fathers cooking

Oysters Save the Day

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Oysters
This weekend I took charge of the children. Santa Maria was facing a major work deadline, and I told her that I would take care of things around the house. For me, this meant planning lunches and dinner. Saturday, I went to the greenmarket for fish. Flounder for dinner that night. Clams for dinner the next. Oysters for me.

Weekend lunches bedevil me. I reach my mental capacity planning two or three meals at a time. For Saturday lunch, I punted, and took the girls out to eat.

We’ve never been big on restaurants, partially because of the expense, and partially because I can cook better food at home than I can get at the restaurants I can afford. I’m not talking about a Per Se level of expense (though that was fun and memorable, from the black salt from Molokai to getting to drink my wine flight and most of Santa Maria's, the one time we went a few years ago and spent about a month’s rent on a meal), but I’d have to spend at least $75 a head to start tasting things that couldn’t come out of my kitchen.

There’s another reason we don’t eat out very often. Our children don’t really know how to behave in a restaurant. Once, while visiting the grandparents, I watched my preschool nieces and nephews sit patiently at a table at the Olive Garden while we pored over the menus. My kids didn’t know what to do with themselves. They wandered over to check out the food on other tables and gaze at the baffled diners.  Pinta began squealing and chasing Nina. Breadsticks became daggers. I’d like to think that they were protesting the chain restaurant (which is what I felt like doing), but the truth is less appealing. Because we eat at home, they haven’t had a chance to learn what do to while eating out.

We’re working on teaching them how to behave in a restaurant, and the only real opportunity we have to do so involves pizza. It’s the absolute surefire thing that they will both eat. And it’s best if I don’t make the pizza, as the one time I tried, I didn’t exactly succeed. A pizzeria is not necessarily the best school, however.

Our favorite low-priced option, Roma Pizza, is a typical slice joint, without waiter service (which is why we like it). The neighborhood’s go-to family pizza place, Two Boots, knows its clientele too well: kids are encouraged to run to the kitchen window, where the pizza makers toss raw dough to the kids to play with while they wait.

Campo de Fiori, which opened recently, is different. It serves slices, but they are unlike any other slices you will find in Brooklyn. Most New York City pizza is Neopolitan, round with a thin crust. Their pizza is Roman, square with a crisp but thick and airy crust.  The dough is made in Rome, frozen, and then flown to Brooklyn, where it is baked and topped with extremely fresh ingredients. Everything at the place tastes like what I would like to cook with at home. My favorite is the matriciana, full of smoky bacon and spicy tomato sauce.

I love the food at Campo de Fiori, but there’s another aspect of it that I like even more. The restaurant has a relaxed elegance. The décor is crisp, clean, and unassuming. The owners, Andrea and Yari, are welcoming hosts. I get to sit with my girls while they practice proper restaurant behavior. Andrea and Yari don’t use plastic cups. They have nice glasses. They serve the slices on little wooden planks. These little touches add up to a nice experience for me, and the girls. And apparently, I have a lot to learn myself about the Campo de Fiori. This New York Times review focuses on the pastas and other dishes that I have yet to try.

There’s one small point that makes it complicated for me to eat pizza, especially pizza as fancy and expensive as that at Campo de Fiori. It’s never really filling enough for me, unless I eat six or so pieces.

So, to prepare for my latest visit, I prepared a little snack before hand. I had six raw oysters from the Greenmarket. Raw oysters are one of life’s greatest pleasures, and they are very easy to make at home. The ones I ate on Saturday were the sweetest tasting ones I’ve ever had. I ate them in a rush, standing in my kitchen. I found a great video from Coastal Living magazine that explains how to open them. It is really very simple.

 

 

 

Why Make Pancakes with the Kids?

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Pancake
When I married Santa Maria, I knew that she didn’t like to spend much time in the kitchen. She once stunned me by taking a twenty-six-step Moosewood Cookbook recipe for an Ethiopian stew and reducing it to about a half dozen steps. It was delicious. (A nice online version is here; skip steps at will). I never would have had the gall to disregard the recipe.

She is also a fantastic baker: When she puts something in the oven, I’m assured that something sweet and tasty will come out. There are just two problems—I don’t like to eat pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and as the working mother of one, now two children,  baking is the last thing on her mind. (Santa Maria would like the record to reflect that last week she made husband’s favorite organic banana walnut bread, one loaf still in the freezer, along with a stash of plain banana mini muffins for fruit-hating, nut-allergic Nina).

 So, I started making most of the meals once we had Nina and Pinta. I found it fun to do, and as a new father, I found it easier to slice onions than try to quiet a fussy baby.  In fact, for a long time I preferred to work in the kitchen than to deal with the kids. Then they started to grow up, and now they are great fun to be with. I’m torn between cooking and spending time with them.

The conventional response to this situation is to have the children cook help make the meal. But this ignores the fact that cooking with children is rather like taking a shower with monkeys. If a recipe normally takes ten minutes to prepare, it will take half an hour if the kids are involved. Measuring a cup of flour will take five minutes, not including the time spent wiping up spills. It might be heretical to say, but only the insane try to cook with kids.

Of course, in retrospect one might call it insane to ever become a parent, but this is such a widespread collective delusion that the human race is in no danger of dying out. People adapt, and I’ve learned that there are times when it is very useful to have the children in the kitchen with me.

Take last Saturday morning. I went for a run, and when I returned, Nina and Pinta were running their mother ragged. “Pfannkuchen! Pfannkuchen! Pfannkuchen!” they were chanting. Santa Maria had taught them how to say “pancake” in German, and now she was reaching her limit. I could tell by the tone of her voice, and by its volume. Even though I was in the shower and the water was cascading down around my ears, I could hear her starting to yell.

I was feeling very good after exercising, and I thought to myself as I toweled off, time to throw myself on top of the grenade, and invite the kids to help me make breakfast. Pancakes are one of our old favorites. 

I gently engaged Nina and Pinta, who settled down and were thrilled to join me. Pinta ran to get her Hello Kitty apron. The two took turns measuring the dry ingredients. We beat the egg whites to glorious peaks.  We didn’t mix the batter too much after adding the wet ingredients. And then the batter just sat on the counter while we waited for Santa Maria to return. I had sent her out for a bike ride (apparently exercise can even moderate anger).

Letting the batter rest before making the pancakes is one way to ensure that they are light and tasty. Mixing the batter too vigorously can activate glutens in the flour and result in chewy pancakes. It’s best to leave the mixture lumpy, and let Fick’s law do the work of diffusing the ingredients.

We all enjoyed a peaceful and scrumptious breakfast. Nina said the pancakes were like pizza. What? She explained that she liked them as much as pizza. They are one of her favorite things.

That was last weekend. This Saturday we had pancakes again, only this time it was just Pinta and her Hello Kitty apron keeping me company. I learned something. I don’t have to go to such effort to make great pancakes. I’ve always been proud of how I like to beat the eggs, and then fold them into the batter. This weekend, I broke a yolk into the whites and couldn’t beat them. No one noticed the difference. Much like Santa Maria and her magic with the Ethiopian stew, it can be possible to cut corners.

Basic Pancake Recipe

  • 1.5 cups flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspon salt
  • 1.75 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 to 1.25 cups milk
  • 2 eggs

 

        Combine the dry ingredients and mix well.

        Mix the eggs into the milk.

        Melt the butter, and add it to the milk and eggs.

        Combine the wet and the dry ingredients, without mixing the batter too much. Leave some lumps.

        Heat a frying pan and add a little butter. Ladle out the batter in small amounts and cook until bubbles form on the surface. Flip and cook a moment longer. Enjoy.

 

 

A Marathon Cooking Session with a Shrimp and Fennel Risotto Recipe

by

Fennel_bulb
I cook an extreme amount of food. When I'm standing in the kitchen and my feet are aching, I wonder why I get involved in making so many dishes. On the day after, looking at a steaming bowl of leftovers for lunch, I have a an inkling why. I love to eat, and I'd rather not face a night of take-out or an afternoon of Midtown lunch specials. I want fresh and delicious food, and I can only afford it by making it for myself.

I find cooking for my family extremely hectic. I'm usually rushing through a recipe hoping to stave off a melt-down, either on the part of Santa Maria or on the part of one of the kids. It's rarely relaxing. Yesterday was different. Santa Maria took the kids to the Brooklyn Museum and I had a couple of hours to myself in the kitchen.

We were on a good roll when it came to taking care of domestic tasks yesterday. Santa Maria and I knocked off the weekly shop, did some laundry, and made chicken soup, all before noon. We were feeling good when we were shopping, and in those cases, the shopping list tends to grow. Waiting to pay, Santa Maria came up with all kinds of things she'd like to have for dinner–fresh salsa and guacamole, included. She ran off to get cilantro and a ripe avocado.

We settled on having an old favorite for dinner: shrimp-and-fennel risotto. The recipe is adapted from "Gourmet Everyday," a great cookbook the sadly closed magazine published a few years ago. All the recipes in it are fast, and most are delicious. This risotto is a perfect example.

When we got home, I realized that I had planned a different dinner for that evening, coq au vin. I had a chicken in the back of the refrigerator that needed to be cooked. Its sell-by date was Monday, and I could tell just from opening the refrigerator that it would barely make it that long.

We were having the chicken soup for lunch, though, and that was enough chicken for one day for me. The old chicken would have to wait.

When Santa Maria went out with the children in the afternoon, I got to work in the kitchen. I started chopping onions and fennel for the risotto. I started to prep the items for the coq au vin, which I would make the following morning before taking Nina to school and going to work. Time is short in the morning these days, and I would have to have all the prep work done in order to finish the dish and get Nina out the door on time.

Also, I wanted to make my weekly quinoa salad, so that meant more and more chopping and roasting. And I wanted to serve roasted cauliflower to the kids upon their return from the museum. And I wanted to chop the onion and the tomato and to wash and chop the cilantro for the fresh salsa and guacamole. In the midst of this frenzy, I suddenly wondered what other men do with their free time on a Sunday. Isn't there something called the NFL? Aren't there college bowl games at this time of year? Who knows? You can't eat them, can you?

Santa Maria and the kids came back from the museum (where, in the photo exhibition of rock and roll stars, Nina saw a singer mooning the camera and has since learned this vital and sophomoric skill herself), and we started eating. We all downed the cauliflower. Santa Maria whipped up the guacamole and homemade salsa, and melted the cheddar cheese on the organic corn chips.  I defrosted a bit of black beans for the children, who I figured would not eat the risotto. Nina tried it, but she didn't like it.

I can't imagine why she didn't like the risotto. It's a marvelous dish, and quite beautiful. The shrimp is pink and the fennel fronds are green. The rice is white and creamy. The fennel lends it a distinctive licorice flavor and the shrimp, when cut up my special way, are curly and tender and filling. The dish itself is low in fat, if you make it my way with just olive oil. The trick to the shrimp is to slice each one down its back into two long pieces. I usually don't have time to do this when the kids are around, but yesterday, I had the opportunity. When the shrimp are cooked at the end of the dish, they wind themselves up into little corkscrews. They are delightful. I thought so this afternoon when eating the leftovers for lunch. The nice thing about the way I cook, upping the proportions substantially, is that I have leftovers from my leftovers. I'll be eating some of it tomorrow for lunch again. I don't mind. It's that good.

Shrimp and Fennel Risotto
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 or more heads fennel, cored and diced, fronds reserved.
  • 1 T. Olive Oil
  • 1 cup Arborio or other short-grained rice
  • 1/2 cup or more white wine
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 4 or more cups of hot water
  • 1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, and sliced lengthwise into two long pieces

Salt the shrimp by layering them in a bowl and putting 1/2 t. salt on them. Put another layer of shrimp on top of that and salt them as well. Continue until all the shrimp are salted. This step can be done as the shrimp are sliced into two pieces.

Heat the chicken stock and the water until boiling and then turn down to a low simmer.

Sauté the onion in the oil until soft.

Add the fennel and continue to cook until soft.

Add the rice and stir to coat each grain with oil.

Add the wine and cook and stir until the wine is absorbed.

Add a ladle of stock to the rice and stir.

Stir (on and off) until the stock is absorbed.

Repeat the last two steps until the rice is almost cooked. If you need more liquid, just add hot water to the stock mixture. The rice should be tender but still firm in the center.

Stir in fennel fronds and the shrimp and cook a few minutes until they are opaque and pink. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Serve immediately.

Note: you can make this with butter if you prefer a richer taste.

How to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy Food

by

Clock1
Ever since I became a parent, I've tried to get my children to eat tasty food that is good for them. I'm hardly alone in this quest. At cocktail parties, other parents have come up to me and asked, upon hearing about this blog, how I get my kids to eat what I cook. I told one father that my eldest likes mussels and clams. "That'll change." he said. Then he asked me for advice.

I didn't have any to give him, other than the old saw about putting a new food in front of a child a dozen times before giving up. Not that that's ever worked. I didn't tell him about some of the other techniques that I had witnessed. I once saw a friend tip his screaming toddler's mouth back and force him to eat whatever it was that we had at the table at that moment. That didn't work, either. 

I've always thought that what children eat or don't eat has less to do with the flavor of a given food than it does to do with the social dimensions of their lives. Children have very few opportunities to fully exert their power. The dinner table is a rare chance for them to control what goes into their mouths, if not what goes on around them. Ever have to sit through a dinner while parents exhorted their children to eat their vegetables? It can take the air out of the whole evening.

Tonight, the mystery deepened. The children ate quesadillas and broccoli with their babysitter, a fine dinner by any standard. I whipped up a mini-Mexican feast of black beans, rice, pan-fried chicken thighs, spinach, and sliced avocado for Santa Maria and myself. I love this dinner. Most of it is cooked ahead of time (the beans freeze well; the rice I cooked this morning while eating breakfast), and can be on the table in about ten minutes.

We sat down to eat while the children played at the table beside us. Then, Nina asked for chicken. Pinta requested black beans. Suddenly, Nina, too, wanted black beans. I raised an eyebrow. The black beans are certifiably delicious. I would take them anywhere and serve them to anyone and challenge them to resist their rich and savory flavor (I make them with bacon), but Nina has spurned them on so many occasions that I've stopped offering them to her. 

Here was further evidence of the social dynamic at play. Nina and Pinta both knew that after eating their snack, they would have to go to bed. The longer they spent at the table, the longer they could stay up. They would never say as much, but I wonder if this influenced their hunger. They each had two small bowls of black beans and rice. Promises were made to serve them more of it for lunch tomorrow. I'll be curious to see how that goes. In the meantime, I was thrilled to have them eating it. It verified my belief that the beans taste good, and that's always a relief.

More practical advice on how to get kids to eat healthily is available here.

Old Springsteen Eases Transition Back to the Kitchen

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Between traveling and celebrating, the Christmas holiday has disrupted my culinary activities, in a mostly welcome and joyful way.

Santa Maria gave me an iPod Touch for Christmas and I took it out for an inaugural run on Sunday. More accurately, I used her iPod Nano because I couldn’t figure out how play music on mine. I’m a little late to the portable, digital-music game, though I’m not a late adopter of digital music per se: my hard drive has some eight-six gigabytes of music, which caused all kinds of confusion when synching it for the first time with my new, thirty-two gig Touch.

The important thing here is what I was listening to. All that time in the car driving back and forth from Pennsylvania to New York led to a dose of classic rock, which seems like the only thing I can ever find on the F.M. dial. Now that I’m past forty I’ve had the unfortunate experience of finding those familiar tunes on WCBS FM, the oldies station. When I was a kid, that spot on the dial reeked of doo-wop and the like. I hated it. Now it’s where I’m likely to find old Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen. This makes me feel old.

I was a huge Springsteen fan in high school, ever since my sister brought “Darkness on the Edge of Town” into the house. One of my first entrepreneurial projects involved standing on line (not going online) overnight to secure seats to his Giants Stadium shows for “Born in the U.S.A.” and then scalping a bunch of the tickets and turning a tidy profit. As a teenager, I would drive around playing that album and his earlier works, in particular “Greetings from Asbury Park,” which I always admired for its crazy lyrics. I’ve lost interest in Springsteen’s later work, but those early songs are etched into my psyche.

A few years ago, Springsteen released “Hammersmith Odeon London '75,” his fourth official live album. Springsteen is famous for his live shows, and this early concert shows why. The Boss had already been on the cover of Time magazine as the future of rock, but this was his first appearance in England. No one there really knew him, and he had to prove himself. Recorded shortly after the release of “Born to Run,” it is solely his early material, and I just love it. The quality of the recording is excellent and the set list impeccable. "Backstreets," "Thunder Road," "She's the One," are all there.

On Sunday I knew that the weekly shop needed to be completed. I listened to the album while running through my list—carrots, onions, whole chickens, etc., etc.—at the Park Slope Food Coop. Because of the holiday, the coop was less crowded than usual. I’m not sure how I would manage under its crowded, regular conditions with a head full of Clarence Clemons and the E Street Band, but those empty aisles were perfect for my first excursion with an iPod. I drifted around in a sonic haze, never before so pleased to be buying food.

The way I've been cooking lately, I do much of the work for the week on Sunday night. I prepare a week's worth of quinoa salad and poached chicken breasts for Santa Maria's and my lunches. I can do these tasks while finishing off the dinner dishes, and I put the headphones back on while doing this work. I enjoyed listening to the album on my iPod, but I would caution against buying the collection from the iTunes store.

For some mystifying reason, the digital version doesn't include one of the best songs—"Kitty's Back." It was midway through the album's rollicking, seventeen-minute rendition, when the band is vamping and jamming, and everyone is taking a solo (sometimes at what seems like the exact same moment), that I realized how music can enhance cooking. Marshall McLuhan talked about hot and cool media and the ability of technology to extend and alter our senses. He reasoned that when one sense is overloaded, the others start to shut down.

I was experiencing some mighty hot media in the kitchen. Not only was the stove on, but my iPod was cranking. With the late Danny Federici reaching heights of ecstasy during his keyboard solo, my other sensory perception were altered. McLuhan was only half right, though. My sense of smell was not shutting down. It was enhanced. I was standing over the poaching chicken as I had done many times before. On this evening, though, a delightful fragrance filled my nostrils—the scent of thyme. It was as thick and wonderful as the smoke of another, less-legal herb might have been at a rock concert years ago.

The concert was also released as a DVD, and the rendition of "Kitty's Back" has made it onto YouTube. Here it is.