Unidentified Fishy Objects

By the time I’m done cultivating my lard connection I’ll have spent so much on organic grass-fed, grass-finished meat that it would have been cheaper to have the lard airlifted to my doorstep in tank of liquid nitrogen (sort of like how we got Enzo).

We went to the Farmer’s Market, and I talked to my lard guy. Did he get my message last week that I had the flu? No, but someone else took the lard. No harm done. Will he take me back? Can I call him again? Of course. So we’re set for next Sunday. I call Wednesday to confirm.

Then I was so flustered and grateful that I spent twelve dollars on two lamb chops. I was scanning the price list desperately for something I could afford, nothing, nothing, and it was all lamb. So I asked for the lamb chops, and then I saw the separate price list for pork. But I was too flummoxed to make the change.

We also bought tiny fish that may be sardines and may be anchovies. And shell fish that look like tiny conch. I have no idea who to cook any of this. I think I’ll start by chopping off the fish heads and taking out their guts. As for the conch, I’ll steam and hope and dip them in melted butter with garlic, and that covers a multitude of sins.

*

Last week when I was sick I had no interest in food. Is this how men feel when they stop thinking about sex all the time? It was liberating--and boring.

I didn’t even want chocolate. Ordinarily, for me, chocolate in the house is an itch unscratched. Enzo can carry around two M & M’s all afternoon and not eat them. He puts them in the back of a dump truck, picks them up again, carries them around, puts them on a train, carries them around again. And I feel like prying them out of his plump little fists and devouring them on the spot.

While I was sick, I read like a Turk—Survival In Auschwitz, The Drowned and the Saved, The Reawakening, all in a row. I was going to write that it’s hard to feel too sorry for yourself while you’re reading about the holocaust. But I didn’t have any trouble. Sensation is sensation. Misery is misery. Some is worse than others. The flu was mine. And mixed in with the flu misery was the intense pleasure of reading those books again.

Enzo was almost named Primo after Primo Levi—but we concluded that most people would think of the Mexican beer, not the Italian writer. So we stopped ourselves in time. Not that there’s anything wrong with Mexican beer—god forbid.

*

Post script on the fish drama. Definitely anchovies. I picked their finicky little guts out. The bones came out easily, spine and all. I sauteed them very quickly in butter and garlic and parsley—lemon at the end. And they were okay—but very, very fishy. I like fish. But this was a bit much. They needed capers or more lemon or good rough bread with lots of butter. Or maybe just a large pizza underneath them.

The conch were sweet and briny--and a bit rubbery, but in a good way.

Tomorrow, lamb chops.

Triscuits & Tapwater

We are brought low.

Enzo had swine flu and came through it in a week, hearty as a little bull. But he watched a lot of TV in that week, and now he thinks that’s what his life should be like all the time. Sounds good to me.

When he was sick he fell asleep in my arms at night, just like when he was a baby. After I'd read just a couple of books his eyes would start to close, and he'd turn around and sort of nestle down against my chest and fall asleep--the most delicious feeling.

Less delicious was when I accidentally ate one of his loogeys. He was eating breakfast and gave a great sneeze. I ran for Kleenex, but then I couldn't find any snot--not on his hands, his face, or his plate. A few minutes later I took a bite of his untouched English muffin. And then I saw glistening on the buttery muffin--the loogey.

Now Teresa and I have the flu. We are old and tired. I’m hiding out in Teresa’s studio with a trial transcript and a bunch of trashy magazines. Enzo thinks I’m gone, which is the only way I can get any work done (or any trashy magazines read). I have a box of Triscuits and some water. Every few hours I heave myself up and squat over a Revere Ware saucepan to take a pee. I am a mature professional woman.

When Enzo was sick he ate almost nothing for a week. Now he looks a little thin. So I’m feeling completely miserable and also guilty that Teresa has to do the hard work while I just be a lawyer, and at the same time some part of me is thinking cheerfully, “Oh goody, maybe I’ll get thin.” And I just had a delicious fantasy about ending up in the hospital and getting all my trials continued and being extremely brave and interesting. So there are consolations.

The refrigerator is crammed full of rotting food. As far as I can tell, we have nothing to eat except fish sticks and popsicles. So this morning I dragged myself to Safeway and got the stuff to make chicken soup. Jewish Penicillin Grandma Clara called it, to everyone’s intense embarrassment. Chicken, salt, water, whole carrots and celery (don’t bother to wash, who fucking cares) an onion and a head of garlic (don’t bother to peel), put it all in the slow cooker on high for three of four hours. Ladle out some broth and chicken. Make toast.

Hubris Pie

I told Teresa, "This is going to be my best quiche yet."

I'm eating a piece right now, and it's awful. I think there are Greek myths about this, and they don't end well. The gods don't like it when you fly too close to the sun. And then there's the one about rolling the stone up the hill, and it always fucking rolls back down. And let's not forget the one about the guy who was totally hungry and thirsty--with ambrosia just out of reach.

I think those Greeks were on to something. Maybe they were trying to make butter pie crusts.

I tried to stop. I really did. But my I didn't call my lard guy in time for him to render the lard for the Sunday Farmer's Market. And then I had an idea, which I still think is a good one. The idea is: used chilled browned butter. The high water content in butter makes the crust tough. But in browned butter all the water is cooked off, and the milk solids that make butter so tasty are left and even enhanced by the browning. It's a seriously good idea.

The execution, however, was flawed. I didn't have any sweet butter, so I used salted butter but forgot to reduce the salt to compensate, so the crust came out over-salted. And it takes a lot of salt to make me say that. Also there was too much butter. And it takes a lot of butter to make me say that. Butter crusts usually call for a higher proportion of fat than lard or shortening crusts in order to compensate for the fact that butter is part water. But I cooked off all the water, so I should have reduced the fat as well. There are a lot of greasy, salty foods that I totally adore, but pie crust isn't one of them.

For those who want to try this at home--though why would you?--I followed the recipe in the most recent Fine Cooking (volume 101), substituting browned butter for regular butter.

The filling of the quiche was pretty bad too, but I don't care much about that. I warmed the egg/milk mixture in the microwave so it would cook faster. And it set up so fast that the cheese didn't have time to melt, so there are hard cheese chunks in the filling. And I decided to use almost burned onions that are so good in Middle Eastern cooking, but not so good in quiche Lorraine it turns out.

Look, it's edible. And let's face it, I'm just trying to survive.

Maybe I should make it a burnt offering. And then maybe, just maybe, next weekend when I try it all again with sweet butter and less fat I'll ascend into paradise.

Easy As Pie My Ass

My mom taught me how to make pie crust, and I always understood that it was hard and that it turns out a little different each time, so that part of eating pie is the crust post mortem. Tender or tough? Flaky or leaden? And what about the flavor? Butter probably gives the best flavor, but I've never made a butter crust that wasn't like very tasty cardboard. Lard is best for flavor and texture, but there's something unappealing about all those strange ingredients--deodorizers and stabilizers and preservatives. Shouldn't the only ingredient be: pig fat?

When my mom first learned to make pie, her mom called in a neighbor who was known to make good crusts. And my grandma Maxine was and is a great cook. It's just that crust prowess is rare, and so my mom was apprenticed.

My mom taught me the classic one cup shortening, three cups flour, one teaspoon salt, one cup ice water, though you know you won't use the whole cup of water. She taught me to use a pastry blender, but I've long since abandoned that. It takes too long, and quickness and lightness are everything when it comes to pie. I use my fingers. The purpose of the pastry cutter is to keep the fat cold while you cut it into the flour to make those fatty-flour granules that end up puffing into a thousand pockets of light flaky deliciousness. It turns out I can do that better with my fingers.

I developed my finger technique at the dude ranch where I worked as an assistant cook after college. There was no time for a pastry cutter there. I would make seven or eight pies before breakfast. And make breakfast. It was cold at night, even in the summer, and the water came out of the tap icy cold. I would wash my hands and then hold them under the cold running water as long as I could stand it, then dry my hands really well and use my freezing fingers to cut the fat into the flour, quick, quick and careless. It's caring too much that usually ruins a batch of pie crust. It makes you try too hard, and before you know it you've overworked the dough.

Cold and quick. That is pie crust. I remember an article in The New Yorker from many years ago about driving around America eating pie, and the author included a recipe for pie crust that included oil and boiling water. It was disturbing. I don't remember who wrote it, but it wasn't Calvin Trillin. That lovely man would never perpetuate such crude misinformation. And where was their fact checking department? This is not a subject on which reasonable minds can differ. Whatever that woman was making, it wasn't pie. Maybe it was wallpaper paste. My faith in the printed word was shaken.

Pretty pie crusts are usually shitty pie crusts. That's because to make dough that doesn't tear and crimps neatly at the edges, you have to overwork it and use too much water. I like an ugly patched together crust that tastes as it should. I've decided to give up crimping altogether and make what I think is called a fladen--a sort of rustic partly folded over itself crust, usually with apple filling or something else sufficiently solid. And I'm going to find good lard--honest perishable pig fat.

I just googled "lard connection Sacramento" and came up with nothing except a strong impression that I'm not the only one on a lard quest. And I learned on Wikipedia that the best fat is from around the kidneys. Goodie.

(Next day) There are subjects on which I cannot be educated. I simply can't believe anything bad about butter, no matter how much evidence to the contrary I create. I made a pumpkin pie with real pumpkin (as in not canned, though there's nothing wrong with canned) and a butter crust. And it was a failure. That means it was delicious by any reasonable standard--but not what I had in mind. The crust was flaky and crisp, and the flavor was wonderful. But it was tough. Enzo and Teresa don't understand this. They don't speak pie.

Why don't I just make tri-tip or brownies or something else that's impossible to make badly? Because pie is better. And where would be the drama? I can buy a brownie at Starbucks that's probably better than anything I could make. And what's the point of making homemade cookies when Oreos exist? But pie is indispensable, and the only good pies I remember eating were baked by my mom or myself. Sorry, world, we happen to rule.

The good news is that we went to the Farmer's Market this morning, and I asked the guy at the pork stand if he sells leaf lard. He said no, but he'd be happy to give me some. Just call the week before, and he'll make some for me. Hurrah! I am connected.

I'm going to include a recipe for Shaker Lemon Pie because because it's so strange and so good. To make this pie you need either a Meyer lemon tree or a connection. I have both, but since I'm the only woman in California who can't bring a lemon to harvest, I rely on my connection--a neighbor lady with a harvest from one tree that fills grocery bags.

2 large lemons with thin rinds (Jeanne note: it takes about 6 Meyer lemons-they don’t come in ‘large’ The pie should not have heaped filling. The flavor is too intense if overfilled.)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs

Slice lemons paper thin, rind and all; flick away any seeds. Combine the lemon slices with the sugar and mix well. Let stand 2 –12 hours, blending occasionally. This is rather pretty stuff when the sun shines on it. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Beat the eggs and add the lemon mixture. Turn into a 9” pie shell, arranging the slices evenly. Cover with a top crust and crimp along the edges. Cut several slits near the center. Bake at 450F for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 375F and bake for about 20 minutes (Jeanne note: maybe longer) or until a knife inserted near the edge comes out clean. Cool before serving.

My mom emailed me that recipe. She also made the pies (pineapple pies--who knew?) in the picture at the beginning of this entry. They are beautiful. I don't trust them a bit.

*

My own fact checking department (My Mother) has informed me that The New Yorker article I was remembering was The Great American Pie Expedition by Sue Hubbell, New Yorker, March 27, 1989. This was also the source of the Shaker Lemon Pie recipe. A useful reminder that the sublime and the horrible are often found together.

Grandma Clara

Every afternoon Grandma Clara used to sit down for her Four O’clock Fix: a cup of black coffee and a cookie. The coffee was weak and very hot—real Midwest coffee. The cookie was usually one of her homemade cream cheese cookies. She would sit and rest and quietly enjoy this. Can you even imagine being that sane?

She smoked exactly one cigarette every day, in the morning with with the L.A. Times Crossword.

She ate watermelon with a knife and fork and a bit of salt.

She said that when she first came out from Michigan to California she ate half a cantaloupe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle. And you had the impression that’s why she decided to stay and marry my grandpa.

When she first got married she didn’t know how to cook. She made pea soup, but she didn’t know it was supposed to be thick, so she made a clear broth with peas floating in it. “This is pea water,” said my grandpa. And she cried. By the time she was telling us the story we were eating her wonderful thick creamy pea soup, cooked with a big ham hock.

She made the best Santa Maria style barbecue—barbecued tri-tip, pinquito beans simmered long and low with a big ham hock, potato salad and garlic bread. That was her signature meal. There were no recipes. The food was in her head and her hands.

I’ll leave out the meat, since my Grandpa did that. Barbecue some tri-tip--that’s the recipe. I’m sure there is some high art to this, but I don’t know what it is, and it’s hard to make tri-tip taste anything but great.

The potato salad. I happen to make great potato salad, and she did some things that I think are wrong—like peal the potatoes before boiling them instead of afterward. But this is the way she did it, as well as I can remember. Peel and boil some russet potatoes. While they’re still warm, cut them into large chunks, sprinkle with salt and apple cider vinegar. Mix together mayonnaise, mustard powder, salt, pepper, and chopped green onions. Add the potatoes and mix it all together, trying not to break up the potatoes. Chill. Were there hardboiled eggs in there? I’m almost sure there weren’t. I wish I could call and ask. Her number is still in my phone.

The Beans. Soak some pinquito beans. Cook slowly with ham hock, , onion, garlic, and a small can of Las Palmas chili sauce.

The garlic bread. Make garlic butter with softened butter and mashed garlic. Get a loaf of grocery store type French bread—not sourdough, not artisanal, just soft white French bread in a plastic bag. Cut it lengthwise and spread the garlic butter. Toast under the broiler. Don’t burn.

Here are a few more of her recipes.

Cream Cheese Cookies

Cream together:
1 cup butter
3 oz cream cheese
one cup sugar
one egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Sift or just mix together:
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt.

Then mix everything together and (this is not in her written recipe, but she told me) don't over mix. Shape into rolls and refrigerate for at least three hours. Slice and bake for 16 minutes. Yes, that is correct, there is no baking soda or baking powder.

White Fruitcake

This is a big recipe because she gave it away for Christmas. It was the fruitcake that you actually liked to get.

Cream together:
3 cubes margarine or butter
3 cups sugar

Add, one at a time, beating between each one:
3 eggs

Mix together:
5 cups of sifted flour
1 tablespoon baking powder

Add 1 1/2 cups milk to the butter/egg mixture, alternating with the flour until it's all combined.

Mix in:
One package coconut
1 cup walnuts
12 ounces each red and green glace cherries
12 ounces candied pineapple
1 ounce brandy.

Bake in small loaf pans for about an hour. I think she lined the pans with baking parchment. Not a bad idea.

Open & Notorious

There's a dead end alley behind our house blocked by a big dumpster about thirty feet from the dead end, leaving a wild, unclaimed patch of weeds where no one drives and no one goes. We're kitty-corner from the weed patch, so that it would be easy to run a hose, or even a drip line from our house.

It took about thirty seconds for my thoughts to go from Community Garden to...Real Estate Scheme. I could see the raised beds, the neatly mulched rows, the neighbors meeting by chance to exchange gossip and produce. And then a voice from my real property law class went though my head: open, notorious, hostile, adverse, under claim of right...the elements of Adverse Possession. I couldn't remember how long you have to occupy the land to get it for yourself, but probably seven years. Geez, if I'd started this when we moved here, it would be ours by now. In fact, MINE.

I could fence it, run drip line, build a gate in our back fence, or maybe even a short corridor from our yard to the garden. I could plant a small orchard--figs! Maybe instead of a fence, espaliered apples and pears. Raised beds, of course. Drip irrigation on a timer. Goats, chickens. Perhaps a small vineyard. A picnic table. A shed. A worm box. Hell, a gazebo. Enzo could make a fort.

Objections crowded in. You have to pay the taxes to adversely possess land. And I doubt you can adversely possess against the city. And the small patch of sunlit vegetable garden in our own yard is a weed-infested ruin. The only things I can grow are tomatoes and arugula--which have been wonderful. Those two crops can take you a long way. But how would I satisfy the open and notorious part if the lot still looks like a weed patch? And how much arugula can three people eat?

And then, it's the secret, untamed wildness that attracted me to the lot in the first place. I remember an apricot tree near the house where I grew up. It was in a vacant sliver of land between an abandoned road and the new road, surrounded by weeds and dry grass, unwatered, unpruned and unobtrusive. The apricots were small, rosy-speckled, sweet and firm--and free in every way. Free because I was free and exploring and found them myself. Free because they were a secret.

Operation Ass Wipe & Other Miscellaneous

Enzo is into apple juice popsicles. He also loves plums. So when I got a mother lode of plums from a friend, I pitted and pureed them and made popsicles with plum, yogurt, apple juice and honey. And he refuses to taste them. He wants what he’s used to. He wants the apple juice.

That’s what’s wrong with children. (One of the many things.) They are so fucking conservative. Also contrary, perverse, uncultured and ungrateful.

Plus now that he’s into peeing standing up, he keeps peeing on my Moroccan mint, spraying around with great glee.

*

Enzo’s starting pre-school in a few weeks. We knew he had to be potty trained, and he’s been that for a long time. But Teresa learned at the orientation that he also has to wipe his own ass. So Operation Ass Wipe has begun.

When he poops he usually kicks off his shorts and underwear completely. You hand him the wipe, and he just shoves it between his cheeks and then runs off with the wipe waving bravely behind, as in flag football. We chase. We wipe. He is delighted with himself.

You'll be relieved to know there is no food component to this story.

*

My ancestors left Norway about thirty seconds before oil was discovered in the North Sea. They were poor and so was Norway. Then Norway was rich, and they were still poor, but they were American poor, which is supposed to be temporary.

Anyway, I decided to reclaim my Norwegian heritage, and since I can't afford one of those fabulous sweaters, I bought a rutabaga. I put it on the counter and watched it for a while. My grandma always made mashed rutabaga for Thanksgiving. And how about a meat pie with lots of onion and rutabaga? That sounded great but also like a lot of work. So I ended up chopping it into a large dice, drizzling with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasting it all very hot for about forty minutes. It was delicious--nutty and sweet with a little radish-like bite.

There are so many foods--like rutabaga--that I like a lot but never think to cook. And they're not hard. I just forget about them. Like I used to eat fennel all the time, and now I can't remember the last time I had fennel. And soon I'll be lying in my grave, thinking, "Fennel!"

One small advantage to having Enzo around is he makes me try new things. He usually doesn't try them (see above) but the hope that he might makes me try things that I otherwise wouldn't. Like he used to love those calamari rings from Trader Joe's. You pour them frozen, straight from the bag into a pan with garlic and olive oil, and they're done in about three minutes. And they're cheap, too.

Then Trader Joe's stopped carrying them. Calamari costs a fortune at Safeway, so I decided to get whole squid, guts and all at the Farmer's Market. But the first time we went to the fish stand I saw this strange pure white squid-like fish next to the calamari--cuttle fish. I bought one big one and left the calamari for next week. And it was delicious--white flesh, delicate firm texture (less rubbery than calamari) and tasting cleanly of the sea. I'd heard of risotto with cuttle fish ink. What I bought appeared to be ink-less. Why? Never mind. It was delicious sauteed very quickly in olive oil then tossed with lime juice and a little mint and parsley. (Enzo didn't eat it. See above.)

The next week I got plain calamari. Enzo loved the guts and eyeballs part. He inspected them carefully. "Where's his mouth?" I showed him the strange beak-like mouth at the base of the tentacles. "Where did his eyes go?" I found the eyes,which had somehow receded into the body, and popped them out again. I managed to clean and cut them up and and cook them. And now Enzo doesn't like calamari anymore. These were big squid. Too big for calamari rings. And he likes the rings. They're what he's used to (see above).

*

(A week later)

Enzo and I want to the Farmer's Market this morning. "What do you want to get?" I said.

"Fish!"

"What kind of fish?"

"Big ones."

"What other kind?"

"Tiny ones."

"What other kind?"

"All of them!" But the fish stand was closed.