repeat of Paula's Home Cooking. One of the dishes was Crab Hush Puppies. I love crab in all forms. And my skills had improved markedly since my last attempt. I now have a thermometer to measure the temperature of cooking oil. And I take cooking with crab very seriously. Even if it's on sale, I am very careful in how I use it. I really studies the recipe and took my time. The oil was really hot...and they floated. The hush puppies puffed up and floated. They got a little darker than golden brown, but they were delicious! The only part of the recipe I failed to do was add the bacon crumbles to the finished batter with the crab. I cooked the crispy bacon to add to the hush puppies. I then ate the bacon. That was delicious as well. Thanks, Miss Paula!

Deb vs the Oysters

We were off on Friday, so I finally had made the purchases for the seafood extravaganza. Fortunately, Alton Brown had an episode of Good Eats on oysters the night before. I figured out that I needed to buy small oysters that were sweeter and easier to handle. That was good to know, because I knew nothing. I found myself really nervous about this whole situation. I am a self-professed Foodie, and my creds were on the line here. But as I looked at these things that seem to be exotic rocks, I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would ever get the idea of cracking that open and having a swallow. Primitive man probably saw primitive birds smashing these things on rocks and feasting on the innards. But what else did primitive man have to eat? I was dubious. With that in mind, I also bought some lovely lump crab meat along with the oysters at the fabulous Santa Monica Seafood and some shrimp and crab legs (they were on sale at my regular market). Since the oyster prep was very simple, I decided to finally tackle the elusive shrimp bisque recipe and make some crab cakes. If I hated the oysters, I could still enjoy some seafood. Next, came trying to opening the tightly closed rock. I am not the most graceful person I know. As far as I know, my father is still leery of me coming at him with hot food. You trip once going across a diningroom and no one forgets. Shucking these things involves holding the oyster in the palm of the hand while leveraging a sharp implement pointed toward my hand and shoving it into this rock. As I was doing that for the first time, I realized that we could be mere centimeters from a visit to the ER. However, that didn't happen. I opened them. It was inelegant, but I shucked a half dozen without losing any of the liquor. I had three on the half shell with a squirt of lemon and three with a Mignonette sauce. They are delicious. It was clean and sweet and a little salty. I got the attraction. I will definitely have them again. My Foodie creds remain in tact. The bisque and crab cakes were great as well.

Hot foot and other Kitchen Disasters

This week has had some really positive things happen. It's just been longer and stranger than usual. And the weather has been weird. It was 99 degrees at the Archive on Monday. By Wednesday the temperature had dropped more than 20 degrees. And my allergies are back to a level I hadn't experienced since leaving Philly 15 years ago. Thus, I'm a bit cranky, but not unhappy at all. Though as I take a break from cooking to write this, I realize that stoves and allergy meds may not mix. I just burned the top of my foot while making chili. And no, I don’t know how I pulled that off. I am backing away from the stove now.


Cooking Frenzy


A few weeks ago was the Easter holiday. My plans for making stocks were thwarted that weekend. Silly me thought that chain supermarkets would carry the same kinds of poultry at each store. Oh, no. Now, I’ll have to wait until Friday to get the turkey wings I like to use to make stock for various Easter related dishes. It’s not so bad though. Now, that we’re working the day shift, I have the whole evening on Friday to get a lot of the prep out of the way. I can do things like make pie dough a few days in advance of Friday, so there won’t be a lot of rushing around on Saturday. I’m not sure who, if anyone, is attending the dinner, but I always like to be prepared for surprises.

I haven’t been talking about it very much lately, but I’m still doing a lot of cooking that is getting more and more involved each year. I diligently record cooking shows on The Food Network and PBS every weekend. I watch them for new ideas and re-watch them to make sure I understand the techniques. One thing that has been a challenge for me is that most of the shows have recipes that must be served immediately after they are finished. That’s not an option for a person who tries to make most of the meals for the week during the weekend. Sometimes, I don’t even have the energy to make 30 Minute Meals when I get home. I need something I can throw in the oven or on the stovetop and is on the plate in fifteen minutes. So, my big food project, aside from sneaking more veggies into Jon’s diet, has been figuring out where I can stop a recipe to freeze it so that it tastes the same when I make it later in the week. Generally, I’ve found that blanching the veggies and freezing them separate from the meat an sauce in stews keeps them from being mushy when I put it all together. I actually make all my sauces and freeze them separately. Each night, I defrost the meal in the fridge and put it together when I get home. I’m also getting more confident with complicated dishes. But I find cooking very peaceful. That’s probably because I can control most aspects of it. And, as Jon says, there is much yumminess at the end.

Time to get back to cooking. Don't worry. I've put on some slippers!