Ringing in the New Year with Fancy Meat Balls

When I was a kid, my parents never went out on New Year’s Eve. Not once. They never had people over, either—it always was just the six of us. They’d let us kids stay up until midnight (if we could). We’d blow on noisemakers and feast on cocktail weenies in sweet-and-sour sauce, frozen hors d’oeuvres in puff pastry, mini-knishes, and the highlight of the night: Fancy Meat Balls. The meatballs were fancy for two reasons: 1. because they’re in an exotic, dark, slightly sweet sauce; and 2. because we only ate them once a year, from a round, royal blue Dansk chafing dish that as far as I knew, only ever held meatballs.

Tonight S and I will be continuing my family’s grand tradition of not going out on New Year’s Eve. In a little while, I’ll get started making the meatballs. We don’t have a chafing dish (who does, anymore?), but I bet they’ll taste just as good. At midnight, we’ll eat them with toothpicks, sip champagne leftover from our wedding, and kiss for the beginning of our first calendar year as married people. Assuming I’m still awake, that is…

Happy New Year, everyone!

[Psst! If you haven’t already voted in the 2004 Food Blog Awards, better act fast—the polls close at midnight tonight, PST! Words to Eat By is a finalist for Best New Blog. Click on over and vote for all your favorites, before it’s too late.]

Fancy Meat Balls

2 lbs. lean chopped meat [I’m using buffalo/bison]
1 onion, chopped
1 can whole cranberry sauce
½ cup chili sauce
½ cup water
1 T. dark brown sugar
¼-1/2 c. golden raisins

[My mom always mixed 2 packets of G. Washington Brown seasoning into the chopped meat. I don’t have any, so I’ll make my own concoction with dried garlic, onion, etc.]

Shape meat into small meatballs, about ½” diameter each, and set aside.

Sauté onions in a frying pan for a few minutes. Drain off all the liquid from the onions, then sauté meatballs for a few minutes. [This step is optional; if you want a lower-fat recipe then skip to the next step.]

Mix all the other ingredients, and put in the bottom of a Dutch oven or casserole dish. Put the meatballs and onions into the sauce, and gently mix; cover with water to the top of the meatballs.

Either cook over slow flame for 2 hours, or bake, at 300-325F, for about 2 hours.

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Is There Such a Thing as Privacy in Blogworld?

A close family member found my blog the other day. It’s my own fault. I have a link in my email signature—since I’m such a publicity whore it seemed like an easy way to let people know about WtEB. In the two months that I’ve been blogging, I’ve scrupulously deleted that link in emails to all family members with the exception of S, my husband, and G, my previously-mentioned youngest, highly trustworthy, brother and computer consultant.

Until I forgot. Once.

This particular family member was so excited to read my words, and so proud of me for doing it, that at first I thought it might not be such a bad thing. There was pleasure to be had in remembering family recipes with this person’s assistance. But within hours I was feeling a little uncomfortable—after all, much of what I’ve written here are highly personal, highly subjective memories about food and my childhood. I may have facts wrong—in fact, I probably do. I was a child, after all, and memories are by their nature watery. And then there are the mentions of certain behaviors of mine as an adult, things of which I am none too proud but that I felt were a necessary part of my story. Things most of my family doesn’t know about, nor do they need to know.

I spoke to this person about my discomfort, and was assured that the bookmark would be deleted and my blog could continue without monitoring by blood relatives. “You know you can trust me,” I was told. That trust lasted all of a day, maybe two. Now I receive regular emails in response to new posts, innocuous enough but disturbing to me nonetheless. I feel like a junior high school student whose diary has been cracked open. I feel exposed, and vulnerable.

It goes without saying that since I’m writing a blog, intended to be read by as many people as possible, that I’m being slightly hypocritical here. Why should I feel more comfortable telling my stories to cyberstrangers than I do to my own family? I can’t explain it, but the “anonymity” of a blog, much like the anonymity of a published book, is seductive and irrefutable. So I’m unnerved by the specter of a relative perched on my shoulder as I type. I fear that I’ll begin to censor myself because I don’t want to hurt my family by publishing my version of the truth—truth being, like memory, a subjective thing where childhoods and family are concerned.

Other bloggers reading this: How have you dealt with such things? I realize that with food blogs, it isn’t so often an issue, but surely someone has some advice to offer…

And to my family member: If you’re going to continue to read Words to Eat By, at least respect me enough to pretend you’re not.

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Artichoke Tortellini Primavera

The night before I went back to Weight Watchers, S and I cooked together. Although I do the majority of the cooking around here (and he does all the dishes), when both our schedules permit, nothing makes me happier, or feel more married, than working in the kitchen with my husband. We’re in the midst of painting the room, so lately we’ve been doing plenty of “work” in there together, but the chaos has allowed for very little cooking. Sunday night, though, a fridge full of vegetables just this side of rotten beckoned.

I first went to WW when I was about ten, with my mom. She had gained weight with each of her four pregnancies, and as I’ve written before I was fat since toddlerhood. Once a week, we’d walk over to the VFW hall for the meeting, where we’d get weighed and then listen to a half-hour lecture. All I can remember is being desperately bored. The plan accommodated children—I got more to eat than my mom, and I believe milk was required for me—but the meetings sure didn’t. The specifics of the program at the time elude me, but I do recall it mandated eating fish—which I absolutely hated back then—five times a week, and liver—which I hated even more, and still do—once a week. I’m pretty sure pasta wasn’t even mentioned as a possibility, and the amount of vegetables, beyond meager choices like lettuce, was restricted. Needless to say, my parents kindly let me off the hook with the more stringent rules. And needless to say further, I failed miserably on this program. My mom generally did no better than I. Every year, usually in January, she and I would trudge back to the VFW hall for another shot, and within six months we’d both drop out again. But before we did, we’d make sure to enjoy our last meals, our last treats—often for as long as a week before going. Ice cream and chips, fries and pizza, and lots of it. We probably gained five pounds just getting ready to start each time.

Back to the other night. I knew I’d be going to WW the next day—I’d looked up the local meeting several weeks ago—though I didn’t mention it to S. Wanted to leave a back-door open, I guess, in case I chickened out. But my days of pre-diet gorging are long gone, so even though I knew it would be a while before I ate a chocolate chip cookie again, I wanted to eat something healthy. Our dinner—artichoke tortellini primavera, with chicken—could easily have been a WW meal, filled as it is with loads of vegetables, a little bit of chicken, and the very tasty tortellini we had in the freezer. It’s also wonderfully flexible: just about any vegetable can be used, as long as you cook them in the order I’ve given below (hard veggies like broccoli stalks and carrots go into the pasta water first, to give them a little head start, and then everything gets added in order from hard to soft). Chicken is entirely optional—the dish is just as good as an all-vegetable meal. Even the tortellini isn’t strictly necessary, since we've enjoyed this dozens of times with plain old pasta.

Seriously, it’s the perfect healthy-but-still-decadent dinner. It sure gave me a good start on my way back to Weight Watchers.


Artichoke Tortellini Primavera
Serves 2, with leftovers

1 spear broccoli, stalks and florets cut into ½” pieces and separated
2 carrots, peeled and chopped into ½” pieces
A glug or two of olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. Roasted Red Pepper Spread (optional)
1 t. Peperoncino Picante Paste or red pepper flakes, to taste
* ½ pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into ½” pieces (optional)
2 ribs celery, sliced into ½” pieces
½ red pepper, cut into ½” pieces
1 zucchini, sliced in half lengthwise and then cut into ½” pieces
** 1 cup chicken broth
1 package frozen artichoke tortellini [I use Trader Joe’s]
10 button mushrooms, quartered
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
Salt and pepper to taste
2 T. pine nuts, toasted (optional)
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

While you’re chopping, put a large pot of salted water on to boil, and place a large bowl of ice water nearby. When the water boils, put broccoli stalks and carrots in for 2 minutes. Add broccoli florets and boil 1 minute more, then scoop all the vegetables out and plunge them into the ice water to stop the cooking. Cover pot and keep water simmering—you’ll be using it to cook the tortellini. Set vegetables aside.

In a large sauté pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until translucent, then add garlic. Sauté, stirring, until garlic fragrance fills the room, then add Red Pepper Spread and/or Peperoncino Paste. Sauté for 30 seconds more, just enough to heat the red stuff. Add the chicken (if using) and cook, stirring occasionally, until it turns white, about three minutes. Add the reserved broccoli and carrots, the celery, the red pepper, and the zucchini. Add chicken broth as needed, if mixture looks dry or starts to stick.

Bring water back up to boil. Cook tortellini according to package directions.

While tortellini is cooking, add mushrooms and tomatoes to chicken-vegetable mixture, and more chicken broth if it doesn’t look saucy. Cover and lower heat. Let it simmer lightly until tortellini is done. Drain tortellini and add to pot. Toss it all together, and serve topped with toasted pine nuts and/or grated parmesan.


* When I trim chicken for freezing, I pull off all the tenderloins and freeze them separately—it defrosts really fast, and it’s already cut-up for last-minute stir fries and dishes like this.
** If you want to make this totally vegetarian, use some of the pasta cooking water instead of chicken broth (just scoop it out with a glass measuring cup while the tortellini is cooking).

It’s not too late to vote for your favorite blogs in the 2004 Food Blog Awards. Polls close tomorrow (New Year’s Eve), at midnight PST. Words to Eat By is in the running for Best New Blog. If you’d like to vote for me, please click here. Thanks!

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My Life as a Gym Rat (Plus a Really Good Smoothie Recipe)

There are a lot of mirrors in a gym. Back when I was a workout fiend, spending at least an hour there six (often seven) days a week, I loved seeing my image reflected back at me a thousand different ways. A bit of a show-off, I’d wear leggings and a sports bra—why cover up with a t-shirt when I’d worked so hard to get that body? I loved watching my body work, noting how the ridges in my shoulders rippled when I raised my arm, how the quad popped out on my thigh when I did a squat. Narcissism mixed with wonder and kept me going. Today I went back to my trainer, Mark Diaz, for the first time since June. He went really easy on me and it was still hard, shockingly so. When I pointed this out, Mark kindly explained the reason why: I’ve got twenty pounds more on my body to move, and far less developed muscle with which to move it. I knew that, of course—I’ve noticed how much harder it is to climb the steep stairs at my subway stop, how much faster I tire while painting our kitchen, how much less energy I seem to have in general. I’ve just been ignoring it, as if it would get better, or I’d notice it less, in time.

My first sessions with Mark, back in 1997, were exciting—I’d already lost about 85 pounds and turned to weight training because hours of step classes, running, and stationary bicycling weren’t budging those last fifteen. I’d researched it and learned that the more muscle a body has, the more calories it burns at rest, and the leaner it looks: although muscle weighs more than fat, it’s much denser tissue and takes up less space. Mark taught me how to use my muscles in specific ways, how to do each movement properly, how to get the most out of each rep. He was relatively green when we started, but he's an avid pupil and over the years he's learned a tremendous amount about how the body works. It took a good four months to lose those last fifteen pounds, but strength training was the key to reaching my goal weight; although I lessened the intensity of it after a few years, until fairly recently I still lifted weights two or three times a week. Injuries laid me out from time to time and I’d worry about losing muscle tone, but Mark always reassured me that it would take far more than a few weeks away from the gym to undo what I’d accomplished.

Today, he and I agreed: five months is plenty of time to undo it all, and then some. Instead of marveling at myself in the mirrors, I was very nearly repulsed. Look at that roll of fat around my middle, pulling against my t-shirt! I was embarrassed. Mortified. How did I let it get this bad? For the first half-hour or so, instead of confident, I felt invisible and a little pathetic. By the end of the session, though, I was proud that I'd worked out at all, and looking forward to getting strong again.

On my freelancer’s budget I can’t afford the fancy gym where I trained with Mark—I can’t afford Mark either, really—but he wrote a program for me for me to do at my no-frills Brooklyn gym. Three times a week: Peterson Step-Ups, Supine Hamstring Curls on a Swiss Ball, Split Squats, Romanian Dead Lifts, Powell Raises, Pull-Downs, Scott Hammer Curls, Triceps Extensions, and External Rotations. Sounds like a lot, but I can do that, can’t I?

Yes. I did it before, and I can do it again.

After my workout, Mark made me a protein shake. He put several different nutritional powders in a shaker, added some ice water, and voila! Mmmmm chocolate. Sweet. It perked me up when I was feeling about to die, but I prefer the ones I make at home. My recipe’s simple, healthy, easy, and blissfully flexible. (And it has waaaay more carbs than Mark's shake, but he and I never saw eye-to-eye on the Protein Is God thing anyway.) It requires a teeny bit of forethought—you have to let some bananas get good and ripe, then freeze them in chunks, but once you get in the habit of doing that you can have a smoothie anytime (not to mention baking a spur-of-the-moment banana bread). Using frozen fruit eliminates the need for added ice, which keeps the whole thing much fuller-tasting.

Master Smoothie Recipe
Makes one good-sized smoothie

¾ cup nonfat plain yogurt
1 scoop vanilla-flavored protein powder [I get mine at Whole Foods, but you can buy it at any health-food store]
5 or 6 1” chunks frozen ripe banana (approx. 1 banana)

½ cup frozen fruit of your choice [I like peaches & mango, or mixed berries—just make sure you’re buying the kind that’s pure fruit, no sugar added]
OR
2 T. peanut butter &
a good squirt of your favorite chocolate sauce [I like U-Bet]

Skim or 1% milk, as needed

Put yogurt and protein powder in the blender and get it whirring on high. Add banana chunks one at a time through the hole in the lid, being sure to re-cover quickly each time or it’ll splatter. When mixture appears relatively smooth, add frozen fruit a little at a time, in a similar manner, or add peanut butter & chocolate sauce all at once, if that’s the smoothie you’re making. If mixture gets too thick, thin with milk. Whir until smooth, and serve in a tall glass.

P.S…. Just because I’m watching what I eat doesn’t mean I won’t still write about good food. Words to Eat By is a finalist for Best New Blog in the Food Blog Awards. Polls close at midnight PST on Friday—New Year’s Eve, fittingly—so if you haven’t already voted (for me, or anyone else you read and enjoy), click here now. Thanks!

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Petition Bush to Increase Our Pathetic $35 Million Aid

I'm embarrassed, I'm chagrined, and most of all I'm pissed off that our government has committed a whopping $35 million to SE Asia. This after been shamed by the international community for an initial pledge of only $15MM. $35 million is less than the annual budget of most small towns, I'd guess. Who are they fucking kidding?

I got an email from Act for Change this morning, with a link to their online petition. It says:

"I have just read that the United States has pledged $35 million for tsunami relief. While I applaud this initial pledge, the need will be far, far greater. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN representatives have estimated that billions may be needed for the relief effort, and initial estimates for food aid alone are $30 million.

"As one of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous nations, the United States should step up to that leadership role by increasing its aid pledge significantly and by urging all nations to donate as much as they can in terms of funds, food and other aid support.

"Please immediately increase the United States' aid pledge for tsunami relief. Lives depend upon it."

You can sign it here.

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The Disaster in Southeast Asia

I have very little insight or eloquence to offer right now, so I'll just post a few links:

Some kind and wise blogger has set up this site as a clearinghouse for information.

Here is a list of organizations accepting donations.

A good friend of mine is in Bali right now, visiting her fiance's family. From all the information I've been able to find, it seems as if the devastation stretched mostly away from where she is. I assume she's safe, but until I hear from her I'll worry. She's not due back until February. UPDATE: I just got an email from my friend, and she said they're all fine; Bali wasn't hit. I can relax a little, but I can't stop thinking about how many others there are all over the world who don't know where their loved ones are. Who may not know for months, if ever.

I'm not a particularly religious person, but I've been praying for the millions of people affected by this. It seems like the least I can do (that, and donating money until my wallet's empty).

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Back on the Wagon

Tonight I’m going to a Weight Watchers meeting, for the first time in over two years. Things have reached a tipping point, I suppose—none of my lycra-free clothing fits any more, and I find that jeans fresh from the washing machine bear absolutely no resemblance to the stretched-out, barely-comfortable ones that went in. I’ve been moaning about this since October. Clearly, I’m not going to lose any weight without help. WW works—I lost 100 pounds on the program seven years ago—so back I must go.

But why am I so terrified? As the meeting time draws closer, I’m getting more and more anxious. Having a hard time sitting still, in fact, and wandering into the kitchen in search of something salty/sweet/crunchy/soft, until I remind myself that I’ll be standing on a scale in less than an hour. I have a good idea of how much I weigh, which is 22-25 lbs more than I weighed at my wedding in May. Maybe it's because my goal was 7 lbs higher than WW's official range for my height—I had a doctor's note—and the weight I'd been happily maintaining all this time was another twelve pounds over that. They're going to tell me I have 45 pounds to lose, when I'm only thinking about 20-25.

Oh. That’s probably why I’m flipping out: I’m all about baby steps, looking at the small picture, and they’re going to slam me with the super-sized one until I bleed. Or cry. They won’t mean to, of course, since it’s a supportive atmosphere, but I know what the goal weight is that they’ll assign me, and it won’t be one that I’d pick.

Wish me luck, everyone. I’m posting about it here because I know it will keep me honest. If I don’t let you in on my secret, I can cook all kinds of goodies and write about them, and you’ll never know it’s killing me inside. Some of the things I prepare may be a little less, shall we say, decadent for a while, but hopefully not for long. WW really does allow you to eat anything, as long as you account for it, so once I get through the strict jump-start phase, I should be able to bake as much as I want. I’ll just eat less of it, goddammit!

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A Four-Star Birthday Dinner with Two-Star Food: Blue Hill at Stone Barns

This is my last birthday-related post, I promise (well, this year, anyway)…

When you’re a freelancer, money is always an issue. One month might be overflowing with business, and the next month a drought descends. And when you’re married to a freelancer as well, the uncertainty doubles. S and I live a rewarding, fairly frugal, life, and we’re quite happy with the state of things, but if there’s one thing I miss it’s three- and four-star restaurants. In my previous life as a publishing executive, eating at the hottest—best—places was by far my favorite perk. People took me out several times a month, and a sizable salary meant that I could take myself out, too. But for the last three years, I’ve done much more reading about, fantasizing about, fine restaurants than actually dining in them. Honestly I don’t miss it all that much—now that I have the time to cook, I find preparing my own food to be much more satisfying, and when I don’t feel like cooking New York City is crammed with places to eat really, really well without spending a fortune. But for special occasions a special place is called for, and that means choosing carefully. If you’re only going to visit one or two top-caliber restaurants a year, better make sure you know what you’re in for.

For my birthday dinner I wanted to try someplace I hadn’t been. L’Impero was an immediate finalist, but when I perused their menu online I didn’t salivate over more than one or two things. Alain Ducasse: too fussy. Per Se and the rest of the Time Warner Mall food court: call me crazy, but I felt like it would be more about saying I’d been there than actually enjoying my meal. About a month before my birthday, I decided on Blue Hill at Stone Barns. An offshoot of a highly-regarded Greenwich Village restaurant, it’s a restaurant and agricultural center, using the old stone buildings of a former Rockefeller farm. The menu changes daily, based on what they’re harvesting in their greenhouse or slaughtering in their flocks. What they don’t grow on the farm is purchased locally, as much as possible. I’d heard mostly very good things about it, it seemed to have little of the snobbery of so many “fine” restaurants in New York, and it was about an hour north of the city, which would make it more than a meal—it would be an adventure. S made a 9:00 reservation.

Sure enough, the trip out of town did lend the evening an air of excitement, following directions down dark country roads, past big houses and mysterious gated estates until we caught a glimpse of a complex nestled into a valley where the trees sparkled with thousands of small white lights. Before we saw the sign, I knew we had arrived.

Just turning down the driveway signaled that we’d entered a realm we were unaccustomed to—there were few lights or signs, and poorly-marked speed bumps large enough to strand our earnest little Saturn (I suppose they’re meant to slow down the big expensive SUVs, but really—they were the size of small mountains). We blew past the valet parking attendants without realizing who they were—we thought they were two guests, since the sign said something like “Blue Hill Drop-Off” rather than “Valet Parking.” But the walk from the lower lot gave us time to get excited anew, and as we rushed up the path in the brisk northern night I skipped and hummed with happiness.



To get to the restaurant, you pass through a peaked-roofed passageway between two old stone buildings and enter a courtyard, with the brightly-lit, bustling kitchen visible in a line of windows directly across the way.



S and I stood in the courtyard for a moment, marveling at the beautiful old buildings, the cobblestones under our feet, the crisp moonlit sky overhead. It was like being in another country, and extremely romantic. But that wasn’t our only reason for standing still: We weren’t sure which of the many possibilities was the restaurant itself. At last, we noticed a very small sign on the right side of the courtyard, and went in. If we weren’t already certain that this was no New York City restaurant, once we passed through the door it was absolutely clear. Outside the city, restaurants have room to spread out. Just the vestibule with coat-check was larger than our apartment’s bathroom. Past that was a bar and waiting lounge, with mod leather chairs and a sofa, rough-hewn though luxurious wooden benches, a fireplace, and gorgeous lamps with shades made of glowing wood veneer. The front desk was in yet another room beyond the bar, so we went there first to check in. Our table wasn’t ready. Back to the lounge.

Fifteen minutes later, we were escorted into the main dining room, a huge space with a vaulted ceiling trussed by iron girders, lovely circular banquettes for larger parties and gleaming wooden booths for smaller ones, and a huge farmhouse table taking up a good third of the remaining floor. This table was used for staging, not dining, which struck us as a luxury very few restaurants in the city could afford. Our table, which was next to it, was a fourtop with no other tables within hearing distance—there was that much room. The effect was oddly isolating, rather than intimate. Looking around at the other groups, it seemed that conversation was stilted at many of them. This could’ve been a result of uncomfortable family holiday get-togethers, of course, but it also felt like there was some energy in the room that stiffened everyone.



Throughout the meal, service was impeccable. Six different servers, status denoted by uniform, visited our table over the course of the evening. Their ballet at the farmhouse table—dipping and feinting around each other to pull silverware from drawers, fetch a pitcher of ice water, or arrange drinks on a silver tray became the equivalent of a floor show. Three managerial men: one who looked astonishingly like Billy Joel, complete with goatee and deeply-receding hairline, another with a suave and distracting red velvet jacket, and the third with a Paul Stuart-esque shirt open-collared under his suit, strode efficiently around the room. When one striped-shirted runner pounced to re-fold S’s napkin the instant he left for the men’s room, it nearly reached the point of overkill, but somehow it never went quite that far.

And now, on to the good part…the food. Two notes, first: As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I've developed a bizarre allergy to wine over the last year and S was driving, so we abstained. In the end I'm glad we did, since the bill could easily have doubled. And as for my food photos, they’re pretty terrible. I tried my darnedest to fix them with Photoshop Elements, per Sam at Becks & Posh’s recommendation, but I haven’t had a chance to really practice with it yet. Apologies!

The menu is organized into four categories of food, rather than courses: From the Field, Foraged Mushrooms, Our Pasture, and Hudson Valley Pastures. Diners can order two, three, or four savory courses for a prix fixe, in any order. The kitchen sizes the plates according to how many courses are in a meal, and in which order they’re being served. Our waitress was helpful without being pushy, informing us of how everything worked and answering all our questions efficiently. Soon after we’d placed our orders, two amuses arrived. The first was a warm chickpea soup with aleppo pepper, served in tall flute shot glasses, which was pretty spectacular—I never would’ve imagined that so much flavor could come from so humble a bean. Second was goat cheese and chives in a parmesan cup topped by a candied walnut—don’t kill me but I'm not a cheese-fan so I didn't taste it. S ate both of ours. He loved them, though he did think the richness of the goat cheese meant that one would’ve been enough. By this point, we were really looking forward to our meal.

We had three savory courses ($62) each, in this order:

I. Me:


Mushroom Tartelette (Foraged Mushrooms), described as "local wild mushrooms, walnuts and fingerling potatoes." It turned out to be sliced portobellos laid over chunky mashed potatoes, with a small salad of greens and other mushrooms alongside. The walnuts were in a puree between the mushrooms and potatoes, the waitress said as she presented the dish, but I couldn't taste them to save my life. It was beautifully and precisely presented, delicious but not WOW. I liked S’s salad much better...

I. S:


Baby Romaine Lettuce (From the Field), with a panko-breaded and flash-fried egg, pine nuts, and warm pancetta vinaigrette. This was the WOW dish of the evening, by far. The egg yolks were the yellowest, yolkiest things I’d ever seen, just this side of runny, and the vinaigrette was out of this world. We were quite excited by it, and hopeful that it was an indication of more excitement to come.

II. Me:


Poached Chicken Breast (Our Pasture), with "farro and roasted carnival and cabocha squash." This was lovely, silken-textured chicken with chewy grains and a lively sauce—with soy or something like it, to richen and deepen it (and make it slightly too-salty). But after a few bites I got a little bored—each mouthful tasted the same, and I couldn’t discern any specific chicken or squash flavors. I'm not sure I would've been happy with this in an entree size.

II. S:


Homemade Cavatelli (Our Pasture) with guanciale and broccoli. This was another beautiful, but not spectacular dish. The cavatelli had a nice flavor and texture—nearly too al dente—but the guanciale tasted very much like the pancetta in the salad, and though the broccoli had been cut into the tiniest, cutest little florets I've ever seen, the whole thing didn't quite hold together as a dish.

III. Me:


Wild Striped Bass (Foraged Mushrooms), with "hen of the wood mushroom, caramelized cauliflower, almond and caper vinaigrette." Here was the big disappointment—I was really looking forward to this, loved every aspect of it in the menu description, and the waitress had raved when I wavered between it and the Cod. Ultimately, it was fine, but the fish was underdone—call me a philistine, but I'm not a fan of raw, tough fish. Perhaps it was intentional, perhaps the kitchen screwed it up, but I left a hunk of flesh behind on the plate. I was surprised that nobody asked if there was a problem (which makes me suspect it was, in fact, intentionally undercooked). As for the other components, the capers didn't add the punch I expected, the almonds were visible but added no flavor, and the cauliflower was little more than fine. The mushrooms were the best part, earthy and slightly crispy.

As a counterpoint: the night before we ate at Frank on Second Avenue & Fifth Street. I ordered the seared cod special for $14.95, and licked the plate.

III. S:


Crescent Duck (Hudson Valley Pastures), with "romaine, stew of napoli carrots with toasted spices, fromage blanc spaetzle." Another almost-winner. S loved the duck, said he'd never enjoyed it prepared to that texture before (soft, rather than crispy) but in this case it worked. The vegetables were lovely, perfectly cooked, and the spaetzle, served in its own small iron pot, was browned and tangy from the fromage blanc.



But the sauce, which blanketed the duck and vegetables, struck me as a little too one-note. It was an orangey-brown, and I couldn’t identify a single element beyond salt. It tasted surprisingly similar to the sauce on my poached chicken breast, in fact. The end result was underwhelming.

Dessert:


We shared the Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding, with "caramel ice cream and pine nuts," and it, too, disappointed just a bit. It was a good-sized square of the pudding, served with a quenelle-shaped scoop of ice cream on top. S said it looked like dog poop from a purebred raised on a diet of truffles. There were a couple of pleasing textural surprises: the pudding had a creme-brulee-like sugar shell, which added a nice jolt, and the pine nuts were somehow hidden underneath or inside the pudding, in a small pile in the center. We'd forgotten they were mentioned in the menu, so coming across a nutty interruption partway through was a clever bonus. But flavorwise, we weren't as happy. While the pudding looked nearly black (which could've been the dim lighting), it had surprisingly little fudginess to it. If I'd been served this blindfolded, I'm not sure I would've identified it as a chocolate-based dessert. And the caramel ice cream, of which normally I'm a great fan, was made from an overcooked caramel, veering towards burnt and acrid. We didn’t finish it.



A lovely little send-off came with the coffee: chocolate-covered almonds, which were delicious and perfect.

Perhaps my expectations were too high, but in the end it struck me as a place striving for four-starness but just missing. The service, the setting, and the presentation were all there, but the food itself: not so much. I don't mean to say that it wasn’t a wonderful birthday dinner—it was, without a doubt. It’s just that for nearly $200 without wine, it wasn’t the transporting experience it should’ve been. Would we go back? At one point during dinner S and I talked about the likelihood of us ever being comfortable enough to go here casually, on a double-date with another couple, without it being a Special Occasion. If we do reach that level, sure, we'd go back. But if it's one of maybe two or three "fancy" dinners a year? Not a chance.



Psss! Have you voted for the 2004 Food Blog Awards yet? Words to Eat By is up for best new blog.

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A Christmas Tease

I've been having computer issues for the last few days, but I hope that within the next few I'll be posting about the following:

• My birthday dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns
• Things to do with leftover Roasted Red Pepper Spread
• Artichoke Tortellini Primavera
• Chewy, Sticky Chocolate Babka

My in-laws are on their way up from South Jersey, spending the day with us (the chocolate babka's for them, in the oven right now). We'll hang out here for a little while, then head into Manhattan for a traditional New York Christmas dinner: chinese food at Grand Sichuan International in Hell's Kitchen. Mmmmmmmmm.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Psst...It's not too late to send me a late holiday gift: Vote for Words to Eat By as Best New Blog in the Food Blog Awards. Click here. Thanks!

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Banana Chocolate Chip Birthday Muffins

These didn’t start out as Birthday Muffins. Yesterday morning, when I found myself staring at a buttload of fast-ripening bananas, getting hungry for something mildly sweet and breakfasty, I decided to bake. Since I made my standard Banana-Chocolate-Pecan Bread not too long ago, I wanted to try something new. Out came the baking cookbooks. Most of the muffin recipes called for softened butter or sour cream, or both, and I had neither. In Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts, inspiration for my Pistachio-Apple Cupcakes, I found exactly what I was looking for: a truly spur-of-the-moment muffin recipe, calling for vegetable oil and other standard pantry items. It also gave me the chance to use my new sifter, a Hanukkah gift I forgot to mention the other day. I tweaked the recipe a little and baked them, and they were good. Almost too sweet, though, and my bananas were not extremely ripe—you may want to reduce the brown sugar a bit if yours are.

So why are they Birthday Muffins? Well, because today is my birthday, and last night at midnight S woke me up (I’ve been turning in early lately, and he’s a bit of a night owl) with a present and a birthday-candled muffin. I made my wish and blew it out, and let S eat the muffin since I wasn’t exactly hungry. We stayed up to watch a bit of Heaven Can Wait—one of S’s favorites, which I’ve never seen—and I drifted back to sleep around 1AM, thinking about how lucky I am.



Recipe:

Banana Chocolate Chip Birthday Muffins
Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts

Makes 12 muffins [I got 14]

½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup packed brown sugar [maybe less, if bananas are extremely ripe]
4 egg whites
3 large ripe bananas (about 3 cups mashed)
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
½ t. salt
1 T. pure vanilla extract
½ cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Oil or spray muffin tins, or use paper liners.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer or by hand, beat the oil, sugar, egg whites, and mashed bananas until well blended. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the bowl. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet with quick strokes—be careful not to overmix. Fold in the vanilla and the chocolate chips.



Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean [it took 26 minutes for mine]. Turn the muffins out of the tin and cool on a rack.



Psst! Want to give me a little birthday gift? Vote for Words to Eat By in the Best New Blog category at the Food Blog Awards!

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Newsflash! Cast of Sideways Appearing After an AMMI Screening January 8

Just got this email bulletin from the Museum of the Moving Image:

"Saturday, January 8th at 7:00 p.m. Moving Image will present a special screening of SIDEWAYS, the film that swept the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, winning four major awards including Best Picture. After the screening, stars Paul Giamatti (Best Actor), Virginia Madsen (Best Supporting Actress), and Thomas Haden Church will participate in a Pinewood Dialogue moderated by David Schwartz, the Museum's Chief Curator of Film.
This screening is part of the Museum’s annual New York Film Critics Circle series.

"This event will take place on Saturday, January 8, 2005, at 7:00 p.m. at the Directors’ Guild Theater, 110 West 57th Street in Manhattan. Admission is
$18 for the public and $12 for Museum members. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, December 22 at 10:00 a.m. Call (718) 784-4520 to reserve yours now."

I LOVE THIS MOVIE. It's the smartest thing I've seen all year, and it's filled with great food and wine references and imagery... S and I already bought our tickets, and I can't wait. I have a feeling it's going to sell out fast.

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UPDATE It's an Honor Just to Be Nominated...

(giggle)

Never imagined in a million years I'd have the opportunity to say that, but thanks to you Words to Eat By is a finalist for Best New Blog in the inaugural Food Blog Awards, organized by Kate at The Accidental Hedonist.

UPDATE: I received an email from Kate earlier today alerting me to the fact that the polls are now open, and will remain open until December 31. The ballot is on the upper right corner of the screen, and Best New Blog is near the end of the poll. I hope you'll take the time to vote in each category, but if you're in a rush and you'd like to go straight to "my" category, here's a quick link.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Creating this blog has been an incredibly satisfying experience, and not just because it gives me the chance to show off my faux-humility. The process of thinking about food, about cooking, and stirring up all those memories, is equal parts exhilarating and humiliating. I haven't told my family, or S's, about my blog yet, since I'm not sure how they'll react. Only my youngest brother, G, who has both web expertise and a high level of trustworthiness, is in on my little secret. Him, and S, and you.

In case you're wondering why I said faux-humility just now: because it's kind of pathetic how much I'd like to win.

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Nu? Chrismukkah? (Featuring Recipes for Roasted Red Pepper Spread and Parmesan Crackers)

I love this time of year, always have, and since I met S I’ve been enjoying it even more. You see, I have a confession to make: I’m a Christmas-loving Jew. Just walking by a curbside Christmas tree vendor, breathing in that evergreen aroma, is enough to make me smile and walk a little more sprightly. The sparkly things, the colors, the warmth…it’s all so gorgeous. Don’t get me wrong—I love Hanukkah, too, lighting the candles and watching the reflection dance in the window, eating latkes with applesauce, and eight nights of gifts. But Christmas has always had a soft spot in my heart. When I was growing up the family of one of my best friends had an annual open-house party on Christmas Eve, and from the time I was about fourteen, I attended every year. They had a gorgeous tree, absolutely massive, with hundreds of ornaments carrying varying degrees of family significance. And off to the side, the formal dining room would already be set for the next day, with special holiday-themed china, red cloth napkins (we never, ever used cloth in my family—paper all the way for us), and placecards. They had assigned seating at their dinner! That fascinated and intimidated me. To a certain degree, I think I’ll always associate that level of formality with Christians.

This is my second holiday season with S, who is a quite-lapsed Catholic. Last year we were engaged but not yet living together; this year we’re married. A year ago, we spent some time navigating through all the possibilities: Should we have one big celebration? Celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas separately and with equal vigor? Light a menorah, or just display it? And what about a tree? I really wanted a tree but S hadn’t had one in years. Our decision, our own Chrismukkah (very mixed feelings on that whole thing, by the way—I hesitate to even use it here for fear it will become an acceptable term):

• Light Hanukkah candles when we’re home;
• Make latkes exactly once during that week;
• Exchange one small, token gift a night for eight nights;
• Save the big presents for Christmas; and
• HAVE A TREE! A small one, that fits on a tabletop.



Since neither of us owned any ornaments and we wanted our holiday to have some specific, personal meaning, we made all our decorations last year. There are paper chains and a champagne cork (from the night we got engaged) and Spongebob Squarepants toys, plus dozens of multicolored tokens from an old-fashioned “make your own souvenir” machine S owns. For the topper, I crafted a Star of David out of gold tissue paper and cardboard. This year we’ve added some new ornaments I bought at one of last year’s post-Christmas sales—clear glass and blue glass flowers, nothing overtly religious, and loads of sparkly garlands that we used to decorate our wedding.

I love our tree. Just opening the door to the living room and catching a whiff warms me.

And I love celebrating both holidays. For us that means neither side has too terrifically much actual religious content—at my family’s Hanukkah party, blessings were said over the candles but the event was really about eating latkes and brisket, and watching one of my nieces (the other was home sick) enjoy all her new toys. And yesterday was S’s family Christmas gathering, which had no specifically religious overtones at all. It was all. about. food. Oh, and loads and loads of presents—while Hanukkah does seem to be mostly about the kids, Christmas is a fun-for-all giftstravaganza. Here is the bounty at my in-laws’ house after barely half of us had arrived:



(I didn’t have a chance to snap a pic with all the presents arrayed—it was truly impressive.)

And their tree, which reminds me of my friend’s family’s in its size and lushness:



I don’t imagine there will ever be a tree like this in my own home. The officialness of a tree this size, and this beautifully decorated, would cross an invisible line in my heart. But back to the gifts: Between S’s bounty and our two family’s (and some early birthday gifts snuck in for me as well), I received quite a bit of interest to foodies:

• A Roul'Pat Pastry Mat, for kneading bread and rolling out dough
• The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, which I can’t wait to use
• Jacques Pepin Fast Food My Way
• A new Cookie Scoop
• A fabulous small tripod for my digital camera (the better to take non-blurry food photos in low light)
• A Farberware Millennium 12-Inch Nonstick Skillet (not the icky used one I complained about last week—this is a shiny, new, happy skillet)
• An assortment of goodies from Trader Joe’s (god I love that store)

But enough about presents. You want to hear about the food at yesterday’s fete, don’t you?



If there were a nexus for such things, yesterday’s spread and my family’s Hanukkah meal would be on opposite poles. Literally nothing that was served yesterday would ever be served in my parents’ home—no, I take that back. There was a roast beef. My dad makes a nice roast. But it was served with a mayonnaise-based horseradish sauce. That would never happen chez my folks. We eat our roast beef unadorned. There was also a big platter of shrimp with cocktail sauce (I grew up kosher, remember, so you see why that wouldn’t fly). Pasta with chicken in Alfredo sauce (mixing meat and dairy: so not kosher). An antipasto platter with meats and cheeses (ditto). A big spinach salad with pomegranate seeds and pecans. Deviled eggs. Chicken wings. Those last three aren’t verboten in kashrut, they’re just not the sort of food I was raised on. And I must point out that none of this is a problem per se, it’s just jarring to me. I don’t much care for cheesy things in general, so many of the available vittles never made it to my plate. Even the food before the food, the nibbly stuff that was already out when we arrived, was mostly foreign—there were three different cheese-based dips with a variety of crackers, to which I contributed Roasted Red Pepper Spread and Parmesan Crackers (a big hit—recipes are at the end of this post, I promise). Only the salsa and chips would ever see my parents’ table—my family are much more the buy-a-crudite-tray-at-Costco type, along with a jumbo variety pack of frozen Kosher hors d’oeuvres. But not to worry, I managed to fill my belly just fine!

After the main meal came the grand gift-opening, with tons of wrapping paper strewn about accompanied by exclamations of pleasure. I’m not sure how it works in other households, but at S’s family’s all the gifts are placed to the side of the tree initially, and then one representative from each family unit distributes that unit’s contributions to their recipients. It’s paced pretty naturally—only one or two people are passing out presents at a time—so all in all it takes a good hour to crack everything open. And by then, everyone’s ready for dessert (or a nap, depending).



There were about ten different kinds of cookies, more than you see here—yet another difference from my upbringing: my mom treated cookie-baking as an activity to do with us kids, not as a dessert-making effort. Dessert for us was cake or pie or store-bought cookies (usually Stella D’Oro). But S’s mom, aunt, and grandmother are all bakers, and between them there was a mighty assortment. Interestingly, very little with chocolate (sacrilege, I tell ya!). My favorite was one of the two chocolatey options, a biscuit with toffee bits dipped into dark chocolate and chopped pecans. Quite tasty indeed. There were also homemade cannoli, and a Costco-bought coconut-cream pie (ah, Costco! The one thing shared by Christians and Jews in this holiday season).

By seven o’clock the whole shebang was over and everyone was scrambling to leave before the rain turned to snow. We were not successful in that regard—about fifteen minutes after we hit the road, it started to snow, hard. What should have been a two-and-a-half hour drive ended up taking nearly an hour longer, but we arrived home in one piece, cold and tired but full of holiday cheer.

Now, as for those promised recipes:

Parmesan Crackers
[Originally clipped from the New York Times, though I had to make one very big adjustment]



Time: 20 minutes plus 2 hours chilling

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1-2 T. ice water

In a food processor, combine the first three ingredients and pulse until the dough comes together. [It absolutely refused to do so in my case, so I dribbled ice water into the running machine until it did.] Turn it out onto a piece of plastic wrap and form it into a log 1 1/2-inches in diameter. Chill until firm, at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325F. Grease two baking sheets. Cut the log into 1/4-inch thick crackers and place them 1-inch apart on the baking sheets. Bake until firm, about 12 to 13 minutes. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and raise the temperature to 500F. When the temperature comes up to the correct heat, return the sheets to the oven and bake for another 3 minutes, or until the crackers and deeply golden brown all over. Let cool on a wire rack.

Yield: 40 crackers

[I prepared the dough on Friday, baked on Saturday, and brought them to the party on Sunday, and they tasted great. Rich and slightly nutty, and really pretty to look at, too.]



Roasted Red Pepper Spread
[from Party Food by Barbara Kafka]

2 7-ounce jars roasted red peppers, drained
2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
2 T. minced fresh Italian parsley
1 T. fresh lemon juice
2 t. capers, drained
1 medium clove garlic, smashed, peeled, and mashed to a paste with
¼ t. kosher salt

Arrange the drained peppers on a double layer of paper towels and let them dry while preparing the recipe.

Combine the remaining ingredients in the work bowl of a food processor. Process until the capers and parsley are very finely chopped, or work hard with a large knife. Add the drained peppers and process, using on/off pulses, or chop until the peppers are coarsely chopped. Stop several times to scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure the mixture is evenly chopped. Check the seasonings and adjust as necessary. Store, covered, in the fridge for up to five days. Remove to room temperature before serving.

Yield: 1 ½ cups

[I prepared this on Thursday, and it only tasted better with more time for the flavors to meld.]

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Get Your Nominations in by Midnight: The Inaugural Food Blog Awards

Just a reminder that nominations for the first-ever Food Blog Awards, created and hosted by Kate at Accidental Hedonist, are closing tonight at midnight Pacific Time. Don’t miss the chance to make sure your favorite foodies' efforts are recognized—an awful lot of effort goes into blogging about food, and just think how oogy and warm-all-over it'll make you feel to acknowledge that fact. There are sixteen categories, and you’ll find the whole list here. Besides, just reading over the lists of nominees, I'm discovering food blogs I never knew existed. That's the best reason of all to take a look, I'd say.

Some of my nominations include Chocolate and Zucchini, Becks and Posh, 101 Cookbooks, Simply Recipes, and Tiny Fork.

And on a less humble, more crass note, Words to Eat By is in the running for Best New Blog. Finalists will be selected based on who has the most nominations, so if you’d like to help my little blog become a finalist, please click here to nominate me. Thanks!




Today S and I are heading down to South Jersey for his family’s Christmas celebration. I’m not exactly sure why they don’t do it on the actual day, but I'm glad that it means next week we'll be right here, having a real New York Christmas: Chinese food and a movie. I’ll write more about the holidays in the coming week, but in the meantime here’s a tease for my contribution to today’s festivities, Parmesan Crackers and Roasted Red Pepper Spread.

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I Think I’ve Died and Gone to Cono: Cono & Sons O’Pescatore

S and I just came back from dinner at our favorite local Italian spot—correction, it’s our favorite Italian spot, period. In my days as a publishing executive I got taken out a lot, to some pretty fine and fancy places. Babbo, I Trulli, Felidia, Beppe. I’ve been to Italy several times. What I’m saying is, I’ve eaten some mighty good Italian food. And I can’t quite put my finger on why, but the one place I find myself asking S to go again and again is a simple neighborhood joint called Cono & Sons O’Pescatore (aka Cono O’Pescatore), on the corner of Graham Avenue and Ainslie Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This is classic, old-school Italian-American cooking.

We only discovered the place a month or two ago, but tonight was our fourth (maybe fifth) time there. When you first enter, check out the antipasto on display behind glass to your right—platters of quick-fried cauliflower and stuffed peppers, cheeses and meats, just waiting to be served up. On a previous visit, I had a vegetarian assortment as my main course, and it was all lip-smacking good. The main room is nothing remarkable, just a bunch of tables and chairs with some cheesy Italianesque paintings on the walls and forests of potted trees blocking the windows. But the staff is extremely friendly and solicitous—they’re already beginning to remember us—and the bread is crusty. This is the kind of Italian restaurant where the bread comes with pats of foil-wrapped, ice-cold butter. No shallow bowls of herb-infused extra virgin olive oil here, thank you very much. Like I said: this is old-school.

There is one dish we’ve ordered every single time we’ve gone: Pasta Fagiole. We split a bowl, because it’s so freakin' huge we’d never have room for a main course otherwise. Six or seven different kinds of pasta, each one perfectly cooked (how on earth do they do that?), cannellini beans, some herbs, maybe some garlic, in not too much tomatoey broth. There's a dollop of tomato sauce in the middle to stir in, and grated cheese. It’s really more of a bowl of pasta than an actual soup. Oh I could just die. When S got up to go to the bathroom near the end of the bowl, I was shocked and delighted that he left me alone with it, the better to wipe a crust of bread along the bottom, and savor every last bit of hefty flavor.

After that, when we were already well on our way to being full, came Chicken a la Cono: strips of chicken breast sautéed with mushrooms, thinly sliced potatoes, and vinegary red peppers. The whole thing was well browned and very slightly greasy, in a good way. S had penne puttanesca, and as he put it, "Man, those whores were on to something." Chunky red sauce, with capers and big black oil-cured olives, still with pits. We barely managed to finish half our meals.

The whole bill was $40, and we've got enough leftovers for tomorrow. And afterwards, it has become our habit to walk around the corner to Fortunato Brothers for gelato, as if we need it...

I must say, most days I still miss my old neighborhood—I left Astoria to move in with S—but as long as there are remnants like this of the Italian neighborhood that Williamsburg used to be, I’ll be just fine.

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Madeleines, Shmadeleines: Kasha Varnishkes

“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.” –Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

Food and memory are inextricably linked. But what happens when the flavor of a beloved dish from childhood is altered slightly, just enough to make everything feel off? In my experience, the results can range from mild disappointment to enervating distemper. The other night, to go along with some leftover brisket from my family Hanukkah party, I made kasha varnishkes. I tweaked my mom’s recipe a bit. It was a terrible, horrible mistake.

Kasha varnishkes is one of my all-time favorite foods. The nutty, puffy grains, the sweetly caramelized onions, the toothy bowties…sigh. During a year or two when I thought I was a vegetarian, I often cooked it for dinner—graduating it from a stellar side dish to the headlining attraction, making it the Paul Giamatti of my cooking repertoire. In our family recipe (which is, of course, adapted from the back of the Wolff’s kasha box), the liquid used is always plain old, good old water, and the mushrooms are canned. Driven by foodie snobbery, I suppose, I got it into my head that swapping in a little chicken broth could only be a good thing—it would deepen the flavor and make it more substantial. My mom and I have actually discussed this before, and she has always insisted that the only proper way to make kasha varnishkes is with water. Damn if she wasn’t right.

It’s funny—I knew enough not to tamper with the mushrooms, and used a jar of Green Giant. But when it came to the main flavor base, the ingredient that would infuse each grain of kasha with its uniquely fluffy, firm bite…well, there I thought I could get all fancy and make something better than my own mother. It was a small substitution—just one cup of chicken broth in place of half the water, but it was nearly enough to ruin the dish. I still ate it, of course—even with broth it was yummy—but it wasn’t the memory-heavy perfection I anticipated.

The other place I went wrong was in the preparation itself. My mom cooks the kasha first, then lets it sit in the pot while she cooks the noodles. This has always struck me as a bit backwards—it seemed much more streamlined to prepare the noodles and hold them over a pot of simmering water until the kasha was ready. So that’s what I did. Turns out there’s a reason for most things, even in old-fashioned recipes. The kasha actually needs those fifteen or twenty minutes to sit, untouched, and absorb whatever moisture remains in the pot. It is that little chunk of time, in fact, that makes the dish. Eaten right away, the kasha is mushy and slightly mealy and wholly unsatisfying. But the reward for patience is great, as I discovered when I went to put away the leftovers. What had been an altogether incorrect rendition of kasha varnishkes had, with time to just sit, transformed into a textbook example. The texture of the leftovers, which I had for breakfast the next day, was pretty near fabulous. But that taste, oh that taste. It was still off, just a little bit.

I was wrong. Ma, I apologize.

Kasha Varnishkes
Serves 4 as a side, 2 as a vegetarian main course

A good glug of vegetable oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 small jar sliced mushrooms
1 cup medium buckwheat groats (kasha)
1 egg white, lightly beaten
2 cups boiling water
1 cup uncooked bowtie egg noodles [growing up it was always Goodman’s brand, but