A Homemade Life

by Molly Wizenberg

  A good handful of cilantro leaves, from about 20 sprigs

  1 medium avocado

  ½ cup crumbled French feta, or more to taste

  First, make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl, combine the mustard, vinegar, and salt. Whisk to blend well. Add the olive oil and whisk vigorously to emulsify. Taste, and adjust as needed. Depending on your vinegar, you may need more oil. I often add 2 additional teaspoons, but it varies. This is a more acidic dressing than some, but it shouldn’t hit you over the head with vinegar.

  Keeping your serving bowl close at hand, prepare the vegetables. Once sliced, some of them will brown more quickly than others, so I work in a certain order. First, trim the radishes and slice them very thinly into translucent wafers. Toss them into the bowl. Next, quarter the radicchio from stem end to tip, and peel away any raggedy outer leaves. Working with one quarter at a time, slice it crosswise into ribbons roughly ¼ inch thick. Toss the radicchio into the bowl. Next, slice the endive crosswise into ¼-inch-thick strips, discarding the root end. Add it to the bowl. Add the cilantro leaves and toss with vinaigrette to taste.

  Quarter the avocado from stem to base and discard the pit. Cut each quarter crosswise into ¼-inch-thick strips. Distribute them evenly over the salad, and top with the feta.

  Serve immediately.

  NOTE: This salad takes very well to substitutions and additions. If you can’t find French feta, which is creamier and less salty than the Greek kind, try some crumbled fresh goat cheese instead. If you have a fennel bulb, cut it into slivers and toss it into the bowl. Leftover roasted chicken, torn into bite-sized pieces, is delicious here, too, as is smoked trout.

  Yield: 4 good-sized servings

  SUGARHOUSE

  You know the old saying. “Women marry their fathers,” it goes, with a cheery undertone of doom, the idea being that women choose men who are, in certain ways, subtle or not so much, like the men who raised them. I always thought I was different. I thought I was original. I chose a composer, a vegetarian with long hair. My father was a doctor and a lifetime meat-eater. I doubt he ever, not even accidentally, let his hairline consort with his shirt collar. But then there was the issue of the maple syrup. When I agreed to marry Brandon, I had no idea about that.

  I don’t know how I could have missed it, but I did: the way he poured it onto his plate, in puddles big enough to drown in, like India during monsoon season. Or the way he inspected the label so carefully, and the liquid inside, as though it might contain impurities or an impostor. Or the fact that he brought his own maple syrup when he moved from New York, a little metal can with a sticky screw-top lid and a horse and buggy on the side. The syrup had been made, he told me proudly one morning, by a friend of his grandfather’s who owns a “sugarhouse,” as they’re called, in Putney, Vermont.

  My god, I thought, I’m marrying a maple syrup snob.

  And then, a few seconds later, OH SHIT. I’m doing it. I’m marrying my father.

  Don’t even get me started on the way he ties his shoelaces (in bunny ears, just like Burg), or the way he laughs at his own jokes (with an approval-seeking ear-to-ear grin, just like Burg), or the way he revels in other people’s junk, thrift shops and antique shops and estate sales. Really, don’t ask. I don’t know.

  But you should see him with his maple syrup. He’s kind of adorable. I’m allowed to say that, right? Apparently, he made maple syrup as a project in elementary school, and if that’s not adorable, I don’t know what is. (They also made butter and bread.) In high school, his favorite after-school snack was a toasted sesame bagel dipped in a bowl of maple syrup. And his favorite dessert was a plain sliced banana, abundantly sauced with it.

  “We kept multiple grades in the house at all times,” he told me dreamily one night, just before drifting off to sleep. “Grade A Light Amber, Grade A Medium Amber, Grade A Dark Amber, Grade B…” It was like he was counting sheep. I do love this man.

  His mother’s signature dessert is a whole wheat angel food cake sweetened with maple syrup instead of sugar, and frosted with maple whipped cream. It’s been the family birthday cake for years. It even won a prize at a bake sale once. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

  But Brandon’s very favorite vehicle for maple syrup is almost no work at all. It’s a tender, open-crumbed corn bread with a ribbon of cream through its center, and it’s a cinch to make. It begins with a fairly basic cornmeal batter, but it gets turned upside down, literally, by the addition of a cup of cream just before it goes into the oven. The thick liquid seeps down into the batter, forming a layer of smooth, milky custard sandwiched by corn bread. It’s magic. And it soaks up syrup better than any pancake, bagel, or banana.

  Served warm on a Sunday morning, or reheated, even, on Monday, it’s the sort of breakfast that good marriages are built on, I hope.

  CUSTARD-FILLED CORN BREAD

  this corn bread, inspired by a recipe from Marion Cunningham’s classic The Breakfast Book, is also sometimes called Spider Cake. I’ve seen many formulas for it, but this one is my favorite. We like it for breakfast, of course, but it might also be nice with a bowl of soup. Just be sure, whatever you do, to have some maple syrup on hand.

  Also, don’t be worried by how runny this batter is. That’s just how it is.

  3 tablespoons (1½ ounces) unsalted butter

  1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

  ¾ cup yellow cornmeal, preferably medium ground

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  2 large eggs

  3 tablespoons sugar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  2 cups whole milk (not low fat or nonfat)

  1½ tablespoons distilled vinegar

  1 cup heavy cream

  Pure maple syrup, for serving

  Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter an 8-inch square or 9-inch round pan. Put the buttered dish in the oven to warm while you make the batter.

  In a large microwavable bowl, melt the butter in the microwave. Take care to do this on medium power and in short bursts; if the heat is too high, butter will sometimes splatter or explode. Or, alternatively, put the butter in a heatproof bowl and melt it in the preheated oven. Cool slightly.

  Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and baking soda.

  When the butter has cooled a bit, add the eggs and whisk to blend well. Then add the sugar, salt, milk, and vinegar and whisk well again. Whisking constantly, add the flour mixture. Mix until the batter is smooth and no lumps are visible.

  Remove the heated pan from the oven, and pour in the batter. Then pour the cream into the center of the batter. Do not stir. Carefully slide the pan back into the oven, taking care not to knock it, and bake until golden brown on top, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Serve warm, with maple syrup.

  NOTE: Covered with plastic wrap, this corn bread will keep at room temperature for 1 day. Covered and refrigerated, it will keep for up to 3 days. Leftovers are delicious both at room temperature or warmed in a low oven. Brandon likes to put a slice into the toaster oven and let it get a little crispy on the edges.

  Yield: 6 to 8 servings

  THE CHANGE THING

  I love the concept of routines. For some people, like skydivers and storm chasers, it may sound like torture, but to me, it’s reassuring. I love having a routine, even if it’s just the order in which I wash my face and brush my teeth at night. It makes me feel human. It’s a reminder that I am still alive and still me, because depending on the day, it can be hard to keep track. Anyway, there are enough things to think about in this world. The beauty of having routines and habits lies in letting my hands and feet think for me, and in giving my brain a break. My predilection for routine may make me a little boring, but it does keep my teeth nice and clean.

  I’ve never been very good at change. Just ask my mother. During college, I called her at the beginning of every quarter, crying, whimpering incoherently about my new schedule, my new classes, and the end of life as I knew
it. Each time, she ’d remind me, with the sort of patience that only saints and mothers have, that this happened last quarter, and the quarter before it, and that it was just “the change thing, Moll. You’ll find a new routine.” I’d nod and blow my nose and feel much better for approximately three months, until the next quarter came around.

  I’m also the girl who took the same lunch to school every single day for the first fourteen years of her life. Every single day. The contents of the brown bag were as follows: carrot sticks, two cookies, and Peter Pan creamy peanut butter on whole wheat bread. There was no jam, no jelly, no crunchy peanut butter, no natural peanut butter, no white bread, no seeded bread, and no change. Sometimes I think my taste buds may be the eighth wonder of the world. How they survived such monotony is one of the great mysteries of our time. Someday, after I’m gone, people will gather to study my tongue. They’ll peer hopefully into my mouth, the way I look under the bed when I’ve lost something, and they’ll cluck approvingly, noting that my teeth were indeed very clean.

  I am happy to report, though, that in recent years, I’ve been working on getting friendlier with change, and with its cousin, flexibility. Growing up has helped a lot. Plus, all that crying got kind of exhausting. It’s a lot more fun this way. No one ever got laid because they wrote it into their day planner.

  Which, I guess, brings me to a larger, more serious point: that it’s hard to love someone, I’ve found, when you’re preoccupied with holding your entire world firmly in place. Loving someone requires a certain amount of malleability, a willingness to be pulled along, at least occasionally, by another person’s will. When Lucas and I lived together, I was so uptight that when I came home from grocery shopping, I would sit down with the calculator and make an itemized list of what he owed me, every last cent. It seemed very important at the time, although I have since thought about sending him a thank-you note for not killing me.

  When I met Brandon, I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I didn’t want to mistake accounting for intimacy. I wanted things to be easier. Which meant, I knew, that I had to be easier—about everything. It has taken some practice, admittedly, but I am making progress. Just the other day, for example, I didn’t even flinch when he used the last of my peanut butter for one of his soba noodle salads. That’s how I know we’re going to be all right. Because being the person I want to be feels easier when he is around.

  But I do still love my routines. I’m not an entirely new person. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I often put my taste buds to the test of boredom. I can’t help it. When I like something, I want to eat it all the time. Nearly every morning, I sit down to the same breakfast—some whole grain cereal, a few spoonfuls of granola, and either plain yogurt or milk—in the same red glass bowl, and nearly every morning, it makes me irrationally happy. That carries me through to lunch, when I sit down, usually, to a bowl of soup, a hunk of bread, and a few slices of cheese. The formula changes with the seasons, but as a general principle, it holds true for most weekdays, if not the occasional Saturday, too. Sometimes Brandon even joins me.

  Soup is a perfect lunch food. It’s filling, but unlike a salami sandwich with provolone and sautéed peppers (which would be my second choice), it never makes you want to unbutton your pants or sleep for the rest of the day. My favorite take on the theme is a tomato soup with slices of sweet fennel, fennel seeds, and a few sprigs from our thyme plant on the side stoop. When I was fifteen, I wrote a poem about wanting to immerse myself in a vat of marshmallow fluff, but today I’d much rather take a warm soak in gently simmering tomato soup, preferably with an eye pillow. I’d be happy, in fact, to do it every day. I doubt it would ever get old.

  TOMATO SOUP WITH TWO FENNELS

  this rustic, chunky soup is quick to make, and a single batch yields a good amount, so you’ll have lunch to last all week. And, like most soups, it only gets better with time, as the flavors meld.

  When it comes to serving it, you have a number of options. You can serve it plain. You can drizzle it with olive oil. You can crumble a little fresh goat cheese into the bowl, or you can top it with some grated Parmesan. Or, for an adult version of old grilled cheese-and-tomato soup combination, try smearing a piece of toasted baguette with goat cheese, and dunk it in the bowl as you go.

  3 tablespoons olive oil

  1 large yellow onion, quartered and thinly sliced

  2 medium fennel bulbs (about 1 ¼ pounds), trimmed, quartered from root to stalk, and thinly sliced

  4 medium cloves garlic, finely chopped

  1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

  2 teaspoons fennel seeds

  Two 28-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes

  Water

  ¾ teaspoon salt, or to taste

  Sugar, to taste

  Red wine vinegar, to taste

  In a large (5-quart) pot or Dutch oven, warm the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and fennel, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion just starts to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring frequently—garlic has a tendency to burn—until the onion is translucent and very soft, 5 to 8 minutes more. Add the thyme and fennel seeds and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

  Using your hand to hold back the tomatoes, pour the liquid from the tomato cans into the pot. Stir well. Crush the tomatoes in their cans, using your hands or a potato masher to tear and mash them into small chunks. Add the tomatoes to the pot. Then fill 1 empty tomato can with cold water and pour it in, too. Bring to a boil. Then adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer, and cook, uncovered, for about 45 minutes.

  The soup is ready when the fennel is very tender and a spoonful of the tomatoey broth tastes like a good, full-bodied soup. (If it hasn’t cooked long enough, it will taste watery and raw, like tomatoes straight from the can.) Add the salt. Taste and adjust as needed. If the tomatoes need a little sweetness, add a pinch or two of sugar. If the soup tastes a little bland, add a small splash of vinegar. I often add a bit of both.

  Serve hot.

  Yield: 6 to 8 servings

  BONNE FEMME

  I love traveling with my mother. I don’t mean any offense to Brandon, of course. It’s just that my mother and I have had decades to sync up our priorities. They are as follows: eat, walk, eat, walk, window shop, window shop, and then walk to dinner. As you might guess, we do especially well in France.

  My mother speaks barely a word of French, but she laces up one of her tiny, adorable pairs of Pumas and hits the streets with the air of someone who knows. She is not afraid. She can tackle the Parisian Métro. She can decipher the majority of a restaurant menu. She can go into Monoprix with a grocery list and come out at least somewhat victorious. She plays the part so well that Parisians have even been known to stop her on the street for directions. That’s got to be satisfying, although I wouldn’t know, because they never stop me. They always think I’m English or Irish, because of my red hair.

  My mother believes that language barriers were made for overcoming. She has a good grasp on the essentials, like the requisite “Bonjour, Madame” when entering a store and “Merci, au revoir” upon leaving. If need be, she ’ll even mime. For a while, she was determined to learn how to order her own coffee in a café, which is tricky, since what she wants is not a simple café, but a double espresso with a pitcher of warm milk on the side. Nevertheless, she really tried. She braved my drills with only a minimal amount of giggling. But when push came to shove, she could never remember which word came first. She may be a go-getter, but “un double café avec un petit pot de lait chaud” was a bit much to ask. So I order for both of us, and that’s okay. Once the coffee is securely in her hands, she sits on a café terrace like a true, seasoned Parisienne.

  You can imagine, then, how quickly I said yes when she offered, as a pre-wedding gift, to take me to France for ten days. It seemed intuitive to go back to the country that had, so many times, been my incubator and my catalyst. Every girl needs a little incubating from time to time, especially wh
en she’s about to become someone’s wife. She needs ten days with her mother, a solid supply of baguette sandwiches, some well-aged cheese, a lot of chocolate, and some old-fashioned, fat-rippled, devil-may-care eating, which, for future reference, is immensely fortifying.

  Not long ago, I exchanged letters with a friend who was preparing for his first visit to Paris. Without intending to, he said something that sums up pretty much everything I could possibly want to tell you about my own travels, and especially that trip with my mother.

  “The only reason I travel,” he wrote, “is for an excuse to eat more than usual.”

  I love that. I mean, it’s not like I need an excuse, but France is certainly a convincing one. It’s basically a cheese cellar the size of Texas. That’s a part of why I love it so much. I couldn’t tell you what the inside of Notre Dame looks like, but I do know how to get from the greengrocer on rue Oberkampf, the one with the green awning, to that terrific fromagerie way down in the 7th, near Le Bon Marché. I also know a word that you might want to remember, if your priorities are anything like mine. The word is bouchon.

  When my mother and I first started planning our trip, Paris wasn’t even in the picture. To tell you the truth, it was sort of an afterthought. My first priority was Lyon. I’m not sure how I got this particular bee in my bonnet (and it’s shocking, really, given my feelings for Paris), but somewhere, sometime, someone told me that the best food in France could be found in Lyon, churned out of kitchens that haven’t changed for decades and served up by sturdy proprietresses who shuffle around in their slippers. Someone told me about bouchons.

  The bouchon, simply put, is a Lyonnais twist on the classic French bistro. It’s similar, but louder, more communal, and with ruddier cheeks. I’ve read a few different explanations of the bouchon’s origins and history, but most agree that the concept is a very old one, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when silk workers passing through town would be fed and watered in rustic local inns. The term derives from the word bousche, an old-fashioned name for a bundle of straw, which would be hung outside an inn to indicate that food and wine were served inside. By extension, the establishments themselves came to be called bouchons. The word bouchon also means “cork,” as in the thing you yank from a bottle of wine, but apparently that comes from a different linguistic root.