Posts filed under ‘Rants, Semi-Rants and Non-Rants’
The Julia Child’s Weekend – Lessons Learned
Happy Birthday Julia
Cooking “with” Julia for us began almost 35 years ago. At that time were we young,easily impressed and searching for avenues of socialization. Our group was mostly young professionals, moving up and striking out toward the future. Dinners were challenges to be met head on, who could make the best dishes, who could make the most courses. We had lots of by-standers back then, friends who would stand by the sidelines and wait to enjoy the spoils of the challenge. A few of us grabbed the opportunity and ran with it, and I believe we’ve still “got game” today.
As I said in the previous post, our friend Jeannie, one of those who readily accepted the challenge back then, came out to Ohio to celebrate all things Julia with us. Back in the 70′s Jean was a methodical cook, reading the recipe, rushing to the stove and rushing back to give it one more look before committing to the process. The meals always followed the book, always done just right and Always wonderful. This is pretty much how she continues to cook today and although she claims not to cook anymore, her skills belie this.
I, on the other hand read an entire recipe, get the gist of it and then have at it. Over the years I have developed my own style and as in life, have figured out the short cuts and methods that will yield the same results but with less detailed work, not sloppy or lazy, I am just impatient. My meals, others have told me, always turn out great, unlike Jeannie, I cook everyday.
So back to the lessons learned. I like to cook alone, you could easily lose a body part walking through my kitchen when I am in deep throws of getting the food to the table. I don’t apologize for this, it is the way I am and even my kids knew to “stay on their side of the counter ” when I was cooking. Jeannie, being the methodical one, doesn’t mind cooking alone or with someone, she will check her recipes over and over again just to make sure.
All the meals for the Julia Child’s Weekend turned out great, no I really mean this. They were probably the best of each recipe I (we) have made in the last 10 years; although I have made the same meals many times and they are just short of these results. I am willing to sacrifice that minute difference to facilitate making them more. Even when we changed cooks in the kitchen the recipes came out just right. My wife and Jean made spectacular lamb chops and potatoes the first night. Jeanie and I, mostly Jeanie put together the very best Beef Bourguignon and homemade noodles the next night. Although there was a high traffic volume sneaking in to the kitchen to lower the flame on the pot (me) or raise the flame on the pot (Jeanie) the end result was true Julia. The Steak Diane on Saturday was as Jeanie, an east-coaster would say, to die for. The ladies put together a Pear Tatin, complaining the whole time, that was wonderful and left you thinking about it long after the crumbs were gone. Today is the last full day of the food fest. I will ask Jeanie to finish us off with one of her and Julia’s Roasted Chickens. Jeannie says you have to move the bird every so many minutes but the effort is worth the energy spent. Hopefully she will add some of those stuffed, baked tomatoes from one of Julia’s cookbooks.
My final thought is that I stick to the theory that if you need to have a meal come out perfect then reach for one of Julia’s cookbooks, follow it to a tee and you will not be disappointed. So if we do another of these weekends I will understand each person’s role and why. Jeannie wins on points though as she does a better Julia saying, “dribble, dribble, dribble ” while applying just the right amount of butter to the finish.
The Julia Child’s Weekend -Snatching Victory From the Jaws of Trouble
From Julia Child's Kitchen - Julia Child
I have been remiss this last week in getting the posts onto the blog. It was not my choice to “go silent” but but with friends here, food purchased and the weekend begun; my health decided to through me for a curve. Mid-night on Saturday brought a kidney stone into the equation, my first and hopefully my last. Nothing 6 hours in the E-room and then prescribed drugs couldn’t fix. Surgery on Thursday took care of the problem but we still had the much planned for and looked forward to Weekend of Julia Child.
For our regular readers (rr) you will remember that last weekend and this weekend were to be company weekends with lots of conversations and good food. Last weekend our friends the Knupps, came in from Virginia on their way to both of our previous hometowns of Chicago. Jim has contributed several recipes to our website at emealsforyou.com, mostly under the name of Capt Jim so we were looking forward to it being a cook’s weekend. We got through the Saturday night meal, Chicken Cacciatore with pencil points and homemade espresso gelato for dessert. My troubles began that night and luckily we arrived back from the hospital just before breakfast on Sunday. Thanks to the prescription drugs I was able to get through the breakfast of quick breads, sticky buns and date nut bread. Lunch was small plate sandwiches of grilled bread, spread with goat cheese, red peppers and ham. I will add the recipe in the near future. Dinner on Saturday was pan-roasted sea scallops with brown butter sage sauce and some beef medallions au poivre. A Lemon Tart finished the meal. The Knupps got on their way on Monday after a breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with syrup and ginger pancakes with pumpkin butter.
Thursday was the day our friend Jean came in to our much anticipated Julia Child’s weekend; a weekend of cooking everything “Julia” and going to see the new movie Julie and Julia. I have spent the last 20 years or so figuring how to make the recipes Julia Child’s would cook but with a few less steps and quicker to the table methods to make them more accessible to the average cook. Jean told me that we should do only Julia Child’s recipes and would be staying true to the recipes, no short steps. We unloaded my 9 or so Julia Child’s cookbooks and began. The first real snag in our plans was that the surgeon had scheduled me for kidney stone surgery at noon. Jean’s plane was due in at 12:30 but luckily was late by some 50 minutes. This just allowed my wife to drop me off at the outpatient surgery and make it to the airport to pick up Jean. They scooped me up on the return and then home where my wife and Jean put the first Julia dinner together without my help. Everything turned out great, garlic mustard breadcrumbs hugged the perfectly cooked lamb chops, accompanied by Julia’s Gratin of Potatoes alla Savoyarde. Being more myself on Friday I spent the day in the kitchen slowly, ever so slowly cooking Julia’s Beef Bourguignon, with homemade Julia’s noodles and Caesar Salad, also Julia’s recipe. Tonight we are onto Julia’s Steak Diane, mashed potatoes and Pear Tart Tatin.
I will endeavor over the next few weeks to get these recipes on the blog; all are available on our emealsforyou.com website. The photos is of one of the many cookbooks that were flying about this week; don’t want to stray too far from the wonderful Julia Child’s recipes.
Who’d of Thunk? – A Surprising Non-Rant
First of all I can’t believe I am writing this post. I am not the one who usually puts any belief in “crazy” remedies; I’m usually the one jabbing at the people who believe in this stuff. While eating right and eating things that are good for you are on my radar; out of the blue comes a “remedy” for a physical problem I have been fighting for a long, long time.
Oregano, seems that it is not just for flavoring Mediterranean food. I have had terrible sinus problems for years, been through the doctors and pills and no help. So the son of a good friend tells him to tell me that he had the same problem and an Allergist recommended wild oregano pills, no kidding. I have been taking one a day for 6 weeks and my headaches are gone. The only downside that I can find is that 1/2 hour after taking them I tend to burp Greek Salad.
Finally a Good Thing – A Happy Rant
Finally a good thing out of this economy; at least good for those of us who drink wine. Not so good for those wine producers, distributors and shippers. According to an article in the New York Times, The Pour by Eric Asimov, there is a glut of wine grapes on the market; make that really good wine grapes. Growers have an abundance of grapes, with prices down 1/3. While this article focuses on the California market; I am assuming with the global economy, the effect should reach most of the wine producing countries.
A quick note as to how small wine producers price their wines. There really is no scale or book to follow, they simply figure what is the highest price they can get for their wines and then go to market with that price. Larger producers have established their “brand” and pretty much stick to the same price year to year unless they have a really high rated product year.
So what does this mean for us, the everyday wine drinker and weekend drinker? First of all price point; our usual wine is $15 and below; with most of us it is $10 and below. We find wines that we like and can afford and constantly search for the next “find”; a really good wine at a great price. With the glut we will begin to see “boutique” wines drop in price affording us an opportunity to try many wines that typically would be out of reach. Secondly, those “branded” wines will start to show some price relief in the above $15 categories. Previously when we saw a cost reduction at our favorite wine store it was because of some climatic problem that produced inferior wine. Now we have the opportunity to drink really good wines, reduced due to the glut, at a price point we can almost afford.
Cheers!!!
A Salute to Julia on the Occasion of Her 97th Birthday – A Celebration!
Julia Child
August 15th will mark the 97th birthday of Julia Child. For those of us who learned to cook through her TV shows and books it is a time of celebration of all things Julia. A new movie is being released: Julie and Julia, Barbara Fairchild the editor of Bon Appetit has written a Letter From the Editor: Why Julia Still Matters, and those of us who grew up swilling our wine and laughing our way through her complicated and wonderful recipes will spend time celebrating her life and her food.
Jean, our friend whom we introduced you to in cranberry cream scones, will be making the trek to Ohio to recreate some of the meals we cooked back in the 70′s, when we followed every word Julia said. I dragged out my Julia Child’s cookbooks (7) so that when Jean called to compare notes on what the menu should be for the weekend I would be better able to speak “Julia”. The food will be great but the real pleasure will be to be among friends, sharing wonderful memories and laughs. As we tip our glasses in Julia’s honor a simple phrase will be the mantra: Bon Appetit!
Cooking, just like a hot bath only better – A Semi-rant
Many of my friends are single people who treat the idea of cooking for themselves as a disease they would like to avoid at all costs. This is not to say they don’t like good food just that they look upon preparing it just short of torture. To them it is easier t o grab a cold slice of pizza from the countertop than to actually think about making a meal they would enjoy; if they only would take the time.
These same people will spend hours downloading just the right group of songs from the Internet, time is not an issue here. They race home from work to watch their TIVO’d versions of daytime talk shows and soaps; all the while wolfing down a can of barely heated soup, probably right out of the pan.
What we need here is an attitude adjustment. Think more about the enjoyment end of meals and less about the dreaded preparation. Let’s take a look at a “typical” day. Things are piling up at work, it seems you will never catch up and then you allow yourself to think about going home, pouring a hot bath, lighting some candles, and turning on some of your favorite tunes and just relaxing. Ah!!!!. See, just reading about it makes you smile a little.
Try this. Pick a night, set the table for yourself before heading off to work. Now at work think about coming home and having a really good meal, a celebration of yourself. Think about it the same way you would think about that hot bath. The bath takes some prep but in the end it is all worth the effort. Once you realize how little effort it takes; how rewarding it becomes, you will find yourself doing it more. The next step is to invite a friend over, suddenly there are more rewarding aspects to your life besides reruns of The View.
Objects in the Mirror May be Closer Than You Think – A Rant
Watching where you’ve been not where you are going can be hazardous to your health. The same principle applies to trying to stay within your family meal budget. In the past you went to the grocery store and bought whatever caught your eye, planning what to feed your family on the fly. Not only was this not cost effective but it caused the time consuming practice of repeated visits back to the store to pick up this and that to round out the meals during the week.
We live in a DIY, do it yourself, society. There are numerous shows on TV showing us how easy it is to make this and fix that. There are Do It Home Centers designed to provide all the materials we need to change that bathroom, paint that house or build that deck. How many of us jumped in with both feet only to find out we didn’t have the full range of abilities to complete the job. Heck, they even have a TV show that goes in after the homeowner messes up the job and fixes it.
The same problems arise when we are forced by budgets to cut expenses and now find we are eating more times at home and enjoying it less. We start off by “planning” a week’s meals in our heads, you know, hot dogs on Monday, Wednesday is tuna night, Friday fishsticks, etc. On or about the 3rd week we are bored with what we are cooking and the family is beginning to grumble. So we start to sit down and try to write out a menu for the week but we again run out of ideas. Surfing the Internet will provide some recipes but there is the time needed to surf, to create a list of recipes we think we ( the kids) will like and then manage to cobble together some sort of shopping list. Off to the store and then we find ourselves back in the same old grind again.
Why not make your life a little easier and your family a little happier and turn to a meal planning source. For very little money, money you will see in savings each trip to the grocery, you will be provided recipe ideas, meal plans and shopping lists to make it all work. Choose a service that works for you. We shamelessly suggest ours (www.emealsforyou.com) but you really should try to get a better handle on meal planning and budgeting, and sooner rather than later.
Are We Really Feeding Our Families Healthy Food? – A Challenging Rant
Many of us believe we are feeding our families good and healthy food most of the time. We take great pride in using low fat this and that. The problem is that we are not looking at the whole picture. When taken as a whole, chances are we are really leaving a huge hole in their nutritional needs while most likely overdoing it on the fat and sugar. I hear you, even through the Internet you are screaming, NOT ME.” It’s time to put up or shut up.
I propose a challenge; I challenge you to record all the meals and snacks you prepare for your family for a two week period. I strongly feel that when you go over your meals you will find that there may be a large area you can improve on. I have a cheat sheet for you to enter the meals and snacks, just click here to see it.
The ideal test would be for you to fill this sheet out without knowing you will evaluate it after two weeks. There is a chance knowing you are going to be accountable for the nutrition of your family may influence what you prepare. The good side of this is that if you are more careful then it is a lesson learned and hopefully you will be more diligent in the future. This exercise is geared to help you become more cognizant of how to feed your family better and learn to plan your meals better. No one will be looking over your shoulder to compare notes, although having a coffee session with a few of your friends who also take the challenge may help all of you develop better habits.
I am interested in how this works for you. Please feel free to add your comments after you give it a try.
Neighborhood – Going the Way of the Porch? – A Rant
Growing up we always had someone stopping by to say hi. My parents’ friends would stop by without notice on their way home or just because they were driving by. After dinner my parents would sit out on their front porch, either in the old metal glider or the rocking chairs and talk about their workday while waving to the many people who would honk their horn going by. It was a different time and place, people weren’t as rushed and had time for each other.
After returning from 4 years in the USAF we settled down in the same general area that our parents lived in. Seeing old friends and making new were an everyday occasion. As we grew up stop-by visits with friends and relatives was a regular thing. Friends would stop by for a drink or dinner or we would stop at their houses for the same. It was a more relaxed time.
So now let’s jump to today’s world. Garage doors go up, cars pull in, garage doors shut. Our world becomes defined by work, meetings and planning for more work and more meetings. We lock ourselves in our tight houses communicating via cell phone. I guess if we put a photo of someone on our phones, so that when we receive a call from them we actually see their picture, we feel closer. Front yards are for showing off, backyards are fenced for privacy. A select group of friends make “appointments” weeks in advance to come by for a drink or maybe a meal.
So maybe we were a little less savvy back then, a little less sophisticated. Times were easier and less intense… but it seemed special as I look back on it now.
Dogs may be the answer, yes dogs. In our neighborhood most people have dogs, maybe they have transferred the need for freindship to those furry creatures mindlessly chasing a ball. The good news is that walking dogs get all of us outside… somtimes at the same time. Conversations start up, parties are planned; people are even wandering into the backyards to share a drink and a meal. Maybe we don’t need a porch glider, maybe a dog is just the right thing.
Dressing Up Old Standards – A Semi-Rant
(From The Starch Collection at emealsforyou.com)
fettichini alfredo +
Back in July of last year we wrote a post about finding your : Cooking Comfort Zone suggesting that you use the ingredients you like and not use the ingredients you don’t like. We would like to take that a bit further. Take one of your favorite recipes and add something to make it better, or at least different. You see this all the time; do you want chicken in that salad?
Take that Spinach Salad and add some Mandarin Oranges. How about adding some chicken to the Caesar Salad? Our choice is to add dried cranberries to Fettuccine Alfredo and put in some toasted pecans as well. Again, this is what we think, what is important is that you add what you like. Just like the restaurants you can add chicken, shrimp, tomatoes, just about anything that appeals to you to make the “same old same old” taste like an entirely different meal. Can’t get your kids to eat vegetables or fruit? Add it to what they like. Chances are if you put broccoli in their mac and cheese, after the initial resistance, they will eat it without further comment. Add some golden raisins or fresh mango and you have an interesting twist on a favorite. You may find that your family will like the newer version and may even thank you.
Fettuccine Alfredo
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 8 |
| Category: | Starch |
| Meal: | Dinner on the Deck (Picnic Meal Plans) |
| 1 | lb | pasta, fettuccine |
| 1 | large | egg |
| 0.66 | cup | cream, light |
| 8 | Tb | butter, salted |
| 0.5 | cup | cheese, Romano, grated |
| 0.75 | cup | cheese, Swiss shredded |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Beat egg with cream. Melt butter. Pour both over cooked, drained, hot fettuccine, add grated cheese. Toss and serve.
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