My first fish taco was in Santa Monica, California...because what good, middle-class girl from Cleveland, Ohio had ever heard of a fish taco? My sister, who lived in Los Angeles, drove me straight from the airport to some boardwalk stand, with a line a mile long, and made me try me try this culinary oddity.
I was skeptical. Tacos were GROUND BEEF...jeez, everyone knows that. Putting fish into a taco was weird. Possibly wrong. Potentially gross.
But, on the contrary! Fish tacos are delightful. They are light and slightly sweet. They smell like a perfect afternoon at the ocean-side. They are enhanced, but not outdone, by sour cream, salsa verde, or guacamole.
I had some very sad-looking frozen pollack fillets in my freezer. I had tried to dress them up as Dover Sole and Trout Amandine on other occasions, but I finally gave up. I bought pollack specifically because it is not over-fished, not farmed, and generally responsibly marketed, which attracted the responsible omnivore in me, but it is a totally boring fish varietal, which saddens the aspiring gourmand in me.
I decided to put the last two fillets to rest by making fish tacos. I didn't have a recipe. I didn't even have very much motivation. I just had some fish, some cabbage, and some tortillas.
And Great Scott! You can make an awesome dinner with not much more than those pathos-inspiring ingredients. Scour the internet. Bobby Flay has a good-looking recipe. As does Martha Stewart. My methods were slapdash at best, and if I can achieve such greatness without much effort, imagine what might come together if you actually try, under the direction of a bona fide TV expert??
The tacos are light. I steamed my fish, so I felt no guilt about having 3. Fish tacos often include cabbage which is a "superfood"...the high fiber, high-vitamin, high-mineral, low-calorie stuff practically guaranteed to make you live one hundred years. I paired mine with full-strength Greek yogurt, which tastes an awful lot like sour cream, but it's a little less fattening and has all of those beneficial bacterias that are supposed to cure all your ills.
Tell me a fish taco story if you've got a family-friendly one. 'Cause boy-howdy, are they good and I want to know about everyone's favorite.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
In Your (Cold and Rosy) Face!
The February edition of "Food and Wine" magazine is on my kitchen table, opened to an article about winter food. The article highlights wonderful cold-weather dinner ideas done up by a Madison, Wisconsin chef. There are the expected gorgeous photographs, lovingly crafted by talented photo stylists, of fennel and grapefruit, pork and pears, burnished endive and.... lovely rosy-cheeked girls eating plates of this fare in the great (Wisconsin) outdoors on a blanket-covered block of ice.
Say what?!
Oh, sure...they are wearing hats, gloves, and thick woolen stockings, but still....
Now I've done a few brave and outdoorsy things in my time:
I've skied off a cliff, because I thought I could "land it".
I've tried to catch my own crayfish dinner by hand in a remote mountain stream.
I walked the "Cave of the Winds" north of Buffalo on a blustery Christmas night. I think a good half of Niagara Falls blew back onto me.
I've sailed a boat on an ice-floe-laden Lake Michigan in December.
I've even had cocktails in the middle of an African plain, surrounded by hungry hyenas.
But I've never had the guts to dine al fresco in the middle of a Cleveland winter.(I am not counting the times I wolfed down a Polish Boy on a snowy Euclid Avenue while running to the Terminal Tower to make the 5:15 rapid transit.)
I know the "Food and Wine" photos are for effect. They are rather charming in a Norman Rockwell/Winter Wonderland kind of way. But the photos got me thinking. I have never plated up a really nice dinner, then plunked my fanny down on a snowbank to sup. The hyenas were kind of adorable, looking on with baleful eyes. Jack Frost, on the other hand, is a dangerous animal. I feel...well, challenged.
I hear about these polar swimmers, who celebrate the New Year, or a birthday, or whatever, with a dip in Lake Erie's mid-winter icy depths. So who am I to whine about the cold? I always claim that everything tastes better al fresco, plus, I am guilty of falling into the bad cultural habit of eating too fast, so it won't kill me. It might be fun. It might pass the time on these dreadfully long and boring winter nights. It might make me tough...like an Inuit or a Laplander. (Right now, Cleveland is about as cold as their native stomping grounds, anyway). Plus, no wimpy magazine editors are going to out-do ME.
I bought some gorgeous beef to stew for a weekend supper. I think I'll eat it a steaming bowl of homemade stew outside. In the snow. So I can say I did it. In your face, "Food and Wine"!
Stay tuned.
Say what?!
Oh, sure...they are wearing hats, gloves, and thick woolen stockings, but still....
Now I've done a few brave and outdoorsy things in my time:
I've skied off a cliff, because I thought I could "land it".
I've tried to catch my own crayfish dinner by hand in a remote mountain stream.
I walked the "Cave of the Winds" north of Buffalo on a blustery Christmas night. I think a good half of Niagara Falls blew back onto me.
I've sailed a boat on an ice-floe-laden Lake Michigan in December.
I've even had cocktails in the middle of an African plain, surrounded by hungry hyenas.
But I've never had the guts to dine al fresco in the middle of a Cleveland winter.(I am not counting the times I wolfed down a Polish Boy on a snowy Euclid Avenue while running to the Terminal Tower to make the 5:15 rapid transit.)
I know the "Food and Wine" photos are for effect. They are rather charming in a Norman Rockwell/Winter Wonderland kind of way. But the photos got me thinking. I have never plated up a really nice dinner, then plunked my fanny down on a snowbank to sup. The hyenas were kind of adorable, looking on with baleful eyes. Jack Frost, on the other hand, is a dangerous animal. I feel...well, challenged.
I hear about these polar swimmers, who celebrate the New Year, or a birthday, or whatever, with a dip in Lake Erie's mid-winter icy depths. So who am I to whine about the cold? I always claim that everything tastes better al fresco, plus, I am guilty of falling into the bad cultural habit of eating too fast, so it won't kill me. It might be fun. It might pass the time on these dreadfully long and boring winter nights. It might make me tough...like an Inuit or a Laplander. (Right now, Cleveland is about as cold as their native stomping grounds, anyway). Plus, no wimpy magazine editors are going to out-do ME.
I bought some gorgeous beef to stew for a weekend supper. I think I'll eat it a steaming bowl of homemade stew outside. In the snow. So I can say I did it. In your face, "Food and Wine"!
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
When Life Hands You Lemons
I know you know that irritatingly chipper little maxim: "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!" Yeah, yeah, yeah...see the good in your present situation, make do with what you've got, blah, blah, blah.
While it's cloying life-advice, it's actually excellent kitchen-advice.
Most folks who have had anything to do with a restaurant can tell you a funny-now-but-not-so-funny-then story about an irreversible food order gone wrong, where the staff is suddenly the proud owners of a mountain of green beans, or calamari tentacles, or even lettuce. I remember unloading one produce order and scratching my head wondering where the kitchen manager thought all of these ravenous salad eaters were suddenly going to come from.
When you are suddenly stuck with something, you can either pitch it (SO horribly wasteful and wrong) or get creative and find something to make with it. This is a wonderful way to be less wasteful, more sustainable, and make your food budget go a lot farther.
-Don't throw away the bones from the roast chicken. Boil them and you have soup. You just got another free meal out of the same chicken.
-Is your bread getting a little dried out? Don't trash the end of the loaf. Cut it into little squares and bake them in a low oven. Now you don't have to buy croutons for your next salad.
-You ordered a ham that was too big? Well, be grateful because you've just hit the jackpot: Quiche Lorraine, ham and eggs, split pea soup, collard greens, navy bean soup, or minced up with cheese or mayo for ham salad sandwiches.
-Fruit is looking a little bruised? Throw it in the blender for a smoothie base.
-Leaf lettuce on its last breath? It's really good poached in soup (The Italians put escarole in their Wedding Soup, don't they?)
If you don't have a thrifty grandmother on call to tell you what to do with everything, scour the internet and you'll get lots of ideas about how to be a more responsible member of the top of the food chain.
I got all fired up to write this after I started to proof some yeast to make a pizza crust and found I already had one made up. Throwing away my yeasty primordial soup would not have been a big deal and would have wasted all of about a cup and a half of water and .25 cents worth of yeast.
But it would take me very little effort to throw some flour in the bowl, mix it up, let it rise while I ate dinner, then throw it in the still-hot oven as I washed the dishes. So I did. And I am so glad I did, as I sit here inhaling the heavenly aroma of fresh-baked bread. The aroma reminds me that I will have an excellent reason to leap out of bed tomorrow morning (SO good toasted with my first cup of coffee!) as well as an excellent reason to sleep soundly tonight...knowing I did not waste my day today.
While it's cloying life-advice, it's actually excellent kitchen-advice.
Most folks who have had anything to do with a restaurant can tell you a funny-now-but-not-so-funny-then story about an irreversible food order gone wrong, where the staff is suddenly the proud owners of a mountain of green beans, or calamari tentacles, or even lettuce. I remember unloading one produce order and scratching my head wondering where the kitchen manager thought all of these ravenous salad eaters were suddenly going to come from.
When you are suddenly stuck with something, you can either pitch it (SO horribly wasteful and wrong) or get creative and find something to make with it. This is a wonderful way to be less wasteful, more sustainable, and make your food budget go a lot farther.
-Don't throw away the bones from the roast chicken. Boil them and you have soup. You just got another free meal out of the same chicken.
-Is your bread getting a little dried out? Don't trash the end of the loaf. Cut it into little squares and bake them in a low oven. Now you don't have to buy croutons for your next salad.
-You ordered a ham that was too big? Well, be grateful because you've just hit the jackpot: Quiche Lorraine, ham and eggs, split pea soup, collard greens, navy bean soup, or minced up with cheese or mayo for ham salad sandwiches.
-Fruit is looking a little bruised? Throw it in the blender for a smoothie base.
-Leaf lettuce on its last breath? It's really good poached in soup (The Italians put escarole in their Wedding Soup, don't they?)
If you don't have a thrifty grandmother on call to tell you what to do with everything, scour the internet and you'll get lots of ideas about how to be a more responsible member of the top of the food chain.
I got all fired up to write this after I started to proof some yeast to make a pizza crust and found I already had one made up. Throwing away my yeasty primordial soup would not have been a big deal and would have wasted all of about a cup and a half of water and .25 cents worth of yeast.
But it would take me very little effort to throw some flour in the bowl, mix it up, let it rise while I ate dinner, then throw it in the still-hot oven as I washed the dishes. So I did. And I am so glad I did, as I sit here inhaling the heavenly aroma of fresh-baked bread. The aroma reminds me that I will have an excellent reason to leap out of bed tomorrow morning (SO good toasted with my first cup of coffee!) as well as an excellent reason to sleep soundly tonight...knowing I did not waste my day today.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Doritos: Then and Now
I was just reading a blurb in "Food and Wine" magazine about a Portuguese-born chef taking London by storm. The article asks this young star, Nuno Mendes, about his earliest memory of food.
The question captured my imagination...I wondered if I could recall my earliest food memory. I am quite certain my earliest food memory was one of the divine coddled eggs my mother used to make me when I was getting on to solid food as a tot, but I also quite vividly remember Doritos.
This was the early seventies and Doritos were relatively new on the snack food scene, having been introduced in the mid-1960's. Someone bought or brought Doritos to one of my parent's parties and I saw my older sister munching on them. I wanted to copy my big sis, and took one myself. I remember asking what these crispy things were, so foreign were they to my young palate. They were like kiddie crack, and I was probably on the verge of shoveling too many in my mouth at one time when my mother took them away. "That's enough," my mother said. I don't think I saw Doritos again until my teenage years, when all the kids had them at parties or barbecues.
My mom did not buy Doritos. Or soda pop. Or cereal with sugar. Potato chips were only ever on the premises for big parties. Peanut butter was a rare condiment, not a sandwich staple. Chicken nuggets either had not been invented or they were not allowed. Going to McDonald's was a semi-annual event to be savored like Christmas morning. Even pizza was a very rare treat, a very special delicacy reserved especially for sleepover parties.
And...get this...we were not health nuts. Good heavens, no. We didn't take chewable vitamins. Or sprinkle things with Brewer's yeast. Or (gasp!)embrace vegetarianism. We were just forbidden CRAP. When someone (often a parent) had gone to the trouble of creating a reasonably wholesome meal, it was an unforgivable insult to fill up on junk instead.
I am certain that most of my school friends' parents had similar standards. Due to those relatively healthy standards and the execution of the 1970's mother's mantra ("Go play outside, will you?") most of my school friends had the lean, muscular legs of first-year racehorses.
Fast forward to the present: childhood obesity is a national health crisis.
I think the difference is that kids have Doritos all the time now. Sugared cereal is many people's idea of "a good breakfast" (it says 'fortified' on the box, doesn't it??) Peanut butter (or Sunbutter) is the only sandwich many children know. Chicken Nuggets are considered a childhood classic. Pizza and the drive-through fall into many families' schedules at least once a week.
Many of us who are of parental age DO remember different health/food standards. I implore everyone to think of some creative ways to return to those arguably better standards.
We are busier than we used to be. It is really hard. But this is the national health of an entire generation. It is, quite literally, the future.
Wouldn't it be nice if your kids could remember Doritos as a one-off special treat rather than the regular snack they munched on every day after school before retiring to the Wii???
The question captured my imagination...I wondered if I could recall my earliest food memory. I am quite certain my earliest food memory was one of the divine coddled eggs my mother used to make me when I was getting on to solid food as a tot, but I also quite vividly remember Doritos.
This was the early seventies and Doritos were relatively new on the snack food scene, having been introduced in the mid-1960's. Someone bought or brought Doritos to one of my parent's parties and I saw my older sister munching on them. I wanted to copy my big sis, and took one myself. I remember asking what these crispy things were, so foreign were they to my young palate. They were like kiddie crack, and I was probably on the verge of shoveling too many in my mouth at one time when my mother took them away. "That's enough," my mother said. I don't think I saw Doritos again until my teenage years, when all the kids had them at parties or barbecues.
My mom did not buy Doritos. Or soda pop. Or cereal with sugar. Potato chips were only ever on the premises for big parties. Peanut butter was a rare condiment, not a sandwich staple. Chicken nuggets either had not been invented or they were not allowed. Going to McDonald's was a semi-annual event to be savored like Christmas morning. Even pizza was a very rare treat, a very special delicacy reserved especially for sleepover parties.
And...get this...we were not health nuts. Good heavens, no. We didn't take chewable vitamins. Or sprinkle things with Brewer's yeast. Or (gasp!)embrace vegetarianism. We were just forbidden CRAP. When someone (often a parent) had gone to the trouble of creating a reasonably wholesome meal, it was an unforgivable insult to fill up on junk instead.
I am certain that most of my school friends' parents had similar standards. Due to those relatively healthy standards and the execution of the 1970's mother's mantra ("Go play outside, will you?") most of my school friends had the lean, muscular legs of first-year racehorses.
Fast forward to the present: childhood obesity is a national health crisis.
I think the difference is that kids have Doritos all the time now. Sugared cereal is many people's idea of "a good breakfast" (it says 'fortified' on the box, doesn't it??) Peanut butter (or Sunbutter) is the only sandwich many children know. Chicken Nuggets are considered a childhood classic. Pizza and the drive-through fall into many families' schedules at least once a week.
Many of us who are of parental age DO remember different health/food standards. I implore everyone to think of some creative ways to return to those arguably better standards.
We are busier than we used to be. It is really hard. But this is the national health of an entire generation. It is, quite literally, the future.
Wouldn't it be nice if your kids could remember Doritos as a one-off special treat rather than the regular snack they munched on every day after school before retiring to the Wii???
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Looking Ahead...A Resolution of Sorts
I didn't cook on this first evening of 2011. I was able to enjoy an inspired dinner out on the town made by someone else's talented hand.
The wonderful meal got my gears turning for the New Year...I plan on spending lots of time "in the lab", trying recipes and concocting new ones. I might not be able to reinvent the wheel, but I can put new treads on the tires, can't I?
In all things, we generally progress very slowly, almost imperceptibly, until there is a breakthrough and we are propelled forward, as if by jets, into a totally different place.
I want to go to a different place with food in this 2011th year and I want cooking to take me there. And I have a good feeling about it, too.
The wonderful meal got my gears turning for the New Year...I plan on spending lots of time "in the lab", trying recipes and concocting new ones. I might not be able to reinvent the wheel, but I can put new treads on the tires, can't I?
In all things, we generally progress very slowly, almost imperceptibly, until there is a breakthrough and we are propelled forward, as if by jets, into a totally different place.
I want to go to a different place with food in this 2011th year and I want cooking to take me there. And I have a good feeling about it, too.
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