Recipe Instructions I Understand

 

“I mix flour, yeast and water, then climb on the counter and knead on all fours, trying like hell to pound some sense into my world.”
—trishawinn, brief nonfiction from Creative Nonfiction

[Artist unknown.]

Aw Geez—Not Ruth Reichl…

Last week I started a little game. I asked Lull readers to invite a guest—living or dead, famous or not—to a dinner. The responses have been trickling in and, so far, assure us of an interesting evening of conversation.

However, someone just added Ruth Reichl to the festivities and now I’m anxious. Now I actually have to cook something fabulous.

Yes yes yes: I understand this is only an imaginary construct, but my anxiety knows no bounds. I am NOT a cook.

Did you see the film Toast based on food writer Nigel Slater’s memoir? I’m like his mother who’s so nervous of getting a recipe wrong that, of course, she gets the recipe wrong. Whenever dinner didn’t go as planned/hoped, Mrs. Slater served toast, which her family came to rely on and expect for sustenance.

As the cartoon above notes: “In the kitchen, I’m more of an aggregator than a content creator.” However, I don’t think my superior aggregating skills will pass muster with Ms. Reichl or the Lull reader who suggested her. I must put on a better show.

Sigh. What to do? I suppose I will have to take my cue from Mrs. Slater: If all else fails, make toast.

[Art by Ward Sutton for the New Yorker.]

Houston, We Have A Pumpkin Problem

If you’ve been reading Lull for any length of time, you probably know that cooking scares me. I keep doing it, and my sister—whose culinary gifts far exceed my limited kitchen imagination—keeps encouraging me.

So I created a simple menu for the holiday and started by baking a pumpkin pie. After using the name-brand canned pumpkin, I noticed that the can was rusty. Just on the outside. However, the expiration date is fine.

Why would the can be rusty? I don’t know. But if you don’t see any new posts on Lull after today, you’ll know why.

Of course, death by pie isn’t a bad way to go…

[Photo: I don’t know who is pictured or who took the picture. For some reason, my whole “Google experience” has dramatically changed today and limited my research capabilities. Oh, Google, why have ye forsaken me?]

“It Has All Been Mush of a Mushness”

I toiled over a new recipe for baked Portobello mushrooms the other night, planned the entire dinner line-up around the special dish. But after one bite of the syrupy darkness it became on my plate, Katherine Mansfield’s journal entry bubbled to mind: “It Has All Been Mush of a Mushness.”

Well, maybe not all. Though the mushrooms were a soggy, inedible mess, I did enjoy the preparation of them—the cleaning and chopping and mixing, the fragrance of fresh herbs. I’ve come to the conclusion (again!) that everything is about the journey.

Whatever we do may end up a mush of a mushness, but more important is how we get there—and our mindfulness along the way.


[Art from McCall’s Magazine, via Vintage Gaze.]

Would You Like That Fried, Lightly Fried, or Deep-Fried?

Stranger In A Strange Land – No. 21


Today is the Gobble Grease Toss in the Horse Capital of the World. When I first learned of this annual recycling event, I thought it was a joke. Just as I had once thought that the barbed comments made about Kentuckians loving fried foods were gross overgeneralizations. Turns out I was wrong in both instances.

If restaurant menus are any indication, fried is the preferred cooking method—from the tomatoes on a BLT to every last bit of seafood. So it should not have come as a surprise to me that frying the turkey on Thanksgiving is as common here as watching football. Hence the Gobble Grease Toss.

As I’ve written before, the recycling opportunities this city offers its residents are commendable. It couldn’t get much easier, which is why I don’t understand why more people don’t recycle. A faulty mindset, I suppose.

Anyway, today the city encourages folks to dispose of their leftover cooking oils and grease in an ecofriendly fashion. If I had any grease, I’d be there.

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, just select Stranger in a Strange Land from the right of Lull, under “Choose a topic that interests you.”

Heavenly Job Available: Rescue, Feed, Educate

For those of you still scouting for a job (or a better one), there’s an opening at Catskill Animal Sanctuary. The farm-animal rescue is searching for a new chef (carnivores need not apply) to: create meals for employees and special events; educate the public about vegetarian cuisine, organic gardening, and agribusiness; and provide hands-on cooking expertise through classes and a blog.

It’s the perfect animal welfare–related job for me—except for the cooking element.

So pass the word to the great chefs you know who are looking for meaningful employment and the chance to make a difference.

[Pics are from CAS.]