Tasty

So I got a recent complaint that I hadn't "adopted" the blog for a while, which reminded me, oh yeah, the blog. So after trimming the fat from my postings and doing some life maintenance, I'm hoping to return to writing about food and my cat. 

Currently Tito is asleep (thankfully), not on top of my laptop which is missing the 8 key, the dashboard key, and is about to lose the 1 key. Who knew kittehs enjoyed using keyboards as scratch pads and napping spaces. It's cute when he attacks the screen up until he won't go away and then gets mad and starts biting. This goes on for an hour or so. Then he falls asleep and resume cuteness.

As for food, well I was stressed out momentarily so I jumped up and in five minutes put together what a couple of hours later has become some rather tasty mush which I guess is some sort of curried split pea soup. The split peas became mushy a lot quicker than I anticipated but that is the way of split peas and I realized, despite being hidden under layers and layers of spices and other vegetables, they have a particular, almost nutty flavor to them. I'd never cooked with split peas before, I only recently had split pea soup for the first time (it's ok), but I figured it would take too long for dried red beans to cook and I should've soaked them overnight anyway. So I made tasty mush which may potentially pass as soup. That's how I cook: 

Heat some olive oil in a pot or pan, add onions and any combination of the following: green or red peppers, garlic, tomato sauce/paste, diced tomatoes, water or vegetable broth, legumes, spinach, mushrooms, eggplant (occassionally), frozen broccoli, salt and pepper, spices. My use of spices brings on that terrible description of my cooking "tasty" (the culinary equivalent of "interesting") but I'm completely addicted to them. 

I often wonder why I think I'm a good cook. R says it's because I make food that tastes good. This is fine to start but it's nothing really. I don't think I've made anything particularly memorable or am a better cook than most of my friends with any culinary inclination, the opposite actually. Mostly I just like talking and writing about what I've cooked but I'm not sure why or why now. I think I'm a good improvisor and I know the flavors I like, but I'm clueless about technique (I've no idea how to make a simple, delicious tomato sauce, I only know to make a complex over-spiced one with no rhyme or reason to it, usually "tasty"), flavor combinations (ok, I have a vague notion of this when it comes to certain classic combinations, but I'm not experience enough yet to be able to take ingredients other than the ones mentioned above and make them anything beyond "tasty"), and I've yet to master textures, colors, or presentation. Sorry, I've lapsed into making lists again, which makes my writing boring according to one of my (three) readers. 

This self-consciousness stems from Joni. He was the 22 year old half-genius Israeli that R lived with until we moved to Sunset Park. He had no formal training but made restaurant quality meals at least once a week. Even when he was just making something simple, like mac and cheese, he usually made it astounding. During the time we were there he was going through a French phase. A lot of meat, butter, sauce, fresh herbs, stews. His meals never took less than an hour to prepare. When he made steak it melted in your mouth, when he added spices (and he had a ridiculous amount all across his shelves) they harmonized with the flavors of the ingredients rather than overpowering them. He never drank and never had dessert. For him, he loved the food too much to have room for anything else. 

He claimed to have learned everything from Cooks Illustrated and just cooking. Obviously, beyond that he also just had a talent for it. When the recession started and his business began floundering and he suddenly found himself in an economic slippery slope, many people recommended he start working as a cook or open a restaurant. He responded with the utmost reluctance. Much in following with Ajay's theory that if you start taking something you love seriously you lose your love of it, Joni had no desire to turn something he enjoyed doing into work. 

Why anyone would voluntarily engage in any activity has either necessity or pleasure at it's core. When I accompanied R to a video game lecture at NYU recently, I asked two video game scholars, who had written books, designed games, taught classes, one was even designing a school that used game theory as it's educational model, how did someone who hates video games get into video games? My motives for asking that was borne from need (to be able to relate to R now that he had chosen video games as a career and was playing them more and more often) and I was trying to figure out how to find the pleasure in it. One of the better answers I got out of them was, what is your purposed for playing a game? What are you looking to get out of it? Not everything will appeal to you, and she went on to list several types of games she didn't enjoy playing, as well as other games she did enjoy. Then she spoke about her favorite game, Rez, she explained how the designer was seeking to recreate the experience of people at a club at 3 am all dancing as one. Being together and moving together. And knowing this colors how she feels about the game. Beyond the game is the experience of it and your attachment to it. R thought it was a boring lecture.

Thinking about cooking in that context I realize I still haven't defined what I'm looking to get out of it aside from food. And I think because of that, I haven't been able to take it to the next level. I haven't committed to it in either a way of pleasure, the way Joni did by learning about it, taking his time with it, enjoying the process, or out of need, as in my friend Mario, who is going to culinary school and wants to open several restaurants. Do I want to engage in this just as something I enjoy and for the sake of enjoyment, a hobby or leisure of sorts, or do I want to engage in it as something that will fulfill some sort of need in me? The answer, if I really do want to take cooking to another level and test the levels of my love, is the second one. Because, despite his desire to enjoy his food and his ability at creating incredible meals, Joni was in a way fulfilling a personal need. After giving up alcohol and drugs, the taste for extremes still exists in him and so he brings that out in extensive traveling, a love of food and cooking, and motorcycle racing. For Mario, he gets pleasure from cooking because for him it's a form of artistic expression and will eventually fulfill a need both economic and personal.

Much like video games, which are something I dislike but somehow need for the sake of my relationship, what is it that I'm looking for out of cooking? What am I looking for out writing about cooking? Basically, what do I need to make the food better? And what do I need to make the writing better? Open to any thoughts on the matter.

Let me think about it and I'll write more on the subject later.

Brisket Moist

Despite what my friend Eissa said, I decided to republish my "journal-like" postings because they are actually helpful to me. I will try to be more anecdotal and less meditative. My plan for dinner tonight: Honey Biscuits, Salmon Patties, and Peas and Carrots with butter, half a bottle of wine from the Texan place I went to with R last night.

This Texan place was weird. Of all the dining that there is to be had in NYC, this particular restaurant is not one I would be particularly prone to visiting... ever. But I did. Yesterday I was fatigued, overfed, in a bleh mood, so of course as soon as R comes out of class: "Can we go get comfort food?"

In an ideal world, I should've convinced him to go to Egg, in Williamsburg. The duck with dirty rice and a side of biscuit was calling to me. Or at the very least Peter's where the mac and cheese would share a plate with spinach and ocra- vegetables!!! But instead I decided to trust in R's, "I know a perfect place near where I work." I thought he meant Comfortable Food, which looks really chic (it was where Andy and her bf make up at the end of Devil Wears Prada) and I was down for that. Really my priority was wine. But in any case... after we trek it up to 26th st. complaining about what a waste we both are... We walk into what looks like an old Texan salon, with a large flag of Texas painted on the back wall. It's cafeteria-style, like Katz's Deli, so we get out little cards where the servers note down what we've ordered and which we hand in to the register at the end when we're going to pay. We pick up a Shiraz from Texas (didn't even know Texas produced wine, it was sweet, but not bad) and R gets a ginger ale, served to him in a glass jar. Behind the bar, in little niches in the wall are jars and jars full of bottle caps, mostly from beer bottles but also from sodas. I watched one of the waitresses uncap some beers and toss the caps into an almost full bottle and decided, OK, this place can grow on me for the time being. We went on to the next stations.

While R got our Brisket Moist (we really should've gone for the Brisket Lean but more on that later), I went for some sides. I quickly decided against the farmer's salad in favor of the sweet potato bourbon mash, along with some green bean casserole and some corn bread. Meeting back with R, the brisket was wrapped in paper and in a basket. We opted to go to the downstairs dining room where it was quieter and less packed.

The brisket, as you can imagine, was dripping with grease and sported a layers of pink fat. It was barely warm and even barbeque sauce wasn't really helping it. The fat was what was killing it for me because the meat itself was soft and tasted all right.  Like brisket. The sides were much better. The mash was stringy, so you could tell it was made from real sweet potatoes, the corn bread was tasty (not quite Peter's but good enough), and the green beans were awesome. The beans, cheese, crunchy onions, and mushrooms were creamy and tasty and rich. 

When we left I felt a contradictory sensation: my legs felt heavy and I really wanted to levitate. Not standing up but just lie down on the air and float. So much food. It amazes and appalls me that people eat like this regularly. Or at all, really. I love a good steak and I understand the benefits of fat when it comes to flavor, but I don't understand eating grease-dripping meat with a layer of fat. There's no subtlety, no mystery, everything is out there and for the taking. Which I guess appeals to some people. But then think about your arteries for god's sake. Specially since after a meal like that, there's nothing else to be done but to go lie down and sleep.

Which is what I did. My stomach's not been happy with me lately and my energy level has been through the floor. I remember why I never liked spring. OK, almost, 7, what am I still doing here?

Peace.

Bastardized Stewed Vegetable Gratin

I didn't make the simple tomato sauce. We had rye bread and Dubliner cheese and a simple vegetable gratin recipe I couldn't wait to elaborate on. So I did. It called for celery, carrots, and onions. I didn't have carrots so I substituted them with garlic, green and red peppers, and peas. I decided against green apples and portobello mushrooms but in retrospect, why the hell not? Lazy probably. I also forgot I had to dump a cup of cheese into the vegetable stew but I'd already added some apple cider vinegar that was giving off such a pleasant smell I couldn't bring myself to do it. I added sliced rye bread brushed with olive oil and covered with dubliner cheese (R said it, doesn't work that well for melting, should've gone with the Manchego), into the oven for 20 minutes. We had this with an unremarkable Chianti which I think was good mostly because it wasn't bad but I could've been drinking water. 

I asked R what he thought of my concoction.

He and my Dad generally have the same response to this question: "Tasty."

Tasty: flavorful, pleasurable to the sense of taste, showing good taste. I guess "tasty" is the best way to describe my cooking at least most of the time. Smells awesome and it's tasty. Which is good. But I want it to be supertasty.

I realized what's missing to bring my cooking to another level is to harmonize the tastiness. When I follow a recipe I generally find a level of harmony that my improvisations lack. People who write recipes generally have a sense of how to combine ingredients beyond just oh this tastes good and so does this. They (usually) understand how the combinations work to get the most out of each other, what sort of heat and time is required to bring out the best in the whole, and how to pair dishes with each other (and wine). People go to school to learn this. And usually, I don't have much patience for the process that leaves you with restaurant quality food. 

Which is why I love Mark Bittman.

I first discovered The Minimalist while browsing nytimes.com (I do that a lot, as you'll come to realize), summer was starting, I was just starting to date R, we were in Williamsburg, I'd sent him to the Farmer's Market (I do this when I feel like experimenting with things I've never tried before, most of his culinary decisions are color-based) and he'd come back with beets. Bittman had just published some simple picnic ideas. About 40 of them in three pages. I really liked this style. No list of ingredients, no complicated preparations, just fresh ingredients, good combinations, and tone that said, this is so easy, just do it like this and if you can't then do it however you can, here's some alternatives. I was hooked. I made the beet salad that topped the list and it was incredibly tasty. I made several more and over time I would read his column regularly and try out odd recipes. What Bittman did, as The Minimalist, was give the home cook the power to be a good cook, without the pressure of being a restaurant cook. Bittman never studied cooking, he just took the time to cook every day for over twenty years. 

I learned to cook over the phone. My first summer in New York, also the summer when I started listening to reggaeton out of nostalgia, I called my grandmother and asked her to tell me how to make rice and beans. Four years later I'm still figuring out how to get rice right but the beans I have mastered. In those early months I would panic about getting the recipe right, I obsessed over amounts, time, heat, order of ingredients. I still do but I'm a lot smarter about it. I still yell at R when I ask him to pass my a spoon so I can stir something before it burns to the bottom of the pan and he wants to finish doing something else first. But I don't panic that the food won't cook or that it will be bad. I just want it to be better. 

The above paragraph is a partial lie. That wasn't when I learned to cook, that was when I began to own my cooking. Rewind a little further in my life. Dre as a kid. My Dad making his spaghetti sauce which was perhaps the most delicious thing in the world as far as I knew, asking to help out. He taught me to chop onions, garlic, open cans, use spices. Everything I make has a base those first impromptu lessons. Most of my recipes start with the same ingredients, in the same way, a familiarity almost as old as me. 

But I did start my endeavours as a cook over the phone. Trying to make that recipe. Sophomore year of college, a semester ahead of that summer when I began to own my cooking and listen to reggaeton, I was dating a rather talented cook who was also very critical. Most of my self-consciousness when it comes to cooking stems from that relationship, but so do some great recipes and ideas. To be fair, he was never cruel, I was just never pleased with anything I made while I was with him. That said, I learned a lot from him. And one night I wanted to make my dad's spaghetti sauce and impress. My cellphone against my ear I wrote down the ingredients and what I had to do, and during the process called often to ask if I was doing it right. 

I was so obsessed with whether I was doing it right. Until I rebelled and just did things as I felt and made tasty concoctions. Now I've swung back and I'm trying to find a balance in the middle. How to make something "right" that is still "my own". I'll take Mark Bittman's alternative and don't worry if it's not perfect approach over Julia Child's it must be this way any day. But I do want to move on from tasty to supertasty. So I will learn to harmonize and often that just means simplify and take a little more time. 

I'll let you know.