MARCH 2011
Wednesday 2011.3.30
Baby Shower
I've been invited to another Baby Shower. When I was a little boy I occasionally heard my mother say she was going to a shower. I couldn't understand. She could more easily take a shower at home. What did women do when they got together for a shower? Bathe each other? It wasn't until I reached adolescence that I understood the attraction, at least from a man's point of view. Of course, by then I knew what a shower really was. So I really couldn't enjoy the bewilderment.
I also remember that only women went to showers in New England. Here in California the men also go. A few years ago I attended a shower for an expectant mother-to-be. One of the games was guessing the circumference of her waist. We were each given a piece of yarn and told to tie a knot where we thought it might equal her waistline. I'm a guy. I'm not good at such things. So I put the yarn around my own waist and tied a knot. If you've seen my videos you know that I'm just a tad overweight. Not like Mario, or Paula, or Emeril, or Rachael when she lets herself go. Just a tad. I won that contest. Of course, the mother-to-be was a petite little thing....
I bring all this up because it's a bring-something-to-share sort of affair. Here again is yet another opportunity to make my Smoked Salmon Quiche. If you have not yet tried my recipe for Smoked Salmon Quiche (a recipe, by the way, I created myself after studying quiche recipes), I encourage you to do so. It disappears quickly at a picnic or potluck.
The method to my madness: I won't make Smoked Salmon Quiche for myself because I'll eat it all. So a bring-something-to-share is an excellent excuse to make this quiche and get one or two pieces to enjoy. It's a lot less sinful, and easy to justify because I really like the family that is expecting another baby. Some clouds don't have a silver lining. What to do with all that left over smoked salmon? Make more quiche—and eat it all.
Sunday 2011.3.26
Another Vacation Comes to an End
Back to work tomorrow. This has been an unsual week. One highlight was more information about Sony's newest video camera, the NEX-FS100. It's a guy thing. We like electronics. Naturally, everyone who knows anything about anything wants me to buy this camera rather than the one I had settled on. It won't be available until July (and that might be only a "maybe") and one can only guess what the street price will be. I doubt we'll see much discounting if this camera sells with as much enthusiasm as the current interest would indicate. It might seem odd to some, but one of the most important features I need is a remote control because I set up my own shots and then start the camera with a remote as I begin shooting each scene. Wouldn't it be amusing if the deal breaker turned out to be no remote?
Today I needed to do something really fun to end this vacation. The week has not been a great one, as Wednesday's "In the Doldrums" blog detailed. So I decided I will end this day with one of my homemade pizzas. Pizza is one of many foods for which I am popular among my friends. I don't do it the pizzaria way. I take my time. Naturally, I make my own dough from scratch. I also cook a sauce specifically for pizza (thicker and with more oregano), sauté onions and mushrooms in olive oil in advance, cook plenty of Italian sausage, and put half a pound of mozzarella on top. When I was a child in Mystic, Connecticut I saw a cook in a pizzaria drizzle olive oil over the assembled pizza before it went into the oven. So I do that too.
Of course, I will be doing all of this in front of the video camera.
If you're really good at making pizza, try this for a party: Assign everyone an ingredient to bring. Expensive items, like the Italian sausage, can be split between two people. Be specific. Don't let anyone turn up with the cheapest product they could find. Give brand names, sizes, and tell them which store to patronize. Make your dough in advance. When your guests are assembled, start prepping the ingredients in front of them. This will make them extra hungry, so plan some hors d'oeuvres, such as baking some of your prepared dough with a little cheese and maybe prosciutto on top. Plan to make plenty of extra pizza and send some home as leftovers. I've done this and the party can be lots of fun.
As for the month of March, it is nearly over. I have some springtime recipes and videos in the vault. I'm really looking forward to warmer weather and fun food.
Wednesday 2011.3.23
In the Doldrums
This web site has been going through a period of obscurity for the past week and a half. Yesterday the home page had only three hits. And I, also, have been unproductive.
I'm not sure why the site is seeing so little traffic. There is the allied bombing of Lybia that is getting a lot of attention around the world. I found it interesting that there is nearly as much collateral damage for our president as there is for Gadhafi (or however people spell his name). I try to stay as neutral as possible when it comes to USA politics. Then there was the storm that blew through here a few days ago. We had the most rain from a single storm system all season. That might have been the reason why my web site's hosting service was down for a day. No stats. On the bright side, our reservoir is now full and spilling over the dam. It is raining again today, but this storm will be mild.
As for my own lack of productivity, I am not currently in possession of my friend's video camera. This has me a little nervous because I have $65 of lamb and a pound of basil in the refrigerator. I'm hoping they won't spoil before I have a chance to work with them. I can freeze the lamb, but then it takes so long to thaw. As for the basil, I can't do much. My plan was to make (and video) four different kinds of pesto. I was going to cut each piece of lamb in half and do four different preparations before baking. On the bright side, I might an unexpected cash windfall in the near future, after which I would definitely order the professional video camera and tripod I've been wanting for months.
So, what do you do when there is nothing to do? I decided this was the opportunity I need to do a complete re-load of Computer 1—format the C: drive, do a fresh install of the OS and all programs and utilities. It needs it. The project takes two days because of the amount of stuff I need to load. I really like having a clean computer. It boots so much faster and everything runs so much better. I try to do a re-load of each computer at least once a year.
Plans for Sunday's upload: Probably Torta Rustica. This is a savory pie filled with salami and cheese. It's really rich, but delicious.
Sunday 2011.3.20
Down In a Mood
I've been in a mood all week. I won't go into details because it involves relatives on the East Coast. They are the reason why I live on the West Coast. Nothing positive ever results from communications between us.
Thus, for this week's recipe and video I chose to pull something from the vault. The date in the lower-right corner of the PDF shows that I wrote this recipe nearly a year ago. I wasn't photographing my mise en place back then. That isn't why I chose this recipe though. Check out the video. I don't know what I was feeling back in November when I videoed this recipe. It was right after Thanksgiving. Maybe I was tired of cooking. I was definitely in a mood. It reflects how I was feeling this week.
When I was a therapist I liked working with clients' depression. I don't know what it was that made it so productive. I remember one incident in which a young man walked into the office. There was something about the way he said, "I'd like to talk with someone." I led him to a private room and all I said was, "You're really hurting deep down inside." He burst into tears and thus began several very productive sessions.
When it comes to my own feelings of depression, there is nothing more effective than watching the movie Harold and Maude, which I watched yesterday afternoon. My favorite scene, which is probably the favorite of many people, is the one that establishes the theme of the film. Harold and Maude are in a field of daisies. "You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are this (indicating a unique daisy), but allow themselves to be treated as that," (motioning to the field)—meaning, as if everyone were the same.
Thd day also being a rainy day, and therefore a good excuse for baking, I also made two loaves of bread. There is nothing like baking homemade bread to lift your spirits.
The week ahead should be a good one. I am on vacation for the entire week. Eric, my camera guy, is back in town and he already called me to tell me he will loan me the video camera again. As to what I will cook, that is undecided. There is so much to do. I want to finish my topic on ragù. I want to do an exploration of pestos. I want to cook more Moroccan food.
So things are looking up. I'm excited about the coming week.
Wednesday 2011.3.16
Never Make Assumptions
The presentation of my Minute Meals went great. The audience was more enthusiastic than I expected and they asked great questions. I finished by handing them each a frozen Minute Meal.
People always surprise me, or maybe I should say I surprise myself about people. I've been sealing food in little plastic pouches for so many years, I don't think about it. That was the subject in which I expected them to be the least interested. When I demonstrated the process by sealing about 20 wooden beads in a little plastic bag, they were all impressed and I was asked to give details about where I buy my poly tubing, how much it costs, where I bought my impulse sealer, etc. We even went onto the website where I order the poly tubing to check prices. One woman was taking copious notes. Thoughout my life I have tried to coach myself repeatedly, "Never make assumptions." Nevertheless, people continue to surprise me. What would life be like without pleasant surpises?
I am curious to see how the Lamb Briouats recipe does. I found them to be captivatingly delicious, a very satisfying experience for my first Moroccan recipe. I don't expect the same success as that of the French Bread. When I posted that recipe I expected a ho-hum reaction. The stats shot through the ceiling. In the first week the recipe was downloaded nearly a thousand times. Never make assumptions.
Tomorrow I will be attending a seminar on promoting web sites through social media. As can be seen on the home page, I already have a fan page on Facebook. I am really curious about other networks such as Twitter and anything else that might be out there.
Plans for the weekend (and next week): I'm off all next week, so I'll be cooking. It's supposed to rain this coming weekend, so I think I'll be baking. I found a very ambitious recipe, which fits in well with a video I haven't put on YouTube yet—Ragù (not the junk that comes in the jar, real Italian ragù). Of course, the recipe is in the cookbook filled with untested recipes. So I won't make any assumptions. My freezer's back wall is showing, a sure sign my stock is dwindling. So I know I'll be making Pesto Lamb and Tuscan Meatloaf this week, maybe Texas Chili and Linguine with Clam Sauce (a recipe I might post on Sunday).
My brother suggested I think about posting recipes for the food we grew up with—American Chop Suey, Grammy's Salami Pie, and, heaven forbid, Hot Dog and Potato Soup. It wasn't as awful as it sounds, but it's closer to trailer park white trash food than anything I've made so far.
At the very least, I am looking forward to having the week off.
Sunday 2011.3.13
This and That
This weekend was ambitious. Besides watching the news for the latest information coming out of Japan, I managed to assemble the recipe PDF and the video for the Lamb Briouats and the Harissa. This is the first time this web site has had two feature recipes on the home page. I also made another Salami Pie to do the photograhy for the recipe PDF, and I did a few pick-up shots for the video.
Traffic to the web site was slow this week, with no explanation. Glacial might be a better word. I can usually point to something in the news or something on TV that explains traffic being lower than normal. The day of the Superbowl this site was slower than usual. I can't explain why, since Monday, web site activity has been slower than normal. Probably just an anomaly, although the Risotto recipe was downloaded enough times to indicate it was popular.
None of the stores in this area have eggplant. I asked two produce managers and they said they've been ordering eggplant every day, but none is arriving. They blamed the weather. Maybe it's the end of the world and all the eggplants, which are more intelligent than any other life form (although being fried and eaten must be a bitch), are leaving the earth. "So long, and thanks for all the dirt."
I'm thinking of delving into Moroccan cooking again. Something about the Lamb Briouats simply lingers in the mind in a pleasant way. I could eat them again and again.
Daylight Savings Time began today in the USA. Although I like the extra light in the evening (it makes it safer to bicycle home from work—I was hit by a car once and it was not fun), I'm not crazy about waking up in the dark. Another advantage is that I don't need to wait until the weekend to mow the lawn. There is still plenty of light after resting from my bike ride home.
Oh, and one more thing, tomorrow is my presentation on my Minute Meals. I'm networking. Supposedly one of the guys who set up this presentation knows a woman who earns a living by giving cooking demonstrations around the area. I'd like to link into that. I'll let you know how the presentation goes.
Wednesday 2011.3.9
More On That Salami Pie
Here is something I hope some of you can learn. Look at a recipe critically and judge the formula. The formula is the list of ingredients and their proportions. The Salami Pie recipe called for 3½ cups flour and the author had provided the metric equivalent as 400 grams. Right away red flags started waving because the formula didn't state whether the 3½ cups were sifted or scooped. Those of you who know my bread recipes appreciate that I am fussy about measuring flour when baking. 400 grams is just over 14 ounces. A cup of sifted flour is 4½ ounces. 3½ cups sifted flour would weigh at least 15¾ ounces. If the cups were scooped they would be 19¼ ounces. The moisture was one egg (which is about ¼ cup) plus 2 tablespoons dry white wine and about ¾ cup of butter. The proportion of wet to dry ingredients just didn't add up to a successful pie crust. And when you consider that there is also ¾ cup sugar in the crust, well—!
As you'll see in the video when I eventually upload it, I had to add an additional egg to bring the crust ingredients together. Ultimately it worked. There is more than one lesson here.
1. You can't believe everything you read in a cookbook. Again and again I wonder if anyone ever tests these recipes.
2. You can learn enough to make corrections on the fly when you do a lot of cooking. That is one of many lessons for which I am grateful to Julia Child and her French Chef videos. She would demonstrate how to recover from errors.
So I corrected the recipe to 3 cups sifted flour or 14 ounces (400g) by weight and 2 eggs.
I'll test it when I make it again, which I need to do for the photography. I did the video. But I didn't get enough photographs for the recipe PDF.
As for the next recipe, I'm thinking of the Lamb Briouats. They were addictively delicious and I want to make them again, and again, and again.... My video camera friend, Eric, agreed the briouats must be put on the site so that I can addict other persons around the world.
Oh yeah. How did the Salami Pie in the cookbook compare to my own secret recipe? Mine is better, but not by much. The cookbook's pie is delicious. I shared it with friends who knew my own salami pie and they concur. As stated above, I'll upload it to this site in the near future. I think the best part is knowing that my recipe is the genuine Napoli real deal.
Sunday 2011.3.6
Salami Pie
My friends know that every recipe in my binders is public domain, except one. That would be my recipe for Salami Pie. I am famous for it, at least in the small community in which I live. There are only two people who (might) have a copy. One is a man who claims he lost it. Oh well. The other is someone with whom I have been friends longer than anyone else I know. She claims she wouldn't give it away, even if giving the recipe away was necessary to keep her children alive. Well, perhaps I exaggerate.
My grandmother was born and raised in Naples. In one of my Italian cookbooks it says that savory pies are common in southern Italy. Napoli is well south-east of Rome. By coincidence, the same cookbook has a recipe for a savory pie that has striking similarity to my grandmother's salami pie. Could it be that my recipe originated in Italy and my grandmother brought it with her when she emigrated from the Old Country? Very likely.
I don't have the exact recipe my grandmother used. That passed away with her, but I ate the pie enough times as a youth that it wasn't difficult to recall the flavors, and therefore the ingredients, that make up this pie. It's just as well because my grandmother was notorious for cutting corners and making things as cheaply as possible. The Depression made a lasting impresson on her. I use better ingredients and if I do say so myself, my salami pie is better than my grandmother's. But is it better than that savory pie in that cookbook?
This afternoon will be devoted to answering that question. The first time I make a new recipe I typically follow the ingredients and instructions exactly. I modify later. However, I cannot bring myself to use lard in the crust when I have perfectly good butter in the refrigerator. Also, we do not have provolone dolce (young) and provolone piccante (aged) cheese locally. The provolone sold in the local warehouse store is "mild," but the inside of the plastic bag smells like a cow barn. How mild can it be? So, given those limitations, I'll modify a little at the beginning. Otherwise, I'll keep to the original recipe as closely as I can.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
Wednesday 2011.3.2
Another First...
Who knew that having a web site could be dangerous? On Sunday I suffered my first White-Trash-Cooking-related injury. On the counter was a big colander filled with cooked rice, sitting on a large and heavy bowl to catch any drippings (there were none). I turned and whacked my left hand on the edge of the colander. The swelling is almost as impressive as the pain. I hope nothing is broken in there. There is no discoloration, no bruising. So I think I'm okay. I wait things out. If it starts to get better, then nothing serious is wrong. If it gets worse, go see a doctor. This morning it is feeling better.
Of course, there is always risk when working in the kitchen. The DVD version of my video showing how to debone a chicken has an outtake at the end in which I reveal that I cut myself with the knife at the very end of the process. It wasn't a deep cut and I turned my hand to hide it during the last few seconds of the video. Such accidents happen occasionally. I'm a lot better about not burning myself. This injury to my left hand is the worse to happen in many years. I just hope I can use my hand on Saturday because I'm planning to cook in front of the camera again.
I was making timballo when I hurt myself. Once again, I wonder how some of these recipes make it into print. Doesn't anyone ever test them? The recipe called for half a cup of butter, but there is nothing to absorb the butter. The dish is moslty layered cooked rice and cooked eggplant, both of which are high in water and therefore resistant to fat. When it came out of the oven I tilted the springform pan and let is rest for 10 minutes, the butter fat draining out of the bottom. Thankfully it didn't drip onto the bottom of my oven and catch fire. I am rewriting the recipe, correcting the problems (too much cheese, too much butter, etc.) and it will eventually make it onto the web site. It really is delicious. Made correctly, I suspect it would be incredibly delectable. I typically make things several times before I finalize the recipe.
An exception was the Dr. Frankenstein's Chicken. That video was my first attempt at preparing that recipe. I felt safe doing it because down through the decades I've roasted many whole chickens, almost always stuffed. Boning a chicken is second nature to me. The only new procedure was removing the skin all in one piece. Since that first attempt I've made it again and each time the process is the same. I didn't improve anything. So I published the original video and recipe PDF.
Hoorray for March. Spring is almost here. I've been waiting for flats of fresh strawberries in the warehouse store so that I can publish a recipe or two. I'm not a huge fan of strawberries, but they're a dream to work with when cooking. You'll see.
One other note for March: Yesterday the traffic to this site went through the roof. Page views were 3½ times average. Vists were 5 times average. Hits were 7 times average. I guess it was curiosity about Dr. Frankenstein's Chicken.