O. M. G.

High-heat Mahi Mahi with lemon dill butter, brown and wild rice and bacon-roasted Brussels Sprouts.


To be continued....




UPDATE:
OK. It was, indeed, good. You can do this. I'm going to assume there are two of you. Adjust UP, family people:

First, start the rice when you hit the back door. 1/2 Cup rice to 1 Cup of water. Bring it to a boil then turn the heat way low, put the lid on. Take about 6 slices of bacon and throw them onto a cookie sheet and into a 400 degree oven. Now, quickly, get upstairs and get out of that monkey suit they made you wear at the office.

All changed? Great.

You can pour yourself a beverage if you wish. While you sip, pull about 2" of butter out of the fridge. I guess that's 2 tablespoons. Nuke it in the microwave for 7 seconds. While the microwave is beeping at you to remind you about the butter, chop some dill. About 2 tablespoons-worth chopped is plenty. Look at your bacon. Does it look crispy? Really crispy? Okay, then you can take it out of the oven and set it aside on a plate. Just leave the greasy cookie sheet right there.

Back to your dill. Get the soft-ish butter out of the microwave. Throw the dill onto it. Add a smidge of salt. Squeeze 1/2 a lemon over it. Mush it altogether with a fork. This is called a "Compound Butter". It means" "butter mushed together with some stuff".

Now . Take about 6-8 Brussels sprouts out of the fridge. You have 6-8 Brussels sprouts, DON'T YOU??? Cut those buggers in half, then in half again, so you have little Brussels wedges. Throw them on your old bacon sheet. Crank the heat on your oven to 450 and toss them in for 10-15 minutes. You want those suckers to get golden outer edges, but not to burn. And if the whole house smells like cabbage, you let them go for too long. SO CHECK THEM.

Keep sipping that beverage, you are almost done.

When the Brussels sprouts come out, squeeze about 1/2 tablespoon of honey over them, and crumble up all that bacon and toss them in a bowl.

DON'T WASH THAT PAN YET!!!

...Because your fish will go right on it. Take 2 Mahi Mahi filets and plop them down on your bacon-Brussels sprouts-cookie sheet. Divide your dill butter in half and put a blob of that on top of each piece of fish. Put this in your HOT 450-degree oven for like 7 minutes, then serve everything.

It IS easy. I only went into play-by-play detail to help you first-timers out there.

Mi esposo, who swears up and down that he hates Brussels sprouts ate every last one off his plate.


Have fun! I know you'll have an amazing meal.

"There are Only Eight Notes, Karen"

I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, think that I am especially musically inclined. It's no secret, however, that I love music. I made it a point, from a very young age, to hear as much live music as I possibly could. At many times, I surrounded myself with musical types who understood far more about the craft than I ever will. In doing these things, I began, after a time, to hear subtleties I used to miss. I started to pick up some things from them. I'll likely never be a musician, but I can at least claim to be somewhat of an academic listener. I like to think I get it.

Not too long ago, I had a piano lesson during which I was to work on a specific phrase the instructor assigned to me. I thought I was oh-so-clever when I made the observation aloud that the melody he had me working on was made up of the same notes of another very well known tune...only the timing was slightly different. I suppose I secretly wanted to be congratulated on having "gotten it", but instead, the experienced and world-weary instructor just sighed and said, "There are only eight notes, Karen", meaning, over time, with all of the music that has been written and will continue to be written, we are bound to repeat some phrasing. Like, DUH, Karen.

And so it is with cooking.

I made a dish called Zweibel Rostbraten this evening. You might guess that this recipe hails from the Germanic part of the world and you might be right. Thin steaks are flash-seared with aromatic fried onions and accented with a tangy sauce. As I really looked hard at the recipe just before commencing my prep work, I thought to myself that this looked a lot like Steak Diane, sans mushrooms.

The finished Zweibel Rostbraten did, in fact, also taste a lot like Steak Diane. I have now been working with food just long enough to see that cooking is a lot like music. There are only so many notes. Recipes, like songs, are bound to be similar, even derivative at times.

I am not saying this in a spirit of mourning. On the contrary, in both crafts, music and cooking, the finished product can still be artful and wonderful, even if it has a close cousin you might recognize. Furthermore, how it is played, or how it is made, can make all the difference. If you've ever heard the fifth grade recorder orchestra play Flight of the Bumblebee and then heard a world class symphony do the same piece, then you know what I am talking about. Whether you see it as "God is in the details" or "the devil is in the details", it is tough to dispute that the details do, indeed, matter.

And don't our ears jump for joy when there is some new song that just grabs us??
And don't we rave to anyone who will listen when we try some new dish that is a wonderfully delicious surprise?

Deep down, we know we can do a lot with a little and that is what makes us seek out, and appreciate the really good stuff.

Thanksgiving Turkey: Try Everything

Roast your bird.
Toast your bird.
Brine your bird.
Baste your bird.
Dry-cure your bird.
Deep-fry your bird.
Stuff your bird.
Truss your bird.
Lard your bird.
Bard your bird.
Spatchcock your bird.
Roulade your bird.
Smoke your bird.
Oven-bag your bird.
Grill your bird.
Microwave your bird.
Pressure-cook your bird.
Crock Pot your bird.
Butter your bird.
Kabob your bird.
Beer-can your bird.
Rack your bird.
High heat your bird.
Slow and low your bird.
Frozen-cook your bird.
Turducken your bird.
Tofurkey your un-bird.
Mississipi Trash Bag your bird.
Jerk your bird.
BBQ your bird.
Bread and flour your bird.
Make reservations for your bird.
Pit-bury your bird.
Quarter and saute your bird.

OK...I'll stop with the many methods of cooking a Thanksgiving turkey (although it is likely I've missed a few). Everybody swears their method is the best. And once they've tried a strange-sounding alternative method, they swear even more vociferously that they will never go back to roasting the old fashioned way.

The truth is, every method can be really delicious. So please, please, please do not stress about whether or not you are doing it the right way. You are doing it the right way, whichever way you choose. In fact, why not try ALL the methods? I have tried a few of these methods but certainly not all of them. I think (I hope!) I have a few more Thanksgivings left in me so I can try some more techniques. I have formulated my own opinions, but you should do the same. Don't kowtow to the "experts". Keep in mind that two of the most highly-acclaimed and equally-esteemed chefs, Jacques Pepin and Julia Child, were always at odds on how to prepare the Thanksgiving bird over the years. Both chefs were incredible cooks and had good reasoning behind their recommended methods. Both chefs made an amazing feast, I am sure (even if they cooked their birds a little differently). These days, you have everyone from Martha Stewart to Ina Garten to Paula Deen telling you the "right" way to cook your holiday dinner. I say, if the experts cannot agree, there is nothing left to do but try everything and see what you think.

If it's your first bird, just try roasting it the good old fashioned way--in which you sprinkle some salt and pepper on the bird, throw it in the oven, and forget about it for a few hours while you make mashed potatoes and other sundries. You can follow any cookbook recipe or the directions that come on the wrapper of your poultry for this method. Those oven bags certainly seem to be big sellers...this seems like another solid method for a neophyte. If you've done a couple birds without incident, go ahead and work another idea from the list. And keep in mind, tradition-lovers, just because you cooked the poultry in a non-traditional manner does not by any stretch mean that it tastes any less traditionally delicious. Good is good, people, and that's all there is to it.

Try fresh poultry. Try frozen poultry. Try local. Try big farms. Yes, I did just say that out loud. Why am I not championing Old Heirloom Poultry Joe's at the corner of rural routes eleventy and oneteen?? Just like you good foodies out there, I also want Old Heirloom Poultry Joe to do well and I may support him too, but if we mindlessly follow the au courant trend to look down our noses at the big poultry vendors, we are forgetting the compelling point that if some of these companies make 90% of their annual profit from Thanksgiving turkeys, they are very sensitive to the fact that they had better deliver a perfect and perfectly safe product. That's not so hateful. But do make up your own mind after investigating every avenue. So...do try fresh. Try frozen. Try local. Try big. Try all the methods in that list. TRY EVERYTHING.

You'll never know what you are or are not missing until you've tried it.

The Trouble with Cooking

The trouble with cooking is not slicing, dicing, or julienne-ing. The trouble with cooking is not the mountain of dirty dishes. The trouble with cooking is not the extra time required to plan a menu. The trouble with cooking is not sourcing quality ingredients. The trouble with cooking is not even really the physical work that goes into it. The trouble with cooking is not that it is dead, like Harry. (Go rent a bunch of Alfred Hitchcock movies if you missed that reference.)

The trouble with cooking is that it spoils you for mediocrity. Once you have had a perfect salad dressing that is little more than a squeeze of a ripe lemon with some fresh garlic and good olive oil, you have no tolerance for Paul Newman's greasy chemicals. Once you have baked your own bread, or become accustomed to the products of your local artisan baker, then that fluffy, cake-like garbage the grocery stores try to pass off in the "bread" aisle is anathema to you. And unless they really put in their own special touch, you'd just rather make your own pizza. The real trouble with cooking is, in fact, that it makes you an insufferable food snob.

You can likely well imagine that the days preceding holidays can be busy ones for a cook, and I am one gratefully busy bee this week. I was busy enough that I thought we'd just have to have some sub-standard dinners for a couple nights this week...you know, a frozen this, an instant that--I hardly ever let us eat like that, but there are only so many hours in a day and most of them are already spoken for!

But there I was, walking down the frozen food aisle of my local grocer, and I just choked. Nope. I KNOW those entrees are a disappointment. Nope. Those over there are so unhealthy it's frightening. Ooof! Look at that! Who buys some of this stuff?!!

Insufferable food snob that I am, I just couldn't do it.

Crap. I'll just have to cook.

I DID cheat a little and used some store-bought bread dough for our weekly bread. The loaf is still cooling, and I'm sure it will be just fine, but *sigh*...it doesn't look like it has my crispy crust.

Tonight's dinner was a bit of a "pantry dump" (you know, when I look for whatever is on hand and "invent" an entree) Although it was born out of necessity and convenience, the savory garlic-chicken cheesecake I came up with may have to go into the regular rotation.

I just can't eat that Taco Hell, or increasingly, I can't eat anything that wasn't made with some degree of care and focus.

So the trouble with cooking is that you have to keep doing it!

Challenge Yourself (I'm talking to YOU, Starbuck)

I quit drinking coffee 2 weeks ago. My reasons for ditching the old Cuppa Joe were somewhat frivolous, so I won't embarrass myself with them here, but I am still in shock that I am enjoying life so much more without it.

Before I get into that, allow me to tell you how much I love coffee. I loved coffee before it was chic to love coffee. I loved coffee before Starbucks was a chain. I loved coffee even when it was my Dad's old instant Nescafe. I loved coffee so much I saw it as a character defect if someone diluted the exquisite bitterness with cream, or worse, with sugar. I loved coffee so much I would drink the grounds from my Turkish coffee.

There was a period of time in my young life where I drank coffee like a champ, pot after pot. When I got some ugly side effects from this excessive consumption, I curtailed my coffee consumption to a modest 2 cups a day. No, that's not a lot, but I was utterly dependent on those 2 cups to jump start my day and to prevent the dreaded lack-of-caffeine-migraine that would plague me if I skipped my morning ritual.

But I decided to stop drinking it. I was sure I would be bedridden with an awful headache for a few days. I just knew I'd be difficult and edgy for a week. I was certain I'd be an absolute bear in the morning for the rest of my life. I was positive that I WOULD HATE EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

For some reason, the lack-of-caffeine-migraine never showed up this time. I wasn't moody. My mornings were no worse than usual. Additionally, I felt less stressed throughout the day. My voracious evening appetite became more normalized. My insomnia ceased to be. The grocery bill is a little less. And inexplicably, I lost four pounds.

I have become quite skeptical that the benefit I was hoping for by forgoing coffee will never actually materialize, but I still don't think I'll go back. I love the lowered stress level. I love sleeping through the night. And if four more pounds would like to follow the earlier "vanguard four", I will become positively evangelical about it!

You can quit coffee if you want...or not. My point really is that we believe these little fictions we tell ourselves:
-"I have to have coffee."
-"I've been a vegetarian so long that if I were to eat animal-based protein, my body would violently reject it."
-"I gag on broccoli."

I'm not talking about legitimate food allergies, nor am I talking about physiological conditions like celiac disease or diabetes, nor I am I talking about food choices to maintain religious observances, I am talking about self-styled edicts that have their basis in nothing but ego. We are all guilty of them.

But challenge yourself to break one of your own self-styled edicts. See what happens. If you don't like it, you can go back to your old ways. But there is a chance you might glean some health benefit you never counted on...because you had been doing things another way for so long you aren't even sure what benefits there might be.

I've found a sense of calm, a good night's sleep, and a looser waistband.

Shrimp Gumbo and Your Frenemy, the Internet

I decided I felt like making Shrimp Gumbo for dinner. I never really had the occasion to make it, so I didn't have my own recipe on hand, but I had a pretty good idea of what should be in it. All the same, I did a quick scan of some recipes on the internet to see if I could sort of cherry-pick the best of the best gumbo ideas.

When I do an internet recipe roundup, I am looking for common ingredients, common techniques, common themes as well as special diversions that might take a classic to a higher level. I let my memory take a snapshot, and then I head to the kitchen without any of these recipes in hand, actually, just to see what I can do on my own. I admit, my ways are not for everyone, and in my first days of cooking I had to throw a lot of my concoctions into the rubbish. But now that I get the big picture (I hope), I enjoy doing things in this shoot-from-the-hip manner because it allows me to put my own spin on the theme at hand.

Regardless of whether my technique sounds intriguing or potentially dangerous, I had a revelation while perusing recipes today. A substantial proportion of internet recipes are not worth the virtual paper they are written on. I counted three recipes that were so devoid of proportion and technique that they were sure to result in disaster. If you know your way around a kitchen, you may be able to read between the lines, but what about the hapless first-timer who really, really wants to learn, wants to enjoy the creative side of food, and is basically being led into failure? That makes me very sad. Too many would-be cooks give up: "I just don't have the knack", they think. YES, YOU DO!! YOU JUST NEED MORE EXPERIENCE TO SEE HOW AND WHERE THE BAD RECIPES ARE TRICKING YOU INTO FAILURE!!

Once these first-timers become seasoned vets, they can read these pathos-inspiring internet recipes and figure out what they are really supposed to do. Or...you, dear cooking friend, can buy them a cookbook from a lower-ranking celebrity TV chef.

What??!!?? Why? If they want to cook like Thomas Keller, shouldn't I get them a Thomas Keller cookbook?

Nope. As much as Thomas Keller and contemporaries of his ilk may have tried to dumb-down their kitchen alchemy for the average Joe, it might still be too much information. I am instead referring to Rachael Ray, Paula Deen, Marth Stewart, Alton Brown and other recognizable TV faces with fun shows that may or may not be very chef-like. These TV stars generally have fantastic cookbooks, in my opinion. The recipes may not be lofty, but they are well-explained, and, even better, they are tested to within an inch of their lives. You see, they make a lot of money if America thinks they are kitchen geniuses, so they cannot afford to let down their guard. Every recipe they are hocking must be tested multiple times so they all come out tasting fantastic. They cannot have everyone in America saying things like, "Ooof. That Paula Deen calls herself a Southern cook? Her pecan pie tastes like a learning-impaired Yankee wrote the recipe 15 minutes after Richmond fell." I mean, they have to be really good. And these recipes can't have esoteric, inefficient steps in them. Suzy Single Mom needs to be able to get this done posthaste before she or her kids have a meltdown. In protecting their brand, these lower-ranking TV chefs set up the average cook for brilliant success. And that gets people excited about cooking and eating whole food (rather than nukable junk-in-the-box)

I suppose it's not even fair of me to use labels like "lower-ranking"...I mean, who am I, right? But in the world of food, you begin to become beholden to groundbreaking eccentrics with restaurants that most mere mortals cannot afford or understand, so in a spirit of (false?) deference, you let them know that they are truly the favorite son and NOT that loud and spiky-haired Fieri fellow from the Food Network.

Ooof. I've bought into the culture, I suppose.

Nevertheless, I want your gumbo to be brilliant, so please make sure you set yourself up for success. If you are a new cook and unsure what constitutes a good recipe and a so-so one, then you must pull yourself away from the computer, however convenient it is, and get yourself into a real-live physical bookstore (if there are any hanging on via life support) and buy yourself a good celebrity chef cookbook. You will win, I promise you.

The internet, though it's right there in the den and appears to have everything you need to make a brilliant dinner, WILL let you down if you are a new cook. Yes, even thought the recipe has 4 stars indicating a favorable review, it is your frenemy, smiling to your face and then stabbing you in the back...with non-essential ingredients, incorrect proportions, and unexplained techniques. Do you know what a mireppoix is? Do you have to have kaffir lime leaves for the soup to turn out and why doesn't Giant Eagle carry them? What is the ball stage and do you have to worry about your 9-year old baseball fan going through it anytime soon?

See what I mean? Skip the internet and skip to the bookstore or the library. I want you to win.

And by the way, I'm glad I ignored the mediocre gumbo recipes on the internet... in doing so, tonight's dinner turned out to everyone's liking!