Sunday, May 31, 2009
Kitchen Upgrades and Diaspora Lentil Soup: Cooking with a Knowing Smirk
Don’t think I can’t hear you thinking out there, Mr and Ms Netsurfer, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. I know I am. I hear you asking yourself or -selves, hasn’t it been
long enough? And with a knowing smirk, I agree - because I know you’re talking about cooking, in the most literal and mundane way. Not “cookin’”. Cooking. And yes, it has been long enough, so let me truncate things as I do so well. I’ve got some kitchen mutterings to share and I think this is the night to share them. Gather ‘round the sputtering remnants of the firepit I sank in the great room of this here Chuckle Hut, and I’ll extrude some lore, or something. Probably “something.” Bring a smock.
The thing is, I am just about finished with yet another (!) writing notebook - and now that I’m back on the ol’ 38 line twice a day most days, I am getting to do more writing again. That meant I had to get meself a new notebook, and also that it was time to scan through the old one to see if I’d jotted anything ABSOLUTELY VITAL that I’d forgotten to do anything about. Which, of course, I had. I had given myself a note back in, oh, maybe last November, that my kitchen upgrades deserved a word or two. Since then I’ve said nothing about them with one exception (noted below), though I continue to find satisfaction and gratification from my hardware de cuisine pretty much on a daily basis. I’m going to address that failing right now. And you get to be the beneficiary. It’s a good day to be you.
What I’ve already told you: the single most-visited post on this blog gets hit because I mention in it a famous hottie actress from the 1970s; god knows the disappointment those random surfers experience when they find out I was actually just talking about elk. ANYway, that post goes on (and on) to mention how much I love my new veggie peeler. Even though it’s not exactly new anymore, I still totally love it. The ceramic blade cuts the heaviest husk and the finest membrane; I used it today to peel tomatoes that I’d otherwise have had to dunk in boiling water for twenty seconds and then pull out and manipulate, surely resulting in a nicely peeled tomato but second degree burns on my delicate paws. The point is, freaking awesome peeler. If any of you are apeeling, this is the way to go. And no, I am not going to apologize for any lousy pun on this site.
Other fabulous kitchen developments without knowing of which you will never reach true fulfillment as a person or as a reader of this site, as if those were different things:
Knives: our old knives were a sorry collection of busted handles, crude blades, and tangs that neither merit the name nor any of it’s slang attributes. Some of those knives came from my childhood home and were correctly described as “not so much knives as triangular pieces of metal” by friends dear enough to be honest with me back in the early 90’s. That I survived so long without serious injury from them is more testament to my caution than to their efficacy. (As you know, a dull blade is much more dangerous than a sharp one because it takes more work to get through what you’re cutting, and the edge is more likely to slip and catch a fingertip unawares.) My point (heh) is that we now have a wooden block-full of new knives: chef’s blade, a santoku with hollows, a nice bread knife, a nice paring blade, kitchen shears, and a sharpening steel that’s handy and gets used a lot more because of it - as well as six sturdy serrated steak knives. By keeping them clean, honed, and in their storage slots, I find I’m able to cut more stuff, faster, with greater precision. I’m dicing, people, and slicing paper-thin, and carving hot meat and all the good things a serious blade can do. Knives: who knew?
Pans: It wasn’t like we didn’t have pans before, but they were getting pretty tired. They were heavy anodized aluminum, nonstick (once), with steep edges that kept food from slopping out onto the stovetop when I got overenthusiastic. But they were really pretty heavy, and tended to “eat” a lot of heat instead of conveying it to the food. I didn’t realize how much I was missing with them till we got a new set. Again, these are anodized aluminum, but these ones are lighter and easier to move and shake on the stove (and god knows I’m a big mover and shaker. Just watch me move and shake my big.). The really cool thing about the new pots is that the sides slope much more gradually. Turns out I’m not so overenthusiastic as to spill the beans very often, but with the new pan design I’m actually able to mix ingredients or flip things over with a flick of my wrist instead of painstakingly using some implement like a spoon or spatula. It’s very satisfying to mix up a bunch of ingredients just by flicking my wrist a few times. There’s a joke in there but this is a family blog.
Electric Skillet: when we were acquiring all this kitchen goodness I told Kel that I wanted one of those big rectangular pans that plug in and heat up all on their own. She was unconvinced - why would we need such a thing? Don’t we have enough gadgets and doodads in our gadget-and-doodad drawer? Turns out the answer is, nuh-huh we don’t. The electric skillet has been super effective for frying lots of fish, veggies, potatoes, and any number of other deliciousnesses. Everything cooks at the same temperature; everything fits in one go. Now when I’m ready to crank out some eggplant or salmon or something and I pull out the electric skillet, Kel still rolls her eyes - but now, in anticipation, not exasperation. It’s a fine line but I walk it every day.
Food Processor: We had a FP but it was sort of runty. It only held a few cups of food, had rather flimsy construction, and a motor that wore out after just a couple carrots or potatoes. It was hardly worth the effort of using it, but it was all we had so sometimes that was effort that had to be expended. The new FP is about twice as big, twice as strong, and much quieter. It doesn’t feel like I’m risking the whole thing blasting itself apart into shards of sharp plastic and jagged paper-thin steel blade bits when I use it. It’s got more settings and it exudes a confidence the other one never pretended to have - “go on and fill me up; I’m ready for what you’ve got and I will cut it down to size in the blink of an eye.” When you need a food processor, they are tremendously handy. This one does exactly what I need it to do, which is all I could ever ask for and much more than I’d ever gotten before.
Blender: We didn’t even have a blender. We just used that crappy old food processor whenever we needed to grind ice, blend soup, or puree anything. There’s a lot that a FP can do, but there is a place for a blender and ours was empty. Until recently. The new blender is nothing fancy, but it does its job very well. Tonight I used it to turn a huge mess of chunky soup into a huge mess of pureed soup. It worked perfectly and the soup could now be passed through a sieve, if that’s your idea of a good time. I’m not here to judge. You freak.
Plates and silverware: previously our plates were charmingly mismatched, by design. Some were white, some were blue, and some - wait for it - were white and blue. They came from different sets and had different patterns. All that really linked them was roundness and consistently shared dissimilarity. This was counterweighted by the cutlery we used, and which I’d been using since I had been in about the second grade - call it 35 years on the table every single day. We had stopped noticing that the food looked different on different plates, and that it looked tired on the tired old forks. And then we got new plates - aubergine-purple and blue on the outside and at the very edges, and a nice clean white on the interior. They’re not the fanciest plates on the planet but the food looks good on them and looks the same no matter which one you use. The coffee mugs match the cereal bowls; the dessert plates match the dinner plates. It’s surprising how satisfying that kind of consistency in service has proven to be. And at the same time, the new knives and forks and spoons make every mouthful seem a bit more appetizing - shiny steel, hammered handles, hefty and purposeful in the hand. After cooking well with the new tools, it’s nice to eat well at new settings. It brings closure to the process of cooking, which is itself so organic and creative when it’s done right, that to shovel the end product onto any old piece of crockery and hoist it to the piehole with some tired and dull implement felt almost to be a dishonor to the food itself, and to the diner for whom it was prepared. Those days are behind us now. If we want to dishonor the diner, we have to do it the old-fashioned way. By kicking him.
Teakettle: We had a nice teakettle - we thought. It had a whistle that sounded disturbingly like a rapidly-approaching train, but it was a decent piece of equipment. Then Kel went and cleaned it and invited all kinds of trouble. Turns out the inside was all rusty, and likely to rust through pretty soon. We hadn’t noticed, but once we realized what was going on with our coffee-n-tea water (we use a french press for coffee so the water is heated separately in the kettle), well, we kept drinking coffee-n-tea but we were less sanguine about it. In fact, we eventually got rid of it before even finding a replacement, using instead a saucepan full of water on the stove. We looked everywhere (Target) for a real replacement but didn’t care for our options - and then resorted to a cheap-ass stop-gap stand-in from Kamei Housewares: triangular in profile and cone-ular in overall shape, with a handle that’s a metal rod bent into an open spiral to dissipate heat. The whistle has to be removed by hand, rather than automatically lifting out of the way with the push of a button, but
that’s okay. And it doesn’t sound like a train - just like boiling water in a tea kettle. It’s simple and effective and a very sophisticated friend specifically told us how much he liked it not too long ago. Sometimes just getting back to the basics is a very good thing.
Speaking of which, with all that kitchenosity I’ve dumped on you, let me tell you what to do with it: make soup. I made some today for work-week lunches and it came out rawking. Let me share the recipe, because like hell you’re getting the actual soup:
Diaspora Lentil Soup (so named because the recipe was developed out of two recipes from “The Soup Bible,” one from “Jewish Cooking,” and three from “The Africa News Cookbook"):
Chop two big leeks finely and sautee them in a few tablespoons of olive oil. When their color has intensified, add some spices: garlic, bay leaves, marjoram, turmeric, cardamom, cumin, coriander, ginger (one teaspoon of each, except for 3 leaves of bay and seven smashed pods of cardamom). After about five minutes, add 2 well-chopped carrots and one each, diced, of potato and celery root (I used a white potato with a nice waxy texture). Dump in 1-1/2 cups of stock (I used ham stock because it was handy) and cook for ten minutes. Add three cups of red lentils and three cups of stock (I used chicken because I was out of ham), cover, and cook for about 20 minutes. Then add four tomatoes (peeled and roughly chopped) and two red peppers (diced). Cover and simmer for about an hour. Remove from heat and puree, then add the juice of two lemons and Tabasco to taste.
This is a thick, hearty, flavorful, tangy, sweet, spicy crawful of goodness, and it’ll keep you going for as long as you need to go. Anyway, that’s my theory. If you’re curious how it works in practice, drop me a line. I’ll be here all week, folks. Me and my soup. And if I leave, the soup will still be here. Honestly, there’s like two gallons of it. Not that I’m complaining. With a kitchen like I’ve got now, I expect big things. I say with a knowing smirk.