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We cooked, ate, laughed and cried our way through the holidays this year. Instead of treating each event separately, I’m taking the lazy approach with a pictorial retrospective. If you see a picture you like, just click on it for a … Continue reading
I’ve hosted my share of dinner parties, afternoon barbeques and of course, pie fêtes. I’ve even thrown on a smile and dissimulated my disdain for brunch, the lazy man’s breakfast a time or twelve. But I’ve never executed a meal plan for a crowd for an entire weekend until now.
The occasion? My mom’s 70th birthday party. The crowd? Mom, Dad, sister Patty, Meghan, Daisy and for the dinner sister Beth and brother-in-law Buzz. The location? An adorable little cottage on Vashon Island right on the beach looking across Colvos Passage for daily views of unseasonably beautiful sunsets. Unfortunately, the only way to get to the house was down a nearly vertical cliff in which was cut a trail switch backing to and fro interspersed with seventy wooden steps—one for each year of my mom’s life. I knew about the access issues when I rented the place, thinking my mom would have no problem (which she didn’t), but not fully appreciating what it meant for everyone to haul their stuff up and down. Meghan and my dad gamely helped me schlep a weekends’ worth of provisions for six people (including beer and wine), a banquet for eight, my cooking gear and one squirrely toddler.
But before the schlepping, there was the preparation. On Wednesday, I trimmed and cubed five pounds of chuck eye and left it to marinade in the very best burgundy known to man that comes in a two-liter jug with a screw top that you can buy at Safeway—Carlo Rossi. With the meat went a bit of carrot, onion, thyme, garlic, orange zest and a splash of brandy. Thursday night, I rescued the meat from its drunken stupor, drained it, dried it, browned it and then braised it in its marinade until nice and tender. I also had a glass of what was left over of the burgundy. Mistake. If you’re ever faced with the choice to drink Carlo Rossi burgundy or nothing, choose the void.
Friday night, I whipped up a little chocolate-raspberry almond torte with a bittersweet chocolate glaze. You know, no big deal.
Saturday morning came the true logistical coup—packing everything from baby snacks to honing steel. Mission accomplished, it was off to West Seattle, a short ferry ride and then the birthday dinner.
The first course was a cheese plate of fancy crackers, fig jam, English stilton, cage-aged gruyere and stinky Camembert. The latter’s aroma scared everyone, but it turned out to be the favorite cheese of the night—except for Buzz who kept a careful distance between himself and the French import. Next came a green salad with honey-Dijon vinaigrette, goat cheese, and Sahale nuts. Then it was time for the main course of stew, watery overcooked mashed potatoes (the biggest regret of weekend) and roasted carrots.
Dessert? You already know about dessert. It was rich—the kind of thing you savor in small portions. After a stirring chorus of “Happy Birthday” and adults giggling like giddy schoolgirls as they applied whip cream with my Austrian-made Wunderwhipper (see what Daisy thought of whipped cream here), my dad took the size of piece you might have of a regular birthday cake. He couldn’t finish it though saying, “It’s too rich.” I stealthily slid his leftovers in front of Meghan, clearing her empty plate and we all snickered as she failed to notice the change and downed the cake with no loss in chocolate enthusiasm. Guess who has a high tolerance for rich.
Sadly, Beth and Buzz had to leave after dinner. This meant my poor sister, one week before hip surgery for a painful condition, was obliged to climb up the previously described path in the dark having come down it just two hours before. Sorry Beth. Will plan better next time.
Daisy went to bed, the Scrabble board came out, Dad and Meghan retreated to the couch to watch TV and at some point, it became Sunday morning.
I was up before five—not because anything was wrong or there was a lot to do, but because that’s when I get up. With yerba mate by my side, I settled down at the cottage’s long wooden dinner table facing Colvos Passage to peel and slice apples—a task I love. The morning went from black to grey to silver. When everyone was up, breakfast was ready. We started with grapefruit, sprinkled with turbinado sugar and kosher salt and then brûléed to caramelized burnt goodness. The German apple pancakes and bacon were a hit with everyone and it went down well with my Dad’s industrial strength coffee.
Up the hill we went to go tool around in town. Daisy loved the flower shop, but was frustrated that she couldn’t fit more than two of the vintage stuffed elves into her arms at any one time. Still she tried, redistributing Santa’s helpers everywhere and wreaking toddler havoc. We were going to stop her, but the owner loved seeing Daisy at work. Saying that Daisy had made her morning, she gave the one-toddler wrecking crew a stuffed bird and refused payment of any sort.
We had lunch in town, something we’d all like to forget I’m sure. We had to leave the first restaurant because of a meltdown (Meghan—not Daisy). My wife hates brunch even more than me and could not abide the midday breakfast menu. At the Mexican restaurant where we ended up next, it was Daisy’s turn to scream, throw food and dump water all over the place. After finishing our meal, we left a huge tip and tried not to make eye contact with anyone as we slinked out the door.
Safely back in the house, we all breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed an unbelievably sunny afternoon. Dinner was roasted chicken on top of root vegetables in a cast iron skillet (a favorite Thomas Keller technique I’ve acquired). After another round of Scrabble, we all took to the couches to variously watch or doze through Elf, a silly, light-hearted affair—the birthday girl’s favorite kind of movie.
The next morning after a breakfast of Scottish oatmeal and roasted bananas, we made ninety trips up and down the hill to load the cars. Packed and ready to go, we lingered over the view a while and made our peace with the weekend’s conclusion.
On the ferry ride back, sitting in the car and quietly working on a Sudoku to avoid disturbing Daisy’s morning nap, I reflected on the weekend. A humbling realization came to me. I had planned, sweated and toiled to feed my family for two days. My mother, with fewer resources and less help had planned, sweated and toiled to feed a family that from the time my big sister Amy arrived to the time I finally left the house represented thirty years of her life—about five thousand-four hundred and seventy-five times the effort I had just made. Forget cleaning up after us, getting us to school and guiding us on the path to righteousness. That we always had food to jam into our hungry maws was a miracle wrought by the very human but capable hands of my mother.
It is from my mom that I learned the expression of love through food, and it stands to logic. Food gives life. By feeding someone, we’re saying, “I hope you’re around a little while longer. In the meantime, let’s enjoy this moment we have.” Love-food-life–a tidy little circle that sustains itself and survives us as we pass it on to the next generation. I could never thank my mom enough for the countless connections that lesson has helped me make with others.
So there. My mom’s birthday weekend—a grown son’s handmade birthday card to his mother.
Happy birthday mom.
Love,
Steven
Oyster apparel
Oh, the oyster. I started pushing it around my plate as a wee lad every Thanksgiving, wondering why grownups marveled at the hideous bivalve. Even paired with cream and topped with buttered breadcrumbs in our family’s traditional oyster dressing, its appeal eluded me. But as Paul says in Corinthians, when I became a man, I put away childish things. Some scholars might dispute it, but I think Saint Paul (never a member of the anti-mollusk kosher set) was talking about the aversion to oysters, which is most certainly a childish thing.
What’s not to like? The oyster is fresh ocean concentrate, and each carries the signature flavor of its origin, something like terroir, but wetter. Maybe we could call it “meroir.” Unlike the terroir of wines, to which my unsubtle palate is immune, the meroir of oysters is easy to detect. The same variety of oyster varies from one oyster operation to the next in salinity, mineral content and even texture. In fact, oysters have a lot in common with mineral water, but are saltier and more satisfying. Also, being non-sensing, bottom-eating creatures that actually improve water quality wherever they are cultivated, even animal ethicists think it’s okay to eat these guys-and gals I presume, but I don’t know of oyster gender matters, nor do I care to.
So when friends and fellow parents Jay and Caitlin proposed a trip to the Shelton Oyster Festival, the answer was something like, “Hell yeah!” We left the babies with our nanny and headed for Washington State’s Mecca of Mollusks.
Held at the Shelton County Fairgrounds and adjacent to the municipal airport, the Oyster Fest is a big deal. We parked at one end of the lot and walked at least half a mile to the entrance. I imagined the enormity of the task—each car representing maybe three people, each to eat around a dozen oysters multiplied by daily shifts of arrivals and departures. Someone in Shelton knows how to shuck an oyster in a hurry.
Fritters and Rockefellers
Once inside, the world was um, our oyster. The first stop was the barbecue pit for grilled oysters drizzled with melted garlic butter. After that came oysters Rockefeller, oyster fritters, oyster chowder, oysters wrapped in bacon, and well, you get the idea. Too soon, we had to return to Seattle and our parenting duties so our sitter could make her next job on time. Except for Meghan, our alert driver, the ride home was a drowsy affair that alternated between lively declarations of oyster love and luxurious oyster dreams.
Stranger and Caitlin in Oyster Valhalla
That’s what is so great about the oyster. With a five dollar knife and a little knowhow, the common man can enjoy one of the world’s finest foods. And here’s my best oyster recipe, one I’ve kept secret until now: grab a friend, shuck an oyster, slurp, repeat.
Daisy in action at BBQ
My one-year-old daughter uses her dainty fingers and newly found fine motor skills to pick up a square of hummus sandwich. I made this miniature scale sandwich by carefully cutting a piece of bread through the width in order to make two paper- thin slices to fit into her tiny mouth. Yesterday, she consumed the same sandwich efficiently, grunting with apparent approbation as she jammed each new bit in her maw. Today, she picks up her sandwich, looks me in the eye placidly, and without changing expression or breaking eye contact, extends her arm to her right, leans slightly to clear the edge of her high chair tray and releases the sandwich, letting gravity draw it to the ground the way it must. As her food silently plunks on the floor, my lunch plan for her goes up in flames.
This scenario, substituting carrots, peas or anything else has become routine. The banana, which once upon a time made an amazing daily disappearing act into Daisy’s little stomach (how did the whole thing fit in there?) is now an object of scorn, and another study in the effects of gravity.
Happy Baby
Oh, the whims of a toddler’s palette. Yet there are foods that have never lost their charm. Among them is the magical “Happy Baby” foil pouch. It’s just pureed fruit, packed in a foil pack with a screw-off lid that can be sucked down like those athlete energy food gels. They travel easy, there’s no mess (which is why I’m not whipping up cut rate batches of puree from scratch), and they stop a tantrum in its tracks. The best part is that at $1.00 a shot, Daisy gets to enjoy the food of a certified genius. I’m guessing it’s about ten cents of packaging (including labor) and maybe five cents of actual product, which means that between production and retail there’s almost a 700% markup. I spend a lot of fruitless time trying to come up with a highly profitable way to sell something that costs almost nothing so I can retire to the ancient Sierra Morena of Extremadura and raise noble black Ibérico pigs on acorns and love.
Chocolate, I have loved you since before I was born
Another surefire hit portends to our daughter’s future: chocolate. Not long ago, the family hopped on the light rail to spend a day at the Pike Place Market. Daisy clapped and danced with the buskers, yelled out “Hiya!” to everyone she saw and had a rollicking good time. At the end of our tour, we got treats—Meghan a thumb drop cookie from Three Sisters and me a chocolate éclair from Le Panier. When I pulled my éclair from its paper bag, Daisy took one look and began to moan a deep, throaty “Uuuuuuuh” so divorced from her regular high-pitch rants as to indicate a genetic memory—a longing implanted in her before birth. It is the love of a woman for chocolate. She is her mother’s daughter.
Knowing I shouldn’t because I could ruin her for any other kind of food, I gave Daisy the first bite. She needed no coaching to chew through the pate choux and take the rich chocolate pastry cream into her mouth. Genetic memory confirmed, her eyes grew big and the “Uuuuh” turned into an excited but equally low-pitched, “Ooooh,” the sound of eureka. Each successive bite led to more exclamations of desire contrasting with satisfaction. I’m afraid she had the chocolate high she will search for the rest of her life but never be able to replicate. I wasn’t just there. I was responsible, and the guilt will stay with me to my grave. In the meantime, we’ll just have to drown that guilt in more éclairs, chocolate bars, ice cream, pot de crème, mousse, pies, cakes, flourless tortes, puddings, cookies and cocoa-flavored dreams.
Daisy the Carnivore
So Daisy is picky, but she manages to pack back lots of fruits and vegetables every day and eat a pretty balanced diet. Unlike Mom, chocolate is only an occasional indulgence and from Daddy, she has inherited a love of animal protein. That’s why I’m sure she’ll be happy as my little swineherd, guiding her noble Ibérico pigs to the sweetest acorns the Sierra Morena has to offer.
My thanks to Nancy, Patty’s client who motivated me to update this sadly neglected blog with an inquiry about Father’s Day. Having too much free time has actually hurt my writing. In the middle of the summer off with Daisy as my only responsibility, it’s been hard to get anything done even though she gives me three hours off every day in the form of naps. It’s said that if you have something important to do, you should give it to the busiest person you know. I am not that person.
Our precious little one spends her time adorably eating, playing, and napping. Playtime we call “redistributing,” which is a euphemism for making a mess. So my time is spent feeding, cleaning and yes, napping. I do bear the added responsibility of feeding and cleaning up after Meghan on her work days, so it does add up to a fair amount of work. When the little girl goes down for her afternoon sleepytime, so do I—which is why I haven’t written much. I realize that normal adults get through their day without a nap (I, for example, do so during the school year), but there’s nothing so delicious as a little shuteye in the middle of the day—a tiny holdover from the siestas of my time in Paraguay. There’s my excuse for not writing.
That brings us back (way back) to Father’s Day.
I still had a fair amount of the pig I bought in September stowed away in my freezer, and I was pondering what to do with some of the larger parts. The rear leg, divided into shank and butt was still taking up room and I decided it was finally time to do something with it. With the skin already removed, there was no acceptable way to cure it for ham, but after a little poking around on the internet and consulting the paperwork I got at the Seabreeze Farm Butchery and Charcuterie class, I decided it was time to make some porchetta.
Porchetta is Italian fast food which is ironic because it takes hours, if not days to make. In its most traditional form, it is an entire pig roasted over coals, carved and pulled to order and served as sandwiches, often outside of sporting events. I think this to be true because I have internet access, not because I’ve ever been to Italy.
My version of porchetta would just be the shank end of the fresh ham. To get started, I made a paste of olive oil, garlic, rosemary, sage, salt, and pepper. Then came the fun part, which was stabbing the ham about a hundred times with my paring knife–right up to the hilt. After that was the not so fun part, which was stuffing the paste into each and every aforementioned cavity. That took a while. Next, I wrapped the beast in plastic and crammed it into the fridge to have a slumber party with a few random companions—homemade fudge sauce, dodgy parsley and the ever-present mystery crust, just to name a few.
I was up at 4:00 the morning of Father’s Day to get the roast started. Every home recipe I found on the web just has you plop your porchetta in the oven, but knowing that the original version is cooked over coals had me thinking that the oven was the easy, and certainly inferior way out. So I arranged a few aluminum trays at the bottom of my Weber to create indirect heat and catch the drippings, surrounded them with coals, and set the pork to roast with the lid on.
Porky, porky porchetta
After about three hours (flipping on the hour), the temperature started to drop on the grill. Not wanting to spend the entire day tending the fire and with the knowledge (from the good people at Cook’s Illustrated) that the first few hours over the coals provides all the best fire flavor, I transferred the roast to the oven to cook at a moderately low temperature. At 1:00, when my mom, dad, Patty and Meghan were starving and the roast still wasn’t ready, I started to feel guilty, so I did something I don’t normally do: I selectively carved a bit of meat off the still-cooking roast and shredded it while hot. The dark meat near the trotter was tender and juicy, but the interior meat was still cooking, so I trimmed off enough of the former so that I could serve lunch and put the latter back in the oven to finish. No regrets.
The curious after-effects of porchetta on Father John
We piled the juicy, savory, garlicky, herby, delightfully greasy meat onto light buns smeared with garlic aioli and topped it with caramelized onions and peppers. I carved a bit of the crispy subcutaneous layer of fat off the roast and served it to my guests, and they devoured it with gleeful abandon, the crunch giving way to a juicy spurt of insanely good, salty fat filling the mouth with porky flavor. Unlike many American pork barbecues that are heavily smoked and sauced, the flavor of porchetta keeps pork where it belongs: right up front and center. If we’re going to go to the trouble to raise and kill an animal, we should probably taste it, and taste we did. I noticed curiously that even though I saw fat going onto everyone’s sandwich, I saw none was left on the plates. Everything tasted so good that no one could bare the idea of deprivation. So breaking family custom, we chewed, savored and swallowed the pork, fat and all—as it should be. Amen.
Triumph.
Daisy in Daisies
I can only hope for the same success as a parent. Father’s Day, as it should, caused me to reflect on my new status as someone’s Daddy and the great, sacred responsibility of it all. I know that not every moment will be as great as porchetta, but I strive to provide Daisy with a constant smorgasbord of love, security, joy, guidance and of course, good food. I will love her mother even more so that someday, Daisy will learn to find a partner that puts her first, and she will accept no less. I quite simply, aspire to be everything she needs me to be.
But I’m pretty sure that no guy will ever be good enough for my little girl.
Life with Daisy is a whirlwind of high-society charity dinners, award shows and elegant balls. Okay, it’s a little humbler and a lot dirtier than that, but she certainly has helped to bring us the sense of community for which we used to long. The weekends when Meghan frantically conjured activities for us to avoid boredom and loneliness are a thing of the past. Between family, friends and a great and growing network of neighbors, our social calendar is full.
Memorial Weekend is a perfect example: Saturday morning at Double DD Meats with Meghan’s parents and a brief visit with my sister Patty and then lunch in Northgate. The afternoon and evening were spent eating smoked prime rib (poor us!) at my friend Ryan H’s birthday party. Sunday morning was breakfast with the Cassidys (going on our second Ryan—Ryan C), a hike at noontime, a quick afternoon break and then my evening jazz rehearsal.
All this activity is what makes the rare open day so special. What we used to dread we now savor. On Monday, we moved the cars out of the backyard and parked them on the street, closed the gate and just hung out in what in this dreary year passes for sunshine. Daisy spent her time picking grass and cuddling her tiger. We leafed through magazines and jumped up from time to time to keep the little girl from eating dandelions. If idle hands are the devil’s playground, he had a ball and went to bed tired on Monday.
Come the afternoon, I stoked up the grill and we had a great meal over the fire of fingerling potatoes with leeks and balsamic vinaigrette, sausages, beef kidney, chicken hearts and rib eye. Neither of us liked the kidney and Meghan wasn’t so hot for the chicken hearts, but I think they were great. They’re cheap, flavorful, have a great contrast of textures, and you can eat them like meat popcorn. I recommend them highly. If you’re a little bit adventurous, you can check out the recipe here.
After Daisy went to bed, we shared some wine and enjoyed the long twilight with wistful, wandering conversation. For a moment, we were present in the present. There was no diaper bag to pack, no dessert to be made, no appointment to keep. It was just us, and it was pure bliss. If you don’t think you can handle the chicken hearts, you should try my other delicious recipe for spending a sunnyish day: nothing.
Meghan and I would like to say thank you to the family and friends that have supported us as we’ve dealt with our recent loss. The pain’s not gone, but we’re slowly making peace with our life post-Michi.
Two bottles is better than one
So with nothing to do but make an awkward transition back to the recent theme of this blog, here goes a rant about store-bought salad dressings: Have you ever tasted one and thought to yourself, “Damn, that’s good”? I never had. I remember pulling salad dressings out of the fridge as a kid to set the table. Night after night, I’d try different ones until I realized that none of them tasted the least bit good. I took to eating dry salad because I recognized the importance of eating vegetables, but I thought there was no joy to be taken in it.
When you consider the ingredients in your average salad dressing, it’s no wonder they’re unpalatable. Here’s what you get from Wish Bone Italian Dressing, a supermarket staple:
Water, Soybean Oil, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Garlic, Onion, Red Bell Peppers, Spices, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavors, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Calcium Disodium Edta (Used to Protect Quality), Caramel and Annatto Extract (For Color).
Do I even need to explain what’s wrong with that? Wish Bone is charging you a premium price for inferior ingredients. Water? Really? That’s pretty much free at my house. And to make up for the dilution caused by the water, they add lemon juice concentrate. If I want lemon flavor, I’ll use lemon or in a pinch, lemon juice out of a plastic lemon shaped container (which I do always keep on hand. See? I’m not a snob). High fructose corn syrup? Ulk! Xanthum gum? No need to chew salad dressing. Calcium disodium edta? Say what?
I’m not going to go into making creamy dressings in this post, but I do hope to convince you to never buy another bottle of vinaigrette. You already have all the ingredients and making it is no harder than pulling a bottle out of the refrigerator, shaking it and taking off the cap. And you don’t even need a recipe, just this magic ratio:
1 sour: 3 oil
Except for a simple vinaigrette made from extra virgin olive oil and high quality balsamic, you’ll need to doctor up any dressing you create to make it great, but even if I just had vegetable oil and red wine vinegar, I’d still prefer it over store-bought dressing.
The easiest way to make a vinaigrette is to put the ingredients in a jar, seal it tight and shake the um, err, heck out of it to emulsify the ingredients. I prefer the classic method below because the agitation of the whisk emulsifies better and releases the flavor of any additional ingredients like garlic, shallots, ginger or herbs. Also, tossing the dressing from the bottom coats the salad more evenly. See a video of me making a salad with vinaigrette on youtube at this link. For those that prefer to read, here is how it’s done:
Balsamic vinaigrette:
| 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar | Place vinegar in bottom of large bowl (lots of space in a salad bowl makes everything easier). Sprinkle in a pinch of salt to dissolve and whisk. |
| 3 tbsp extra v. olive oil | Slowly pour in oil while whisking vigorously. Continue to whisk until completely emulsified. |
| Salt and pepper | Use a piece of lettuce to test the vinaigrette. Correct seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. |
| Salad ingredients (lettuce and whatnot) | Pour salad on top and toss to coat. If you think you have too much dressing for the salad you want, pour some into a separate container before adding salad and add more after tossing if need be. |
That’s it. And if using a whisk seems daunting, just shake it up in a jar. Here are some variations, using the exact same technique:
Italian: To balsamic or red wine vinegar, add one clove of minced or pressed garlic and a generous pinch of dried oregano. Proceed with technique as described above.
Honey mustard: Use red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar instead of balsamic. Add a teaspoon and a half of mustard and a generous squirt of honey to vinegar and whisk together. Use a neutral flavored vegetable oil instead of olive oil.
“Asian”: I put this in quotes because it passes for Asian in our house, but except for the ingredients, it has no connection to any Asian culture I know of: Use rice wine vinegar instead of balsamic. Add a teaspoon of minced or grated fresh ginger and if you have it, a splash of mirin or dry sherry. Use a neutral flavored vegetable oil instead of olive oil with about a teaspoon of sesame oil. Too much sesame oil can overwhelm, so you just want a little.
Now that you know the magic ratio and the technique, you can experiment to create the salad you want. You might like a little sugar. That’s okay. It tastes good. Mashed berries or small amounts of fruit preserves also add a lively sweet note. Substitute citrus for vinegar or use exotic sours like raspberry or champagne vinegar. Experiment with different oils like walnut or flaxseed. Make a wilted spinach salad with hot bacon fat. Shallots are a traditional component of vinaigrettes, but what you use is only limited by your imagination and good taste—if you have it.
If you don’t have good taste, by all means, keep buying salad dressing in a jar. As for me and my family, we’ll make it at home. And if you have me over for dinner, don’t be ashamed to put those bottles on the table. Just don’t mind me rummaging through your cupboards so I can whip up my own dressing.
Okay, maybe I am a snob.
Posted in Uncategorized
Michi's Spot: Morris Chair Lap
I’ve never strayed from the food theme of this blog, but today I must. I cannot ignore the sadness we have been through in the past week and the loss we have experienced. Michi, also known as Micho, Michito, Michimichimichi, and on formal occasions as Mr. Michkers has left us to take his seat at the dinner table in the sky.
Our love for Michi is deep and I’m not sure I could convey it, so I’m going to share the story of his life in the hopes that it helps us heal and helps others understand why we love him so.
Michi was born in January of 2001 in San Roque González, Paraguay—a place with the reddest dirt on earth and as rural as any. Although we named him “Zoot,” “Michi” was the name that stuck. It’s Paraguayan for “Kitty,” and that’s all anyone would ever call him. He arrived at our doorstep along with his brother in the arms of a little girl from our community who heard we had mice. Indeed, on our first night with Michi, who couldn’t have been more than six inches long at a time, he caught a mouse almost equal in his size and devoured it greedily under a cabinet. Yes, food was always important to Michi, too.
In his time in Paraguay, Michi was the ultimate “campo” kitty. On cold days, he crawled into our sweaters (while we were wearing them) to stay warm. He was a foe of mice, but never touched a chick (a fatal flaw for cats and dogs in the country). Despite his hunting prowess, he was always frustrated by a black and yellow Kiskadee that would light on our fencepost as if to taunt him. Whenever the Kiskadee came around, he would respond with a futile “Ack-ack-ack.” On the days we had to leave our home to go to town, he would follow us five kilometers down the road despite our pleas for him to go home. His loyalty was amazing as demonstrated by his return to us after being kidnapped for a week by some kids who also thought he was a great cat.
Michi surprised Paraguayans by jumping on their laps, unaware that they are universally averse to feline affection, yet he managed to win over some of them. The neighbor we hired to help us cut down the weeds around our house killed two mice while he was working and proudly fed them to Michi and his brother. Ña Pituka, our dear host mom would always call Michi when she killed a chicken, and he would happily devour the innards and eat the eyeballs right off the tip of her knife. Then he would lick his chops, bathe and warm himself by the fire—sometimes too close, as he often had singed whiskers.
Before moving to the states, he spent a few days indoors in Asunción. The first time he saw a glass window, which was in the Peace Corps library, he tried to jump through it resulting in an resounding “Thud.” Despite this early difficulty, he adapted quickly. Meghan prepared his first litter box in our hotel bathroom, set him in it and pawed for him a few times. Michi watched attentively and then began pawing eagerly himself. He was master of his bladder and commander of his bowels.
After a crazy voyage to Powhatan, Virginia which involved travelling with a cat-hater, spending time in the attic of a woman in Brooklyn afraid she’d be kicked out of her apartment for harboring an animal, frantic phone calls from all corners of the country, a heroic sixteen-hour drive by my sister Amy to rescue him and desperately needed relief in a litter box in the back seat of a car in a New Jersey rest area, Michi settled into life stateside.
In Virginia, Michi kept the squirrel population under control, a duty he enjoyed. Paul describes how Michi could run at full-speed on his back legs while using his front legs to play with a fleeing squirrel in sheer delight before delivering the coup de grace. He made himself at home under the blankets in Paul and Amy’s bed and became known as the “cheese-seeking cat.”
In early 2004 after about a year of living with Amy’s family, Meghan and I had our home and were able to bring Michi to Seattle to live with us. Here, he took up his nightly position between us in our bed, my left leg serving as his pillow on most nights. On cold nights, he would burrow under the covers and we did nothing to discourage the behavior. If we stayed up too late, Michi would meow and plead until we went to bed with him. Michi knew what he liked and could seldom be deterred.
Michi brought us joy every single day. He was our constant companion under the dinner table where he quietly begged, relishing bits of meat, but turning his nose up at sashimi grade tuna. He ate food that Meghan made him with his right paw, “like a gentleman.” (See video at link here). On nights when Meghan and I would eat ice cream in front of the television, he would wait patiently on our laps until we set the bowls down at which point he took over cleanup duty. In Meghan’s four years in dental school, Michi took up a regular post on a bed on her desk to keep her company during endless hours of study.
His days were spent hedonistically looking for pleasure. Depending on the season, Michi had a routine of looking for the warmest nap spots throughout the day, be they a heater vent, a gentle morning sunbeam in the hall or a sizzling ray of afternoon sun in what is now Daisy’s bedroom. On hot days, he would sprawl on the cool tile floor in the kitchen. At night, he was a hunter of laps and if you sat in the Morris chair, you were his bed, even if you were a complete stranger. If you tried to stand up, he would hunker down in an attempt to keep you from moving. Michi was a lover, and we reciprocated with regular pets and exuberant hugs we called “Michi squeezes.” Michi however, was an indiscriminate lover and he loved my dirty bike shorts with reckless abandon. Still, he was a lover.
Michi and Lulu
Of course, Michi’s wild side could not be contained, and he would run from window to window in our home, tracking birds and raccoons that came too close for comfort. While playing board games, Michi would watch the pieces moving around the board, snatching them in his mouth and running off to bat them around the floor. Sometimes, we would put him on a leash, to which he would happily submit and then run to the door so we could take him outside to play and joyfully devour grass. One year on my birthday, he caught a rat in our basement and ate everything but the ass. I don’t know if he stopped there because he had good taste or because it was his gift to me. Finally, he spent the last few years of his life keeping Lulu, a cat we rescued from our yard in line. He laid a daily heap of hurt on her, but also let her cuddle him. Michi was a complex character.
In Seattle as in Paraguay, Michi won the hearts of the skeptical. My mom (like me, not a cat-lover at all) always said she’d be happy to take Michi if something happened to us. That’s huge. My dad, even less of an animal lover would call Michi and giddily feed him meat straight from his barbecue bones. Michi was often the first to greet guests at the door, and he shied away from no one, even in noisy crowds. In the ten months he had with our daughter, he was tolerant of her pets and hair-pulls right up until he wasn’t. But instead of mauling her as other cats might, he would give her a corrective bite that left a memorable dent in her skin but drew no blood. (See video here).
On Saturday, we buried Michi in a sunny spot in our back yard right where I usually set up my smoker. With him we laid the collar Amy had made for him with his name and our phone number and a note Meghan wrote in permanent pen on a margarine dish. It says, “Here lies Michi, beloved cat of Steven and Meghan Crawford. Born San Roque González, Paraguay 2001. Died May 13, 2011. He spent every night on our bed and every moment in our laps that he could. We will always remember our time with Michi and his affection, comfort and playfulness. May he rest in peace. We love you Michi!”
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The ultimate emergency dinner: Boil water, cook noodles and add sauce right out of a jar (if you don’t mind your food lukewarm you don’t even need to heat the sauce). Quick? Yes. Great? Bluck. Far from it.
With just a touch more effort, you can get a spaghetti dinner that actually tastes good–one that even deserves a bottle of wine. And what’s better on a night when you need an emergency meal than a little wine to calm the nerves? Placed in its proper context–say in a multi-course Italian supper, I would even serve this sauce to guests. As if that weren’t convincing enough, my kitchen-phobic wife can whip this up in a hurry without any fuss. Not bad for an emergency meal, huh?
San Marzano, the king of canned tomatoes
The key to this dish is high-quality canned tomatoes which you should always have in your pantry. Picked at the peak of ripeness, they are better than store-bought fresh tomatoes nine months out of the year. If you have access, the means and lack the conscience of a locavore, Italian San Marzano tomatoes can’t be beat. In second place comes Muir Glen, but Costco sells packs of S&W which is what I use with delicious (and cheap) results. In a pinch, I’ve even used store-brand tomatoes and the sauce is still worlds better than jarred tomato sauces like Ragu or Prego.
I’ll admit that the recipe and variations that follow are just adaptations from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Guess what. That book should be in your pantry next to your canned tomatoes. Here we go:
Easy Tomato Sauce
| 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves minced garlic |
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| 1-28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1-14.5 oz can diced tomatoes* |
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| 3 tbsp minced fresh basil*
¼ tsp sugar |
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*This is an emergency meal, so if you don’t have fresh basil, omit it and it will still be really good sauce. I don’t like the taste of dried basil, so I’d go without, but you can try it if you like or use dried oregano—use a little at first and add more to taste. As for the tomatoes, if you only have one variety (say, you only have 14.5 ounce cans of diced tomatoes), use those instead. Just try to use roughly the same amount of tomato. The variety doesn’t matter that much and will only affect the texture.
Variations:
Chunky: Cook a finely diced onion over medium heat with the oil for five minutes, or until softened before proceeding with the recipe.
Arrabiatta (spicy): Add 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes to the garlic in step one and substitute ¼ cup of parsley for the basil in step 3.
Vodka sauce: Add ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes with the garlic in step 1. Mix in ½ cup vodka after simmering for 10 minutes. Stir in 1 cup of cream during the final 2 minutes of simmering. Omit basil and sugar.
The importance of fast food was never as clear as when my mother fell during my spring break and squished a disk in her back forcing her to face months of painful recovery and therapy. With Meghan at work, me taking care of Daisy, running the house single-handedly (including having to baby-proof the place due to our daughter’s newfound mobility) and spending a good chunk of each day in the hospital it was a small miracle that food appeared on our table every night.
Although my blog Crawfordeats was abandoned for a time, you can rest assured that the Crawfords kept on eating. In fact, the morning my mom had her spill, she had made a batch of fantastic chocolate cupcakes with butter cream frosting to share with us. Working through her morphine-induced stupor, she insisted I swing by the house to take them home. I don’t know that a dozen cupcakes have ever been eaten so quickly by just two people. It helped to use my mother’s logic that chocolate comes from a bean, which is a good for you, and butter is dairy, which contains protein—also good for you. Thanks for dinner Mom.
So back to the theme: quick homemade food that beats supermarket convenience. Today’s topic: popcorn. It seems we’ve forgotten that it can be made (quite easily in fact) without a microwave. Native Americans have been snacking on it for at least 5,000 years and they’ve only had a microwave for the last couple of those.
A microwave might beat chasing popcorn around the teepee or longhouse as it jumps off of hot stones, but the stuff they add to it is pretty scary. Only recently has diacetyl, a natural chemical present in butter but dangerous to our lungs when vaporized, been removed from most brands. There is still a known carcinogen called perfluorooctanoic acid in the plastic lining of the bag. Dupont has promised to reconfigure the bag’s lining by 2015, but by my calculation, that still leaves us four years of popcorn-induced acid trips. Then try to wrestle with the fact that even the “healthy” versions contain partially hydrogenated oils and/or strange variations of the evil, evil palm oil. Now I love fat—butter and bacon being my favorites, but if I’m going to eat them, they better be good. Microwave popcorn? Eh. Not so much.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for making your own popcorn however is cost. Compare Orville Redenbacher’s standard microwave popcorn available at the grocery store to Safeway’s house brand of loose kernels. The microwave version weighs in at one dollar per serving while popping it yourself is just 18 cents. A couple that eats one serving a week (and we know no one limits him or herself to one serving even in one sitting) for a year stands to save them $85.28 on popcorn. Put that away in the piggy bank for your anniversary dinner. If a fool and his money are soon parted, what does that make people who eat microwave popcorn?
So get rid of the stuff you don’t need, hold onto your wallet and take control. It’s easy. I mastered the technique at nine years old (unsupervised–for reals). Here’s what to do:
Now to dress:
Simple: just add salt to taste.
Butter: Wait a few minutes for the pot to cool down (too soon and the butter will burn). Add a bit of butter to the slightly cooled pan and pour over popcorn and toss. Remember that every tablespoon of butter is 100 calories, so indulge conscientiously. Add salt to taste
Mexicorn: squeeze a lime and add sprinkle your favorite hot sauce (we like Frank’s or Valentino) with salt to taste—great in summer with beer.
Parmcorn: Sprinkle finely grated Parmesan or Grana Padano over popcorn with salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil—good with San Pellegrino or white wine.
Crawford Eats 