When I was a girl I danced. I took years of ballet lessons, then moved on to jazz and other forms. I loved it, and I danced freely and unselfconsciously. Then, as many girls do, I got a little older and grew uncomfortable in my own skin. I developed performance anxiety. I’ll never forget the day that I stepped onto a stage for a dance competition, and every step I had so carefully choreographed was lost, gone from my limbs and my memory, the minute the music started. The stage was so vast, and I felt so incredibly small and clumsy, with no right to be there, that I panicked.
I’ve been feeling a lot like the halfheartedly gothy teenager I used to be, lately, who refused to pose for photos and hid behind long bangs and eyeliner. Maybe it’s the weather, the relentless grey of the skies, the heavy fog and rain-soaked days, or maybe it’s performance anxiety, the fact that as wowed as I am that this site has been getting so much attention, and has even been mentioned in the same breath as some of the food blogs I most admire, this feeling of “don’t look at me, don’t look at me, I don’t belong here” is rising.
This has been so hard for me lately. I feel flat, uninspired. Monday’s dinner was fine, if rather ugly. Tuesday’s dinner was great, but it was another rendition of a chicken and bread salad dinner we’ve talked about here plenty of times. I have a fridge full of beautiful summer produce, but I have absolutely no clue what I’m going to make for dinner tonight, or tomorrow, or beyond that. I feel like every step I knew so well, every improvisation, has been lost. My head is full of little grey clouds, and I don’t have the foggiest idea how to get my rhythm back.
(Okay, this pizza is from Thursday, but I’m including it because it was so good. And pretty. My husband rocks.)
(inspired by this)
(As always, you can click on the photos to view them, with a bit more info, in my flickr stream.)
A juicy pork chop from Pat’s Pastured, marinated in herbs and olive oil and perfectly grilled over hardwood, a rainbow of vegetables, chopped and tossed into a salad, smoky grilled bread rubbed with young garlic, olive oil, and a sprinkle of coarse salt - this is what summer is all about.
Since the day Michael Ruhlman announced his BLT challenge, I’ve had that classic sandwich combo on the brain, and while last night’s version was certainly not our entry into the contest, it was a way to get our BLT mojo flowing.
A really good tomato is, for me, the most important component of a BLT, and since we’re still a couple of months off from from prime tomato season here in New England, I decided to work with what we do have around now: tart green tomatoes.
While my bacon cooked on a rack in the oven (my favorite way to keep the slices flat and stackable), I sliced up my tomatoes and gave them a dunk in some beaten egg seasoned with salt and a dash or three of hot sauce. The egg-coated slices then got a coating of cornmeal before going into a hot pan to fry until golden.
When the last batch of tomatoes had been fried and the bacon was ready, I started layering: a lightly toasted slice of sourdough, a layer of bright green basil mayo (you can make your own mayo, of course, but I didn’t and the world didn’t end), then some bacon, peppery arugula (my leaf of choice for BLTs), some of the fried green tomatoes, and another mayo-spread slice of bread on top.
The “soup” I made to accompany our sandwiches was… not so good. (Even after thinning it with a bit of water and readjusting the seasoning, it was more like paste than something potable. Your mileage may vary.) But the marriage of BLT and fried green tomatoes was such a happy one, we barely missed our soupy side dish.
You wouldn’t know it by looking outside, but the official start of Summer has arrived. Mother Nature has decided to ring in the season with a heaping helping of rain, wind, and grey skies, and I am none too pleased about it. For starters, it makes meal planning a challenge - I want to be outside, grilling something fresh and light and eating it under the stars with Mike, not rummaging through the pantry for an alternate dinner that isn’t another. damned. pasta dish.
Don’t get me wrong - I love pasta, but I was desperate last night for something, anything other than old reliable pasta, and as I stood in front of the open freezer, a plan began to form. I pulled out two little zip-top bags of previously cooked Rancho Gordo posole and some homemade red chile sauce. From the fridge, I gathered homemade stock and a big bunch of beet greens, which I stemmed, chopped and rinsed. I chopped up some red onion and a hefty amount of garlic, and sauteed them until soft before adding the chile sauce to the pan to warm. The stock went in next, then the hominy, and I brought the whole thing to a boil before reducing the heat and adding the greens. When the greens were tender, I turned off the heat, tasted it for seasoning, and brightened the flavor with the addition of plenty of fresh lime juice. To dress our plates up a little, I added shavings of a tangy sheep’s milk cheese, sliced radishes, chunks of creamy avocado, and a scattering of chopped cilantro.
And that was dinner. And it was good - better, in fact, than this mishmash of leftovers had any right to be. Take that, Mother Nature.
(As always, you can click on the photos to view them, with a bit more info, in my flickr stream.)
I’m wading back in here, slowly, still trying to get my groove back as far as posting goes. I’ll be honest, the last couple of weeks have been difficult, made worse by the issue of a content thief who has yet to respond to me, and at times I seriously thought of just giving this blog up entirely. My extended weekend did me a world of good (who knew hanging out with cows could be such fun), and after a few highly successful meals at home (at least one of which is getting a do-over and its own post soon), I’m feeling a bit better about it all.
What I cobbled together last night was just the sort of thing I love eating this time of year, a big salad with lots of varying colors and textures, and it gave me the chance to test out the 90-minute no-soak bean cooking method so many people are talking about.
While my beans cooked I whisked up a lemon vinaigrette with lots of chopped shallot, opened up a can of our favorite American Tuna and broke the fish up into the dressing, and got the remaining salad ingredients prepped: young arugula from Arcadian Fields, a few mixed radishes that had been lingering in the crisper, and beautiful bronze fennel from City Farm.
After 90 minutes, the beans were as tender and creamy as promised, and after letting them cool just briefly, I tossed them into the salad. This may not have been the prettiest plate in town, but the combination of flavors and textures was exactly what I had hoped for.
(As always, you can click on each of the photos above to view them, with a little more info, in my Flickr stream.)
Things have been quiet around here this week for various reasons: I have taken on some additional responsibilities at work, I haven’t been taking care of myself the way that I should, the weather has been crummy, and I’ve been feeling generally exhausted and uninspired. I’m in the middle of a 3-day weekend, though, which should help to recharge my batteries a bit. I hope to be back to regular posting later this week.
by dietsch on June 10, 2009
in chicken
Dietsch here again. The lady of the house tells me that my Roast Chicken, Three Ways post is pretty popular around here. Y’all seem to love the bird, and the post sparked a lot of discussion of ways to cut up and roast the bird. Now, I have something new to share, but before I move on, let me reiterate the three methods we confabbed about:
- Spatchcocking. Also known as butterflying, this method involves removing the backbone, opening the chicken like a book, and flattening the bird. This method is good for both grilling and roasting, as it takes less time than doing a whole bird, but the disadvantage is, you lose the yummy, yummy chicken butt and the succulent morsels that cling to the backbone.
- Keller. The Keller method involves leaving the chicken whole but raining down salt all over it and roasting at high heat. You retain the backbone and chicken butt and get the skin really crispy. Delicious.
- Zuni. Oh, I raised some hackles here. Har har har! The Zuni method, developed by Zuni Cafe’s chef, Judy Rodgers, has the cook salting the bird days in advance and then roasting at high heat. The skin gets very dry as a result of the salting and partisans of this method claim it produces the crispiest skin around. I demurred, saying it wasn’t much crispier than Keller’s method, but the Zuni method had the disadvantage of smoking the hell out of the house.
But now, something new. This isn’t a difference in roasting the bird, though; it’s a difference in prep. Some of you have already seen hints of this in Jen’s Weekend Eats post. It’s this funky looking bird:
“Yo, Dietsch! What’s up with that?,” you may be wondering. Hey, that’s what I’m here to tell you.
This method is called the Leaping Frog Chicken, which culinary historian Maricel Presilla discovered in Argentina, and it’s featured in the June issue of Gourmet magazine. Dubbed “Leaping Frog” because it resembles one, this method for flattening a bird is worth adding to your ol’ repper-twar. You can get the full scoop at Gourmet, and there’s also a yummy sounding marinade recipe you might want to try. I’ll give you a brief rundown of it, though. Just be sure to give Gourmet some clicky love and get the full technique there.
(I’ll just tell you here that we haven’t tried the marinade yet. We both enjoy a basic chicken with nothing but salt added, and that’s the way I wanted to grill the first “Leaping Frog” bird I prepped, but we’ll probably try this marinade for version 2.)
Anyway, here’s a thumbnail of the method:
- With a knife, slice through the skin between the body of the bird and the drumstick. Loosen the thigh joint from the socket and leave the leg attached. Repeat on the other side.
- With shears, cut through the ribs up to the shoulder joint, but leave the shoulder intact. Do not cut through the shoulder. You want a bird that’s cut basically in half but attached at the shoulder.
- Open up the bird and place it skin-up on your work surface.
- Push down hard on the breastbone to break it and flatten the bird.
- Actually, there is no step 5.
Here’s what it should look like when finished:
What you get here is the best of all possible worlds. The chicken is flat, so it grills or roasts more quickly than an intact bird. But you waste nothing. You don’t lose the backbone or the oysters as you do with spatchcocking. I love chicken stock as well as the rest of you, but I’d buy a bag of necks for the stockpot rather than throw all my backbones in there.
[Jen's got a Flickr set up of this bird, if you want to see more.]
Maricel Presilla’s so my new hero.
