HUNGRY GERALD

HG was in the mood for a traditional Paris bistro meal last night and, of course, BSK rose to the occasion. The only things missing were the scent of Gitanes cigarettes and a scratchy recording of Edith Piaf in the background. Look at the photo. There are two juicy grilled lamp chops (given a nice rubdown with garlic). Some snow pea pods stir-fried with garlic and ginger (a bow to the Asian influence on modern day bistros). Instead of the traditional pommes frites, BSK served herbaceous, lemony couscous. Decorated the plate with a grilled tomato and some Greek yogurt (always nice with lamb). Yes, a simple plate of big flavors. Typical BSK cuisine. A civilized French meal at home, in a bistro or at a fancy restaurant, is always multi-course. So, HG started with Whole Foods’ surpassingly tasty faux crabmeat salad. Followed the lamb with cheese and mache salad. Ended with a pale but pleasant substitute for creme caramel: Kozy Shack flan. Pinot Grigio with the fake crab. Cabernet with the lamb and the cheese. French brandy with the flan. If someone has to lead the good culinary life, it might as well be HG. (with thanks to BSK).

Blood oranges are one of nature’s blessings. Cut a blood orange in half, eat the pulp, drink the crimson juices and you get a tasty burst of summer energy that is particularly welcome when winter skies are grey and wind is frigid. Blood oranges are a pleasant addition to alcohol. HG squeezes a quarter of an orange into a glass of white wine. Adds ice and a dash of Aperol (or Campari). A nice variation on the classic Venetian “Spritz.” HG often gives vodka the same treatment. With tequila, HG adds half a lime to temper the orange sweetness. Slices of blood orange are the perfect dessert after a Chinese (or Indian) meal. Gifted Daughter Lesley R. makes a sublime polenta cake topped by glazed slices of blood orange. (Gorgeous Granddaughter Solfia delighted the old folks by making a very presentable version of this cake a few weeks ago). FYI: David Lebovitz has a wonderful recipe for this cake on his Sweet Life In Paris blog.

HG must make an admission: Despite the best wife in the world, glorious weather, stirring natural vistas, a beautiful home, interesting neighbors, history, art, culture and an abundance of smoky, lush green chiles HG’s life is incomplete. Why? The great New York/New Jersey Italian fennel sausage is unobtainable in the Land of Enchantment. Yes, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Kaune’s and every supermarket display and purvey “Italian” sausages. “Italian” ? They are as Italian as Mitt Romney. They should be labeled “Mormon” sausages. They lack the fennel seeds and other time honored ingredients that make the New York Italian sausage so juicy, flavorful and memorable. During the opening scenes of the film, “Godfather II”, that wonderful actor/director/playwright/teacher Mike Gazzo (playing Frankie Pietangeli) laments the absence of sausage and peppers in Nevada. Frankie’s woe echoes HG’s. What HG has is memories. Sausage, peppers and onions served on good bread, dispensed from the back of a truck in Greenwich Village. The same dish bought from a cart on Lexington Avenue, eaten while racing to a business appointment. Sausage and peppers at the San Gennaro Festival in Manhattan (years ago when the the Festival was smaller and food was better) and at traditional festivals in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx. Sausage and peppers at old time, cheap restaurants in the Belmont section of The Bronx and in Little Italy (before it became a tourist travesty). There were Italian restaurants in northern New Jersey that made an epic of the dish. Jerry’s in East Rutherford (tragically, closed after many decades of operation) did it best. This is how The New York Times described it in 1998: “Jerry’s combines garlicky, crisp and juicy Chicken Scarpariello (chunks of chicken on the bone) with great fruity rounds of pepper (both hot and sweet), fried onions, crunchy Red Bliss potatoes, and plenty of Jerry’s fennel-scented sausage.” Yes, this expanded plain spoken “sausage and peppers” into a regal feast. This was an enormous platter of food. HG/BSK would dig in, drink a lot of modest Chianti and manage to finish about 60%. Appetizer? Dessert? Fuhgeddabout it !!!

Cuisine experts agree: Fat is flavor. While observing some degree of intelligent restraint, HG enjoys animal fat. Well marbled steaks. Juicy hamburgers made with good ground chuck. Crisp chicken skin. Pork bellies. Bacon. The heavenly Italian lardo. Pork chops (from chubby, non-athletic organic pigs, not the current crop of genetically engineered porkless pigs). This doesn’t mean HG loves all rich foods. Hates cream soups. Creative BSK makes any number of green, pureed soups that are rich in flavor but contain no cream. HG was never a fan of many old fashioned dishes (thankfully banished from most restaurant menus) that relied upon gobs of cream and butter. Lobster Thermidor used to be a dish that symbolized regal living. Excellent Maine lobster was overwhelmed by bechamel sauce, butter, cream, cheese, mustard powder, garlic, shallots, etc. The lovely sea quality of lobster vanished. Chicken met a similar sad fate in the form of chicken a la king, chicken tetrazzini, chicken in champagne sauce. Vile. There was another “luxury” dish HG never understood: Beef Wellington. This is filet mignon layered with pureed mushrooms, mustard and (sometimes) prosciutto, enclosed in puff pastry, and roasted. A pride of the English holiday table. Not a fave of HG. Filet mignon is a tasteless cut of meat and covering it in pastry, etc., creates an elaborate dish without doing much for the meat. HG is not fond of extra lean meats like beef tenderloin and pork tenderloin. Flavorless. For a quick snack, HG does an italian thing: Rubs a thick slice of good, toasted bread with a raw garlic clove. Gives it a hit of extra virgin olive oil. Better than slathering bread with anything cheesy or creamy. And, healthier.

For more than a year, HG has been suffering (not quietly) from mussels deprivation. This past June, upon arriving at HG/BSK’s oceanfront summer home on Prince Edward Island, HG received some dread news: The Mussels Interpretive Center in the town of St. Peter’s had closed. Besides housing a mussels mini-museum, the center offered dining under the creative command of masterly Andrew MacDonald. On offer was the world’s best mussel stew, steamed mussels with melted butter and South Lake oysters on the half shell. A saddened HG repaired to the By the Bay Fish Mart for a bag of mussels to prepare at home. Unfortunately, the knowledgeable proprietor told HG the mussels were below par this past season. She was right. Upon returning to New Mexico, HG gave the PEI mussels at Whole Foods a try. Maybe autumn weather had improved the mollusks. No luck. HG was left with memories. Best mussels ever were served in a Sicilian restaurant (Vincent’s ?) in gritty Harrison, N.J., more than three decades ago. HG/BSK and hungry pals would eat a tub of steamed mussels accompanied by crisp fried zucchini and good bread to sop up briny juices. These were big, plump mussels filled with juice and flavor. HG once asked where these mussels were found. Got a one word answer: “Joisey.” In Denver, HG enjoyed the “finger burning” mussels at Mel’s Restaurant (long closed). These were inspired by the mussels served at La Cagouille Restaurant in Paris. A very simple dish. Mussels were grilled on a cast iron plancha until they opened. Risking burnt fingers, these juicy morsels were dipped in melted lemon butter. HG had a happy Paris memory of the stuffed mussels at Pied de Cochon in Les Halles. HG’s mussels deprivation ended last night. HG had been suffering from a stomach ailment for three days. Deprived him of appetite. Appetite returned. Resourceful BSK found some great PEI mussels at Whole Foods (asked the sales clerk to find a freshly arrived bag in the rear). Steamed with onions, garlic, Italian parsley, clam broth and white wine, some five pounds were served over linguine. Joy.

BSK makes use of a formidable batterie de cuisine. Pots and pans of all sizes. All Clad. Paderno. Cuisisinart. Creuset. Dansk. Stainless steel. Copper. Non-stick. HG, on the other hand, uses one large pan (except when boiling water for pasta, of course). HG’s pan is black and cast iron with a lovely patina obtained from many, many years of use. HG’s love affair with cast iron cooking goes back to HG’s very early childhood more than half a century ago. Little HG was living — for a very brief time — in a boarding house in Georgia and HG still retains happy memories of a smiling African-American woman wielding a big black pan in a cozy kitchen. What came out of that pan were any number of savory foods that comforted little HG. These days HG uses the pan to fry fish, brown chicken, fry pork chops, pan broil steaks and hamburgers. Yes, there are folks who are enthusiastic about putting hamburgers and steaks on the barbecue grill. HG sticks to his pan. Better heat control. And, the meat gets a delicious, dark crust. HG’s seasonings are Malden’s Smoked Sea Salt, smoked black pepper (or Aleppo pepper) and in the case of pork chops and chicken, Goya’s indespensable Adobo spice mix.

Grey skies. A light dusting of snow. Time for comfort food. And, what could be more comforting than meatloaf? Splendid for dinner. Wonderful for a luncheon sandwich. (HG likes it on ciabatta or rye with a slice of raw onion and Russian dressing). With all of this in mind, BSK snared the battered, stained, much-used “New York Times Cookbook” by Craig Claiborne. Published in 1961, this has been an HG/BSK perennial favorite. So, last night BSK consulted Claiborne’s recipe and gave it a few herbaceous, spicy tweaks of her own. Into the oven with the meatloaf for one hour and thirty minutes. Voila!! Accompanied by little potatoes and a saute of shitake and cremini mushrooms, this was American cooking at its best. Claiborne, who died in 2000, had a major positive influence on American cooking and dining. Appointed Food Editor of The New York Times in 1957, Claiborne made the food section a source of good, easy to follow recipes (often with the collaboration of French chef Pierre Franey). Claiborne expanded the repertoire of home cooks to include, Mexican, Asian, Russian and other international cuisines. He was also the Times restaurant critic and introduced the star rating system still in use today. In HG’s opinion, Claiborne had excellent restaurant judgment except when he dined at Jewish delicatessens or Chinese restaurants. Mississippi-bred Claiborne was blind in regards to these two cuisines — he loved them all indiscriminately. An overstuffed pastrami sandwich — no matter the quality (or lack thereof) — led him down the path of prose poetry.

Most people think that peanut butter’s only function is as a companion to jelly in a kiddy sandwich. They are wrong. Peanut butter is one of the great cooking ingredients. It is used in many flavorful African soups and stews (Jambo Cafe , Santa Fe’s very good Afro-Caribbean restaurant, serves a coconut, peanut, chicken stew that is an HG favorite). It is the essential ingredient in many Indonesian and Malaysian dips and salads, often accompanying Satays (skewers of seasoned and grilled meat or chicken). When HG is confronted with left over roast chicken, as HG was last night, HG shreds the meat for a peanut buttery take on the Szechuan favorite, Dan Dan Noodles. HG learned to make it when HG/BSK (then West Side of New York residents) attended the cooking class of Karen Lee. To Karen’s delightful peanut sauce recipe HG added some finely chopped Szechuan preserved vegetables. Laid the shredded chicken on top of a platter of room temperature Chinese rice noodles. Mixed it all with the peanut butter sauce. Topped with sliced scallion and watercress leaves. Sriracha on table for added heat. Gorgeous Granddaughter Sofia (very hungry) returned to New Mexico from Christmas in Rhode Island. Joined HG/BSK in devouring the chicken and noodle dish. Not a smidgen left. Tonight, BSK will season and grill some thin pork cutlets. Serve them with some left over peanut butter sauce (for dipping) and a crisp green salad. Peanut butter rules.

BSK is, to put it simply, a master of chicken cooking. Chicken paillards (skinless, boneless chicken breasts, pounded thin, sautéed gently and served with a lemon-butter-capers sauce). Chicken curry (from the Vij’s cookbook). Chicken cooked with 40 cloves (!!) of garlic. Vietnamese chicken salad with lime juice, fish sauce, scallions, carrot shavings, chiles, etc. All of these dishes, and more, are part of BSK’s cluck-cluck repertoire. But, HG’s favorite is BSK’s roast “spatchcocked” chicken (spatchcocked being a flattened, whole chicken with the backbone removed). BSK marinates the bird in olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and herbs. Cooks it at 400 degrees for forty minutes. A bird from heaven. Crisp, golden skin and juicy meat. That’s what BSK served last night accompanied by sautéed, diced golden beets with onions; braised endive; tiny potatoes. Drank a super Charles and Charles Merlot blend from Washington State’s Walla Walla region. Hearty meal but HG still had some room for a finale of a Kozy Shack Chocolate Pudding (Sneer if you like — it leaves more of Kozy Shack’s Pudding and Flan for HG to enjoy!) and French VSOP Brandy laced with Peychaud’s Bitters.

High in the hills above Santa Fe is a bit of Japanese heaven, Ten Thousand Waves. Offering lodging and a variety of spa services, this meticulously maintained, aesthetically superior resort is inspired by the Ryokans, the country inns in Japan where the knowing go for total relaxation, superior (and locally inspired) dining, cleansing and meditation. Some months ago, Ten Thousand Waves opened a restaurant–Izanami. It is a winner, a can’t miss New Mexico experience. On a snowy day, HG/BSK lunched there with Colorado pals—Margot and Dick Z. Distinguished folks. Margot has been a very important force in the preservation of wildlife and the scenic Colorado landscape. Dick has recently retired from a long and active career as a maxillofacial (relating to the jaws and face) surgeon. They are eminent collectors of Native American art (HG also recalls some extraordinary cacti in their mountain home). Margot not only collects art, she wears it. For lunch at Izanami, Margot arrived in an ankle-length coat fashioned from a beautiful Native American blanket. Lunch was a delight. Izanami, in terms of decor, adheres to the Japanese (and Mies van der Rohe’s) philosophy of “Less is more.” Exquisite lighting. The room is balanced to take advantage of mountain views and the surrounding evergreens. The restaurant is based on japanese Izakaya cuisine — small plates meant to complement beer, Shochu and sake — and the menu is divided into three categories–cold, hot and fried. Since the tapas are easy to share, HG/BSK and the Z’s tried lots of good things–a beet and persimmon salad; potato croquettes, aagedashi tofu, pork belly kakuni, grilled Japanese eggplant, pork tonkatsu. Pleasant, efficient service. BSK and the Z’s opted for a smoky and flavorful green tea. HG indulged the typical HG affection for alcohol with a carafe of chilled Ban Ryu sake. Superb.