So longed-for, so sighed-over

Hi, guys.

Thanks for keeping the place so warm and tidy while I was gone. It’s good to come home to you.

Three weeks, gone in a blur. It’s hard to know where to start.



I remember saying to people sometimes, during the year or so that I lived in Paris, that the city felt like my second home. In retrospect, it seems funny that I should say that, since I hardly even know where my first home is. I guess it should be Oklahoma, technically, since that’s where I was born and raised. But it doesn’t really seem right. Let’s be honest: when you grow up in a place known pretty much exclusively for being shaped like a frying pan in silhouette – a frying pan that, I might add, somebody chucked squarely and carelessly into the middle of Tornado Alley, where it gets held to the fire each spring – it’s not terribly hard to leave. My parents were from the East Coast, so Oklahoma never really had a shot. My parents raised me to know that I would leave, and that, in fact, I was supposed to. It never even occurred to me to stay. I was too busy making plans. I think that’s why I’m such a sucker for Born to Run. Swap out Bruce Springsteen’s motorcycle and the back streets of mid-seventies New Jersey for an airplane and mid-nineties Oklahoma, and you’ve got me. Not quite so sexy a story, of course, with no chrome wheels or wind in my hair, but you get the idea. Six days after my nineteenth birthday, I was gone. I spent the next four years in California. Then I went to Paris, and now, Seattle. I’m still not sure where home is. I have a hunch that I’ve hit on it, but I can’t be sure. My second home, though, is still the same. I’m predictable. Paris.



There’s been so much said and written about Paris that it’s daunting to hazard a statement of my own. That city just has something. I can’t think of any other place so idealized, so longed-for, so sighed-over. My Paris isn’t always such a sweet one, brimming with kisses à la Doisneau, but I like it better that way. It’s the place where I’ve been loneliest, and where I’ve been happiest. Sometimes I’ve been both at the same time. It’s where, at twenty-one, I met my first love in the belly of a lighthouse-boat-cum-club on the Seine, and where, six weeks later, when he stopped calling, I sat on a bench at the Champ de Mars and filled an entire Kleenex mini-pack with my snot and tears. It’s a place where even crying feels romantic somehow, where heartbreak makes you feel like a part of history. It’s unrequited love. It’s who and where, for a long time, I wanted to be.



Paris is an incubator, and a catalyst. It’s where I feel most awake. It’s where, at twenty-five, and in the span of a few summer weeks, I decided to leave graduate school, broke up with a boyfriend of three years, drank my first gin and tonic, scattered a Ziploc baggie of my father’s ashes into the Seine, ate scandalous amounts of Comté and pâté, and, at the suggestion of a very wise friend, decided to start this blog. That city means business. For a place that clings vehemently to its history, it has certainly helped speed along mine.



So it seemed intuitive to go back there this spring. I’ve never been particularly cuddly with the idea of change, and this year is nothing but. It’s all the good kind, of course – a wedding! a book! – but sometimes a girl needs a little incubating, so to speak – not to mention ten days with her mother, a solid supply of baguette sandwiches, some stinky cheese, whites from Cheverny, reds from the Côtes du Rhone, and a jaunt down to Lyon for some old-fashioned, fat-rippled cuisine de bonne femme, which, for future reference, is immensely fortifying. Mom and I even shared our first blood sausage, served in a quaintly dented silver dish with a bed of caramelized apples as brown and translucent as a tarte Tatin. I quite nearly set up camp right there, atop the checked tablecloth. Second home, you know.

So it was good to go back. But I have to tell you, it’s also good to be back.

A safe bet

I thought it was over. I really did. After the disappointment of that coconut pie, it would have only been fair. With all the work that thing took – not to mention the woe that came with eating it – I figured I’d more than filled my monthly quota of culinary downers. Unfortunately, I was wrong. It was only the start of what turned out to be a very, very sub-par week. I don’t usually like to air my dirty kitchen laundry around here, but it’s piling up so high and fast that I’ve got nowhere else to put it. It would be comical, if only it weren’t quite so sad. I can hardly even muster the energy to write about it in complete sentences. Witness:

Monday: Made lunch for two friends, one being the co-owner of a favorite local restaurant. Failed to properly puree the carrot soup, leaving it oddly lumpy, like a vegetal oatmeal, and overbaked the lemon cake. Cringed while my companions dutifully ate.

Tuesday: Gave leftovers of aforementioned lemon cake to Brandon for breakfast. Nearly choked him with a dried-out crumb. Had a friend to dinner. Made a rhubarb clafoutis with the texture and appearance of a kitchen sponge. Ate it anyway.

Wednesday: Sought refuge in dinner out with a girlfriend. Got a little weepy.

Thursday: Tried again with my comrades from Monday’s lunch, this time at the restaurant. Had a delicious meal, along with, unfortunately, a glass of prosecco, two types of red wine, and three varieties of dessert wine. Closed the restaurant, danced to Blondie and the Rolling Stones, ate ice cubes in a futile attempt to sober up. Began to suffer.

Friday: Hung over. Managed, with some bad curly endive and Brandon’s help, to make a truly awful salad, something I had previously thought impossible. For dessert, tried a madeleine recipe from a favorite cookbook. Nothing special. Not even worth eating. Let the leftovers sit on the counter and go stale.

Saturday: Went to dinner at the home of a friend. Distracted her so thoroughly with my chatter that her Persian rice, with its many types of expensive fresh herbs, wound up irreparably scorched.

Sunday: Tried a recipe for milk chocolate brownies from a recent issue of Gourmet. Hovered excitedly over the oven, only to find them completely mediocre. Worse than boxed brownie mix, tasting neither of chocolate nor, really, of anything else. Ate two, because I was desperate. Set the rest out for the trash collectors.

See what I mean? So sub-par, and so sad. By the middle of the week, I was sufficiently wigged out that I made Brandon look up the lunar calendar. I was desperate. I’ve never bought into the folklore about full moons – that they bring insanity and crime and disasters and what not – but after last week, I’m not so sure. Monday, it turns out, was a full moon. It would be awfully nice if that explained all this. That way, in the future, at least, I might know when to stay away from the kitchen, if not food as a general category.

But anyway, all this is not to say that there weren’t at least a couple of decent moments in the last seven days. I don’t mean to be a total downer. There were some high points, in fact, and both of them involved asparagus.



This is yet another of those situations when I worry that I’m giving you a recipe that’s entirely too simple and old-hat, but seeing as I love it – and given that it was one of the few good things I got my teeth around last week – I’m going to do it anyway. The inspiration for this dish comes from a classic French preparation: poireaux vinaigrette, an elegant salad-of-sorts composed of cooked leeks and a mustardy dressing, smattered with a hard-boiled egg chopped fine as snow. It’s a dish I first learned from my host mother in Paris, and one that’s made a home on my table in the many years since. Sometimes, in the spring, I like to trade the leeks for asparagus – the fat spears, preferably, blanched to emerald green. That’s what we did this week, in fact, and it was so good that we ate it twice.

To best complement the asparagus, we mixed things up a little, trading my usual dressing for a lemon vinaigrette with a dab of garlic. The key is to serve it all with the spears still warm, when their flavor is mellow and sweet and their flesh still porous to the citrus and oil. It’s the perfect way to send up spring’s newest crop – casual, unfussy, and clean-the-plate good, and with its longtime comrade, the lemon. It’s what we’ll be eating for the next little while around here. Because, you know, no matter what, it’s a safe bet.

___


I hope this will keep your bellies full for a while, friends, because I’m leaving town for a few weeks. (It has nothing to do with escaping the disasters of last week, I swear. It was in the works long before then.) First, on Wednesday, I’m headed to the IACP conference in Chicago. Then, on Sunday, I’ll catch a plane to Paris with my mom for a pre-wedding mother-daughter bonanza, wherein we eat loads of chocolate and chaussons aux pommes and pâté and cheese, walk until our feet are sore, sit in cafés, visit old friends, say hello to David and Clotilde, and more generally spend some time ensemble before I become a Mrs. in July. I’m so excited, I can hardly sit still.

I’ll be back in three weeks. Until then, I hope you’ll content yourselves with asparagus. It’s not much, but it’s the best I could do.



Asparagus vinaigrette

This dish can be as simple or as frilly as you want it to be. I’ve called below for a hard-boiled egg and lemon zest as garnish, but just as often, we eat it without. In fact, we’re usually pretty low-key about it, eating the asparagus plain, with our fingers, and dipping it in the vinaigrette as we go. Whatever you do, be sure to choose asparagus with plump, firm spears. I like to use somewhat fat ones here, but any will work, so long as they’re flavorful and in season. To prepare them for cooking, trim or snap off their woody ends, and give the spears a quick rinse in cool water.

As for the hard-boiled egg, I have a new favorite method to share. (I can’t remember where I learned it, though - somewhere on the Internet - so if it’s yours, please accept my apologies.) I put the egg in a small saucepan, covered it with cold water, and brought it to a boil over medium-high heat. When it began to boil, I pulled it off the burner, covered it, and let it sit for 12 minutes. Then I rinsed it in plenty of cold water. The white was tender and the yolk bright yellow, with not one single nasty bit of gray in sight.

1 bunch asparagus
Salt
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. white wine or champagne vinegar
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
½ tsp. fine sea salt
5 Tbsp. olive oil
Scant 1/8 tsp. pressed garlic
1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped (optional)
Zest of half a lemon (optional)

Fill a 12-inch skillet with water to a depth of about 1 inch. Add a good dose of salt, and bring the pan to a boil over high heat. Add the asparagus, spreading them out in a single layer, and cook just until they turn bright green and yield to the tooth, about 1 ½ to 2 minutes. Drain into a colander, and briefly run cool water over the asparagus to stop them from cooking. They should still be warm. Dry them gently on a paper towel, and transfer them to a serving platter. Set aside.

In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, and salt. Add the oil, and whisk well to emulsify. Taste, and if necessary, add a bit more oil. Depending on the flavor of the oil and vinegar you use, you might need a teaspoon or so more oil. Add the garlic, and whisk to combine.

To serve, drizzle the vinaigrette over the asparagus, and top, if you like, with hard-boiled egg. If you choose to use the lemon zest, sprinkle a couple of pinches on top. Alternatively, serve the asparagus plain, with the vinaigrette and other optional toppings on the side, so each eater can dress it to their liking.

Yield: 4 side-dish or starter-size servings, or 2, if you’re us

Consolation prize

Oh people. What a time I’ve had.

So, remember that fresh coconut pie I mentioned last week? The one I recalled so fondly ten full years after first tasting it? The one that you begged to hear more about? Well, I called my mom, and I got the recipe. Then I bought a coconut. Then, yesterday morning, Brandon and I drained, cracked, chipped, peeled, and grated the thing, a task only marginally easier than breaking into an armored truck. Then, after sufficient rest and recuperation, I made the pie. And it wasn’t very good.

Even now, a day later, I still feel sort of sad. I hardly know what to say. In the pie’s defense, I think we grated the coconut a little too coarsely. We did it in the food processor, with the grating blade, and the resulting shards were on the thick side – less like standard shredded coconut and more, let’s say, like those jumbo matches, the long, fat kind you’d use to light a gas stove or grill. Consequently, the coconut never really cooked in the oven. It wilted a little, but that’s about it. The finished pie tasted alright, but it had an odd, starchy crunch that reminded me of Swiss chard stems, and soggy twigs, and undercooked potatoes. None of which, I should note, makes a nice dessert. It wasn’t awful, but it was wonky. You know it’s bad when you prefer a pot of lentil soup to a slice of coconut pie. Seriously.

But all’s well that ends well, as they say, which brings us, for better and for worse, to this week’s recipe. I know it’s kind of crappy of me to give you yet another lentil dish, but I didn’t set out intending to, I swear. Blame the pie, not me. Anyway, it’s a very good recipe – and with coconut, no less! – so I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.

A couple of weeks ago, back when we were talking about lentils and rice and onions around here, Julie wrote to tell me about a soup she’d made, a green lentil soup with Indian spicing from the cookbook Once Upon a Tart. I was very intrigued – not only because of the bottomless supply of lentils in my pantry closet, but because a copy of that same cookbook had been sitting on my shelf, ignored, for years. I’m not sure why, either, because Once Upon a Tart, the bakery that birthed the book, is a lovely little spot, a place where I once shared soup and scones with my mother and father and sister on a chilly late-December afternoon in New York. The book was long overdue for a little attention, and a good, healthy crack of the spine. So, with a nudge from Julie, that’s what I gave it, and in return, it gave me a very, very good soup.




The only thing it lacks, I’m afraid, is looks. I tried to spare you by eating most of it before the photo shoot, but still, it’s not pretty. Lentil soup is not something to make when you want a handsome meal. It’s something to make when you want a satisfying one, along with, say, a cold beer, some crusty bread, and a few Muscat grapes from the icebox. This particular take on the lentil theme is unusually good, one for the keeper pile. For a homely thing, it’s almost delicate – elegant, even, trailing a lacy perfume of spices and coconut milk, a whiff of India and a slip of Thailand. It reminds me in some ways of dal, but better than any I’ve made at home, and with a Southeast Asian bent. And until I can have my coconut pie the way I remember it – which, with some tweaking, damn it, had better be soon – well, it’s a pretty darn good consolation prize.

___


Also, I know that many of you have seen me and Brandon on the Food Network recently, and before another day goes by, I wanted to thank you for writing to me with your cheers. Pretty crazy, isn’t it? Our video is part of a series of short promotional segments called “The Power of Food,” in which everyday people share stories about the ways that food impacts their lives. In our case, we tell the story of how we met – through this website, of course, but more specifically, because a friend of Brandon’s did an Internet search for a lemon yogurt cake recipe, came upon Orangette, read for a while, and then told him about it, saying, “I’ve found the woman for you.” As it turns out, she was right, and the rest, as they say, is history. Sometimes I can hardly wrap my head around it. Cake is a powerful thing. I’m telling you, never, ever underestimate what it can do.

Our segment airs during commercial breaks, so be on the lookout between ads and you just might see us. A longer version of the video will be online soon is available online, and you can watch it here. (And no jokes about that funny blinking I was doing, okay? I was nervous.)

We hope you like our story as much as we like living it. Thank you for being a part of it.



Green Lentil Soup with Coconut Milk and Warm Spices
Adapted from Once Upon a Tart

If you’ve got some decent vegetable stock lying around, this thick, warming soup comes together in a snap. It’s delicious eaten plain, but I also like it with a squeeze of lime, and Brandon, Mr. Hot Sauce, likes it with sambal oelek. It would also be lovely over some fragrant rice, maybe jasmine or basmati, and with some cilantro sprinkled around. If you’d like to see how Julie, who first told me about this recipe, makes this soup, hop over to her thoughtful write-up here.

Also, about the butter: if you want to use less, I think you could. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll bet it wouldn’t make a wink of difference, flavor-wise, if you added all the spices in the beginning, with the garlic, rather than adding some then and some later. That way, you could nix the clarified butter – a bit of a fussy step, anyway – and scratch three tablespoons of butter from the recipe.

6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 ½ tsp. turmeric
6 cups vegetable stock, preferably from this recipe
1 ½ cups French green lentils, picked over for stones and other debris
½ tsp. ground cardamom
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
A pinch of nutmeg
A few grinds of black pepper
1 ¼ cups coconut milk
¼ tsp. fine sea salt, plus more to taste

In a soup pot or Dutch oven, warm 3 tablespoons of the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is translucent. Turn the heat down to medium, and add the garlic, thyme, and turmeric. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is lightly browned and very soft.

Add the stock and the lentils, bring to a simmer, and cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the lentils are soft and tender.

In a small saucepan, warm the remaining 3 tablespoons butter over medium heat. When the butter is entirely liquefied, there will be a foamy white layer on top. Skim it away and discard it. What you’ll have left is clarified butter – a clear, yellow liquid – and a bit of white sediment at the bottom of the pan, which are the milk solids. Carefully pour the clarified butter into a small bowl or cup; then rinse the sediment out of the pan. Return the clarified butter to the pan, and place it over medium heat. Add the cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and pepper, and warm them, stirring, until they are very fragrant, a minute or two.

Pour the clarified butter and spices into the soup. Add the coconut milk, and stir well. Cook for about 15 minutes to blend the flavors. Taste, and adjust the salt as necessary. Serve.

Note: Like many things with complex spicing, this soup improves with time. It’s great on the first day, but it’s even better on the second.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Hot sauce

I hope you’ll bear with me. I wish I could say otherwise, but the truth is, I’ve still got my head in the pantry closet. There may be tiny flowers popping out of the hedge of the house across the street, but where springtime is concerned, the produce section isn’t quite so forthcoming. I bought a bundle of early-season asparagus a few days ago, but the spears were watery and dull, as though their flavor were still hidden away under the soil, hibernating for winter. I saw spring onions at the market yesterday, but even they were a little wimpy and anemic, picked a week too soon. Thank heavens, I say, for the pantry, my little haven from the seasons. This week, once again, it did us proud. It brought forth a bag of chiles de árbol and from it, a bang-up hot sauce.

Now, before I go any further, you should know one thing: Brandon is a hot sauce fiend. As of this writing, our refrigerator contains eight bottles of assorted hot sauce. That’s three more than five, and only two less than ten. We are the only people in this house. That means that hot sauce outnumbers us four to one. I could have guessed it would be this way from our first date, I suppose, when he made a salad dressing – a delicious one at that – consisting of lime juice, olive oil, and a copious amount of Vietnamese chili garlic sauce. My lips were ablaze, and that was before any hanky-panky. I have since watched him plow through a few squeeze bottles of sriracha, not to mention vials of Tapatio, Cholula, and similar sauces. Cholula, he tells me, was once his favorite. Recently, however, its makers seem to have changed the chile blend – from piquin to piquin and árbol – and, he says sadly, it doesn’t taste the same. You should have seen him the first time he noticed the difference. He was genuinely distraught. I am marrying a man who is serious about his hot sauce. Luckily, I like it too, although eight bottles does seem a little excessive.

Anyway, all this to say that Brandon likes hot sauce, and that this weekend, for the second time in only a few weeks, he made hot sauce. The collection in our refrigerator has just accepted its ninth member. It’s a nice one.



The sauce in question comes from Mexican cooking guru Rick Bayless, whose recipes do not disappoint. Once, when I was eighteen, I went to a dinner in Oklahoma at which he was the guest chef, and let me tell you, the man is good. I was especially enamored of his Yucatecan fresh coconut pie. I ate my slice, half of my mother’s, and the last bit from the plate of the woman at the end of the table. A few weeks later, my mother and I made the pie ourselves. None of the usual methods worked to pry open the coconut, so we went outside and pitched it, four square-style, at the driveway. It split with a spectacular crack, sending shards of coconut under the car, and the resulting pie was stupendously good. Rick Bayless is a great man. His recipe for chile de árbol hot sauce is just one more reason why.

Rich and nutty with sesame and pumpkin seeds, smelling of warmth and chiles and places with plenty of sun, this homemade blend is the new favorite of the house. Even the merest whiff at the jar – lightly smoky and with a wallop of spice – makes my stomach start to grumble. It’s toasty and complex and creamy-textured. It’s also tinted that lovely orange color that interior designers tell people to paint their dining rooms. And as luck has it, it’s very easy to make. A little fiddly, maybe, with all those chiles to be stemmed, but well worth the trouble. We like it with beans of any sort, and with chips and beer. We’ve even sneaked it into Malena’s, our local taqueria, to dribble it into tacos, corn tortillas, and guacamole. For those who don’t mind mixing cuisines, it’s also a winner with hummus and mujadara, its comrades from the pantry closet. It’ll keep things warm for a while around here, which is more than I can say for the weather.



Chile de Árbol Hot Sauce
Adapted from Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico, by Rick Bayless

Rick Bayless arranges the steps of this recipe in a different order, but for efficiency’s sake, we’ve changed things up a bit. Bayless called for stemming and seeding the chiles first, but it’s a time-consuming process that can be done easily while other parts of the recipe – like toasting seeds and such – are underway.

1 ½ Tbsp. sesame seeds
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 scant teaspoon salt
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
¾ cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. shelled raw pumpkin seeds
1 ¼ oz. (about 50-60 mixed-size) dried chiles de árbol
¼ tsp. cumin seeds (or a generous ¼ tsp. ground)
1/8 tsp. ground allspice
A big pinch of ground cloves
Water

Place a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the sesame seeds and toast, shaking the pan occasionally, for several minutes, until they turn golden and pop.

While the sesame seeds toast, put the oregano, salt, garlic, and vinegar in the blender. When the sesame seeds are ready, scrape them in as well.

Return the skillet to the stove, turn the heat up to medium, and add the pumpkin seeds. When the first one pops, stir frequently for a few minutes, until all are golden and have popped up into a rounded shape. Add them to the blender.

While the pumpkin seeds warm and toast, start prepping the chiles. Pull off their stems; then gently roll them between your thumb and fingers, pressing gently to loosen the seeds inside. Break them in half, shake out as many seeds as possible, and add them to the blender.

In a mortar or spice grinder, pulverize the cumin, allspice, and cloves. Add them to the blender. Blend for several minutes, until the mixture is orange-red, a bright brick color, and feels quite smooth when a drop is rubbed between your fingers.

Strain the sauce through a medium-mesh sieve, stirring and pressing on the solids with a spoon. There will be a fair amount – a few tablespoons’ worth – of chile seeds, skins, sesame hulls, and other debris left in the sieve. Rick Bayless discards this thick paste, but Brandon likes to save it. (It’s milder than the finished sauce, and he likes to dip chips into it. He also puts it in black beans. First, he sautés some chopped onion in olive oil; then he adds a bit of chile paste and lets it cook a little; then he adds a can or two of drained beans.)

The strained sauce will be somewhat thick and creamy. You can leave it as is, or you can add some water to thin it. Rick Bayless suggests adding ¾ cup. The first time Brandon made this, he didn’t add any water, and he loved the resulting sauce. The second time, he added ½ cup water, and it made for a lovely consistency.

Whatever you choose to do, pour the sauce into a jar or container with a tight-fitting lid, and refrigerate it for 24 hours before serving.

Note: Refrigerated, this sauce will keep indefinitely, and it tastes even better (and gets pleasantly milder) over time. Brandon liked it very much after 24 hours, but he loved it, and I mean loved it, after a week.

Yield: About 1 cup (if you added ½ cup water)

Into the pantry

I love winter foods. You know I do. You’ve been listening to me yap about them for a long time now. I’m always trotting out some strange, frost-nipped something: a Brussels sprout here, an old celery root there, an unruly head of escarole that no one else wants. It’s what I do. I’ve got a reputation to keep.

But I have to tell you, this winter has rung me out. I’m tired. I’m through. If I have to eat another cabbage, I’m going to fall to my knees and cry. That’s pretty much what I felt like doing at the market on Saturday morning, as I stared out over the sea of winter produce. Pretty though it was – so many shades of neutral, like a layout from Martha Stewart Living – I could hardly muster the energy to pull out my wallet. I really tried hard to find the oomph. But there’s no two ways about it: winter and I are over. The only problem is that spring isn’t quite here yet.

Faced with such hard facts, there’s not much for a person to do, I find, but seek refuge in the pantry closet. For the past week or two, that’s what I’ve been doing, and I highly recommend it. It’s oddly inspiring, in its way. I’ve made two batches of scones with various dried fruits. I put a good dent our supply of crystallized ginger. I even organized the rice area, which had formed a sort of impromptu sandbag levee, barricading the chilies into a corner. I also made mujadara. Twice, in fact, in five days. That’s another thing I recommend.



Photogenic it is not, but in the mouth, mujadara makes up for all misgivings. I’m not sure how it should be translated, but for me, mujadara means an enviable meal made entirely from the pantry. It’s a Middle Eastern dish comprised simply of lentils, rice, and onions, with doses of olive oil and salt for good measure. Also called megadarra, mejadra, and a variety of other similar names, it most often resembles a moist pilaf, although sometimes it borders on porridge. Either way, it’s nothing fancy, nor is it particularly pretty. What it is, however, is simple, fragrant, exotic, and cheap. That’s a combination that doesn’t come around too often. In my mental recipe archive, I file mujadara in the same category as Brandon’s chickpea salad, the category for things dead-simple, delicious, and made from ingredients often on hand. Mujadara takes more foresight and time, but it also makes your kitchen smell good enough to eat.

I came upon it several years ago in Oklahoma, at the home of family friends Pam and Bill Shdeed. Pam makes a mean Lebanese meal. It was in her dining room that I had my first bite of mujadara, along with homemade labneh, the spiced lamb patties known as kibbeh, and chicken cooked under a mound of cinnamon-scented rice. Not long after, she gave me a staple-bound cookbook – with typewritten pages and a tan cardstock cover – called Our Favorite Lebanese Recipes, by Julia Bayouth and Helen Jabara. Not long after that, I started making mujadara. Using the cookbook Pam gave me, as well as hints from Claudia Roden, I worked up a formula that I liked. My boyfriend at the time was vegan, and he loved it. Mujadara was one of our staples. I made it all the time. But after we split up, I sort of forgot about it. It went the way of history, along with our hokey terms of endearment and other relationship memorabilia. It took until last week, when winter chased me into the pantry, for me to remember it again.

This time, I won’t be forgetting it so easily. It’s the ultimate between-season dinner solution. It’s not quite a lickety-split supper – those onions do take their sweet time – but that’s okay. It’ll help pass the time until spring.


Mujadara (moo-jha-dra)

The key to this dish is the onions: they must be browned well, and with patience. Caramelize them to within an inch of their lives. Heck, burn them a little, even. In cases like this, it’s almost impossible to overcook them. Their intense, deeply toasty flavor is the main player here, so don’t rush it.

As for serving, mujadara is often presented with a green salad. I like mine with a chopped romaine salad, something similar to this one. It would also be nice with some labneh on the side, and flatbread.

¼ cup olive oil
2 medium yellow onions (about 1 ½ lb.), finely chopped
1 cup brown or green lentils, picked over for stones and other debris
½ cup basmati rice
Water
1 tsp. salt, plus more for serving

In a large (12-inch) sauté pan or skillet or a Dutch oven, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are deeply caramelized, a rich shade of amber. If they’re burnt and blackened in spots, even better. This is a fairly slow process. Depending on your pan and your stove, this could take between 30 minutes and 1 hour in total. On my stove, it takes about 50 minutes.

While the onions are cooking, place the lentils in a medium saucepan, add water to cover by an inch, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook, undisturbed, for 20 minutes. Drain the lentils, and set them aside.

When the onions are ready, stir in the rice. Then add the cooked lentils, along with 2 cups of water and the salt. Stir to mix well, and bring the pan to a boil. Reduce the heat to keep the pan at a slow simmer, cover, and cook. Depending on the size and shape of your pan, this last stage – cooking the onions, rice, and lentils together – could take from 20 to 40 minutes. Basically, the dish is done when the rice is done. I use a 5-quart sauté pan, which is wide and flat, so the rice cooks pretty quickly, in about 25 minutes. I used to use a Dutch oven, however, which was narrower, and the rice took 30-40 minutes to cook.

After about 20 minutes, remove the lid, and give the pot a gentle stir. If there is still some liquid visible, replace the lid and keep cooking until it is fully absorbed. On the other hand, if there is no obvious liquid, take a taste. If the rice is tender, the mujadara is ready. If the rice is not yet ready, add another splash of water, replace the lid, and cook until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked. The mujadara is ready to eat when the rice is tender and there is no liquid left in the pan.

Serve, with additional salt, if needed.

Note: Mujadara is even better on the second day, so if you can, make it ahead. Reheat before serving. I like to eat the leftovers for lunch, with a grapefruit for dessert.

Yield: 4-6 servings

The wait and the wonky molasses

A while ago, around my nineteenth birthday, I had my tarot cards read by a woman named Marlene. Sadly, I don’t recall the faintest bit of what the cards said. It’s kind of disappointing, to tell you the truth. If I came seeking answers to some juicy question, I’ve long since forgotten what it was. (Not that anything juicy had happened to me yet, but that’s another story.) I’m not even sure how I found Marlene, other than to say that some female members of my family have a weakness for such things, including yours truly. I remember only two real tidbits of my meeting with her, and neither amounts to much. First, there was the squirrel thing. When she closed her eyes, she told me, she pictured me as a squirrel, stuffing my cheeks with nuts. I’m not sure what she meant by that, but I think of it occasionally, namely on nights involving multiple helpings of dessert. Then, second, there was the bit about delayed gratification.

“You want what you want, when you want it,” Marlene said solemnly. “You want instant gratification. Right now. This minute. You’ve got to work on that, hon. You’ve got to get more comfortable with delayed gratification.”

I have no idea what she was talking about. Sure, I was raised as an only child, so I guess I’m accustomed to getting my way, but I don’t know. Delayed gratification is okay, I guess. I’ve never seen it as much of a stumbling block. Or I hadn’t, at least, until this past week, when I found myself moping about a cookie recipe. I couldn’t get it right. And I wanted it the way I wanted it, right now.




It all started in Oklahoma, the weekend before last. Brandon and I always do a lot of cooking there, both because my mother’s kitchen is bright and roomy and because being there is so relaxing. We were only in town for three nights, but we cooked for two of them. We even baked cookies one afternoon, to have with coffee. That’s when the trouble started.

I had a vision of a certain cookie, but I didn’t have a recipe. I wanted a ginger cookie with molasses, a crackly-topped disc with a soft, dense center. I’ve written about something similar here before, but it didn’t crackle quite the right way. I wanted something crisp and bendy, craggy and crackly, and with chocolate chips. All in one cookie. I know what I want, and I wanted it immediately. You know, like, without delay.

So we searched the shelves and online, and we hemmed and hawed, and then we hawed some more. Eventually we settled on a good, standard formula, with plenty of ginger and cinnamon and molasses and butter. While I set to work on dinner, Brandon made the dough. We drank wine. We ate dolmas. We listened to Django Reinhardt. The cookies were in the oven and already smelling quite nice when Brandon announced, looking sheepishly at the pantry closet, that he’d forgotten the molasses.

Now, mind you, they were very fine cookies anyway. Given that a good chunk of their flavor had been left in the closet, they were very fine indeed. I ate four of them that night and another three on the plane ride home. They were snappy and sweet, with a good, firm kick. But my tiny, hard, cookie-judging heart wasn’t happy. They were gingersnaps, to be honest, and the cookie of my dreams was a nimble, chewy thing, with a soft crumb that swayed to the tooth. Granted, had we not forgotten the molasses, these cookies might have been it – the be-all, end-all – but I couldn’t be sure. I decided to do some research. In the seven days since our trip home, I’ve read a half-dozen recipes and made eighty-odd cookies. That’s more than four score, for the history scholars. That’s a lot of cookies. The women at Brandon’s work are going to hate me pretty soon for sending in so many sweets. Somewhere, Marlene is proud, I’m sure.

First, for a chewier cookie, I fiddled with the fat. Ordinarily, I’m not a big fan of shortening – it’s kind of weird, like an especially crumbly cake of Dove™ soap – but in some cases, it does wonders for texture. (Because it doesn’t melt as quickly as butter does, cookies made with shortening spread less in the oven than all-butter ones, and they have a puffier, chewy consistency.) For good measure, I also tweaked the spices and threw in a good slug of chocolate chips. Then, because a bag of demerara sugar is a very bad thing to waste, I gave each cookie a sparkly, crystalline coat.

It all sounds like fun, I’m sure, like a field trip to the local bakery with your chemistry class. But by Saturday or so, and the third go-round, I have to tell you, things were looking pretty grim. Given enough time, delayed gratification starts to rot. It stinks. Nobody tells you that, but it does. It’s a tough, nasty business. By the time the cookies were done, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to try them. I made Brandon go first, like a royal taster at court. But I’m happy to report, after all that futzing and fiddling, that the fuss made good. Never mind the wait and the wonky molasses. I got my cookies. They’re smart with spice and ginger, crisp here, chewy there, and chock-a-block with chocolate. Marlene would be pleased. They’re just right, she’d like to know, for stuffing in my cheeks.



Chocolate Chip Ginger-Molasses Cookies

When choosing shortening, be picky, and steer clear of brands that contain trans fats. I keep a tub of Spectrum brand shortening in the pantry closet, and it works like a charm.

Also, you’ll note that this recipe calls for molasses. In this particular cookie, I like a mild one, such as Brer Rabbit Mild Flavor Molasses, but you could also use a standard dark variety. I wouldn’t, however, reach for blackstrap molasses. It’ll make the cookies taste too dark and Christmasy. Plus, it covers up the flavor of the chocolate chips. That’s just wrong.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 ½ tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground allspice
2 tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
1 ¼ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup vegetable shortening, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
¼ cup unsulphured molasses
½ cup demerara sugar, for rolling

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, and salt. Whisk well. Add the chocolate chips and crystallized ginger, and whisk to blend. Set aside.

In a large bowl – preferably, a stand mixer – beat the butter and shortening briefly to soften them. Add the sugars, and beat until fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the egg and the molasses, and beat to blend well, scraping down the sides as needed. Add the flour mixture in two doses, beating briefly after each until the flour is just absorbed. Do not overmix. Use a rubber spatula to give the dough a final stir if necessary; it will be quite firm and stiff. Cover the bowl, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners. Pour the demerara sugar into a small bowl.

Using damp hands, pinch off blobs of dough and roll them into 1 ¼- to 1 ½-inch balls. Roll each ball in sugar to coat. Place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Roll only as many balls as you can fit on the sheet pans, and cover and refrigerate the remaining dough. I found that 8 balls per sheet was about right.

Bake the cookies until they are cracked on top but still soft to the touch, about 12 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. Cool on the sheets for 1 minute; then carefully transfer the cookies – still on the parchment or silicone liner – to wire racks to cool completely. When they are cool, remove them from the parchment or silicone liner.

When the baking sheets (and silicone liners, if using) are cool, repeat with more dough.

Yield: about 40 cookies

Carrot, kale, carry-on

I may be the first person in history to say such a thing, but I sort of miss airplane food. I don’t mean those roast beef sandwiches in foil packets, the spongy ones that look like they’ve been sat upon, or the pizza pockets warmed in plastic baggies. I mean real food. I’m talking about the stuff of twenty years ago, back when airfare bought not only a seat but also a tray of somewhat edible food. Back then, eating on the plane was kind of fun. You could file all sorts of requests for elaborate special meals, and some of them were actually pretty good. My parents were fond of the “Cold Seafood” option, which usually came with shrimp cocktail, a salad, and a piece of decently poached fish. It wasn’t anything to smack your lips about, but it was perfectly serviceable. Heck, you wouldn’t go hungry, at least, which is more than I can say about air travel now. R.I.P., Cold Seafood. Today, it’s all pretzels and Sesame Snaks and greasy cheese crackers.

I think about this sort of thing more than you might expect, because in order to see my family, I have to board a plane. My mother is in Oklahoma, and my siblings live in D.C., Boston, and New York. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins in California, Maine, and Canada. This is troublesome, as you might guess. Not only does it add up quite unpleasantly, but long flights can make a person pretty hungry. On the average day, I feel nibbly about every four hours. My internal clock is wound tight, and travel does nothing to change it. Come mealtime, it jitters and chirps like those old-fashioned nightstand alarms, the round ones you see in cartoons. Some women hear the tick of a biological clock, but I hear my inner dinner bell. It’s very noisy and persistent and annoying, especially at 30,000 feet, and it can only be quieted with a carry-on bag of food.

I can’t even remember the last time I flew without a food bag. I’m getting pretty good at packing them. Breakfast is easy: a scone or muffin, or leftover pancakes in a baggie. For lunch or dinner, a sandwich works, or a big hunk of bread and some cheese. Ratatouille is good, and so is lentil salad. For a while, I was into boiled eggs, but they can smell pretty bad, so I put a stop to that. Then, a few days ago, I stumbled upon a new favorite airplane food. It tastes good; it smells good; and unlike the jar of peanut butter with my name on it that now sits at the bottom of a landfill somewhere – wah! – it won’t be confiscated at the security checkpoint.

Last Friday morning, Brandon and I boarded a plane to Oklahoma for a long weekend with my mom, and with us came two Tupperwares: one containing a carrot salad, and the other a frittata streaked with ribbons of kale.



I’ve written about a frittata here once before. (Back in what seems now like another lifetime.) It’s a testament to the goodness of the genre, I think, that it’s making a repeat appearance today. To me, a frittata is the ultimate “kitchen sink” meal: it will accept nearly any bit or bob or half-forgotten thing from the crisper drawer and, a few eggshells later, render it eminently edible. That makes it a perfect way to clean out the fridge before a trip, or to use that leftover something you weren’t so excited about to start with.

In our case, we had a handful of kale in the crisper and a lonely red onion in the basket, and let me tell you, what a frittata they make. Happy bedfellows, those two: with a little oil and heat, the onion goes sweetly brown, and the kale curls around it like a savory green knot. Beaten with a fork into a bowl of eggs and sharp cheddar and cooked gently in a heavy skillet, the mess comes together into a rich, satisfying omelet of sorts – only flat, minus that fussy folding part. Not only is it a wildly easy meal for two, but it tastes delicious at room temperature – a rare feat, you know, for an egg-based dish. To go along with, we chucked together a carrot salad that I first ate in France, a simple, slivered job with lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic. It would have been a shame to let a bag of good carrots go unused, and anyway, something crunchy always helps to clear the pressure in the ears, mid-flight.



All told, the duo was tasty enough that we made it again yesterday for our return trip, giving the julienne blade of my mother’s food processor a much-needed workout in the process. It’s nobody’s Cold Seafood, but that’s okay by me.



Kale and Cheddar Frittata

Frittatas are a cinch to make, except for the business of the skillet. First, you need one that’s oven- and broiler-safe. That means no wooden or plastic handles, unless the latter is formulated to be heat-resistant. [My cousin Katie has also been known to sneak her wooden-handled pan under the broiler, but she watches it carefully and keeps the oven door open.] Secondly, you need a skillet that won’t cause the frittata to stick like crazy. In theory, a nonstick skillet would be best, but I’m wary of putting Teflon under the broiler. It just sounds like a bad idea. My preference is for anodized aluminum, such as the Calphalon One line, which works wonderfully. You could also use a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. That’s what I used in Oklahoma, and though the frittata did stick a touch, it was easy to rectify with a slip or two of the spatula.

Keep in mind, also, that the recipe below can be used as a template for any number of frittatas. It makes a fairly thin one – about a half inch deep – so if you like yours thicker, try adding a couple more eggs. As for flavorings, you can throw in nearly any cooked meat or vegetable. We made a great one recently with gruyere and two medium leeks that I sliced and cooked slowly in a tablespoon of butter with a pinch of sugar and salt.

3 ½ Tbsp. olive oil, divided
1 small red onion
4-5 oz. lacinato (also known as dinosaur) kale
5 large eggs
½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, such as Black Diamond
¼ tsp. salt, plus more to taste

Preheat the broiler of your oven.

In a 10-inch heavy skillet – (see note above) – warm 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until soft and translucent but not browned. Add the kale, 1 tablespoon of the oil, and a pinch of salt, and stir until just wilted. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan, and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The kale should be very tender, and the onions should have taken on a rosy brown color. Set aside.

Break the eggs into a medium bowl, and beat them well with a fork. Add the cheese and salt, and beat again to blend. Add the kale and onion mixture, and beat to mix well.

Wipe any burnt bits from the skillet, and add the remaining ½ tablespoon oil. Place the pan over low heat. When it is warm, pour in the egg mixture. If necessary, use the fork to gently push the kale around a bit, so it is evenly distributed. Cook over low heat until the bottom of the frittata is lightly browned – tease the edge up with a heatproof spatula and peek underneath – and the top looks mostly set.

Remove the pan from the heat and slide it under the broiler until the top is nicely browned, 30-60 seconds. Don’t walk away from it while it’s under the broiler; it cooks very quickly.

Cut into wedges, and serve warm or at room temperature, with additional salt, if needed.

Yield: 2 servings as a main dish, or more as a side

Note: Refrigerated in an airtight container, a frittata will keep nicely for up to 48 hours, although it is most tender within the first day.

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French-Style Carrot Salad

You can find this salad all over France: in bistros, in homes, even in the packaged-foods section of the corner grocery store. It’s a classic lunchtime starter, as cheap and simple as they come. It’s all about the carrots, so be sure to choose good, sweet ones. Try them before you use them, and if they don’t taste good, well, this may not be the day for your carrot salad. You’d be smart to wait for better ones.

1 lb. carrots
3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
¼ tsp. salt, plus more to taste
1/8 tsp. pressed or crushed garlic

Rinse and dry the carrots, and trim away their ends. Cut them into short segments, and using a mandoline or food processor fitted with the julienne blade, cut them into matchsticks. [If you don’t have a mandoline or food processor with the proper blades, you can also grate the carrots on the large-holed side of a box grater, but they won’t be quite as crisp or as pretty.]

Put the julienned carrots in a medium bowl, and toss them well with the lemon juice. Add the oil, salt, and garlic, and toss again to mix well. Taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary. Serve.

Yield: 2-4 servings

Note: This salad is a great traveler. It stays crunchy for a good 24 hours – meaning that you can make it the night before an early-morning flight – and it tastes just fine at room temperature.