Betty Crocker's Unwritten Rules

You may laugh, but Tenafly looked serious.

That's David, to you. People from New Jersey (don't call it Joisey, and please stop saying "What exit?") often call each other by the name of their home town. I understand that one of my temple friends is Myrna to some people, but her real name is Springfield.

Call me Plainfield.

Anyway: Way back when my sister was still speaking to the rest of the family, we were in the kitchen after a recipe had proved false. Now, you can trust my recipes. I have eaten all of them, and here I am still writing to you. (Also, as Jim Brooks well knows, when I first started eating this way I was 4 foot 10 and weighed 98 pounds. And now I am 5'9" and tower over everyone [Okay: very young children and my shorter relatives]).

But this recipe was apparently tested on the author's children who, it is said, immediately ran away from home, and possibly some species that promptly became extinct. It was called "Wonderful Old-Fashioned Gingerbread." It was not wonderful. It did not taste like any other gingerbread I have ever had, before or since--possibly because of the yogurt. Maybe it was old-fashioned. It was not allowed to grow old.

Well, wait a minute. The "fashion" in "old-fashioned"--that's not a lie. The recipe actually came from a then-popular cookbook. So it was fashionable. Just not edible.

So I thought, let's just crumble it and add some other things to it and make cookies. At which point my sister, who had only moments ago been reminding me that I must always sit in the middle when we rode in the car with Mommy because if I sat on the end I would fall out, invoked Betty Crocker's Unwritten Rule #1: "Thou shalt not make cookies from baked cake."

I obeyed. (You try arguing with her. Besides, she might have been right. But that's classified.)

But when I told Tenafly about the Salmon with Pistachio Sauce and he said he didn't like salmon and I said "So substitute chicken," he tried to invoke Betty Crocker's Unwritten Rule #2 (though he didn't call it that; that was my sister's idea), and proclaimed, "You can't substitute chicken for fish."

And the very French friend of an American friend, after a dinner party for which a chicken had given its life, provided Betty Crocker's Unwritten Rule #3, letting pass that she "would never serve chicken to my guests." (Rumor has it she somehow managed to eat a fair amount of it, though.)

Fortunately, I have just located my magic wand. I am now waving it, and pronouncing some words in a language very few people speak. But I am a trained professional. And as they say, in a language many people do speak: No charge.

And what do you know? You are now free to substitute chicken for fish, fish for chicken (though you probably won't catch any), serve chicken to your guests, and whatever else comes to mind.

And since we're mostly grown now, I hope it's okay to say that Betty Crocker, lovely as she might have been in that Ozzie and Harriet kind of way, Never Existed.

©2009, 2012, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena.

In the Pink

Confession: I once lived in a pink room with a pink and orange shag carpet. True, I was a teenager at the time. And true, it was 19-never mind. Nonetheless, as one of our sages, Dave Barry, has said, "I am not proud of this."

But these days pink--and we're talking a beautiful, deep, rich pink; call it pale red or reddish-orange, if you wish--means just one thing: Salmon!

And there has been some beautiful wild salmon around lately--for $7.99-8.99 a pound. Here's what I've been doing with it:

"Grilled Salmon with Pistachios, Lemon, and Olive Oil"
(from Joyce Goldstein's Back to Square One; adapted to three servings from the original six).

1/4 cup shelled pistachios
1T fresh lemon juice
2-1/2T olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Grated zest of 1/2 orange covered
with 2T orange juice (optional)
2 salmon fillets, about 6 oz. each
Olive oil for brushing the fish
Lemon wedges for garnish

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spread the pistachios on a baking sheet and toast until fragrant, 8-10 min. Let stand until cool enough to handle. Then rub off the skins in a discloth and chop the nuts medium fine in a food processor. Process in the lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper to taste, and orange juice and zest, if using. Set aside. If not using orange juice, you may need a little water to thin the mixture.

Heat the grill or broiler. Brush the salmon fillets with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill or broil until the fish is just cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes each side. (Or bake the fish at 450 degrees for about 8 minutes.) Spoon the pistachio sauce over the fish and serve hot, with lemon wedges.

The book suggests serving this with rice pilaf and asparagus, broccoli, or spinach. I like it with haricots vert (aka French green beans).

Extra salmon? Try this:

"Slammin' Salmon Sammich":

Cold cooked salmon
Carrots, sliced on the diagonal
Mesclun lettuce
Purple onion, thinly sliced (optional**)
Homemade or good quality mayonnaise
Dijon mustard (This is especially good with basil or Creole mustard)

Pinch of freshly-ground mixed peppercorns*

Capers
Acme "Herb Slab" foccacia

Steam the carrots. Slice the foccacia into two pieces and cut each in half through the center. Toast or grill foccacia. Combine three parts mayonnaise with one part mustard, add a pinch of pepper, and spread on the bread. Place the lettuce and onion on the toasted foccacia. Flake the salmon and add to the sandwich, followed by the carrots. Top with capers. Slice in half and serve immediately.

*Yes, I have seen the light as to the merits of different kinds of peppercorns. I still say freshly-ground black pepper is hard to beat. And I still don't love white pepper. I do like the flavor of the mixed peppercorns. And so I will give white pepper another try, in the interest of science and a certain cauliflower recipe.

**Don't you love when recipes say "optional"? As though you have no choice about the other ingredients, but here, well, okay, you can leave out the onion. But as far as changing anything else, you go right ahead but then don't be surprised by that knock at the door.

Having said all that, what do you plan to do about the onion?

©2009-2014 Laynie Tzena.

A la Carte, A la Mission?

Let's all nosh at the San Francisco Street Food Festival today, 11-7
on Folsom Street between 25th and 26th. Sounds a bit like the late, lamented "A la Carte, A la Park" festival that used to happen over
Labor Day weekend in Golden Gate Park. Ah, well. We still have
"Hardly Strictly Bluegrass" (http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/) in October (on tap this year: Lyle Lovett. Marianne Faithfull. And Nick Lowe, whose insight on intimacy and aging rivals that of François Truffaut and Amos Oz on childhood and the world of family.).

In other news: It's apple season, children. Yee-hah. Get thee to the Farmers' Market, on the double. I used to look forward to Black Twig
and Arkansas Black until Stan Devoto informed me that those vareties signal the end of the season. So for now, it's all about Gravenstein, Pink Pearl, Hubbardston Nonesuch and, soon, Mutsu, Ashmead's Kernel, and I hesitate to mention Wickson lest you get there first.

Pistachios on the horizon.


©2009 Laynie Tzena.

Cluck, Cluck

Dear Love at First Bite:

Excuse me, Ms. Rockefeller, but I happened to notice you had a recipe that included radicchio, and I was just wondering if you'd gotten the memo that radicchio is Eight Dollars A Pound. Hello? Sure, it's delicious, but if you spend that on salad, where's the money for the rest of the meal?

Frugal Frieda

Dear Frieda:

Thank you for sharing. Now put down that latte and listen. Sure, there's radicchio for eight dollars a pound. But didn't your mama tell you that you'd better shop around?

The savvy shopper could have found gorgeous radicchio, escarole, and other delights at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market for $6/lb. or a lovely endive mix for $5/lb. last week. For that matter, while some folks have been selling radicchio at $7.99/lb., their lettuce mix, at $4.99 a pound, is often loaded with radicchio and other chicories. And who said you need pounds and pounds of it, anyway?

You could also plant some greens in the backyard or in a pot on your windowsill. They take no time to grow and you can just pick the amount you need for the salad.

Since my motto is: "I will only stop keeping track of money when
I start printing it," I also shop the sales. Mollie Stone's wonderful bone-in chicken breasts are $2.99/lb. this week.

BREAKING NEWS, 5/18/11: Those bone-in chicken breasts we were just talking about are once again on sale for $2.99/lb. at Mollie Stone's, through next Tuesday (which happens to be the 24th). In other news, the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market has radicchio for $3/lb. Which farmer? I should deprive you of the joy of discovery? And Real Food on Polk has it for $3.99/lb.

No, no, don't thank me. For you, anything. And no, I don't get a commission. Life is so unfair.

Which means it's time for Sopa di Lima, chicken salad, and simple, delicious cold poached chicken which, along with Chinese food*, is the cure for just about everything.

"Perfect Poached Chicken Breasts"
(from Lorraine Bodger's Chicken Dinners):

3 whole chicken breasts (with bone), halved
1T butter
1/2 cup chicken broth

Put the butter and broth in a large skillet and bring to a simmer. Place the chicken, flesh side up, in the skillet. Cover the skillet, tilting the lid slightly so a little steam can escape during cooking.

Cook the chicken for 15 minutes, keeping the broth at a simmer (not a boil) over low heat. Then turn off the heat and leave the chicken in the skillet for 15 more minutes.

Cut into one piece of chicken to see if the meat is cooked through. If the meat is pink, turn the heat back on and simmer for 5 more minutes.

Lift the chicken from the hot broth and rinse in cold water; refrigerate until cool. Separate the chicken meat from the bones, discarding the bones as well as any bits of fat and gristle. Refrigerate the chicken until needed; strain the broth into a container and refrigerate or freeze for future use.

Makes 2-1/2-3 cups cooked chicken.

"Sopa di Lima: Yucatecan Soup with Chicken, Tortillas, and Lime"
(from Joyce Goldstein's Back to Square One):

Serves 4

2T mild olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1T minced garlic
1t finely minced jalapeño peppers
3 cups reduced chicken stock, plus stock for poaching the chicken
1/2 cup diced, peeled, fresh or canned tomatoes
2T chopped fresh cilantro
2T fresh lime juice
1t (or to taste) salt
1/4t freshly ground pepper
1 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast, split,
and cut into 1-inch chunks
8 paper-thin slices of lime, cut into quarters
2 corn tortillas, cut into strips, 2 inches long by 1/2 inch wide, and then deep-fried (or bake in a 400° oven until crisp)

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and jalapeño and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Then add the tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, and salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings. Poach the chicken separately in a saucepan with chicken stock to cover until just cooked through. (The chicken is not cooked directly in the soup because this would cloud the soup.) Divide the chunks among 4 bowls and pour the hot soup over. Top with little pieces of lime and the deep-fried/baked tortilla strips.

Time-saving tip: Poach the chicken and reduce the chicken stock a day or two ahead. Reducing the broth takes about an hour at a low heat, and combines beautifully with doing laundry. If you're using already-poached chicken in the recipe, just cut it into cubes and reheat it in some chicken stock.

Chicken Salad with Carrots and Roasted Walnuts:

For the salad:

Carrots, sliced on the diagonal
Walnuts, dry roasted in a skillet or in a 400° oven
Poached or leftover roast chicken (or turkey), chopped
Capers

For the dressing:

2 parts extra virgin olive oil
1 part good red wine vinegar
Pinch basil mustard (or use Dijon and add more basil)
Pinch orange zest
Handful fresh or dried basil (use less of the dried)
Salt and pepper

Steam the carrots. Whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients, add
the carrots, and toss. Add the chicken and toasted walnuts, toss again, top with capers, and serve.

*I nearly dated a man not long ago who suddenly turned out not to eat Chinese food. That's not the official reason we decided to ix-nay our inner-day, of course, but I wondered why he didn't eat it and looked online and holey-moley, turns out there's an awful lot of sodium in some of my favorite dishes.

There was a moment of despair. Would I have to give up Chinese food? No more Hunan Wor Wonton Soup? (Don't tell my rabbi.) No more hot and sour?

Just then, an angel whispered in my ear. (They're so handy when
you're dating.)

"Relax, Toots," she said.

Then she told me the simple solution. You might want to sit down.
Drink water with it. That's right. Extra salt means you need extra water. Drink some more when you get home. And if it makes you really happy, eat nothing but apples and lettuce for the next three days while continuing to drink lots of water. That ought to balance out the sodium until next time.

©2009, 2011 Laynie Tzena.

The Great Apricot, or We Like Them Again

When I was growing up I hated apricots. They were mealy and disgusting. Each year (and I never did this with other foods) I would taste an apricot, it would be mealy and disgusting, and we would go into another year.

Then I learned that dried apricots were good for you. I tried one. It was very good. So I tried a fresh apricot. It was mealy and disgusting.

One fine day I tasted an apricot in season. It was sweet, juicy, luscious. Wonderful.

Soon I tasted another one. It was mealy and disgusting.

But the memory of the great apricot stayed with me, and I've loved apricots ever since.

* * *

I was on the phone with a client, catching up, when someone said something to him and he asked if I could hang on a minute.

"Oh, no," he said, "We like them again."

Seems a vendor had fallen out of favor and was now back in the fold.

As we know, this also has been known to happen with food.

I was never a big Swiss chard fan. A little grainy. Didn't interest me. But when I started seeing it at the market, red and gold and drop-dead gorgeous, who could resist? Coming up, a recipe or two that would make a place for that vegetable in anyone's heart. But since we were just talking about soup, here's a recipe (from James Beard's How To Eat Better For Less Money [co-written with Sam Aaron]) I couldn't resist even in my not-that-into-chard days.

"Lentil-Chard Soup":

1-1/2 cups lentils
2-1/2 lbs. Swiss chard (spinach may be substituted)
1/2 cup olive oil
3/4 cup chopped onion
3 to 4 cloves garlic, crushed with salt
1 rib celery, chopped
3/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon flour

Wash and pick over the lentils. Cover them with cold water and cook, covered, until tender. Wash the leaves of the Swiss chard or spinach and chop. And to the lentils with 1 cup water and cook until the chard is done, adding more water if necessary.

Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the chopped onion, garlic crushed with salt, and celery until vegetables are tender and flavors blended. Add to lentil mixture. Mix the lemon juice and flour and stir into the soup. Cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the soup is rather thick. Taste for seasoning. Cool slightly before serving in soup bowls. Pass crusty French or Italian bread to mop up the juices. Serves 6. This thick and hearty soup tastes delicous served cold the next day.

©2009, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Time for Soup

Well, after a couple of days of Florida weather (84? In San Francisco?), we're back to normal: cold and clammy. And that can mean only one thing: Soup!

Dear Love at First Bite:

I hope I didn't hear you say "soup." Who on Earth has time to make soup? Where do you find time to do all this cooking? I can barely keep up.

Take-Out Tammy

Dear Tammy:

First things first: No one keeps up. It's a myth.

Second, here is my secret (Close the door.): Extra time is delivered to my house one night a week and also on the weekend.

Don't tell anyone.

It's easy to think there's not enough time these days. I remember talking to a friend about how it was always a struggle to get everything done Friday afternoon to get to temple on time. (Later, I stopped worrying about it and considered it instead a public service: If I ever arrived at temple on time, the rabbi would fall off the bima.)

My friend said gently, "Laynie, I think you need to start earlier."

And so it is with cooking. Most recipes have a few ingredients in them, and those ingredients need to be measured, chopped, diced, minced. And it's later than you expected, and you need to eat something, and the heck with it. Peanut butter or take-out.

So eat the peanut butter or take-out. And then reach for one of the recipes you want to try and pull out the cutting board. Chop. Dice. Mince. And measure. And take some small jars or plastic containers (you can get tiny containers with lids at Costco [just be sure to re-use them] or those little porcelain saucers in Chinatown), measure the amount of each ingredient you need for that recipe, put a date on the containers, and sit them in the refrigerator.

The next day: Presto! All you need to do is assemble and cook the dish, then pat yourself on the back or graciously accept the compliments for your creation.

Which might be this very soup.

"Fish Soup from Tunaco":
(From Barbara Karoff's South American Cooking, I adapted it to three servings from the original six.):

1 lb. bass, cod, snapper, or other firm white fish
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt to taste
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1-1/2-2 jalapeño or serrano chiles, seeded and chopped
3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 cups water or stock
1 cup coconut milk
Chopped cilantro

Cut the fish into bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle them with lemon juice and salt and set aside. In a soup pot, sauté the onions in olive oil until they are soft. Add the chilies and tomatoes and cook over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the water or stock and the fish and simmer gently until the fish is almost done. Take care not to overcook. Add the coconut milk and let the soup come just to the boil. Serve immediately, topped with chopped cilantro.

Time-saving tip: While you're squeezing the lemon for the juice in this recipe, make extra and put the lemon juice in a glass jar with a date on it. It'll be ready for the broccoli-asparagus stem salad or the lentil-chard soup coming up shortly. Same thing for the onion and when you have a recipe that calls for minced garlic. If a restaurant prepared every ingredient from scratch for each dish, the patrons would starve and the joint would go out of business in a New York minute.

©2009, 2013, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Doughnuts and Berries

Well, Bob's Donuts has done it again.

True, I had a piece of walnut bread not long after sundown--two pieces actually: one by itself, just to taste B-R-E-A-D after seven days, and the other, smothered with peanut butter because peanut butter on matzo doesn't work for me. (Almond butter, yes; peanut butter, no. Go figure.) But the real, official ending to Passover came when I moseyed over to Bob's and took the first bite of a glazed buttermilk doughnut that had come out minutes earlier, followed by an old-fashioned doughnut I literally watched the guy pull out of the fryer. If you listen closely, you just might be able to hear the sound of my arteries hardening.

My father, rest in peace, was a radiologist, and from him I inherited two things: medical handwriting and an affection for sweets. I loved helping him file X-ray films at the office. They were huge and wobbly then, and I soon learned it might be better to avoid having your name start with "M" or "S" because there were so many people in the same condition.

Dad would say he was going out for a minute and you knew he was back when the most heavenly smell wafted through the office as he strode into the kitchen, probably whistling, carrying a box of doughnuts fresh from Canelli's and still warm.

Among my favorites was one we called the "Persian." From the descriptions I've read recently it sounds more like a "Pershing." Out here they're called cinnamon rolls, and Bob's are the closest to Canelli's I have found. Unfortunately, cinnamon rolls are made at 1:30 in the morning and since I'm usually chatting with the Sandman at that time I buy them out of the case and heat them up in the oven.

Albion strawberries from Yerena Farms were a big hit at my French group today, especially when I told them the farmer's name was Apollinaire (Poli, for short). Try not to eat the whole basket at one sitting or, if you can't resist, buy an extra basket for this salad:

Strawberry-Chicory Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette:

For the salad:

1 basket of strawberries
Mixture of chicories: radicchio, endive, etc.
2-3 leaves of mustard greens

For the dressing:

5T extra virgin olive oil or walnut oil or half of each
2T good red wine vinegar*
Smidgen of dijon mustard
Pinch kosher salt or sea salt
Pinch coarsely-ground black pepper

Rinse and drain the greens; tear into pieces. Rinse and slice the strawberries. Whisk the oil(s), vinegar and mustard together with salt and pepper, add the salad and toss. Now add the strawberries, toss again, and serve.

*Most of the red wine vinegar you find at the store is best left there. Kimberley Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar is delicious. I recommend this vinegar so often I should have stock in the company. Yes, it's $5 or 6 a bottle instead of $2 or 3, but a) one taste of it and you'll never go back; b) that's just one less mocha wah-wah latte a month. And the vinegar will last you more than a month--unless you take to drinking it by the glass, in which case just drink twice as much oil, eat some lettuce, and call yourself a salad.

©2009, 2011, 2013, 2014 Laynie Tzena.