Gourmet

I just wanted to say a couple things about the closing of Gourmet Magazine.

First, what is most sad is that people who love their work and depend on their paycheck, no longer have either. That is the real tragedy here.

Second, Ruth Reichl seems like a very cool lady - talented, passionate, tough, a smart cookie and the very opposite of a food snob. I'm pretty sure she will land on her feet.

Third, I was going to let my subscription to Gourmet run out. True.

I have cooked many recipes from Gourmet, posted some of them here and most have been lovely successes, but I felt that Bon Appetite, with its adventurous, tasty but manageable recipes and short, creative, but scan-able articles with the cool layout just met my needs more.

I agree with my neighbor Kian at Redcook that Gourmet's beautiful photography and long rambling travel pieces were luxurious, gorgeous and lush. They were relevant, for sure. Maybe the best in the business. But frankly, these days, I barely have time to scan an article or read a page at night before my head slams into the pillow, much less lay on my sofa with my feet up and delve into the riches of a food excursion to Bankok, complete with recipes that take so long to prep and make that I would have to hire a babysitter and program 20 hours of Wonder Pets onto my DVR just to make it happen.


Bon Appetite is just a better solution for people who are excited by food and cooking and eating, but don't have all weekend to hold up in their kitchens making 32 different flavors of jam. I love jam, mind you, I love making jam, but the family will throw spatulas at me if I disappear into the kitchen making something they can't eat for lunch.

If Conde Nast had to let one go, better it be the old icon, instead of the re-vamped upstart. They are merely responding to ad sales, subscription numbers, a changing media business, a morphing food culture, and demand. You can't really blame the boys in Conde Nast accounting for not being sentimental.

Fourth, make no mistake - the death of Gourmet is not an indication that food culture is being dumbed down by people who throw their "cooking made easy" dishes on the table on nights when they aren't microwaving the Gorton's Fish Sticks or pulling a "Kids Cuisine" TV dinner out of the freezer. Those people aren't reading Bon Appetite or Gourmet anyway.

But this might be a sign that not everyone who loves to cook, eat and enjoy food has to prove their kitchen prowess by languishing in the kitchen for hours at a time while their husbands bang the secretary and the kids zone out to Xbox. Unless you are Thomas Keller or a professional chef, food isn't the end. It's the means. At least for most of us with families.

My cooking is partly about fulfilling myself, being creative, expanding my culinary experience and cooking techniques, making more and more from scratch, and occasionally getting some feedback that makes my head swell, but it's mostly about feeding people. And feeding people isn't the thing of long, gorgeous, spiraling articles and otherworldly photography.

It's real, immediate, no nonsense, unfussy and right now.

It means I need almost constant inspiration with very little time to cultivate it. When I need information and inspiration, it must come quickly, succinctly and pack a wallop.

It means making the most of my time in the kitchen so I can cook amazing, tasty, healthy, do-able food, constantly introduce new ingredients, herbs, seasoning, tastes and textures, make many processed food items like broth and sauces from scratch, make a bunch of people with disparate preferences happy and still have the energy to clean up, wipe the flour off my face and have two minutes with my husband and kids (or maybe even to myself) before I have to herd everyone to the bathroom and throw everyone in bed. And do this, sometimes more than three times a day.

See? No time for long rambling magazine trips to street markets in Thailand.

So, there is a part of me that is sad that Gourmet has hit the skids. Sad, mostly for the people who worked there and are now trying to figure it all out for themselves. But mostly, I feel like Gourmet is just another cautionary tale for media that doesn't have sense enough to know when change is upon them.

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Tom Colicchio Talks About His Own Picky Eater

Looks like you're not alone. Even Tom has a hard time getting his kid to eat broccoli.

Check out the whole interview here.

xo YM

Note: Saint Tigerlily just mentioned in comments that Colicchio will be sitting on a panel with Jessica Seinfeld in Florida. I think Tigerlily was secretly questioning Jessica's credentials. Okay, not so secretly. But you judge for yourself. And then, she asked me what we parents think of Jessica's book and, in general, what we think about hiding pureed vegetables in our kid's food. I don't know about you, but I ranted about it here in 2007 when the book came out. Be prepared - I was mean. And kind of crazed.

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Obama? Or Colicchio?

Oh sure, Obama is great and everything. He's poised to save us from the brink of destruction, be our hope and guiding light, pull us from the abyss, leader of the free world, most powerful man on earth, blah blah blah. That's nice.

But really, the guy's no Tom Colicchio.

Read this where we see our chef run across the room at a public function and save a cookbook author, who is choking on a piece of chicken, stealthily snatching her from the brink of death with his large manly hands.

Really, is Obama gonna do that at a State Dinner? I think not.

Colicchio rocks.

xxoo YM Continue Reading...

Anthony Bourdain: That's DisGUSting?

We were watching Anthony Bourdain’s show, “No Reservations” last night.

Sometimes when the baby can’t sleep, I put her in the pouch and watch some food show and even though Evil Chef Mom wants to undress Bourdain with her teeth and slap his naked bum with her spatula, the guy makes my kid nod off in about 2 seconds.

Bourdain has a special place in my heart.


This was the case with last night’s episode in Laos, which I found fascinating and even very emotional as Anthony was served a lovely, simple meal by a family that was nearly obliterated when the father had both an arm and leg blown off by old US bombs lying around in the dirt near his farm.

Seeing this does make me wonder, of course – Does the Travel Channel reimburse the subsistence farmers when they entertain mega-celebrity chefs when they pop into their impoverished country with camera crews and hairdressers? I certainly hope Tony dropped off a few kip on his way out the door.

But I digress. This isn't really about Tony.

Anyway, Bourdain was all humbled to be eating with this family and I was all moved and even David and Lucy, who were getting ready for bed, came into the library to watch, which is when "the thing" happened…

It’s the thing that Lucy learned while watching Charlie Brown Christmas for the freakin’ 30th time this summer, because we TIVO’ed it at Christmas and now even in 90 degree weather, with sweat trickling down my neck and not a Santa figurine in sight, my daughter will ask for Christmas to be here, wonder when we will make snowmen, break out into a rousing version of Jingle Bells while sliding topless in her bathing suit bottoms down a water slide and will ask to watch this Charlie Brown Christmas program as if Santa were on his way here with sleigh freakin’ bells a –ringin’.

She likes it because of Lucy. Because she fancies the idea that she and the obstinate, smooth-like-sandpaper, screamy, canon-ball-in-a-dress who pulls the football out from under Charlie Brown...


And demands to be made the Christmas Queen in the Christmas play and tells Shroeder that Beethoven sucks because he was never on a bubble gum card...


...are like kindred spirits, bound together for all eternity by their same name.


And so this is why, when cartoon Lucy is accosted by Snoopy who lays a sickingly, lusciously wet dog kiss on her face, cartoon Lucy starts screaming, “Dog kisses! I’ve been kissed by a dog!...That’s DISGUSTING!” But she says “That’s disgusting” with so much gusto and oomph and derision that cartoon spittle must have come flying out of her mouth and landed all over the Great Pumpkin.

Ooops. Wrong Show.


Not these either...


I couldn't resist. Tell me you didn't just now spit Coke out of your nose?

So, Lucy has made the phrase “That’s disgusting!”, with particular emphasis on the “GUS” part of the word, a standard phrase around here and she says it with the same gusto as cartoon Lucy, all spittle and vulgarity and passion. And then, after she sort of spins out into rolls on the floor, she holds her belly and gasps for breath as she laughs and chokes and belches out more of the “That’s DisGUSting's!” in between hiccups and hysteria.

It’s actually quite entertaining. Unless of curse, she says it while eating dinner at someone’s house, which she did once, and so we had to explain that maybe some people didn’t get the joke, so the "Lucy-isms" had to stay here at the house.

But last night, Bourdain and McDonalds put the old phrase back into action and I thought I’d share it with you since there has been a whole McDonald's conversation in the comments of my last post. This is how it went:

Bourdain is regaling us with how un-industrialized Laos is and mentions that there are no Burger King or Pizza Hut or McDonalds. To which Lucy cries out, “That’s disGUSting!...No McDonalds? That’s disGUSting!” and then, falls into herself laughing hysterically at her own lame joke, which then sort of ruins the whole emotional dramatic thing that Bourdain has going for us and we all just start laughing and saying "That's disGUSting!" over and over until we just can't take ourselves anymore.

I know. We're pathetic.

Lucy was still cracking up at herself when she climbed into bed.

I have no idea why I told you this story since it has no end. And no real point. I just felt like it. And I like to talk about Bourdain and work him into my stuff. And now I feel all kinds of vindicated since I found that picture of someone who paints their butt cheeks to look like pumpkins.

It's all been worth it.

You can have a great weekend now...

xxoo YM Continue Reading...

Thomas Keller's Favorite Roast Chicken...and Albert The Mouse

Let me begin this post by telling you about the newest member of our family...a pet.

A mouse named Albert.

Okay, he’s not really our pet. He’s a small, weirdly-adorable, disease-carrying interloper who nearly scared the crap out of me this morning when he decided to blow his cover and run across the living room floor and skid to a stop behind a shelf.

At first I thought I was seeing things. Perhaps I was still in some kind of sleep state and required caffeine and a shower? This idea set in for a few minutes and I convinced myself that I was, in fact, seeing things. I re-gained my sense of confidence and trust in the world.

But then, Albert decided his position was precarious and there were too many children hovering about who might grab him, stuff him into doll clothes and make him eat pretend baby food in the pretend kitchen and he made a break for it.

My sense of well-being was crushed.

So, I did what any self-respecting mother would do. I picked up one child under each arm and ran. I ran as if I were walking across hot coals carrying two bags of sand, but still, I ran right into the bathroom where David was attempting to take a peaceful shower. I put the girls down safely in the bathroom and ordered them to stay put the way someone in Kansas would, say, order children to stay put in the root cellar until the tornado blows over.

The children stood there looking at me as if I had lost my mind. This must be the vacant bewildered stare that children have when they realize their once loving parents have gone truly mad. Great.

David said, What’s wrong?" And I said, “Mouse.” And he said "What?" and opened the shower door. And I said "Mouse" again only this time I was not quite sure why he didn't understand that if I was saying "Mouse" over and over it was because there was a "Mouse" scurrrying around the living room and a "Mouse" leaving bits of vermin and disease throughout our home, where our children roll around naked trying to do sommersaults and Edie eats scraps of fish off the floor. Wasn't it clear what "Mouse" means?

"Mouse"? he asked. "Yes, a mouse." "Do you mean there's a mouse in the house?" "Yes, there's a mouse in the house with a clock on a rock...what are we?...Living in a Dr. Seuss book????"

Why wasn't he running to the kitchen, rifling under the cupboards and squeezing the life out of this thing with his manly Australian hands? Hadn't he heard about the bubonic plague? Didn't he know that our kitchen cupboards probably looked like a casting call for "Ratatouille"?

So, I said "Mouse" again only this time I pointed to the living room, as if that cleared it up, and glanced at the kids the way parents do when they want to keep important information from the children, only this time my kids were looking up at me intently, reading my face and my bad attempt at chirades and Lucy took the opportunity to squeal hopefully, "We have a mousey?"

And without any thought or hesitation she grabbed her sister's hands and said, "We have a mousey, Edie!" and the two of them held hands and skipped in a circle.

"I guess the only one who's scared of the mouse is Mommy." David said...and smiled...and closed the shower door. Wise ass.

Now that you're thrilled you don't live at my house, I leave you to embark on an Elmer Fudd-like attempt to rid our house of Albert. But before I leave, I want to change your life with the most incredible and easy family dinner on the planet. We had it last night, courtesy of Thomas Keller. I have not adapted this recipe at all and give it to you in the chefs own words. This recipe for roast chicken is so simple and unfussy that you won't believe the chicken can possibly turn out so juicy and the skin, so salty and crisp, with absolutely no effort on your part. Just follow his recipe verbatim.

It's effortless and it speaks to how often simple is just better.

xxxooo YM (and Albert)

________________________________________

Thomas Keller’s Simple Roast Chicken

Serves 2 - 4

Ingredients

One 2- to 3-pound farm-raised chicken
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons minced thyme (optional)

Accompaniments (optional)

Unsalted butter
Dijon mustard

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Rinse the chicken, then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. The less it steams, the drier the heat, the better.

Salt and pepper the cavity, then truss the bird. Trussing is not difficult, and if you roast chicken often, it's a good technique to feel comfortable with. When you truss a bird, the wings and legs stay close to the body; the ends of the drumsticks cover the top of the breast and keep it from drying out. Trussing helps the chicken to cook evenly, and it also makes for a more beautiful roasted bird.

Now, salt the chicken — I like to rain the salt over the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin (about 1 tablespoon). When it's cooked, you should still be able to make out the salt baked onto the crisp skin. Season to taste with pepper.

Place the chicken in a sauté pan or roasting pan and, when the oven is up to temperature, put the chicken in the oven. I leave it alone — I don't baste it, I don't add butter; you can if you wish, but I feel this creates steam, which I don't want. Roast it until it's done, 50 to 60 minutes. Remove it from the oven and add the thyme, if using, to the pan. Baste the chicken with the juices and thyme and let it rest for 15 minutes on a cutting board.

Remove the twine. Separate the middle wing joint and eat that immediately. Remove the legs and thighs. I like to take off the backbone and eat one of the oysters, the two succulent morsels of meat embedded here, and give the other to the person I'm cooking with. But I take the chicken butt for myself. I could never understand why my brothers always fought over that triangular tip — until one day I got the crispy, juicy fat myself. These are the cook's rewards. Cut the breast down the middle and serve it on the bone, with one wing joint still attached to each. The preparation is not meant to be superelegant. Slather the meat with fresh butter. Serve with mustard on the side and, if you wish, a simple green salad. You'll start using a knife and fork, but finish with your fingers, because it's so good.

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Crazy-Kid-Proof "Coq au Vin"

The first thing I want to say about Coq au Vin is that it’s not for weanies.

Let me rephrase, it might be fine for weanies, just not people with small children. Oh, okay, it's fine for people with small children, just the kind of small children who sit quietly with a book in their laps and read to themselves while you cook.

That or you'll need a kid-proof recipe.

Oh don’t get me wrong, the Coq was great and the 4 kids and 6 neighbors ate like crazy and I’m thrilled I made it. It’s just that I was working off this recipe that was riddled with problems for a cook who has one child driving her tricycle into my leg while I’m at the stove and the other pelting me with raisins until I give her some boob. So, I re-jiggered the recipe to meet my needs.

But here are some things I learned while making Coq au Vin:

• It's not really Coq. Coq au Vin generally requires a rooster - an old bird with lots of sinewy connective tissue that gets you a better broth. This is great except I don’t live on a farm and the nearest organic chicken is like 30 blocks away and I barely was able to drag myself downtown to get 2 organic birds, much less a rooster that spent his long, pastured life meandering around the barnyard, nibbling corn off the ground and chasing the hens at some hippy farm in the Catskills… and sells for $40 a carcass. Puh-lease. This Coq au Vin was made with a young (organic) chicken. And I reduced the cooking time. So sue me.

• There are several recipes for this dish that require multiple pan changes and sauteeing vegetables separately. Are these recipe writers high on crack? Do they have so much time on their hands that three extra pans and separate cooking time is no big deal? Are they childless? Because I think if they had children and they had to clean the floor in front of the sink 10 times a day like I do, the idea of 3 extra pans would be akin to wearing a hair suit.

• Jointing a chicken takes approximately 6 steps and about 10 minutes (with the usual interruptions for juice and boo boo kissing). Maybe more if you are a complete mess with a knife. In my world, an extra 10 minutes can mean the difference between getting dinner on the table or having to stop dinner because one little person tried to stab another little person with a Sleeping Beauty Princess Wand and one of them is screaming and bleeding and the other is pissed because her wand is broken and is demanding that I procure some sticky tape and fix the magic implement, so they both come screaming and crying into the kitchen, dripping blood and demanding justice. As I know these things happen while I cook, I asked the meat guy in the market to joint my chickens. Seriously, I’m like a genius.

• Did you know that flambe is a part of making Coq au vin in some recipes? Like one of the ones I was using last night. Funny. Because dousing the chicken in brandy and setting it on fire and purposely igniting a column of alcohol-soaked flames shooting three feet into the air and burning off my eyebrows and possibly igniting several nearby flammable pink tutus is definitely going to put a damper on dinner. I ignored directions to set things on fire. And you should too unless your kids are on the other side of the house, dressed in Hazmat suits, ready to stop, drop and roll and have a clear path to the fire exits.

I re-jiggered the recipe using the best strategies from three recipes (one from amazing cook and fellow food blogger Anita at Married With Dinner, another from Gordon Ramsey, who is always extraordinary and reliable) and one from Martha Stewart, who can joint a chicken, throw a clay pot and weed her prize-winning daffodils all at the same time) and came up with this highly do-able version. I also broke it into steps so you can prep ahead or divide the steps into different parts of the day, so you don’t have one big hunk of cooking right before you eat. For instance, you can do step 1 and 2 in the morning and step 3 and 4 right before you pop the dish in the oven.

This is great meal for Sunday lunch, but it’s a wee bit complicated for a week night meal unless you do steps 1 and 2 in advance. Last night I cooked and served the whole thing in a big paella pan which looks mighty impressive when you bring it to the table all hot and steamy.

This recipe makes dinner for 6 and change (I fed 6 adults, 4 small kids and had leftovers for lunch for David and the girls.)

I wrote this recipe on the fly this morning, so don't be afraid to add or subtract to your taste. Don't worry. I trust you.

Xxxooo YM

__________________

Crazy-Kid-Proof "Coq au Vin"

• 2 chickens jointed or 4 breasts, 4 thighs, 4 wings, 4 legs
• 2 cups full-bodied red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
  
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cups chicken stock (home-made if possible. If not, College Inn organic which was judged by Cooks Illustrated to be the best store-bought brand)
  
• 8 ounces slab bacon, cut into 1/2-inch dice (sliced bacon or pancetta will do in a pinch but slab is better)
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 8 ounces of small onions (pearl or cippolini) or 3 medium onions, finely chopped
• 8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (if the kids are climbing up your legs begging you to watch the Wiggles with them, use pre-chopped garlic. Who the hell is gonna know?)
• 1/2 pound small cremini mushrooms
• 2 handfuls of flour
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 coursely chopped tomatoes (you can use a tinned chopped tomatoes in a pinch)
• 4 celery stalks, cut into 1 1/2 inch lengths
• 6 to 8 good size carrots cut into 1 1/2 inch lengths
  
• 2 tablespoons Cognac (optional, but no need to flame it. Please.)
• 2 bay leaves
• 8 fresh thyme sprigs

Step 1

Mise en place: Cut celery, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, bacon and mushrooms and have them ready for later cooking. This will probably take you 10-20 minutes depending on how good you are with a knife.

Step 2

Heat the butter and oil in a large ovenproof casserole (or a big paella pan, if you are feeding a crowd). Fry the bacon pieces in the butter/oil until browned, and remove to a plate with a slotted spoon. Lightly brown the onions in the same pan, and likewise remove them to the plate.

In a ziplock bag, add chicken pieces and flour (salt the flour a little) and shake until pieces are covered. Shake off excess flour, tapping them slightly and working in batches, brown the chicken in the bacon-butter-oil juices until they are golden on all sides. (You may have to add a bit more oil if you are browning 2 chickens instead of 1). Remove to a platter when they are browned.

If you are doing this step ahead, set aside browned chicken and onions and bacon for later cooking. But don't wash out the casserole, there are lovely juices and flavors in there.

Step 3

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Add the red wine to the casserole, scraping the bottom and sides of the pan to remove any stuck-on bits. Add cognac. Add the stock to the pan and heat to a simmer. Return the bacon, onions, and chicken to the pan along with the herbs, garlic, and tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook in the oven for about an hour and a half until the meat is completely tender.


Step 4

An hour before serving, throw carrots, onions and celery in the pot.

About a half hour before serving, saute the mushrooms in a bit of olive oil. Anita suggests salting at the end so your mushrooms are tastier. I agree.

When the dish is done, remove from the oven. Discard any stray herbs and skim off the fat. Add mushrooms. Serve in the pan/casserole for country style dining or prepare bowls of meat and veg with ample sauce.

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Mrs. Jang's Home-Style Fried Eggs from Kylie Kwong...and Red Cook.net

This is not me, of course, but this is exactly what I look like cooking Chinese food in my kitchen

I've been unfaithful, dear readers, I’ve been making Chinese food behind your back.

That's right, I’ve made about 8 or so different Chinese meals now and have yet to share any of them with you. Why? Because I'm secretly honing my craft.

Kian, from across the hall, has been schooling me - sometimes we whip up a little Chinese food at lunch or share plates at dinner. He's stood at the wok giving me instruction for many hours these last few weeks and tasted my stir fries and my white cooked chicken and my crispy skin chicken and my fried rice and given me helpful tips and many kind, supportive words and now, I feel worthy enough to pass on a few nuggets I've learned and some of my exploits behind the wok.

But if you want to really make some Chinese Home-Cooking, I urge you to go to Kian's new blog, Red Cook where he just posted his "Chinese Starter Kit". The starter kit has the basic ingredients you'll need to cook a bunch of simple and scrumptious Chinese meals. These are the things you must have in your pantry and you'll use them over and over.

Okay, even if you think you might not be ready to fire up the old wok, check out Red Cook anyway and give Kian some love. He's new to the blogosphere and he's good people and I have such nice readers I know you guys will hit it off.

Anyway, here's 10 things I've learned about home-cooked Chinese food from Kian so far:

1. It ain’t nothing like what you get at a run of the mill Chinese restaurant or take out joint, so be prepared that the food you cook will be WORLDS better.
   
2. Be prepared to get a lot of compliments from guests who find your food amazing and exotic and have no idea that what you made for them was freakishly simple and took very little time.
3. There is often a lot of cutting of vegetables involved, which is nice when your guests can leisurely help you prep, while you chat about the day and start in on a bottle of wine.
   
4. It will also tickle the fancy of children just waiting for the chance to wield a knife in a properly supervised environment.
5. This cooking will generally involve dirtying one pan - the wok, which means less clean up after the meal (who doesn’t like that?)
6. Chinese food can be prepped ahead (all that cutting of vegetables and such), stowed in bowls and zip lock bags and thrown into the wok at the last minute which makes it great for busy families and quick week night meals.
7. The big wok of boiling oil can be a little intimidating at first, especially when small children are rushing around under foot or someone needs to breastfeed, but since the actual cooking time is so short, you can send the little ones to a responsible adult for a few minutes and get the meal cooked without sending anyone to the burn unit.
   
8. Your kids will be able to use "daikon" in a sentence at their next pre-school interview.
   
9. The most intimidating thing about Chinese cooking the first time is getting used to the new sauces, herbs and ingredients, if you're unfamiliar with them - but once you use the basics once or twice and learn a few general rules (like you don't usually use ginger with vegetable dishes or that you don't use soy sauce in many stir fries) then, it's all down hill from there.
   
10. Home cooked Chinese food is clean, simple and uses fresh ingredients – you’ll feel good after you eat it, not like when you down a carton of Happy Garden’s shrimp fried rice and need to take to your bed for the next few hours to work off that familiar "ill" feeling.

The thing to do is learn several techniques (Kian is very big into showcasing different techniques on his blog) like, red cooking, white cooking, stir frying, etc. Once you've done a recipe or two from Kian's blog or here, you'll have it. Then, you can add different veg, meat and change things up. What I like best about cooking Chinese is that it really plays well with a good cook's sense of improvisation.

So, have fun with this. Learn the basics and then, start free-wheeling it at the wok.

For now, I give you Kylie Kwong's famous fried egg recipe,"Mrs. Jang's Home-Style Fried Eggs". Kwong is a Chinese chef living in Australia and now with some confidence, I've started working my way through her book ""Kylie Kwong: Recipes and Stories" which was a present from my father-in-law and his wife, who are fans of hers and are also very adventurous eaters.

This dish makes the common egg very uncommon and is a delightful brunch dish.

Mrs. Jang's Home-Style Fried Eggs (with some adaptations from Kian and myself)

This dish serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a meal.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 6 large free-range eggs
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce (you can buy this at most Asian markets)
• small pinch ground white pepper
• 2 spring onions (scallions), finely sliced
• 1-2 red bird's eye chillies, finely sliced

---

Heat oil in a hot wok until the surface seems to shimmer slightly. The key here is to get the oil VERY HOT.

Get out your oyster sauce. Finely slice the spring onions and the chilies.

Crack the eggs into a small bowl, then pour into the hot oil. The eggs will puff up into a big pillow in the oil (invite guests to the kitchen to watch - it's quite fun). You want the eggs to crisp up on the bottom but you also want the top to cook without having to flip it over, so using a ladle or large spoon, continue ladling hot oil from the bottom of the pan over the top of the egg. This will cook the top and bottom evenly.

Keep doing this for 3 -4 minutes. You'll be able to tell when it's ready because the outside will start to brown and crisp and the inside will still be moist and just a little runny. You don't want to over fry it and have the inside feel like cake.

Gently remove eggs from wok with a spatula and drain off any excess oil on paper towels before plating. Drizzle eggs with the dark, rich oyster sauce and garnish with splashes of those green onions and beautiful red chilies. Salt and pepper to taste. You can serve this as a brunch dish with rice or for a more western bent, a salad.

The possibilities are endless.

xxxooo YM

Continue Reading...

Video Exposes Abuse & Torture of Cows at a Slaughterhouse (but really is this such a big surprise?)

I’m not much for watching “animal-sploitation” videos, but I find it hard to ignore the undercover video of workers at Hallmark Meat torturing and abusing downer cows (cows that are sick, listless and unable to walk into the slaughterhouse).

The footage is disturbing in its own right, but made more so by the revelation that meat from this facility is used in the National Lunch Program. Yep, you read it correctly - this is the meat your kids are eating in the school cafeteria. Hallmark insists they do not use meat from downer cows for schools, but this is of little comfort. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that pushing fallen cows around the paddock with fork lifts, aside from being inhumane and cruel, exposes the hides to mud and fecal matter. And that means the meat that goes to our schools and everywhere else can be contaminated with E.coli and salmonella. And just to keep it all in perspective, these things can kill our kids

I wish I could tell you that I buy all our meat from farmers markets and farms where cows are grass-fed on clean pastures, treated with kindness and care and then, thoughtfully, cleanly and safely butchered. And I do sometimes. Sometimes I know exactly where our meat is coming from and I am happy about that. But it is nearly impossible (at least for me) to rise to these standards all the time. I might be able to never walk into a McDonalds again, but really, how many restaurants are going to be able to tell me exactly where their beef came from? Maybe Thomas Keller's line cook will come to my table and explain the chain of life to me at my table at Per Se, but definitely not at the little bistro a couple blocks over.

And really, finding grass-fed beef from a small farm is often inconvenient. I can get good grass-fed at Union Square, but if I’m looking for a particular cut for a particular dish on a particular day, I might not be able to get it. That means I have to think ahead all the time and this isn’t just beef we’re talking about – figure in poultry, fowl and pigs and I’ve got myself another full time job. I do cobble together some good meat from farmers markets, my butcher, some gourmet stores like Fairway, Gourmet Garage and Citarella and we are considering buying a grass fed cow this year, but all this requires a lot of energy and planning – for instance, where will we put a whole chopped up cow in our NYC apartment? I’m certainly not going to pull a “Bill Buford” and slaughter a pig in my kitchen sink and make the family eat pork for a month (although I looooooooved reading about it).

Truth be told, more times than not I end up standing in line at Pathmark with my styrofoam tray of angus – the cow that was raised in some monolithic corporate farm, tended by faceless poorly paid (and probably angry) workers with no real connection to the life/death cycle and processed in some horrifying, fecal-drenched slaughterhouse. I am ashamed of it, but too often convenience wins over healthier meat. The family needs to eat and Pathmark is right across the street. Fairway is 25 blocks away. In a pinch you know where I’m going.

And don’t even get me started on the price - organic anything and especially that small farm, grass-fed stuff is ridiculously expensive. Is it worth it? Absolutely. But that's easy for me to say - cutting into the bank account might be fine for a writer and a theatre producer who love to cook and eat and make good food a priority, maybe not so much for a single working mother of four, who wonders if she’ll make rent.

Which brings me to my point - thinking about our food, I mean really thinking about it, is a high class pursuit.

I live in Harlem at 145^th street. The neighborhood is socio-economically diverse, like many other parts of this city. There are multi-million dollar luxury high rises here and city blocks chock full of dour projects. Our local Pathmark serves all these people - rich and poor, black and white and everyone in between, but it has not kept up with the changing needs and demographics of the neighborhood.

Pathmark is a suburban-sized super market (a rarity of square footage in NY) and you can buy a package of Stouffers Macaroni and Cheese that will serve, quite literally, 20 people, but you couldn't find an organic chicken to save your life. It's all Perdue, all the time. Although they have wild salmon, customers prefer the less expensive farm-raised salmon and from chatting with folks at the counter, most people seem to have little awareness of why one is better than the other. Or they know and don’t care. And really, I see so many carts heaped over with soda and overly-processed sugary foods with Dora on the label that maybe a salmon steak riddled with PCB's isn’t the worst
thing in the world.

I’m glad that chefs like David Burke, Jamie Oliver and Chris Cosentino (on his fun blog Offal Good. Check out the post where he details a humane and safe slaughter) are exposing what chefs have long known – that knowing where our food comes from makes us better eaters and cooks, that simple is better when it comes to food, cooking, nature and just about everything else in life. Maybe by butchering animals on TV shows and putting up pictures of safe and clean kills on their blogs and writing and talking openly about the process (even though the squeamish, the activists and the vegans are out in force) we will get used to thinking more about how meat gets to our table and the trickle down will make all our meals just a little tastier, healthier and humane.

xxxooo YM

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Herb-Soaked Lamb Shoulder Chops

I think Lucy is going to be a chef when she grows up.

I don’t say this lightly. I’m not sure I even want to wish that on her (I’m picturing Tony Bourdain’s face on my little girl’s body), but really, this kid loves to cook with me in the kitchen. It’s THE thing we do together.

Sure, when she’s upset she asks for Daddy. And when she wakes up at night, she asks for Daddy. And when I act all parental and put my foot down about one thing or another, she asks for the phone so she can call Daddy and beg for clemency. And now and again, I feel a little like chopped liver to his porterhouse - but Lucy and I, we still have the kitchen.

Lucy getting some love from Daddy
(or trying to get him to put on her princess movie "one more time")

Lucy is asking to cook with me at every meal and snack. She asks to get on her cooking stool and stand next to me at the chopping board, the two of us snipping chives with scissors, working the handle hand over hand, cutting spring onions (which made her eyes tear up yesterday learning a very important kitchen rule about onions) and tearing off sprigs of herbs and landing them in a pot and lobbing butter into a cast iron pan.

It's the thing we do together – the place we connect – and so, I want it to go on like this endlessly. I want us to have the kitchen as a place where we can always come back to, where we can poach a catfish and talk about what's happening and just be together.

That's my fantasy. On the other hand, cooking could be displaced by Barbie Dolls and Hanna Montana next week, so I'll just enjoy this moment.

Anyway, Lucy and I had fun making this lamb recipe. She loves tearing off the herbs from their stems and lofting them into the pot. I know we recently gave you lamb tacos, but I wanted to post this recipe especially for one of my readers - Megan - because this meal is great for busy families and also busy grad students who might want to impress a suitor one Friday night or host a few friends over in between exams and papers. So, this one's for you, Megan.

Herb Soaked Lamb Shoulder Chops

Lamb bathing in herbs and oil

You should buy lamb shoulder chops for this recipe. They are fatty and have a lot of flavor. They are also very cheap. So, you can make this dish for friends and guests and not spend a fortune. I throw the chops in a covered pot and marinate them in olive oil (be generous), dried oregano, rosemary, thyme, (be generous with the herbs, too) salt and pepper and throw them in the fridge.

The longer you let the meat steep in the herbs, the better the flavor. Really, I tried marinating for a few hours, over night and two days and the two day meat was better than the over night meat which was better than the two hour meat. I also go into the pot several times through the marinating process and turn the chops around and get them all slick and drenched with oil and herbs.

Here’s how simple it is: Ten minutes before you are ready to eat, take the chops out of the fridge and out of the marinade, shake off any excess oil, but don't wipe. It's just fine if there are sprigs of herbs stuck to them. All the better. Throw them in a VERY HOT cast iron skillet or cast iron grill pan. You won't need any oil in the pan because there is enough on the chops.

Cook on each side until the meat is medium. (When you're cooking lamb, the shoulder cuts should be done a little more than other parts like the ribs). Serve with your favorite veg side dish, salad and a crusty bread.

Oh! And don't forget to let your guests see you take the pot of chops out of the fridge before you cook. The chops look so pretty and smell so fragrant coming out of the pot and into the pan, you'll have your guests salivating before they get to the table.

Enjoy!

xxxooo YM

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Martha Stewart Has a Blog

Martha's blog is going to keep me in material for some time to come.

Actually, it isn't Martha writing, of course. It's her sister and executive assistant "capturing her voice". This is a bit like finding out that the Santa at the mall is really the unemployed fat guy who lives two streets over, but I get it - Martha, like the real Santa, has bigger things to do.

She has ferns to re-plant and boxwoods to cover before the first big snow and she has holiday centerpieces to construct out of figs, candy canes and bits of leftover holiday ribbon. She has to inspire me to mop my floors more often.

I've been perusing her site. Here are some thoughts that popped into my head:

This is a picture of "doorman gifts" that Martha's daughter, Alexis, is giving out.
Note to Alexis: Your doormen want CASH, not toffee.

This is Martha's cellar...Notice the floors.
Now, look at all the long-haired cats lounging on WHITE towels.
Nary a hairball or stray piece of fur.
It's like she lives on some kind of clean planet where dust and grime don't exist.

This is Martha's freakishly organized basement.
I give this system 15 minutes before Lucy has unrolled all of the spools of ribbon and yarn and trailed them through the house.

My children run wild through the house naked,
but Martha has time to dress the cats for a party.

Paw Paw thinks Mama Martha has a leeetle too much time on her hands.

I think the face says it all. This guy is bound for doggy therapy.

This is Martha's guest house.

I'm imagining staying here with the kids - Lucy picking flowers out of the vase and walking around with them pretending to be a princess, with water dripping all over the carpet and pulling the petals off and grinding them into the chair cushions to make "flower soup" and Edie dribbling breast milk all over the white bed linens. Then, Edie pees on something priceless. Then someone bleeds. Next, I'm standing in front of Martha confessing and she gives me a 20 minute demo on the best way to get blood out of sheets.

Ahhh! The perfect weapons for Lucy - a crystal vase, water and delicate,
but sword-like candle sticks that could be used to impale her sister.
It's a veritable playground inside Martha's house.

xxxooo YM

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Seinfeld to Letterman: "What's the Deal With That Crazy Woman My Wife Stole All Her Cookbook Ideas From?"

If you haven’t been keeping up with the controversy about Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, read my November October 18 post to review.

Really, after this I won’t write about the book or the ridiculous Seinfeld’s anymore, but I saw Jerry spout off like a nasty, ranting loon on this Letterman clip and I felt the only person who might be able to intervene is Oprah.

So, I wrote her a letter...but it's okay, we have that kind of relationship.

Dear Oprah,

I applaud you for sticking by your friends. Oh, it sucks because there’s all this press about Jessica Seinfeld maybe lifting a recipe or two…or 12 from The Sneaky Chef’s book. But that doesn’t taint your credibility at all. I mean we all know you had Jessica on the show because you and Jerry are buds, and he had this Bee Movie coming out, and you were in the movie, and the book probably seemed like a nice fun diversion for your Mommy audience and every body knew this was just one of those nepotism things.

And we all like nepotisim…ya know, when it happens to us…and think it stinks when it happens to privileged celebrities…but that reminds me – what’s up with all the shoes that Jessica gave you? There was like $20,000 worth. Whew! Opie, did you need new shoes and were too proud to tell us?

Still, it was a very nice gesture on Jessica’s part. I mean, that appearance really put her book on the map because people pretty much do whatever you say. Like when you say this thing is a good thing to buy and people just run out to the store and buy it. Now, I’m not suggesting that people don’t think for themselves or you’re like Jim Jones and 50 million viewers are drinking the Kool Aid, because that wouldn’t be exactly accurate, but it is pretty great that after an author appears on your show, their book just sits on the best seller list.

Now don’t get me wrong, Opie - I’d lurve to be one of those authors. And you can bet if I had a book to sell, I’d want to do it with you - which is why I’m so happy we are so close because if we weren’t, I’d have to try hard to get my book on the air.

I hear The Sneaky Chef and her publishers pitched your show like 5 times and you didn’t want them on the show. That’s so weird. I wonder how many times Jessica had to pitch your show? Probably a lot, right?

But I get why you’d want Jessica on the show. It’s good to keep it all in the family. I’ve noticed a lot of your celebrity friends come on your show when they have movies coming out. If I had a show, I’d want all my friends on, too. And really The Sneaky Chef is kind of a stick in the mud anyway, I mean she’s all hopped up on rutabaga and pureed kale - she definitely wouldn’t bring in the viewers…and besides, she has a pretty small shoe budget. I’d go with Jessica Seinfeld any day.

You made the right call and I’m sure Jessica was on her way to becoming the next Martha Stewart until…well, you know…all that pesky alleged plagiarism happened. Uh oh! We’re back to that again. That really put a cross in her buns, didn’t it?

Well, Opie, I’m with you – she probably didn’t lift those recipes. Maybe she copied them in her sleep, or she laid the book under her pillow and the recipe ideas seeped into her head by osmosis, or maybe she’s psychic, you know that happens to a lot of people – they see dead people and ya know, recipes for vegie brownies in the middle of the night.

Better yet, maybe her “ghostwriter” lifted the recipes. Really, lots of celebrities use ghostwriters. No crime in that – that’s how I make a living here at Casa Yummy Mummy.

She might have hired a ghostwriter and that ghostwriter did the alleged plagiarizing. You know, Opie, this may solve everything. I mean, it would be easy for “Some Lame Ass Ghostwriter” (SLAG) to copy a few things because the Sneaky Chef has a prominent google-able website and I’m sure if SLAG was doing research to write the comparative titles section for the book proposal, she must have stumbled upon that website.

And SLAG – if she exists - might have thought that borrowing a few little tiny purreed buttnernut squash recipes from an obscure blogger wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? Okay, this is great! – Jessica can blame the whole mess on the ghostwriter!

Oh but wait! This puts Jessica in a sticky pickle, doesn’t it? Because if she points the finger at SLAG then, she’ll have to admit she might not have written the book…Oh! Such tangled webs, Opie!

And let’s talk about those editors at Harper Collins – They completely forgot they rejected The Sneaky Chef’s book - ya know, with like the same concept and recipes - just weeks before they received Jessica’s proposal and decided to buy it. Weird isn’t it? Sneaky Chef…bad. Seinfeld…good. Hmmm...

Oh! I get it! Sometimes I can be so thick, Opie! Jessica is married to Jerry! Harper Collins probably would publish a book about glue if one of the Seinfeld’s wrote it. Now, I’m on it. The glare of the Seinfeld’s earning and marketing potential must have blinded the folks at Harper Collins, making it impossible for them to remember that the two books had the same recipes and concept. That explains everything! We should send those editors some sunglasses, Opie. Can I borrow a few bucks for a present for the HC editors?

Now, I have to admit, Opie. I’m really blaming you for this whole debacle. I mean this would barely have been a blip on the radar screen if you hadn’t invited Jessica to be on your show. Both pureeing books would’ve died on the vine in obscurity.

I mean, maybe you and the Sneaky Chef and Jessica get together on Sunday nights and giggle like teenagers and puree your zucchinis in your jammies and socks but I I‘m not that…well…dull. I would rather poke myself in the eyeballs with a pins or remove my spleen with a fork than stand in front of the food processor mashing up cauliflower and then, washing all those dirty pans in my copious amounts of free time.

It all feels like you guys are rolling back the clock to the 1950’s to me…you know, which makes sense since the book cover looks so damn much like a Betty Crocker cook book anyway, but I suppose that was all on purpose, wasn't it?

And speaking of the 1950’s – what have you done to Jerry’s manhood? It’s like he has been traveling in a time machine!

I saw him on TV flattening the Sneaky Chef instead of plugging his poorly reviewed movie, he called her all sorts of bad names – like “wacko”, “hysterical”, and “angry”. Jerry was very mean, Opie. He talked like men from the olden days who used words like “hysterical” to keep women in their place.

I’m sorry to say you’ve driven Jerry to become a mysogynist. It’s kinda of like Salem all over again – men ranting about the crazy women and then setting up stakes in the town square...or you know, Letterman. Tsk. Tsk.

And this should be a lesson to you, Opie - if you don’t mind me giving you some advice, one friend to another. You should stop all that book reading you do on the show. Or okay, maybe you should just READ the book before you have the author on the show. This might help you determine if they really wrote the book or if they just made stuff up, ya know, like that James Frey guy. Wow…This has happened to you a lot, hasn’t it?

I know you depend a lot on your producers and I’m sure they do lots of important stuff, but I think…since we are so close and all I can say this…maybe they’re not actually READING the books. I mean, I bet if you sold some shoes, you could hire a professional to actually READ the books and look more selectively at the authors. Wow! Nifty idea, isn’t it?

I love you, Opie. Don’t get me wrong. But I think you should give up all this book business and just stick to what you do best – you know, those touchy-feely, kissy face interviews with your friends like, Maya Angelou and Tom Cruise. And you can even throw in an episode or two about losing weight. We love it when you talk about your battle with the bulge. It makes us feel like you are just like us and we are just like you. We love that feeling!

But I guess at the end of the day, we know the difference – $20,000 shoe gifts and size 4 celebrity moms with turbo-blenders always bring us right back down to earth.

Love & Kisses...

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