Food Rule #8: Stay In Control

“What is the yellow stuff under the fish?” the patron asked.

“An asparagus and saffron risotto or what I call high class mac n’ cheese if you like,” I replied.

“It’s really good, thanks for doing this for us,” said Lena the waiter, aka the patron, aka my employee.

I’m glad she enjoyed it. This is my chicken shit for the soul ya might say. In my current world of the hamburger stand (aka the restaurant that employees me), there are times when I like to teach, as I have mentioned previously, and this one came about because of a challenge to me from my boss.

As Bob handed me the saffron and black truffle oil he said, “I have had other managers cook for me, why don’t you cook with this?” Since Bob “the big dego” and I talk about Italian food a lot, I had become hungry for some risotto. I love it because, like its brother starch in the Italian pasta arsenal, it becomes something so satisfying for so little money. Just a little bit of time and knowledge on the cook's part pays great dividends. Like soup, risotto is a great barometer of a chef’s attention to detail.

The cooking process lends itself to sexual innuendo and puns as well. In a past kitchen it was said that if you made a glue-like risotto, you must have stirred it with your dick. I think this came from the lesbian cook who was of the opinion that a guy’s dick never stays in long enough to satisfy a woman, so why mess with it. I concurred saying something like, “whether it’s real, a strap-on, or powered by Duracell, it is always a complex relationship with whoever owns the dick.” She then turned to me and said something about vibrators and the Energizer bunny, at which point I turned, raised my hands, and cried uncle. She is still a great cook practicing her craft to this day. Onward.

When you take the foofery out of making this classic dish from the Poe valley of Italy, you can make the whole experience much more enjoyable. The first time I saw it made with passion was in a video of Lidia Bastianich making a wild mushroom risotto -- high quality rice correctly toasted, lovingly stirred with hot stock, great fresh wild mushrooms, and plenty of parmesan (or it might have been Grana Padano) and served immediately. These are the basic steps which are followed in making a saffron asparagus risotto. I found it ideal to have me cook the risotto and my friend cook the halibut, but if you want to be chef stud muffin then do both. So let’s do it.

1. Put your first sauce pot on with 1 gallon of water brought to a simmer with 1 large bay leaf and eight smashed cloves of garlic and 1 T kosher salt. (you will add more salt as you go, so don’t worry.) Have an 8 ounce ladle handy.
2. In a second pan, bring 2 quarts of water and 1 T salt to a simmer so when you are ready to blanch the asparagus you are set up. Cut the asparagus into one inch pieces. Have a sieve or slotted spoon ready. You could also pop the cut asparagus in the microwave for 30 seconds to cook if you want. (I tend to do this at home.)
3. Have a sauté pan ready to sear the halibut, and preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Keep the skin on the halibut filet because it will keep it moist when you finish it in the oven and will aid in removal should the filet stick when it comes out of the oven.
4. Place a small pan on low heat. Place a cup of half and half, a stick of butter, 1 t salt, and a pinch of saffron (about 15 threads) and give it time to steep (do not boil, you will kill the saffron!). When the stock starts to bubble proceed with step two. In the meantime, choose some music and a glass of wine.
5. Put ¼ cup of olive oil in a second pan over medium heat. Add two cups of Cannaroli rice if you can find it, or Arborio. Stir evenly and constantly with a slow rhythm like Charlie Watts (slave on the tattoo you disc comes to mind) until you can start to smell the toastinessl it should be about five minutes. Put your sauté pan for the halibut on medium high heat with 4 T olive oil or rice bran oil.
6. Add the stock one ladle at a time and add another when the previous one is absorbed by the rice. After 'bout 8 ladles, pull it off the heat and give it six or seven turns with the pepper grinder. This is when you season the halibut in the pan skin side up. Sear for four minutes.
7. Put the risotto back on the heat and continue through ladle 14. Stir the saffron occasionally to aid the steeping. By now it should be bright yellow. The rice should have released much of the starch and the mix should seam pretty “creamy” at this point, but the rice should still have a strong bite to it. Take half of the rice out of the pan and place in the baking pan to cool -- this is for a later meal (i.e.: risotto cakes or another risotto).
8. Now add your saffron mix, asparagus, and stir in until the cream is absorbed. Check doneness; the rice should have just a bit of bite left (not mushy). Check for salt and see if it needs more and season to your taste.
9. Serve in a bowl plate if you have it with some chopped parsley, place the halibut on top and drizzle fish LIGHTLY with truffle oil (I mean drops). Turn off all of your burners and sit down and eat! I did one with a sprinkling of Reggiano and I liked that too.

I didn’t use chicken stock because I didn’t want the flavor in the dish. I just wanted the flavor and aromatics of the garlic and bay leaf. As you see this is a great dish to talk about building flavors. You just managed three or four pans and I hope the house didn’t burn down. One other important lesson to learn in cookery is to know when you can pause.

There are times when preparing a great meal can feel like you’re on a runaway freight train. I try not to forget that the meal your about to share is about sharing the table, time, and company. In this risotto situation when you get to step six you can take a break. If one was to be interrupted by a loving soul who so loved the smells you are creating and you decided you wanted to feast on that person, then feast after step six. If you're already satisfied before you sit down to the table, then what the hell are you waiting for?

Food Rule 7: Quality ingredients, antioxidants, the less process the better.

Let it be said that fresh, seasonal ingredients are always the best place to start. We know this. But what about all the hoopla surrounding antioxidants? There are two things that seem to sum up the current situation. First, there are a lot of reports saying all kinds of things that make great marketing for people who make pills. Second, after much research I have confirmed that mayonnaise is not included on the current list of things you should increase your consumption of. But what if I made a pomegranate and fresh salmon oil mayonnaise? Hmmm, that could actually work. But I find that searching these things out and trying them keeps food interesting. Some of them I have incorporated into my house cuisine -- and some of them are disgusting.

Flax seed, pomegranate, turmeric, annatto seed, berries of many types, and hemp seed are a few items that make it on the table. Yes, hemp, ganja seed, tropical cola bud crunchies, or whatever else you want to call pot seed salad. But a lot of these things take some getting used to. Fish oil capsules make me belch something awful, so they went out the window. The dog won’t even eat them. But here we start with turmeric and annatto Seed. This is how I am dealing with the fall elections.

As the sewage infested bilge of politicking continues to rise I find the need for antioxidants and ways to settle my stomach to be of utmost importance. By chance I have in my collection of tasty treats turmeric and annatto seed (or achiote if you like) that by all things I have read fill the bill. If I could, I would buy stock in Pepto-Bismol but unfortunately it is part of a larger company whose politics I don’t have the time to understand. I also confirmed that pink is not one of the five colors that should be on your plate, as recommended by the FDA and the DNC.  So off we go.

To begin with, it is good to understand that both of these items are used for coloring things, so you have to work with them carefully. Annatto seed is used to color cheddar cheese and for face paints among the natives in the Amazon jungle. Turmeric is used to die yarns among other things, and its cousins cardamom and ginger work well with it (i.e.: curries).  Suffice it to say that I wouldn’t wear your best duds when cooking with these or any other brightly colored ingredients. The other thing to remember is neither of these spices do well with light so store them in dark areas and buy them as needed so they are fresh as possible. When you Google either of these spices you’ll find a litany of benefits reported from their consumption. I am not betting the farm on it, but it can’t hurt.

The taste profile of both spices is earthy, perfumed when toasted and ground, and frankly a bit foreign. As a simple starter I combined each of them with a basic chili powder in a ratio of three parts chili powder to one part turmeric OR annatto seed powder. I then use either mixture to heavily season beef steak, bison steaks, lamb t-bone chop, or my ever-present Morningstar vegetable patty (think falafel) from the freezer. I sauté the centerpiece of my plate in olive oil over medium heat and turn them after about five minutes. For fun with the turmeric blend I substituted a raw palm oil that I found at the granola store (which has been sitting in my fridge for six months waiting to find a use) and that took me in all new kinds of directions. The palm oil itself is also a bright orange/yellow and loves to stain things, so I sauté all items mentioned and what is technically a sauce pot to help limit the splatter. If you don’t own a splatter screen, I would highly suggest buying one.

The aforementioned tamarind sauce was a great counterpart to the steak or lamb, especially using the palm oil. A quality Major Grey's chutney or other fruit sauce works well too. For the vegetable patty, I've come to love sundried tomatoes (packed in olive oil) and goat cheese as a topping or a yogurt sauce. Simply place the strained sundried tomatoes and goat cheese on the patty after you flip side one and they warm up just fine.

Now, forgive me for a moment, but I must digress. Who the hell is Major Grey anyway? Well, the Major Grey’s chutney you find at the store is named for somebody who is a myth. The brand goes back to the early 1800s, bought by some guys named Cross and Blackwell, sold to Nestle, and then sold to J.M. Smucker and somebody else. Chutneys are generally savory jams that on a good day still have the flavor of the original fruit and are served as a condiment with many Indian meals, a ketchup of sorts. Try a couple or take some mental notes at an Indian restaurant when you arrive or at an awkward pause in the conversation.

Try the annatto rub  on a piece of pork butt for family taco night - a little crock pot cookery for you:

• 4# pork butt, salted liberally
  
• 3/4 cup annatto rub (1/4 cup annatto powder and 1/2 cup chili powder)
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 10 cloves of garlic, smashed
  
• 1 quart low sodium chicken stock
  
• Water to cover
  

Place ingredients in a crock pot and let it cook all day on low. When you come home, bring your taco bar fixins and have at it. A good squeeze of lime on the meat when making the taco is always good. The leftovers make great breakfast burritos. Add a couple of chipotle peppers if you want some smoke flavor.

We will see how the whole antioxidant food thing turns out. But I have found many great ingredients to add to my house cuisine during my continuing search. I know I feel better ... I think.

Food Rule 6: Know your masters, or “The Cruel Tutelage of Yuet Lee”

House Cuisine is about simple, satisfying meals at your fingertips. I find satisfaction in some of the greatest food memories and they bring balance to my constitution. So I decided to go on a little trip to visit some of the masters of cuisine that taught me. My greatest sources of knowledge have come from a number of places: the four star restaurant, the barbecue joint, the vineyard, various TV shows, a little grill on the beach in Morocco, cooking for my nieces and nephews. One's experiences in life are what provide their soul in their kitchen.

Just remember to always check the weather before you go on a trip.

It was the middle of July and as expected I am chilled to the bone, and since I am in the northern hemisphere I must be in San Francisco. Here I sit, and through the chill cuts the wafting steam and smells of wonton soup topped with slices of roast duck and steamed clams in black bean sauce. Complementing these heartwarming sensory instruments are an orchestra of neon green walls and the dingy tanks filled with sea bass, lobster, and Dungeness crab. As the delivery man passes by with a dolly full of fresh egg noodles, I know I am back at Yuet Lee's in Chinatown. This little restaurant is where my sensibilities about Asian cuisines were formed.

The hint of roasted duck in the simple wonton broth is just about as good as it gets. It is obvious this stock is fresh with the flavor of pork and chicken bones and finished with a touch green onion to liven it up. The stacked wontons let the duck sit just under the surface and turn this plastic bowl of soup into a meal. Filled with ground pork and whole baby shrimp they are moist and lightly seasoned and are just the right tenderness when bitten. Something that seems excessively important today since the throbbing in my mouth tells me of a root canal coming on.

I wonder if the Green Door massage parlor up the street does root canals. Giving a new meaning to “painless dental care,”  I would subtly rename the place Happy Ending Dental. Double entendre is always a good selling point to the younger well-heeled class, or Eliot Spitzer.

The clams with a sauce kissed with fermented black bean and fresh jalapeno are a great second course. Three things smack into my face about this dish. First, even with the medium-weight sauce you can taste the sea when you bite into the clams. Second, the jalapenos add more pepper flavors as opposed to heat. Third, when you don’t put the dish on top of the rice and eat them together you really miss the balance of flavor.

By the way, the Kill Bill reference in the title of the piece refers more to tutelage and less to cruel. If you think it is more appropriate to reverse the emphasis, please pre-pay your bill at the shrink or house of dominatrix.

One family of white folks comes in and asks if they can bring their dog.

Gay Mexican crowd comes in and asks if they serve family-style. The befuddled look in the older Chinese woman’s eyes as she stares and the young man and tries to understand his effeminate voice is bringing me to laughter. This sweet but no-nonsense woman simply does not understand what he is asking for and they leave in a huff. Here it is better to not ask a lot of questions. Just order a bunch of stuff and eat whatever way you want.  

Chef comes out and talks to one of his regulars about how stupid some people are.

No matter what culture you’re in, the chef seems to have a strong personality.

As I sit here the wonton filling is set out on the table next to me and you see the ratio of pork to shrimp and the consistency of the grind. It has been put through a food processor instead of a meat grinder. This is why you don’t get that granular texture or meatball effect in the wonton.

Doing some of the prep in the dining room during off hours has been a common experience for me in Asian restaurants. Just the hand work like picking basil, making wontons, trimming vegetables, etc. are commonly done by service staff. From the ergonomic point of view it only makes sense. Having servers do it is great in terms of utilizing the human resource. From OSHA’s point of view it is a class-action lawsuit and the health department would probably close you down.

Given the limited amount of space I learn that the duck was roasted at another restaurant. This only makes sense since you have such limited space in any given restaurant you need to outsource some things to people that have that equipment. On my way over I passed at least 10 places with roast duck, lacquered duck, gorgeous spare ribs, so there is plenty of talent available to outsource to.

In the end, I taste as much as I can and make notes so when I am making things at home I have taste and consistency references to guide my adventures. As for the tutelage of Yuet Lee, there is an old proverb that holds well for food as well as life: “Order what you want, eat what you get, and swoon over the joy that it brings you.”

Healthier Homemade Tamarind Sauce

As a great fan of Moo Shoo Pork and hoisin sauce, I had a sad turn of events recently. As part of my personal program to make the most out of each calorie I take in, I started taking a serious look at the labels in the multi-cultural food store I frequent. Sugar and salt are the big things that Asian bottled sauces rely on and are my focus to reduce. Two of my favorite sauces, the aforementioned hoisin, and Sweet Thai Chili Sauce, are much like ketchup in that they are loaded with sugar. Sad but true, and I won’t let a sauce take away from my allotment of cookies later.

Recipe for Tamarind Sauce

1T Canola or Peanut Oil, your choice
12 ea Garlic Cloves, Chopped
1 ea Jalapeno, chopped with seeds
1 pound Tamarind cake
½ t Anise powder
½ ea Orange, peel and pulp chopped (see option below)
Water to cover generously. About 1 gallon.
2/3 C Low sodium soy sauce
1/2 C Agave Nectar. Or 1 pound brown sugar.

Equipment:
A very strong china cap or colander or food mill, pot, spatula, 4 quart storage container.

Method:
Produces 2 quarts

1. Over medium heat, sweat the garlic and jalapeno in oil.
2. When the garlic starts to turn color add the anise, tamarind cake, and water, and simmer for 30 minutes. Break up the cake as it loosens. The more thoroughly the fruit is cooked away from the pulp, the better your sauce will be and the straining process will be easier. At this point you should have 1¾ quarts of liquid to strain. Add the chopped orange during the last five minutes of simmer.
3. Turn off the heat and pour through the china cap or colander or food mill if you have one, and push all the juice though. If your volume is 1-2/3 quarts after straining the tamarind will be enough to thicken the sauce nicely. I like to avoid starch thickeners if possible.
4. Place the strained liquid back on low heat and add the soy sauce and brown sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. If you use agave nectar you can do this process off the heat. The sauce should have a nice balance of sweet, salt, sour, and the flavor of the tamarind. If you want it a little sweeter then go for it.
5. Option: if I had my druthers, I would zest and juice the orange into the final sauce for a more vital orange flavor, or just to the portion that I was going to serve with the current dish.

Notes: I suppose you could use something like Splenda or stivia, both of which are much more intensely sweet (so use sparingly). Frankly, I am not a fan of either. But I will continue working with stivia to see if I find something that works. Amazingly, even with this amount of sugar, it is far less percentage-wise than what the labels were saying in the store. If you use agave nectar the glycemic index for this sauce falls dramatically.

Variations on the Vestal Prik

Prik Nam has been the mother sauce of late for most of my culinary adventures because I made about a half gallon of the stuff and I can’t seem to use it all up. It is a very simple sauce that I came back to in the previously written spoof of a bridal shower where the menu included many tasteless prick references that went unnoticed by the ladies attending. My cousin, both the hostess and a female, was rather baffled that such blatant crude references to the male anatomy were lost on the ladies. But she has fallen for this vestal sauce as much as I have. We will follow with the base for a stir fry, salad dressing, grilled salmon marinade and sauce.

For reference purposes we will use this base recipe of ½ C chopped Thai chilies, ½ C chopped ginger, ¼ C chopped onion, ¼ C chopped garlic (these are all chopped about 1/8 inch), 2 C low sodium soy sauce. Place all of the ingredients in a food processor or blender and give it a whip for about 30 seconds, put it in a storage container and let sit in the fridge for 24 hours. The next day add 2 T agave nectar or ¼ C Turbinado sugar or your sweetener of choice to taste. The goal is just enough sweetness to take the edge off the ginger and chilies but not to be too sweet. This is a base sauce that you will add fresh orange juice, lime juice, herbs, and other spicy condiments to later so don’t go overboard. Don’t overcomplicate the Prik!

A good idea is to freeze half of the sauce into ice cube portions for later use. One batch I just left in the fridge and after 5 days I diluted it with a cup or so of water and a bit more sugar since the ginger and heat of the chilies became a bit too powerful. I generally wanted more fresh ginger in my diet and I found this to be a good way to do it.

For a dipping sauce or salad dressing I would add 1T of lime juice or 2 T orange juice and some fresh chopped cilantro or basil.

For stir fry, I add the sauce after the meat or tofu was seared and the veggies were steamed. You can also marinate the meat in the sauce, but when you cook it you will want to watch for the saltiness. I found seasoning the meat with turmeric or cumin before cooking to be a nice earthy balance to the sauce. When finishing your stir fry that is when I add the squeeze of fruit juice and herb of choice like in the dipping sauce.

For the Salmon, I chose some bright red Coho and sockeye. These are a thinner filets, so if you want more salmon flavor choose a thicker filet like king. An Ivory King filet Is a gorgeous presentation, but the stuff is hard to get. I added a pinch of Thai Red curry paste so the sauce and marinated the salmon for about 4 hours. Marinate less if you want, not more, or dilute the sauce with some water so the flavors compliment the salmon. Remember, the marinade will become a glaze on the salmon thus concentrating the flavors. A friend said he used some guava jelly and grilled some chicken this way, but I think he was just getting his freak on. In any case, I will make no actual claims and no lawyers will get involved.

For beef I added lemon grass one time and orange zest another time. When you zest your fruit do it into the sauce or right over the meat. There is a lot of flavor in that spray that really maximize the flavor in a marinade or the finished sauce. You know how good your hands smell when you peel an orange? Also, in my experience, the less you cook the fruit juice the better. I gave the base sauce with a squeeze of orange juice to a friend and she ate it like soup. A revitalizing tonic I guess.

It is a good start for a sweet potato curry. Prik nam is my answer to bad teriyaki sauce and brings fresh flavors to my quick meal plan. Enjoy.

Red Radio and Whole Paycheck

NPR, better known as “red radio” among the conservative world, is a regular part of my information diet. Let it also be understood that I balance this source with a dose of Rush, Mr. Allen bros. beef, Limbaugh. Note that my computer just capitalized his name as I typed this. Maybe Microsoft is a devotee as well. Anyway, I usually laugh about the far right and left opinions that each source opines on any given day. But today I had to stop for a moment and get my reactions down for my sanity.

In a brief story about shopping in the current economic environment, NPR told the story of a retired assistant librarian, an upper middle-class lady, and a poor woman who makes $380 every two weeks and has three kids. My feelings on these three examples starts with the simple fact that the story has been arrange to support the simple sound bite “the rise in food prices really sucks for everybody”.

In one sense it really does suck. Man, I can’t have my Yugu beef tenderloin for breakfast anymore. But maybe mom is right, “this is what America has needed for a while.” I would have to agree. And for simplicity’s sake I will start with the upper middle class lady who now “can’t afford” to shop at whole foods. The Red Reporter starts out her segment with the sound of this woman shopping at her new food store saying “breaded chicken, breaded ______, and breaded ______.” She is peering into the deli case whining about she is not eating organic and shopping at whole foods anymore. Well if you want to go this route you are better off buying kool-aid and stuff off the dollar menu at the local Wendy’s. It is more time effective and you will cover more of the basic food groups. This is where House Cuisine philosophy started, with that menu planning for my sister. Without going back to that first page I am sure I didn’t recommend shopping at the deli counter at a budget food store. Let’s take our upper middle class wench back to eating organic and how you can still go to Whole Foods on OCCASION and pick up a nice piece of Mercury-laden fish. Wait, here is the quote, “I spent $186 at Whole Foods and I didn’t have enough food for three meals.” Quote approximated, but you get the gist.

What the hell was she buying? Are you kidding! They unfortunately didn’t give a list of what she had in the cart at the time. Now I will grant you, the reader, that Whole Paycheck has earned it’s moniker through diligent marketing and a local reputation as a good pickup joint. Since I don’t shop there that often I have taken it upon myself to shop for three meals for a family of four, assuming that they are all dinner. Just to be an asshole, I have shopped for breakfast lunch and dinner for three days at Whole Foods. If the kids don’t like a particular menu item, you are more that welcome to employ the aforementioned stop at Wendy’s for breakfast or lunch or dinner, and you will still be money ahead. Although I hear that the McDonald's and Burger King franchisees are bitching about the dollar menu at the moment.

One gallon of milk, 1 box vanilla soy milk, 1 Box Super Crunchy Granola Cereal, _1# Whole Wheat Organic Pasta, 1 bag cellophane noodles, Big Jars Organic Free Trade No GMO Pasta sauce (carried to market by trucks powered by recycled mule farts), 1 dozen eggs (cage free in Hoboken), 2# ground bison (free range, hormone free, raised by ted turner post Jane Fonda), 4 baking potatoes (wash well, they were raised in organic dirt, aka shit laden), 2 sweet potatoes (or yams) 1 # extra firm tofu (all the basic yadas), 5 various packages of frozen veggies (spinach, sweet corn, stir fry) .5# aged cheddar, 1# steel cut oats, 1# ground flax seed, 1 bag mixed greens (triple washed), 1 jar organic peanut butter, 1 loaf 50 grain colon blow bread, 1 bottle soy sauce, ¼ # ginger, ¼# chilies, 1/# # garlic, 1 small bottle agave nectar (the politics of this product I am still working on). 2 bananas, 2 oranges. 1 small jar of the jelly of your choice (three berry is a good one because it will taste good on your oatmeal), 1 bag potato chips (because I like them), 1 bottle canola oil.

OK.

Breakfast: choose oatmeal with fruit, breakfast cereal, omelet with cheese and toast
Lunch: Italian pasta with sauce, cellophane noodles with veggies and fried tofu in prik nam sauce, tortilla Espanola (Spanish omelet), PBJ, grilled bison salad with ginger/orange dressing, Baked potato stuffed, banana/orange smoothie, fried tofu satay, bison lettuce wraps, bison burgers with cheddar, mashed potatoes, over roasted potatoes, home fries, potatoes Swiss with salad on top, sweet potato curry with tofu, spaghetti and meatballs, meat loaf, meat loaf sandwich, sloppy joes, and on and on.

Dinner: choose two of the previous items that you didn’t have for lunch.

Ya know, if she really wants to make her kids happy and get a great deal and feel like she is helping someone…..work out a trade with an elderly person who gets government cheese every month? Here’s why:

1. Nobody, especially an elderly person, should have 5fivepounds of artery-hardening cheese in their fridge.
2. Gov’t cheese makes the best mac and cheese I know of. We loved it in college.
3. Trade her for $15 worth of healthier food and that has to be better for the elderly diet.
4. Even for my brother’s family of four or my sister’s family of four, do you know how long it takes to burn through five pounds of cheese?
5. Besides mac and cheese, it makes great queso dip, pizza topping, grilled cheese, the list goes on.

The if you want to take this further just ask me for the recipes. In this list I did assume that you have one or two things in your upper middle class pantry. Start in your pantry and make an old family favorite as the base of a meal. One of mine is ham loaf with mashed potatoes. In the end this computer did not ask me to capitalize Jane Fonda or Ted Turner. Very interesting indeed.

Without pretension

Food Rules #5: Make good food without pretension.

One of my fondest memories from my times in the kitchen was being part of a team was cooking a meal for Julia Child. I was fresh out of the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and working at The Campton Place with a team of talent I was proud to be a part of. Chef Jan Birnbaum was at the helm and upon reflection I would have to say my greatest teacher.
The high priestess of cuisine (and also very tall) Julia Child was coming in to the restaurant and we were all abuzz with foie gras-this and caviar-that we should serve her. “She has this stuff everyday,” Jan said. The main entrée he served was Halibut Fish and Chips in that day's San Francisco Chronicle. She simply loved it, and so it was with this concept.
So my cousin called me to ask about what to do for a bridal party that she was hosting.

“So what do you want to serve? Will it all be cold? Do your guests have a sense of humor?” I asked.

For some reason I remembered my grandmother's dish Yummy Meatballs and we decided to start their with the concept for the menu. But instead we call them Yummy Balls.

“Serve a whole Salami on a platter,” I said. “Or how about some Hot Pockets or little taquitos and call them pocket rockets.”

I thought some oysters on the half shell served with Prosecco (the sparkling wine of love from Venice).

“Prosecco is so sweet,” she said.

There is a Brut version that will be drier. The nice thing about Prosecco is that it has half the atmospheric pressure of Champagne and is a lot easier to drink. Plus it comes in crown cap bottles like beer so you don’t need the fine crystal flutes out for the ladies.

“Meat Sticks,” one could call the Brochettes... Marinated Flank steak on bamboo skewers with a fresh Thai Mak Nam (a Thai dipping sauce)... Macerated Blueberries inside mini Dove ice cream Bars: “Marital Bliss” or “Dr. Freud's.”

The ballgame and the ballpark

Food Rule 4: A great cook plays a great ballgame, a great chef designs the ballpark.

As the guy who wants to be the great cook I make a few chef-like observations so that I can focus on the simple joys of cooking for friends. Let’s take a look at the ballpark.

So the ballpark today includes: the flavors of the Mediterranean, a great kitchen, and my wonderful hosts (Jim and Beth) who have a fairly adventurous palettes. Grilled fresh fish filet (grouper it turned out) with romesco-style sauce, broccoli rabe in pesto, and brown rice. This meal follows the day of pasta gluttony, so something healthy and light was at the forefront of our minds. Dinner for three was on the way.

After the day of pasta gluttony I proceeded to the Connecticut to meet up with a college buddy and cook some dinner. It has been 16 years since we have seen each other and thankfully we are the same twisted individuals we were then but a bit wiser. His kitchen is the antithesis of most kitchens I cook in; six-burner stove with a griddle, horsepower-laden ventilation for said stove, counter space the size of a Chevy Malibu, and the requisite selection of culinary toys to be found in a upper-class suburban kitchen. Gotta love the toys! After the day of butter at the pasta store I needed to move on to the Mediterranean. So, at Jim’s insistence, we went to Stew Leonard's for the dinner fixins.

Stew Leonard’s is a unique grocery store that includes singing animatronic lettuce, dairy products, bread, and other items dancing about. The aisles are really a maze that has some interesting shopping sociology going on. What the store lacked in interesting spices is made up for in fresh fish. Choosing fish is simple: smell it. The more is smells like the sea and less like fish the better off you are. For white flesh fish like grouper, cod, trout, halibut, sea bass, snapper, walleye, perch, mackerel, swordfish, the flesh is light, translucent, and rebounds when pressed.

We bought:

• 26 ounces of grouper, skin on (keep the skin on for grilling a white fleshed fish to keep it moister)
• 1-12 ounce tub basil pesto. In the end this saved time and money, as the basil in the bin didn’t look good
• anyway.
• 1-6 ounce can of tomato sauce (simple, no meat or mushrooms, you may already have something in your fridge.) Please don’t use fresh tomatoes in March in the Northeast!
• 2 bulbs of garlic (we actually already had some at home, but what the hell)
• 1 small baguette with asiago cheese (sounded great, but we ended up eating the hearth loaf. Use later.)
• 1 big old round loaf of hearth bread - which we ate a lot of.

At home: paprika, a number of oils that needed to be used up, slivered almonds, two oranges, turmeric, sea salt, pepper grinder, tabasco hot sauce, sherry vinegar, cheese and crackers for snacking, and chocolate truffles I brought with me.

The broccoli rabe was chosen because as we walked by it Jim mentioned that his wife loved broccoli rabe. Since I made no inquiries about what other vegetables his wife liked, I guess I might just be growing up after all. I also had never met his wife so it made sense to keep the Freudian jibes out of the conversation for now.

Rice was chosen because Jim already had it at home. This is the first thing you get cooking when you get home because the brown rice is a 45-minute cook time. Grab the box or bag, follow cooking directions, and on to the fish

Place grouper in a pan skin side town (aka flesh side up), then grate a teaspoon of the orange rind (or zest) onto the fish, a sprinkle of sea salt and a few turns of the pepper mill, and rub into the flesh. Grab a heaping tablespoon of the pesto and rub that into the fish and set aside. Wash your hands well before proceeding.

At this point Jim's wife Beth had pulled out some emmanthaler cheese with crackers. To which we added the pesto and the end cuts from the loaf of bread. I also had some Marcona almonds with me that I thought I might put in the romesco, but instead we ate them with the cheese. They taste like a cross between almond and macadamia nuts, yummy.

Rinse the broccoli rabe with victory vegetable spray or slightly soapy water, then rinse with cold water. Soap can help kill contaminants and will dissolve many pest/herbicides/fungicides which are oil-based. Put on a 4-quart pot of water seasoned with a tablespoon of salt over medium heat so it is at the ready to blanch (i.e. par cook or quick-dip) the rabe right before service (i.e.: dinner).

At this point, it is 7:30 in the evening. We arrived back home at 7 p.m. and their two beautiful daughters were due to beddie-bye at 8 p.m. The rice should be done by 7:55 pm; we called from the store to make sure the grill had gas. Their chosen wine was a Rioja Crianza (which means young wine) and dessert was some fantastic truffles I had bought from a gal named Kee in Soho (Thai Chili dark chocolate genache, yum) around the corner from Eddie's restaurant, Savore.

Romesco sauce is a favorite of mine because it can be made very healthy, rich, and would taste great on the grilled fish and can help with the bitterness of broccoli rabe. You’ll notice the similarity between this method and the method of the “refried red beans.” The starch is cooked to desired doneness, seasoned along the way, pureed, then a final seasoning and oil added to bring your desired consistency. It is the same basic principle with a few twists added.

So, over low heat soften two cloves of smashed garlic in ¼ cup of the most neutral oil you have in the cupboard (we used up some old soybean oil and almond oil. It really doesn’t matter which oil you use because it is really has no smell or flavor. If the oil smells offensive in any way, just throw it out. But the oil you use is a courier for other flavors in this case, so you don’t need to pull out the 25 dollar an ounce olive oil to make this sauce. But if you end up drizzling the final product with a bit of that Christmas gift oil, well then more power to ya.

Add 2 cups of one inch dice baguette in to the pan, toss, brown, and crisp for about five minutes. Add your almonds next and toast briefly. If your almonds are already toasted then add them at the end of this step so they don’t burn.
The bread and garlic are wafting a toasty perfume, the color is good, and Jim's wife mentioned how good the pan's waft was, then…….

- Add 2 T Paprika (smoked if you want) and 1 t Turmeric, and stir for 30 seconds.
- Add a ½ cup red or white wine (this is for acid, if you don’t have or want to use wine then skip.) and bring it to a boil.
- Add half of the can of tomato sauce stir and simmer season with sea salt and a few twists of pepper.

At this point you should have the consistency of juicy croutons. If it needs more juice you can add a bit of chicken stock or you can proceed as I did.

Dump the mixture into a big food processor and find out that the blade to the food processor is not functioning. Kinda like a Boy George T-Shirt at biker rally. No sweat, there is a smaller food processor. So add half the mixture to a small food processor (about one cup of mix) with the juice of 1 orange and 2T sherry vinegar. Pulse that little mini food processor and hope it doesn’t blow up. I have had two blenders go poof before (making bean soup) and the electrical smell from this bugger was a bit concerning. But Jim was convinced his machine was fine (“a little pain is good for it”). If it dies, I guess we’ll go shopping for a new one.

Well the little processor did well and we added about a half cup of oil until the puree was smooth.

Tasted bland, so add a tablespoon of prepared mustard, salt, and a dash of hot sauce. Puree and taste, mine just needed a little more salt.

When I am in the mood for a sauce I put it on everything, and so it was. The fish was light and flaky, the broccoli rabe was a bit bitter, and at some point the grill was going up in smoke. Seems that Jim decided put the grill on high after we cooked to burn it clean -- and burn it did. We were talking and I looked out on the deck to see the grill giving off and excessive amount of smoke. We turned off the gas and lifted the lid. A huge plume of white smoke did its own wafting skyward and we could see that the enamel was burning and peeling off the inside of the grill. “I guess I didn’t clean it last fall,” Jim said.

Hmmmm. What real man doesn’t want to buy a new grill in the spring anyway.

Moderating a day of gluttony

Food Rules #3: There are days that are meant for gluttony, and that is just fine. Then after the gluttony, eat something simple.

Now this is not to say that we all need to be beached whales by the time we are 30. That is not what my overall healthy eating habits are all about. But there are some days that I don’t want to start the day with oatmeal, fresh fruit, and flax seed meal. So today was one of those days: a visit to the food ditty we call New York City.

The day begins with a nosh at a Greek diner. Piccolo Café is more subdued than most East Coast Greek diners and the menu is half the size. But honestly, I can’t get away from healthy completely. So I opt for the poached eggs Florentine, which they do not serve with hollandaise. A quarter pound of chopped spinach perfectly seasoned with feta cheese (note I said seasoned) with two eggs, I only eat one yolk, on a toasty English muffin (which has no butter on it). Pretty good as a healthy Greek diner breakfast (an oxymoron to be sure, but nothing like congressional thriftiness) goes and the coffee just kept flowing (no cream added).

When we head back to the apartment we catch a bit of Rick Bayless having his own version of gluttony. Then it was off to Savore.

My man Eddie is one of the finest line cooks and chefs I have ever worked with. Here is the gluttony menu:

• Goose ravioli with white and black truffle butter.
• Buffalo mozzarella ravioli with a tomato fonduta (butter)
• And a beef braised in red wine ravioli with herb butter and balsamic drizzle.

That was one plate.

• Parsley papardelli with porcini and butter
• Pan-seared branzino with baby scallops in roasted garlic pinot grigio butter sauce.
• Cavatelli with pancetta and mixed vegetables
• Linguini with broccoli rabe, garlic, and olive oil (this was a special request)
• Asparagus grilled with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic, with a warm asparagus and ribolla cheese.
• Soft polenta (with just the right amount of fresh bay leaf)
• Marinated shrimp with wilted spinach and chickpea sauce. And……..

Just because I’m stupid we tried three great truffles from across the way with passion fruit ganache, Thai Chili ganache, and Balsamic ganache (just to keep with the overall theme). Thai Chili won by a calorie.

What do you come away with? A need for a long walk or a hundred-mile bike ride. I think that is enough pasta for a while.

The basics of pasta are true no matter what the shape;

1. Choose the best quality you can afford.
2. Once you cook the pasta a little over three-quarters of the way you should finish the cooking in the final sauce. Another way to describe it is “just about done” or “needs another minute.”
3. Make a little extra for a salad to take to work the next day.
4. Plenty of freshly grated cheese is just the ticket to finish seasoning your pasta dish (note cheese is a seasoning) so buy little bits of great cheese as you need them.

So when I went back to my cousin is was a simple pasta of Italian sausage, fennel, and tomato tossed with whole wheat spaghettini.

She got the idea from an article online and the inspiration was a recipe from Lidia Bastianich for penne with Italian sausage (no fennel seed in it) with fennel. Spaghettini was in the house so I figured that we could approach it differently. Since this basic combination (a savory vegetable with sausage and good grating cheese) is a favorite of mine I suggested that we purchase an Italian sausage seasoning blend (or you can make one of your own) so that you can turn any ground meat into sausage. With regular sausage the ol’Lipitor will have to make an appearance. But if you can season up some lean meat and add a touch of olive oil you can significantly lower the saturated fat while maintaining a richness to the dish.

Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil with 2 T salt, add pasta and cook according to instructions. Remember, you will finish the cooking of the pasta in the sauce utilizing a bit of the cooking water. Since the water is salted and you’re going to use pecorino cheese, do not salt the sauce until the very end.

1 bulb of fennel (or two if you really like the flavor), cut into sixths.
1 ea can of Italian peeled tomatoes
½ medium onion chopped
5 ea cloves of garlic chopped
1 # meat (ground pork, beef, turkey, bison, whatever)
1 ea pinch of sugar, and two pinches of salt
1 T sausage seasoning (poultry seasoning will also work)
1 t pepper or 10 turns of your pepper grinder
2 T paprika
1 t chili flake
1/3 C olive oil
¾ C Pecorino or similar grating cheese
2 T chopped parsley

Take three pieces of the fennel and put in a microwave, with a little water and pinch of salt, cover, and cook for four minutes or until just the beginning of tender. At this point you can either set it aside to add to your sauce or you can toss them in olive oil with salt and pepper and finish them on the grill, whichever you like.

Try with a tasty valpolicella from the Veneto or primitive (aka zinfandel) but nothing too heavy.

With olive oil in pan over medium heat, add meat and begin to brown. When you're halfway done you add the onion, garlic, sausage seasoning, pinch of salt and sugar, and chopped fennel. Finish cooking the meat.

Tips: If you’re microwaving the rest you can add a bit of the cooking liquid to the sauce for more fennel flavor. Go ahead and use sausage, then skip the spices, enjoy the tasty fat. The spaghettini cooked in about 6 minutes and held a good bite to it. I know that in Denver you have practically double the amount of cooking time for the pasta.

Add the tomatoes, bring to a simmer, stir, add pasta (which should still be al dente), taste, add pecorino or like grating cheese, toss and serve. A little fresh chopped parsley is always nice as well.

Spice is nice

So I had a hankerin' for some habanero spice with a touch of curry so I made this sauce. It would be good on chicken, grilled or seared fish, or tofu if you have to. I was inspired by a jar of pickled habaneros that were $3.99 but I weighed out the same number of habaneros fresh and it cost 80 cents. I'm cheap! What can I say.

12 ea fresh habaneros
2 C water
1/2 C apple cider vinegar
1 t chopped garlic
3/4 C chopped onion
1/2 t green curry powder
1 ea star fruit
1 T crystallized ginger
4 T butter (optional) or try 1/4 cup vanilla soy milk instead
1 T honey or sweetener of your choice

Throw your garlic, onion, water, and vinegar in a pan and boil until it is almost dry (5 minutes).

Add your habaneros and 1 more cup of water and boil dry (3 minutes); turn your flame down low.

Add your starfruit, curry powder, honey, and butter and simmer for 3 minutes. Pour into a blender or hit with an immersion blender until smooth.

Strain. Season with a touch of salt. You get that great habanero flavor then the heat makes you sweat.

I thought this would make a great chicken wing sauce as well, but it seems a bit elegant for that. I had a bunch of pieces left in the strainer so I rinsed the strainer over the pan to save all the extra flavor. Use this in rice water to set some rice.

Refried beans and "Pork Fat Rules"

Food Rule 3: “Fat is good, but…..”

As I write this I am snacking on dark chocolate covered blueberries from Trader Joe's. Think of all the anti-oxidants I am getting. We all have our addictions.

The WW2 memorial was very moving and reminds me of why we must always fight to keep what these and all of our soldiers have fought for. It was also damn cold so we moved rather quickly to the indoors for a cup of coffee and dessert of a chocolate dipped macaroon. But back we go to change and bottle the baby, put the Crockpot chickens on ice, make “refried” beans, have a taco, plate some dinner for the husband, and get ready to go out for dinner. I still weigh 170 pounds.

Pork fat does rule when it comes to many of my favorite foods; bacon, pork carnitas, sopressata, braunschweiger, bratwurst, a number of pastries, pie crust, speck, prosciutto, biscuits and gravy, and refried beans. But there is always a “but,” isn’t there. After years of fat consumption I have accepted that I must balance the fat in my diet. The following recipe for “refried beans” is a good starting point.

When you check out Rick Bayless’ recipe for refried beans (or any other really) you realize there is a hefty caloric and cholesterol price to pay for the real thing (using lard). There is a day or two a year when I am more than happy to pay the price, but for the rest of the year I will do this hummus-like version.

The “hummus method” for making any legume spread allows for your House Cuisine to add serious high quality nutrition to your menu. All those infused oils and cold pressed oils that you may have now can have a home. Here are my rules for oils:

1. When edible oils are full of their vital nutrients you end up using them like a seasoning.
2. When cooking, bringing oils to the smoking point is not good nutritionally; use oils like avocado and rice bran that have higher smoking points. Don’t sear on higher heat than medium.
3. Buy your basic oils in spray cans. You avoid waste and the vital nutrients are not lost because the oils are not exposed to the open air like in a bottle. Spectrum offers a number of high quality oils in spray cans.
4. The nutrition in oils should be consumed like the nutrition in fruit juices. They should be consumed in the form they are created: flax seed meal, hemp meal (not ganja, Mr. Marley). Toasted sesame oil is one exception because it is so intense that you won’t over-consume it, and it stays vital for much longer than any other oil.

Tip: When I say “vital” I mean unoxidized. A simple example is seen in extra virgin olive oil. I remember that half gallon of EV Olive Oil from Costco when I bought it, the smell and taste. I also remember the lack of smell and taste six months later when I was still trying to use it up. This is why I have gone to small containers and spray cans. Whatever I saved in volume, I lost in quality and nutrients. For any food budget, it is about cost ($ and total nutrition) per use, not cost per gallon.

Ok, refried beans.

Pour the beans and their water into a colander and rinse with water. Rinse out your pan, (we left them in the sauté pan to soak - one less pan to clean) add the beans back and cover with fresh water and simmer. Do not salt the water as this toughens the bean and it will not cook correctly. If you want to use canned prepared beans, then go ahead. They are a fast way to the same result. Just rinse the canned beans well, and off to the next step.

After 30 minutes the beans should be close to the soft creamy stage (i.e. cooked). Pour off the beans and water into a colander to drain. Put the pan back on stove over medium heat. We added 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and 2 tablespoons of the “gourmet taco seasoning” (which had salt in it) and 3 cloves of garlic mashed. (You could also use chili powder or curry powder the same way.) 20 seconds later the smell of the seasoning and garlic began to waft upwards.

Add the beans back to the pan; I brought the pan to the sink where the beans were to avoid dripping on their new tile floor! Cover the beans with water (or chicken stock) and bring back to a simmer. Stir, taste the cooking liquid, then season with salt and pepper until it tastes like soup. Simmer for 10-15 minutes or until tender (or 5 minutes with canned beans). Turn off the beans. You will use a cup of the beans for a small batch of refrieds and most of the rest for your chop chop salad. Get out the food processor. It is time for the toys.

If you have a big ass Cuisinart food processor you will tend to make big batches of things. I do love horsepower. But this was a small batch and Cuz had a nifty immersion blender with a food processor attachment (big enough for about one cup of anything). Cool tool! Add one cup of beans covered in their liquid to the processor and puree. It is bland at this point. We found chili oil in a pretty bottle (roasted garlic oil or any vegetable oil will do), added 3 tablespoons, a healthy pinch of salt and pinch of cilantro leaves. Puree and taste, we were in the ball park and set it aside for tomorrow’s tacos. Great for bean dip, seven layer, or a bean sauce too.

Look at any hummus recipe on the web and you’ll see the same basic process. The nice thing with this process are the many opportunities to add high quality nutrient dense ingredients like oils, fresh herbs, antioxidant laden spices, lots of roasted garlic, etcetera. Bean purees and seasoned beans are a fundamental weapon in my healthier food arsenal. I don’t use garbanzos for my diabetic brother-in-law due to the high glycemic impact.

A mother, a daughter, and a “frozen” lunch

When we began the assault on the home kitchen after the stores, we were hungry for lunch. So it was time to cook the first dish, sockeye salmon fillet over “Pad Thai” noodles. We called these “Pad Thai” noodles because the base of the sauce for the noodles was called “Pad Thai Noodle Sauce.” Cuz wasn’t sure how long she owned the sauce but was sure that it was from one of two trips either two or three years ago. I wasn’t worried about it being good or not because it is sugar and soy sauce. So off we go.

Chicken soup and roasted chicken will also be going by the time we sit down to lunch. The roasted chicken will make the husband/babysitter happy tonight while we go out for Indian food at a friend’s restaurant. Search “stir fry noodles” or “pad Thai” and you’ll get the idea of where we are going here.

Put a pot of water on to boil the noodles -- the Japanese vermicelli that she already had in the cupboard.

Open the sauce and taste so you know what you have. This one was the consistency of honey and would just need some heat, fresh cilantro, chopped garlic and onion, chopped almonds and/or peanuts, and a fresh squeeze of lime juice.

Chop the above veggies and put the onion in a wok or sauté pan over medium/low heat and let cook until translucent, add garlic when onions are translucent.

Grab one of the sockeye fillets out of the bag and put in the microwave on defrost for 3-5 minutes. Cut a slit in the salmon package so there is no steam trapped in the bag. If it is still solid then throw it back for another couple of minutes, microwaves vary in power and effectiveness.

OK, lunch is going so let’s get the rest of the groceries into their proper places. When you grab the frozen veggies, snag two handfuls for your lunch then put the rest in the freezer. We both try the dark chocolate cashew clusters with a fresh cup of coffee from the French press. I turn back to close the bag quickly -- we could eat a lot of these in just a tiny bit of time.

Take two of the chickens and put them in a crock pot or stock pot with chopped carrots, onion, and celery, cover them with water and slow cook for three hours or until the meat is tender but the chickens are not falling apart. If you are good with a knife, take off the breast meat before cooking and freeze them for a separate dinner. If not, the meat will be good for tacos or the stuffed shells.

Freeze the third chicken and get ready to roast the fourth. Quarter an onion, leave the skin on, and place in the roasting pan to make a rack for the chicken along with halved russet potatoes, carrots, and celery if you like celery. Put the chicken on the bed of veggies and rub with salt and smoked paprika and whatever oils you happen to have in your pantry. Toss some cloves of garlic into the cavity and roast the chicken in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees. If you have a convection oven, it will take less time. Great -- it is time to finish lunch.

Tips: use timers so you don’t forget (they have saved me countless times) and have plenty of hand soap and surface sanitizer to avoid cross contamination. Funny how they don’t emphasize these things on cooking shows.

Now you know why the veggies in the wok were on low: it helps me to not burn things when I get distracted. Add your garlic, turn up the heat to medium high and let’s go. Look at the noodles you are going to use. Whatever the cooking time is on the package, tells you when to drop them into your now boiling water. If you are using a vermicelli (angel hair thin)-type pasta, it takes 2-3 minutes. You should smell the garlic by now, so pour the veggies into a bowl, add 2 tablespoons fresh oil, salt and pepper your salmon fillet and place into the wok. You’re going to brown both sides so it doesn’t matter which side goes in first about 3 minutes per side or more if you like your salmon well done, I don’t.

When the salmon is done, set aside on a plate, and turn your wok to high. Add your onions and garlic back in, your pasta with a little bit of the water, ½ cup of the pad Thai sauce, the frozen veggies you have set aside, cilantro, and whatever heat you want. I added a healthy squeeze of Sriracha chili sauce. Toss and let the sauce thicken. I like the sauce to still be a bit soup-like, or you could add a cornstarch slurry (2T cornstarch to ¼ cup water) or arrowroot slurry to thicken instantly. When it is the way you like it, add the squeeze of lime juice and chopped cilantro. Toss toss. Place on a stylish platter of your choice, cut the salmon in half and place on top and serve.

Lunch for two for $5 -- that includes sockeye salmon (much better nutrition than farm-raised) and veggies are as good. Fresh would be better but good quality frozen veggies are tasty and a real time saver. Not to mention there is no waste.
As we have lunch the roast chicken is done so just pull it out of the oven and let it cool to room temp.

We finish lunch and clean a bit. The pasta water pan gets rinsed out and we pour the bag of dried red beans in, cover with water, and bring to a quick bubble (to hurry the soak process) then turn off to soak in the fridge (we chilled things outside today since it was 28 degrees in the shade). The wok is rinsed with soapy water, dried, and sprayed with a fresh coat of oil and wiped down with a paper towel since this is a more traditional metal wok. If you have a non-stick wok it is basically the same process, you don’t use harsh detergents or scrape the cooking surface of either one. R packs up junior, I put the chicken in the fridge, and off we go to the WW2 memorial.

Cooking for two and the brand new mother of one

House Cuisine is about cooking your favorite foods, healthy and fast. It helps if you enjoy cooking too.

When I enter someone’s kitchen I look to see what he or she has in equipment. The next thing is to see what they already have in usable food. I am a personal fan of the three- and four-year old condiments sitting in the fridge door, especially mustard. (My cousin on the other hand, is big into curries.) The third step is to find out what the owner of the kitchen likes and doesn’t like to eat. The end goals are a decent pantry that allows for healthy meals fast. Now my definition of healthy may not be yours, but we’ll get to that as we move along.

Cousin R is the subject of this week’s blog, and maybe next week’s too.

The kitchen situation is solid, which means there are plenty of BTUs and horsepower. The only weakness is a small freezer. As she has an affinity for kitchen gadgets and spices, this is more about just making a menu and having Cuz begin to understand her new flavor friends: Sweet, Salt, Sour, Hot, and Fat. So we move on to the food she already has.

“You have five different curry blends up in the cupboard,” I say. “And you have curry flavor ketchup in the fridge.” Yes, I get the message. She and her husband also like spicy and have traveled to Southeast Asia, India, Eastern and Western Europe. The only things off the food options list are zucchini and sweet potatoes. Starches on hand are dried red beans, black beans, pinto beans, three different pastas, three different types of rice. We pull everything out of the limited cupboard space she has and rearrange it a bit so she has her morning needs on shelf one, sauces on the shelf above that, and starches on the shelf above that. If you really want to go to town, you can write this inventory on a three by five card and tape it to the inside of the door of the cabinet. Then cross items off as you use them.

The spice rack is full of the basics so we’ll work around what she has. This is key to avoiding the expensive purchase of more spices and it tells me a lot about what they like. Also, the kitschy spice blends (“gourmet taco blend”) and sauces (pad thai) in the cupboard should bring back some memories and keep the stories flowing. The joy of food is not ramming it down your gullet, but the people and places that surround the experiences of shopping for it and eating it. The key fun item in the spice rack for me is the smoked paprika. I love this stuff!

House Cuisine Rule #1: Your stomach is not one of your five senses, and making chocolate sauce part of your sex life isn’t bad either…

Cuz has fresh cilantro, parsley, celery, 1% milk, and half n’ half. Not a bad start at all here. But we need to head to Costco and get back before the baby has a meltdown. So we grab our shopping shoulder pads and head over to the store.
This particular Costco is just across the bridge from downtown DC and as we walk into the door we are handed a flyer saying that former secretary of state Madeline Albright will be signing her new book. “Wow,” I say and as we move into the store we begin to look for the line for her book signing so we can avoid the crunch. There is no line.

“She needs a new publicist,” my cousin laughs.

“But it’s a first edition. I’ll have her sign it and give a copy to my father - a conservative - and another to my sister - I think she’s half lib and half conservative,” I say. “Besides, it’s 35 percent off. She does need a new publicist.” The thing that pissed me off the most was that here is someone with a valid opinion to offer and she is in a Costco while some douchebag named Peterson is on national TV earlier that morning with Matt Lauer trying to convince people that he didn’t kill his two previous wives. Does anyone wonder why the fourth estate doesn’t get any respect?

So here is the short list of what we need to buy: Manchego cheese, frozen stir-fry veggies, oatmeal, pork tenderloins, mixed greens for salad, one turkey, good parmesan, ricotta, frozen mixed organic berries, and frozen sockeye filets. We impulse-buy pineapple spears (she loves pineapple), Marcona almonds (I love them), dark chocolate cashew crunch snack (we both love the whole idea), two two-packs of whole fresh chicken (substitute of the turkey), and a guacamole three-pack (two can go into the freezer and a lot cheaper cost per avocado). What we don’t buy is just as important. We don’t buy any more spices (don’t need ‘em), real maple syrup (love it but don’t need it this time), soy milk (a healthy alternative in the diet but we don’t need it now), potato chips (wanted them though), Nutella (a passing subject in a conversation), Bare Naked trail mix (they didn’t have it and I didn’t need it!). We got out of there for 179 dollars. The starting menu:

• Roast chicken seasoned with smoked paprika, sea salt, and thyme
• Seared Sockeye salmon with pad thai noodles and veggies (for our lunch when we get home)
• Chicken Soup
• Chop Chop Salad with chicken, red beans, carrots, celery, Manchego, Anaheim chili, orange segments, Marcona almonds, and a avocado/orange/yogurt dressing... We made it spicy. Skip the cilantro if you don’t like it.
• Quesadillas with low fat “refried beans.” Add salsa and tortillas if you don’t already have them
• Chicken liver pate canapés with Manchego or orange segments or Sriracha chili sauce or spicy mustard or sweet pickles. Mix and match your favorites.

House Cuisine Rule #2: “Like your job, you only want to really work in your kitchen when you absolutely have to.” This rule is my motivation and gets me through this project.