Cooking

Comfort and Screw Ups

Fire shrimp

New tank occupant, I’ll call her Celia because I like that name. Shy and nervous, she spends her days upside down behind a rock. I asked her to make room for me this morning, but she ignored me, didn’t so much as wave her antennae in my direction.

In my mind, I’ve been working on a blog post about Ferguson, the need to keep this conversation going. I thought I would sit and write it today, but then this morning I went over my files for Astonishing, to see if there’s anything/one I should be following up with. Yah. Don’t know if I mentioned it here, but in a moment of I have to try something, I sent a query to a small press a few months ago. This small press promises a fast response, I hadn’t heard anything, so I pulled up my original email/query to them and found…

…a request for a full from the editor. In my “junk” folder. From a month ago.

“You screwed it up, Bobby Terry!” Does anyone else have random quotes from novels that have stayed with them forever? That one is from Stephen King’s The Stand, right before Bobby Terry is flayed and flambeed by Randall Flagg– the Dark Man.

Get a grip, Mrs Fringe. No evil being is waiting to fly across the desert and eat me because I missed an email that was caught in my spam filter. If any one of my writer friends came to me melting down about this, I’d reassure them that it happens, in the world of publishing a month’s lapse is not even a blink, any editor/agent/professional will understand. This is nothing in the days of being a wannabe. This is less than nothing in the face of Ferguson, what the verdict represents and the false focus of so much of our media.

Still, I decided comfort food was in order. How about if I make grilled cheese for dinner, kiddos? This, of course, meant I went to Whole Foods on Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend. Clearly I was punishing myself for not checking that fucking junk mail folder regularly enough. And why buy 10 items when you can buy 11 and stand on the slower line?

I will be drowning my whining in chocolate pudding this evening. Care to join me?

Never Again! oh, and happy Thanksgiving

Yesterday was miserable weather here. Rain to sleet to snow and back again, all day. Little Incredibly Dumb Dog ran to the couch after her 7am walk and did this.

Apparently taking her outside for 5 minutes in cold rain was cruel and unusual punishment.

I took the girl to school, came home, woke Nerd Child–because he’s home, yay!!!–went to two grocery stores, began prep work for Thanksgiving dinner, and prepped, and cooked, and prepped. Nope, not going to do this anymore. Next year, we are going out to eat. My spine has handed in her official resignation letter, she refuses to support me in the chopping, lifting, mixing, and standing required for Thanksgiving dinner anymore.

Of course, I mentioned this to Fatigue on the phone last night, and his response was he’s heard me say this before. Oh. Well, this time I mean it. Really. And I did get Husband, Nerd Child, and Art Child to help me with some of the snipping and chopping, loading and unloading of the dishwasher, washing pots. Of course being an idiot, I didn’t ask for help until my back was already screaming. Man Child stayed up at school this year, he’s busy and working. I missed him yesterday, and I’ll miss him more when we sit down to dinner, but he’s living his life, enjoying all the man child stuff I’m happy he can experience.

With fewer people at the table, I thought I’d share dinner with you, Fringelings.

Trying a different stuffing this year

Cornbread based. One day I’ll figure out how to cook stuffing for fewer than 20 people.

I skipped the yams entirely. Went with an old favorite of mashed gold potatoes and parsnips.

I like to pretend the parsnips make this a healthier choice.

Of course, the very first dish completed yesterday was dessert. Another old favorite, pumpkin marble cheesecake. I didn’t have it in me to drag the mixer out of the closet–it’s heavy! As it turns out, my cooling racks are nowhere to be found. You know those boxes you stick away when you move to a new place, with the intention of getting to them when you have time? I hope they’re in there. They have to be in there. I’ll find them eventually.

Gingersnap pecan crust

Turns out I can’t beat things by hand as smooth as I used to. Oops.

Want a slice?

Today I’ll do the rest. Nerd Child was kind enough to prep the Swiss chard for me. Ready, clean and waiting in bags.

Pretty, isn’t it.

When I gave up yesterday and sat down at the laptop with a glass of Bailey’s, I looked over at the couch:

Seriously. All day.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

And of course, because it’s obligatory:

Happy Last Day of School!

The presentation isn’t much, but what do you want at 6am?

Felt like we’d never get to this day–or to warm weather, but here we are. Figs with ricotta and honey for everyone, a perfect summer breakfast.

And speaking of summer foods, there’s a great, brand new blog I recommend, Resident Cook. It’s a cooking blog, geared towards cooking in college dorms, which to me = not only college students but anyone with a limited budget and limited space–my two primary concerns for recipes.

Traditionally, summer is a time for Art Child and I to rest and recup, soak up the sun and store energy for the fall. This summer, Art Child will be taking an art intensive class. Just a month, a few times a week, but it changes the dynamic. There was even an orientation for the class.

End of year mama brain is like damp cotton candy–if you poke it, it disappears. I saved the email about orientation, certain it was last Thursday afternoon. So Thursday morning, I pulled up the email to check where it was going to be, and print the registration papers. Doesn’t everyone do their paperwork at 5am? Oh shit. Tuesday. It was Tuesday. Imagine Mrs Fringe freaking out, trying to decide how serious they were about the orientation being mandatory. I get in the shower, and I’m seeing that email in my mind. And realize I didn’t miss it. I did indeed have the day wrong, but I also had the week wrong, it was this past Tuesday. Didn’t miss it. If I didn’t already mention it, I hate cotton candy.

And I’ve been thinking. There’s a manuscript I have started and abandoned many times over the last humenahhumenah years. I’ve deleted triple the number of words that are actually in the file. But maybe. Maybe once I get some rest and some sun, maybe I’ll play with it.

Gah! I can’t think about it now, first I need some real beach time. Tomorrow, if it isn’t raining, Mrs Fringe will be found with toes in the sand, listening to the sweet sounds of sweaty guys hawking warm beer, and toddlers screaming that they don’t want to go in the water. Coney Island has missed me, I’m certain of it.

A is For

Artichoke. Hey, everyone, let’s eat this giant thorn-like thistle! I can’t imagine who first figured how to cook and eat these things, but I’m glad they did. Stuffed artichokes are one of those things, comfort food and a luxury at once. Luxury because of the cost and the work involved. I haven’t made them in a long time, but yesterday I was inspired.

I know people have different ways of cooking them, and some stuff while others just dip the leaves. My favorite is pretty much the way I first encountered them, a little tweak of the stuffing. Trim the bottom stems, take off the toughest outer leaves at the base, trim the sharp points of of the leaves, and then cut off the top of the artichoke (about two inches straight across the top, through the layers). Apparently my knife really needs to be sharpened, because I couldn’t actually trim the tops until after part 1 of cooking them, which is steaming/boiling in a tall pot for about 20 minutes. Throw a bit of white wine, or lemon juice, or white or red wine vinegar in the boiling water before you add the chokes. Last night I used a champagne vinegar.

Post steam. I really botched trying to trim them with that dull knife beforehand.

You have to let them cool a bit before moving on to the next step, I generally turn them upside down to make sure any water caught in the leaves drains out, helping them cool.

I make the stuffing mix while they’re steaming. Equal parts fresh bread crumbs and ground parmesan (a good one! yesterday I used some romano I had left and then parm), a handful of finely chopped walnuts, a few cloves minced garlic (at least one for each artichoke), snipped flat leaf (Italian) parsley and mint leaves, fresh ground pepper.

Mix it all up.

Now that your artichokes have cooled a bit, finish trimming any sharp points–last night this is when I chopped off more of the tops, use your hands to spread the leaves some, and remove the centermost leaves and the fuzzy part in the bottom center of each choke.

A grapefruit spoon would work best for removing the furry middle, I don’t have one, and use a teaspoon.

Beginning in the middle, start stuffing, pushing out as you go, so the mix spreads out, and gets through all the layers, a nice coating on each leaf. I overstuffed last night. Place each artichoke on each stem, standing straight up in a baking dish. Put an inch or two of water at the bottom of the dish/pan, I also squeeze half a lemon in the water. Drizzle a little olive oil over all.

I like a tight fit so they don’t fall over.

Tent aluminum foil over the whole thing, so steam will be created and cook everything further as it bakes. In the oven at 375° for about 40 minutes.

Enjoy, one leaf at a time, scraping the stuffing and soft bottom of each leaf off with your teeth, leaving a “shell.”

It’s possible I ate so much I put myself into a carb coma last night. Possible.

I am Broccoli Rabe

Broccoli Rabe (Photo credit: cbertel)

Maybe not me, but my writing. I think. Hell, maybe it is me.

Broccoli rabe, kalamata olives, vinegar, hot peppers, capers, just about any type of cheese–the stinkier the better. I’ve never tasted anchovies. When I was younger, no one I knew ate them, and by the time I realized they were probably a food I’d enjoy, I was long a vegetarian.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m a “foodie,” there are plenty of basic, simple comfort foods that make my list. Oatmeal with tons of salt and butter, cheetos, pb&j. Yes, peanut butter–the real kind–no additives. I don’t know about your house, but in my house we go through gallons of it. Nothing says comfort like a sammich. Mrs Fringe ❤ bread. But if I had to choose my two favorite sandwiches, one would be a lightly toasted extra sharp Irish white cheddar with sour pickle slices on sourdough, and the other would be chèvre, kalamata olives, fresh dill and sliced cucumbers on baguette.

Like anything else, these foods are only good if they’re fresh and prepared well. Same with writing, words and stories.

I enjoy strong flavors, strong opinions, strong words. Things that make my tongue and my brain tingle. Not everyone agrees, not on their plates and not on their book shelves.

Not everyone likes the same books I do, the same authors. Not everyone *gasp* enjoys my stories. But those that do, really do. Kind of like those that have a taste for broccoli rabe. It doesn’t mean it’s a “flavor” that’s inherently bad or good, individual tastes vary. It occurs to me as I type, this might be seen as a cryptic message about rejections. Nope. Still waiting, haven’t heard yay or nay on the fulls that are out. Just flagellating myself while I wait. Umm, I mean, thinking. Just thinking.

It’s Friday, Friday Night Madness tonight. Fatigue is coming over, we’ll have dinner, one beer each, and laugh. Art Child will show him her latest sketches. We’ll cluck and tear up and sniffle a bit as I give him the update on Big Senile Dog (kidneys–I’m waiting on more test results), and he’ll fill me in on the rapidly declining health of his Big Senile Dog, and then I’ll read him the next couple of chapters in Astonishing–it’s become our irregular routine.

You’re welcome to join us. I’m thinking basic pasta tonight. I make a mean puttanesca sauce–no anchovies. If you don’t like it, I can order a pizza. If you don’t like pizza, well. Maybe Art Child will share her Easter chocolate.

Merry Holidays!

I thought I would write a heartfelt post for the holidays. Maybe not heartfelt, maybe humorous. Clever. Witty.

Alas, I’ve been busy doing the real life thing, but I did want to pop on and wish everyone Happy Holidays from Fringeland.

Here, I’ll share dinner, and some of the 8 gazillion cookies Man Child and I made.

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Comedy of Errors, Thanksgiving Style

Turkey (Photo credit: wattpublishing)

Ah, the day before Thanksgiving. A happy, happy day. Nerd Child came home for Thanksgiving break, he’s been making us laugh for the past four days. Man Child and his girlfriend Miss Music got home last night, long after I fell asleep–how beautiful to wake up to all my chickadees at home.

A day for finishing prep work for cooking and debating whether or not it will be worth going to see the balloons being blown up tonight. I’m quite behind on the cooking this year, left too much for today. The only things ready are my cranberry sauce and stuffing. After taking Flower Child to school, I went straight to the store to pick up a pork roast. That’s right I said pork, I’m not making a turkey this year. Came home from the store, began mincing garlic and toasting fennel seeds.

I needed the salt. From the top shelf. Too lazy to take out the stool, I stretched. I don’t think of myself as petite. In my mind, I’m a glorious six feet tall. Except not in reality. So trying to reach the container of sea salt, I knocked against the glass bottle of vanilla. I don’t know about you, but I’m not into serving bourbon vanilla glass shard infused pork. I didn’t even think, my left hand shot up to catch the bottle before it could hit the counter and smash all over the spices and garlic. My kitchen is teeny. This type of incident is more than a nuisance when the space is so tight. It can take out an entire meal. SCORE! I did it, caught it in mid air with my non dominant hand. This is the part where you say, “Gee, that Mrs Fringe is swell and multi talented.”

Did I mention the crack? Yes, that was the sound of my hand when it hit the bottom edge of the cabinet door before catching the vanilla. Right between the two knuckles of my pinkie and ring finger.

Then Man Child and Miss Music came back. They had gone to move her car. Those friendly folks from the impound already moved it for her. It was late, it was raining, they didn’t see the full sign.

No parking: We kind of really mean it (Photo credit: caruba)

Husband went with Man Child and Miss Music to the impound. Nerd Child went with me to the urgent care center. I think dinner may be a little late tomorrow.

They wouldn’t give me a hook.

Happy Thanksgiving, Fringelings!

Wanna Get a Belly Fulla Beer

Ok I’m not talking about Saturday night, I’m talking about Friday Night Madness.

Generally, Husband is off on Fridays, and he orders pizza with Flower Child while I go out with Fatigue. For this month, Husband is working on Fridays. Oh NO!! I need my hour and a half of Friday Night Madness. It’s like a get out of jail free card, only it’s bitch and moan to my heart’s content, or just sit peacefully with my beer while Fatigue moans. Plus all my favorite waitresses work on Friday evening. Blargh.

The other day, on Facebook, I was in a discussion with a group of friends about soups. Try not to be jealous of my glamorous New York lifestyle. One friend mentioned onion soup made with a dark beer base, and it’s been on my mind ever since.

So, I called Fatigue and asked him if he’d like to come here instead of meeting at the bar. Flower Child was very happy. So happy she was *gasp* willing to not have pizza for dinner. On a Friday. This may not sound like much to you, Fringelings, but in our world that is huge. She adores Fatigue and hasn’t seen him in quite a while. Thumbs up. Bought beer, bought onions, Comte, baguette, all good to go.

The weather cooperated when the day started out. Windy, sideways rain, perfect soup for dinner day! I worked on Astonishing, added about a thousand words. This took three times as long as it should have because of the damned noise. They’re STILL working on that building across the street. It’s been over a year. To redo the front and the first floor, where the retail spaces are. I could have built an entire apartment building, complete with plumbing, out of Legos by now. By the time I finished writing for the day and had Flower Child back home from school, the rain was gone, the wind was gone, the sky was perfectly clear, and it was 70 degrees outside. Of course. Well forget it, I had the makings for soup, soup is what I was making.

Except I was looking at that beer and decided I’d rather drink it than put it in the soup. White wine base it is! Shoot, then I should put in a dollop of brandy for depth. (Mrs Fringe, Flower Child, and Fatigue are all vegetarians, so I use vegetable stock, not beef. Poor, poor flesh eating Husband.) I didn’t have any brandy. Or cognac. What the hell, I added a splash of Cabernet.

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A good time was had by all, Flower Child showed Fatigue all of her more recent sketches. A lovely Friday Night Madness indeed.

Happy Saturday, Fringelings!

Summer of…

Rain cloud (Photo credit: State Farm)

Suckage. Last year was the Summer of Death. I’m trying to decide if this is a step up or down. The weather in New York continues to be strange, we seem to have turned into a depressing morph that combines the frequent rains of the Pacific Northwest with the intensity of storms in the Southeast. July 3, and there has yet to be a day where I can get to the beach where the weather has cooperated.

We did go to visit with the kids’ godparents the other day. Man Child met us there with his girlfriend, which was lovely. Even better, he brought me a super special bonus surprise, my favorite treat. Don’t judge, they’re delicious and not available in the city. Not so good, I was in a significant amount of pain by the time we arrived. Our minivan is no longer reliable for trips over 30 minutes. We borrowed my in-laws’ car. Great to have the option, but there’s something about the shape of the seats in that car that doesn’t work with the curve of my spine. Ouch.

This led us to new-used car shopping in NJ yesterday. Eventually, my heart will start beating again, and we’ll continue looking. WTF? Where did the used cars go? Cars from 2010, 2011, 2012 are still way too pricey. I am not kidding when I say I saw a truck with 72,000 miles on it for $24,000. And no, it wasn’t a Cadillac, Lexus, or anything like that.

For bonus pleasure, the weather continued swinging wildly. We wandered half the lots in pouring rain, the other half blinded by sun reflecting off of wet asphalt and car windshields, a little steam thrown on for good measure. On our way home, we stopped in one of the Manhattan car places on 11th Avenue, where it took longer to get a salesman to escort us up to where they keep the used cars than it did for us to scout the floor and realize there was nothing in our budget.

Gave up and were greeted by the traditional wildlife of NY summers underground. Oh, this urban jungle.

When I’m walking the beasts on these hot, wet summer nights, I can actually hear their legs skittering on the sidewalk ahead of us, just to illustrate how substantial they are.

I should be writing, I want to be writing, but I can’t get my head into this new character yet. So I’ve been working on a twitter pitch (I’m calling it a twitch, it only makes sense) for the completed manuscript for an online event next week. Decided I would make a treat. Who doesn’t think it’s a good idea to put the oven on when its 99% humidity? Guava cheese pastries. Didn’t work out so well.

Perfectly delicious guayaba, wasted.

It’s only been a week, this summer will improve, right? Please?

Riveting, A Literary V-8

Edward_Lear_A_Book_of_Nonsense 115.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As mentioned often, I haven’t had a day off in years. Some days contain more suckage than others. Today, not starting off so well. I got up and decided to make blueberry muffins for breakfast. Flower Child choked on a piece of kale during dinner last night, freaked out, not much was eaten, therefore I wanted to be sure she would really eat this morning. No one else was up yet, I was able to make the batter and get them in the oven. Another often touched on point here in Fringeland, I have a teeny, tiny kitchen. Rules out cooking or baking anything that involves needing a lot of space, and involves regular accidents, because I’ve got about 8 inches of counter space to work with. Got the muffins in the oven without incident, washed what I used for prep, ignored the pot and dishes still in the sink from last night. Time to get those muffins out of the oven. First tray, balanced on top of the stove. Second tray, on the lilliputian amount of space on the dining room table that isn’t used as Husband’s office (read, overflowing with papers, pens, and crap). I now want to slide the rack back inside the oven, which of course, resulted in the first (full) tray flipping off of the stove and half of the muffins flying out and decorating the kitchen. Sigh.

Historical Oven cooking depicted in a painting by Jean-François Millet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Flower Child is now up, curled on one end of the couch under a blanket, and waiting anxiously for the muffins not covered in dog hair and drool to cool off. I sit on the couch with my laptop and my coffee. After a little bit, I tell her she can take a muffin. She throws her blanket off, and my coffee spills onto the couch, the floor, my phone, and my book. Fuuuuuck! For the record, she’s been standing in front of the muffins for twenty minutes now, waiting for me to tell her which muffin to take, afraid to move at all despite the fact that I told her six times to just pick one. I don’t want to look at them anymore. Husband woke up, looked in the kitchen, and asked if I made scrambled muffins for breakfast.

So, what to do when you need to escape life and you can’t actually have a day off? Read, and try to pretend your couch doesn’t reek of cafe con leche. I was thinking about books and reading this morning, anyway.

What makes a novel great? And I mean fantastic, enduring, cross genre and cross generational. The type of book that you either can’t put down, or have to put down every so often so the perfect line of prose you just read and reread can be examined, dissected and allowed to swim through the synapses of your brain until it’s coming out of your pores like the morning after a night of drinking cheap vodka.

I think it’s when the story is so clear but so flexible you not only want to be the main character, or in that world, you can apply it to yourself in your world, your life. Open for interpretation, if you will, allowing for projection. Kind of weird, because many of my favorite novels involve stories and lives I wouldn’t really want, they’re tragic. But I can feel them. And you, opening the book with a different viewpoint, different life experiences, different locale, different socio-economic background, can see yourself in that main character, in that story, and feel them too.

I don’t want to say ambiguous, because that has negative connotations, and too often makes readers think of torturous works of literature assigned by pompous and musty professors. You know the ones, they smell like my couch. Personally, I’m ok with ambiguous, especially ambiguous endings, but many aren’t. They want to know there is a happy ever after for Joe Smith, or maybe they want to see Mrs Fringe get her comeuppance. Maybe the story, the character, needs to be pliable. Something that has it’s own form, shape, and limits, but can be stretched through a reader’s brain to mold to individual interpretations.

I’m going to make more coffee and give Flower Child a muffin. Tell me what you think.