done and realized the meat and eggplant had been cooked separately. We sat at an enormous table and drank a vast quantity of expensive wine. Later I peeked into the huge and luxurious kitchen that had produced this unusually awful meal.
I also remember a dinner party for six given in an overheated little box of an apartment with one window over an airshaft. This was the first New York apartment of a young Englishwoman who was a demon party giver and one of the finest cooks I have ever known. She was not about to let her nasty and tiny kitchen get in the way of her good time. She gave us curried parsnip soup, roast loin of pork, a delicious salad and chocolate bread pudding for dessert, leaving her guests weak with gratitude and longing to sit in big chairs to savor our coffee, but that little flat had only one chair except for the borrowed camp chairs at her makeshift table.
Soon after that she moved to a slightly larger apartment with two windows, where she often fed fifteen people five courses.
But this young woman is an extreme type—a wonderful cook who adores entertaining above all else. Others are lazier, not as accomplished and often not so friendly. For them it is wise to have a no-fail dinner party menu that can be counted on to make people happy and not leave the hostess in a state of hysteria.
For several years 1 caused my friends to be intimate with one of two meals: chili, potato salad, shortbread and ice cream for dessert, or baked mustard chicken, potato salad, creamed spinach with jalapeno peppers, shortbread and ice cream for dessert.
Any basic cookbook has a recipe for shortbread—butter, sugar and flour and almost no one makes it anymore. With ice cream it is sublime—a true no-hassle dessert.
The chicken is cut up and coated with mustard into which some garlic has been grated, along with a little thyme, black pepper and a pinch of cinnamon. It is rolled in fine bread crumbs, dusted with paprika, dotted with butter and cooked at 350° for about two hours. It can be served hot or at room temperature and will never let you down.
HOME COOKING
The potato salad contains potatoes, scallions, black pepper and mayonnaise thinned with lemon juice.
After you have cooked your party dinner six or seven times, you will be able to do it in your sleep, but your friends will be bored. You will then have to go in search of new friends who have never had creamed spinach with jalapefio peppers, or you will have to find something new to feed your old friends. In either case, you will be helping to keep the wheels of society spinning in an effortless and graceful way, and no one will ever know how antisocial you really are.
HOW TO AVOID GRILLING
Unlike most citizens of these United States of America, I do not grill. There is no hibachi in my garden or any- thing else like it. When I moved into my garden apartment I was given a fancy barbecue, and as far as I know it is still in the cellar collecting dust and mold spores.
Grilling is like sunbathing. Everyone knows it is bad for you but no one ever stops doing it. Since I do not like the taste of lighter fluid, I do not have to worry that a grilled steak is the equivalent of seven hundred cigarettes.
Of course this implies that 1 do not like to eat al fresco. No sane person does, 1 feel. When it is nice enough for people to eat outside, it is also nice enough for mosquitoes, horse and deer flies, as well as wasps and yellowjackets. I don't much like sand in my food and thus while 1 will endure a beach picnic I never look forward to them.
My idea of bliss is a screened-in porch from which you can watch the sun go down, or come up. You can sit in temperate shade and not fry your brains while you eat. You are protected
from flying critters, sandstorms and rain and you can still enjoy a nice cool breeze.
One year my husband and 1 rented a lake cottage—a rustic cabin set in a pine grove just a stroll from a weed-choked lake. With this cottage came a war canoe and a screened-in porch. The motto of the owners seemed to have been: "It's broken! Let's take it to the lake!"
The dining room table was on a definite slant and the plates were vintage 1950s Melmac. The stove was lit by one of those gizmos that ignite a spark next to one of the burners and was of great fascination to me. Near the corner cupboards lived an army of mice who left evidence of their existence all over the cups and saucers. Anything left around was carried away—quite a tidy little ecosystem. One evening we were visited by a dog who howled constantly as the sound of mouse rattling drove him into a frenzy.
Nevertheless, we ate on the screened-in porch all the time and with great success. Friends with beautiful houses came to our broken-down lake cottage to eat on that crummy porch and watch the sun set over the lake. All around us were grills: we could smell them, but we never so much as fingered a charcoal briquette.
Having said this, I admit to loving grilled food—that is, something that has been exposed to a flame. On a regular old stove this is called broiling. English stoves have a special rack (a salamander) with a separate flame under which you can grill a chop or brown the top of a gratin. There is no better way to cook fish, steak or chops.
I have avoided grilling by broiling, and I have never had to bother myself about getting in a supply of mesquite or apple wood, or old thyme twigs.
For a brief period of my life I thought to use the fireplace as a cooking surface. Years of ingesting gasoline at the barbecues of others led me to wonder if I could do it better. I decided to grill steaks on a rack in my fireplace and by a stroke of fortune was
given some apple and cherry to burn. The results were marred by nervousness, a syndrome that goes v^ith the territory of the wood fire: constant cutting to see how far along your steak has come. I did not taste the merest breath of apple or cherry although I have been told that you have not lived until you have tasted swordfish grilled over mesquite. This may be true, but as Abraham Lincoln is said to have said: "For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they will like."
But what to do on a clear summer evening? The sky is pink. The air is sweet. It is dinnertime and you are surrounded by hungry people who have just spent the day either swimming or gardening, or have just gotten out of a car or train or bus and found themselves in the country listening to the hermit thrushes.
Everywhere in America people are lighting their grills. They begin in spring, on the first balmy evening. I happen to live across the street from a theological seminary whose students come from all over. I know it is spring not by the first robin but by the first barbecue across the street on the seminary lawn. That first whiff of lighter fluid and smoke is my herald, and led one of my friends to ask: "What is it about Episcopalians, do you think? Is it in their genes to barbecue?"
It is not in the genes but it is in the American character to grill, a leftover from pioneer days, from Indian days, from the Old West. I have been able to buck this trend with Lebanon bologna sandwiches or mustard chicken.
Lebanon bologna is not from the Middle East but from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County. It is a spicy, slightly tart salami-like cold cut with the limpness of bologna. I have never had the courage to ask what it is made of but I am sure it cannot be good for anyone. The way to serve it is on whole-wheat bread spread with cream cheese into which you have mashed chives, thyme, tarragon—^whatever you or your friends have in the garden. Spread the cream cheese liberally but use only one (two if sliced very thin) slice of Lebanon bologna. Make an enormous
pile of these sandwiches cut in half and serve with potato salad, cole slaw or a big green salad. In the summer a large plate of sliced tomatoes is a salad in itself with nothing added.
If you feel you must make something more grill-like, spare ribs are always nice, especially if you have marinated them for a couple of days.
Some people like a tomato-based barbecue sauce, but I do not. Besides, these ribs are baked in the oven, not barbecued. I like them in what is probably a variation on teriyaki sauce.
For one side of ribs you need one cup of olive oil, one half cup tamari sauce, about four tablespoons of honey, the juice of one lemon,
fresh ground black pepper and lots and lots and lots of garlic peeled and cut in half. Let the ribs sit in this marinade as long as possible—overnight in the refrigerator is the least, two days is the best. Then put the ribs in a roasting pan (you can either cut them into riblets or leave them in one piece and cut before serving) and put them in a slow oven—about 300°—and leave them there, pouring off the fat from time to time, for three to four hours. What is left, as a friend of mine says, has no name. The ribs are both crisp and tender, salty, sweet, oily but not greasy and very garlicky. You gnaw on them and then throw the bones on the platter.
A finger bowl is actually appropriate here, if you want to be fancy, and so is the kind of heated washcloth you get in a Japanese restaurant. Plain old wet paper towels will do as well.
You can cook these ribs in the morning and eat them in the evening. They should not be cold (although a leftover rib for breakfast is considered heavenly by some people) but are fine lukewarm, and can be kept in a warm oven with no ill effects.
And as the sky becomes overcast and the clouds get darker, and the fumes of charcoal starter drift in your direction, you can sit down to your already cooked dinner in a safe place with the satisfaction of not having had to light a single match or get your
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hands all gritty with those nasty, smeary little charcoal briquettes. Furthermore, you will never in your life have to clean the grill, one of the most loathsome of kitchen chores.
Instead you are indoors while being out of doors. Your dinner is taken care of and you can concentrate on eating, which, after a long summer day, is all anybody really wants.
NURSERY FOOD
Along time ago it occurred to me that when people are tired and hungry, which in adult life is much of the time, they do not want to be confronted by an intellectually
challenging meal: they want to be consoled.
When life is hard and the day has been long, the ideal dinner is not four perfect courses, each in a lovely pool of sauce whose ambrosial flavors are like nothing ever before tasted, but rather something comforting and savory, easy on the digestion— something that makes one feel, if even for only a minute, that one is safe. A four-star meal is the right thing when the human animal is well rested and feeling rich, but it is not much help to the sore in spirit who would be much better off with a big bowl of homemade soup.
Once upon a time when I was in mourning for my father I was taken home by my best friend who sat me in a chair, gave me a copy of Vogue and told me not to move until called. I sat like a good girl while she busied herself in the kitchen. When I got to the table I realized that this angelic pal had made shepherd's
pie. My eyes swam with tears of gratitude. I did not know that shepherd's pie was just what I wanted, but it was just what I wanted.
Of course I do not mean that you should feed your friends pastina and beef tea (although I would be glad to be served either). But dishes such as shepherd's pie and chicken soup are a kind of edible therapy. After a good nursery dinner you want your guests to smile happily and say with childlike contentment: "1 haven't had that in years.''
I have managed to stretch the term nursery food like Silly Putty, and under its pliant heading comes a wide variety of dishes: fried chicken, lamb stew, macaroni and cheese, meatballs, baked beans, lentil soup, chili, baked stuffed potatoes, and lasagna. This is rounded out by an adult salad: there is no such thing as nursery salad. For dessert, lemon fluff, shortbread, custard, bread pudding, apple crisp, steamed chocolate pudding or ginger cake.
These are the sorts of things you never see on restaurant menus unless you are lucky enough to find one of those few surviving ladies' tearooms. Nowadays you won't even find dishes like these served to you at other people's houses, unless they have small children and you are not above stealing food off a baby's plate. This is the age of competitive cookery, and therefore when invited to a dinner party you are more than likely to get salmon medallions in sorrel sauce and caviar, or sauteed lobster with champagne, salads made with walnut oil, and cakes that look intimidatingly professional. Meals like this are swell, but they are not true home meals.
Nursery food borrows nicely from other cuisines. The spinach and lamb found on Indian menus as saag mhaan makes a perfect nursery dish, for instance. Minorcan potatoes—a layer of potatoes, a layer of tomatoes, plenty of garlic, bread crumbs and olive oil, baked—is nursery food for older people. But cassoulet is not. It has too many ingredients that are weird, such as confit d'oie, or that are hard to digest, such as saucisson.
Many people believe that the essence of nursery food is that it can be mashed up with a fork and that it does not require much in the way of chewing. Parts of a nursery dinner should be eaten without any utensils at all: corn sticks, cookies, steamed carrots and baby lamb chops, for example. You will never, never hear your guests say the words no host or hostess ever, ever wants to hear: "That was interesting. What was it?"
in this uncertain world of ours the thing about nursery food is that you can count on it. You know what it is. It will not give you any nasty surprises. C'No darling, that was raw tuna, not marinated Indonesian beef.") It leaves you neither guessing nor lost in admiration. It fills, cheers and makes you feel it ought to be eaten from one of those metal-bottomed hot-water baby dishes with three little china sections and a picture of the gingham dog and the calico cat in each.
And though I would never turn down a four-star meal (or even a two- or three- one) at some fancy place, on a cold night after a hard day I would reverse my steps if someone offered me a homemade vegetable fritter with catsup, Welsh rabbit or some real creamed spinach.
The ultimate nursery food is beef tea; I have not had it since I was a child, and although I could easily have brewed myself a batch, I never have yet. I am afraid that my childhood will overwhelm me with the first sip or that I will be compelled to sit down at once and write a novel in many volumes. I am not afraid it will not be as delicious as I remember it. It will. Now that I have a child of my own I know the day is coming when I will make beef tea for her, and I am certainly not above insisting that she share it with her mother. It is made as follows, according to my mother: You take one pound of absolutely fatless silver tip of beef and on a doubled sheet of butcher paper or a wood board cut it into tiny dice. Place it and any juices the meat has yielded in the top of a double boiler and gently cook, covered, over simmering
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water for several hours. Do not use salt or pepper. Simply leave the meat alone to give off its juices. After several hours you will be left with pure essence of beef, perfectly digestible and nourishing. Strain into a warm bowl, then press out any additional juice from the meat. The meat itself is useless, a mere net of fibers, and should be given to the dog.
Beef tea can be eaten by the very delicate from a spoon. In my family, not known for the delicacy with which food is approached, we drank it by the glass. It is recommended for frazzled adults and children recovering from minor ailments.
More substantial and less digestible a form of nursery food is baked eggs, a staple of my childhood. The proper vessel to cook them in is a small covered Pyrex dish. An earthenware dish will do, except that you can't see through it to see if the eggs are done.
The Pyrex dish is put in the oven to hotten up. When hot, a
lump of butter the size of a walnut (as the old cookbooks say) is dropped in to melt. When the butter is just slightly sizzling, break in the eggs, never more than four. Sprinkle with black pepper and Parmesan but no salt, as the Parmesan is salty enough. Cover and bake in a 325° oven until done. Done can mean just cooked, or pink around the edges of the yolks, or baked to the consistency of a rubber eraser—some children like eggs this way. Baked eggs, though, have to be watched.
The perfect accompaniment is a tomato salad or a side dish of pickled beets. This makes a lovely dinner for a cool summer night: easy to make and quick to cook, a good thing to kee
p in mind when people are starving and no one feels much like fussing.
In a perfect world, baked eggs are served on a plate that has the letters of the alphabet around the rim and a picture of a clown jumping over the letter X. As a side dish, buttered white toast cut up to postage-stamp size is just right, with a large glass of milk—perhaps in a jelly glass—or a cup of cocoa.
BITTER GREENS
About ten years ago I noticed a vegetable in the Korean greengrocer's that I had never seen before. It was leafy, stalky and had little broccoli-like florets on the end,
some of which sprouted tiny yellow flowers. I was told that this was bitter broccoli.
I saw it again in an Italian market. This time it was called broccoli di rape. In its next incarnation it was broccoli rabe, and then I found it in a seed catalogue classified as rapini.
Finally, I decided to try it. I steamed it, served it with butter and everyone hated it. Something told me, however, that this was my fault and not the fault of broccoli di rape.
I took a flyer on it in an Italian restaurant where it had been cooked until very tender in chicken stock with garlic and was served with grated cheese. Since then, I have never looked back.
I bought another bunch, trimmed and steamed it until it was tender, sauteed it in olive oil and garlic. The next bunch I ate cold with vinaigrette. Eventually when I found myself eating it right out of the steamer I realized I was addicted to it.
no HOMECOOKING
"Don't serve it to men," said an English friend of mine who is a demon cook. "Men don't like bitter greens."
It seems she had had a sad experience with some fellow and an endive or chicory salad. And it was certainly true that my husband was not mad keen for broccoli di rape.
This green, which is not in the broccoli family at all but is a form of Italian mustard, appears in the markets in September and begins to fade away in April. It is not so much bitter as pungent, although it is slightly bitter. This makes it a perfect foil for spicy or buttery food. Naturally, it is very good for people if you can find a way to get them to eat it.
Home cooking Page 9
