BingoFest

29 March Wednesday

I think it´s safe to say at this point that pizza is a popular food. Generally, flatbread with toppings is eaten all over the world and is one of the more ancient prepared foods. The pizza Margherita was named for the Queen and meant to celebrate the Unification of Italy in the 1880s and was delivered to her on a cart, I am told, making the first modern pizza and the first pizza delivery service happening at the same time. Go figure. It´s also interesting to note that Giuseppe Verdi was the most famous opera composer at the time, meaning you could catch a show and grab a pie as kind of a fun date, the way the kids do nowadays.

After a successful musical performance this morning, I came home, took a shower while it was pouring hail and rain outside, plopped on the couch, turned on Judge Judy, and started thinking about dinner. I am a bit tired of eating things with bowls, spoons, sauces, and whatever. The point is, between the corned beef and bouillabaisse, I needed something lighter, more fun. I have plenty of fresh spinach, mushrooms, and cheese, so pizza seemed to be a good choice for all of these things. Making pizza is actually really easy and doesn´t take very much time. It is ironic to me that this should be the ideal food to be made remotely by a teenager and delivered to your door as though you´ve really saved a lot of time and money. You haven´t, by either account. And there´s accountin´ for taste. What you should have delivered is freshly roasted turkey with stuffing, or slow-cooked spare ribs with a thick, velvety complicated sauce. That´s what you have delivered on a Wednesday, not pizza. You can make pizza.

First, the crust. Warm water, yeast, flour, salt, olive oil. Knead it, let it rise. In order, 2 cups, 2 tsps, 4.5 cups (half AP, half bread, this is actually important I forgot to mention), 1 tsp, 2 tbsps.

Second, the sauce. If you´re doing tomato, as I am, it is simply not enough to make your favorite spaghetti sauce and call it a day, it just isn´t. Because you use less sauce on a pizza than on a pile of noodles, the pizza sauce should much more sharply flavored, and of course, thicker. I used a can of whole tomatoes, a tab of butter, garlic, red pepper flake, oregano. It should be spicy. Some people add a little sugar. I don´t.

Now, my options are as follows- First, I could heat the oven and slide the pizzas onto the pizza stone from the paddle and make them individually. Or, I could oil one baking sheet, spread the pizza dough in it, top it, and bake. This pizza will be thicker, and more ¨American style¨, in fact, it will be close to Detroit style. That´s what I think I´m gonna do, it´s less risky. Sliding the pizzas off the paddle and onto the stone requires a level of care and precision I´m unable to handle right now or don´t care. It doesn´t matter. Third degree cheese burn on a pizza stone is a real pain to clean up.

Now that I´ve decided to make a pan pizza, We come to the next important discussion. How far do you take your toppings? The answer-all the way to the edge, and perhaps beyond. If you take the sauce and cheese all the way to the very edge, the crust will pull away slightly from the edge and allow the sauce and cheese to singe and crisp, a wonderful thing to have happen to something.

Now, pizza can be made satisfactorily many different ways. We could let the dough rest overnight, we can make a dough in an hour, the flavor will be different, but a successful pizza can be made either way. I´m obviously going for the one hour to ninety minute method; it´s for tonight.

Pizza´s in the oven. I did everything as intended. I minced the mushrooms almost to a paste, cooked down the spinach and did the same. I finely diced some black olives which made it on top. Then, a torrent of Mozzarella lightning and Parmesan hail. Now, it cooks away in the hot oven. Unlike the flat crust pizzas, which take five minutes, this will need fifteen. I took the sauce to the edge, I took the cheese to the edge. I pulled some basil leaves from my fresh plant which I will ribbon and scatter on the finished dish.

A pizza peek just occurred. We are headed in the right direction. I opened the oven at the very moment a tiny drop of sizzling oil spilled over the side of the pan and onto the pizza stone, making a satisfying sound indeed. Then, the fire alarm went off!! Always a good sign. A good pizza is always almost over-cooked, so you never want to pull it out the oven too early. You should smell a little burn.

Pizza.

27 March Monday

Olive oil, onion, leek, fennel, tomato, fennel seed, marjoram, thyme, parsley, garlic, orange zest, salt, pepper. Crab stock, orange juice, tabasco. Stew and simmer, yes, simmer away. Add cod, scallops, shrimp. Crusts of toasted bread, rouille (homemade mayo with red pepper and garlic added), soup, and fresh herbs, parsley and basil.

I made a nifty video showing the complex complexity of composition and composure concisely created for this cornucopia of compostable crustaceans. Unfortunately, it doesn´t support the file type. Instead, a link.

I love silent films.

Tonight, leftover bouillabaisse enthusiastic, enriched and enrobed in an ebullient ellipse of egg elbows. Actually, it was fettuccine, but I couldn´t let go of the alliteration. Soon as I start, I´m stumped for stoppin.

25 March Saturday

It happened again last night. I opened the fridge, pulled the last soldiers of various leftovers, put them together and what have you got? A great new dish. I had one fatty slice of corned beef left. It look as though it had been attacked by a dog and was salvaged at the last minute, but not without a fight. A half head of Napa cabbage. Some homemade frozen pierogi. I minced the beef into a paste tossed it into a hot pan. When it was browned, I tossed the chopped cabbage and let it cook. Then, I boiled the pierogi and a few minutes later, tossed them into the cabbage along with a little of the pasta water. Black pepper. Heaven. It´s a nice variation on Haluski. These impromptu meals have been going well. My refrigerator just keeps on giving.

Another first. Caramel corn. Why? I have a block of solid caramel that I´ve come in to, and popcorn and toasted pecans. It tastes really good, and has one HUGE flaw. I tossed the caramel into the bowl that the popcorn popped, not noticing that there were a lot of kernels at the bottom of the bowl. This means that everyone had to eat the corn, nuts, and caramel, and masticate the seeds into a bowl. Live and learn, I guess.

Which brings us to today. There is little doubt that I will make a bouillabaisse today. Of this we can be sure. I also have a number of apples, and wouldn´t mind a pie. Or what about a Tart Tatin? Hmmmm……I think that´s what we are going to do. A French day. Of course, I will make Rouille, that unusual mayonnaise that includes saffron and cayenne pepper. You plop some on top of a crostini, drop it in the soup bowl, and ladle the soup around it. The Bouillabaisse today will have shrimp, cod, scallops, and if they have, mussels or clams. Right now is not the best time to get shellfish, so it may be more fish based. Fennel, orange zest, thyme, parsley, garlic, vermouth, and my amazing shellfish stock.

I came back from the market, with one beautiful fillet of shiny white cod, and twelve beautiful fresh pearly white scallops. Trouble is, it´s getting late, I forgot to thaw the shrimp and calamari, and I will not make bouillabaisse for one. I will make the soup tomorrow afternoon, everything will be great. For a cold, windy night in the city, I will eat a hot dog and hit the hay.

23 March Thursday

We all love hot dogs, we all love pumpkin pie, we all love mac and cheese, and we know the reasons why. Oh, I feel a song coming on. Yes, we love these national foods, and why not, but there are other national foods that we eat all the time, but may not know it. All over our great nation there are lots and lots of breakfast, what do you call them? Stations. In San Francisco, I can immediately think of at least five on Polk St. alone. They have a few high-tops, a freezer case with orange juice and Martinelli´s Apple juice, a selection of glaze crusted donuts, several metal file bins filled with bagels and the American Bagel sandwich.

This type of breakfast sandwich is unique in some ways, and I managed to recreate it as best I could this week, though I should say right off the bat that I put it on two thick slices of Soda bread, no bagel was involved. All of these stations seem to have the same situation: one employee, an Asian woman in her late fifties, who makes the bagels and donuts, works the til, sets the mouse traps, takes out the trash, throws out the ne´er-do-wells, and prepares the sandwiches. She maintains order and efficiency by guiding the customer through the process in a series of tableaux, the first of which is standing behind the cash register and looking at it. This is the cue to order the sandwich. After the sandwich is ordered, the right index finger is extended, indicating the amount of money I am now cued to take from my wallet, cash only. Then the sandwich.

First, two strips of bacon are put on a portable griddle. Then the bagel is sliced and put in the toast conveyor. When the bagel falls the first time, the bacon is flipped and the bagel is put through a second time. When the bagel falls the second time, the bacon is take off the griddle and put on one half of the bagel, which is now resting comfortably in a paper lined basket. Then, two eggs are cracked onto the griddle where they are immediately whipped into a solid cone shape with a fork, as though she were Merlin himself, conjuring edible magic. There are two things that give this sandwich distinction. First, the eggs are cooked on the griddle right after the bacon has come out, leaving beautiful little bits of bacon in the egg. Second, the egg cooks so so fast that it is extremely light and airy. Finally, before being crowned with the second half of hot bagel, a newsboy cap of American cheese, the genuine article, made of real chemicals and individually plastic wrapped, is set on top of the egg where it immediately wilts. Top half of bagel, wrapped in sandwich paper THEN sliced in half.

Speaking of hidden treasures, I´m getting ready for spring and that means cleaning out the pantry and freezer. Winter is over. I took the large bag of Dungeness crab shells I´ve aquired this season and made a heavenly delicious stock, which will work perfectly in an early Spring Bouillabaisse this weekend. But what to do with the tons of mushrooms, carrots, and little peppers I´ve come into? There is also leftover Colcannon with which I have decided to make gnocchi. Maybe Gnocchi with Mushroom sauce. A tiny bit of leftover corned beef. OK, hidden treasures to come.

Shellfish stock.

18 March Saturday

There it is, the full dinner. The corned beef was delicious, the colcannon was amazing, the soda bread was heavenly.

BTW, I use Marion Cunningham´s recipe for Soda bread, which is unusual because it is only flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk. It is not kneaded really at all, it is a shaggy ball when you put it in the dish. When it comes out of the over, and i don´t know how else to say this, it looks Irish, craggy and weather-beaten. The lack of kneading makes for a very moist sponge, the opposite of a lot of soda bread.

Colcannon, what a dish. After a series of accidents late in 2022, my food mill finally gave up the ghost, making the best mashed potatoes impossible. I had to get a new food mill. The new food mill, a Foley, instantly performed significantly better than the old food mill which I had for seventeen years. The mashed potatoes were so so smooth, and the leeks, scallions, and cream disappeared completely into the potatoes, which were the slightest tint of pale green.

Irish butter on the menu!!

The beef benefited from the few extra days in the fridge, the brine had gone all the way through.

Now, I´ve eaten a few leftovers, I´m ¨watching¨ March Madness sports contest on TV, and furiously planning my next culinary adventure.

15 March Wednesday

After a long day of composing musicals with elementary school students, and an intense workout at the gym, I was pooped. I got home, jumped in the shower, had a ZOOM with my bro and sis-in-law, and was so hungry afterwords, I could hardly walk. But walk I did. I went out, hangry and confused, not wanting anything in particular and not wanting to spend money for convenience. Frustrated, I thought surely I had something, something in the house that I could eat and enjoy, and couldn´t I power through my present delirium and take care of myself? Well, it turned out the answer was yes.

I went home. The crumbs from a bag of tortilla chips? Check! A quarter cup of week old chili? Check! A savagely wilted and bruised butt end of iceberg lettuce? Check! An almost empty bag of cheddar cheese? Check! Can of black beans? Check! A can of black olives? Check! Extra-tangy sour cream from January I found at the back of the fridge? Check!! What do you get? An amazing taco salad.

Let´s talk about expiration dates. Sometimes, they happen. Sometimes, you are promised something for a lifetime, only to watch it mold in days. Somethings astound me at how long they last. I´m not talking about leftovers, I´m talking about ingredients.

Ok, BOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIING!! Cut to a couple of days later. The corned beef has been on the stovetop for three and a half hours, the colcannon is resting comfortably, and the soda bread-

13 March Monday

Well, the Oscars did happen yesterday, and they didn´t fail to serve. I, on the other hand, failed to serve. The Oscar may be a statuette, but my dinner was a bust. Why? Well, I wrote about the way I normally do Oscars party menus, and there were not many references to food in the movies. Tar had cucumber salad, Everything etc. had of course, hot dogs. Then I saw Triangle of Sadness, and there is nothing appetizing about this flick, let me tell you. After I saw it, I decided not to make food for the party. Also, I had an organ recital to play, specifically accompanying silent movies. It was fun, took a little time.

So, as a consolation prize, I share a sneak preview of my upcoming corned beef for St. Patty´s day.

It´s brining beautifully, it has a great color on it. I flipped it over, re-wrapped it, and and it´s having its final rest over the next four days.

I´m so happy, it´s like the Jamie Leigh Curtis of corned meat. OK, soda bread, potatoes, cabbage, you know the drill. More to come.

27 February Monday

If you remember SCTV, the great tv show that introduced the world to Catherine O´Hara and Eugene Levy, you may remember the Leutonian brothers the Schmenges. This pair made programs about their native Leutonia and its many traditions. These include the men-only Christmas ritual of exchanging the socks off of their feet. Also, cabbage rolls and coffee, the traditional dinner. The cabbage rolls are in the oven now. Coffee would be OK, but Pilsner is better.

An unfortunate shortcoming of technology- I can write about the food, I can photograph or even take video of the cooking, but I can´t transmit the taste, or more importantly, the scent of the food. The whole casserole, which is in a 9 by 13 glass dish, is covered in crushed tomatoes in sauce. The beauty thing- some of the sauce will slightly burn against the side of the dish, I can smell it now, and add a tremendous depth of flavor. Some of the bottom cabbage leaves will get a little crust on them too. I can´t wait to eat!

Stuffed Cabbage and Pierogis, two well-known Eastern European foods, that evidence supports, came from the middle to far East and moved West. Stuffed vegetables feature in the cuisines of the Middle East, and of course, the Greeks have dolmas, which is what stuffed cabbage is, only with cabbage leaves instead of grape leaves. What an ingenious use of the humble cabbage! In my mother´s book, she mentions using fresh herbs, including mint. I used thyme, rosemary, and a little pinch of smoked paprika. Per suggestion, I added a couple of finely diced apples to the mix. The Italians too, stuff things, only with breadcrumbs, basil, and cheese. Stuffed vegetables and noodles become less common as we move West.

Wait, now the cabbage, and added sauerkraut!! I smell it now. It is a bitterly cold rainy San Francisco night, and this is the antidote.

Rolling out the dough, rolling out the dough. Pierogi time. Farmers cheese, mashed potato, chives, salt, pepper.

You can see the pierogis there in the back. They were absolutely wonderful. Were, I mean are. I’m about to have some more now, the next night.

And yes, they are much better the next day. OK, fantastic.

25 February Saturday

Hot Cross Buns! Pictured above, the pre-washed buns. I like to lightly glaze them with powdered sugar and water before thickening it to make the crosses .

They turned out. I am sad that after three grocery store visits, I could not find candied orange peel. I really should just make my own. In the meantime, raisins and currants will do. I toyed with the idea of adding candied ginger, which I do have, but it would have overwhelmed the mellow spices that are tingled by citrus peel.

There they are, all finished. Oh yes. Oh yes. I just ate one. They are like wonderful spice doughnuts, taken to new heights. These are really yumbo jumbo. There are many people who don´t really care for raisins. I understand if these little dried-up shriveled rat turds appear on a kindergarten snack spread. But cooked in a thing? They change. They bloat with innocent joy.

While these buns were a-bakin, I was a-boilin a whole mess of spices and salt and sugar in a pot with water, because brisket was on sale, inspiring me again to make corned beef for St. Patrick´s Day. Mustard seed, coriander seed, clove, cinnamon, allspice, bay leaf, salt sugar, soak it for weeks. Almost three weeks in this case.

Wow, spring is really comin-up real quick. I saw fresh local asparagus at Bi-Rite, the local local market for local produce, produced locally. Locally sourced, to coin a phrase.

I also got cabbage for cabbage rolls, Slovakian Farmers Cheese, which I found handily at Gus´s for the pierogies. The recipes for these are taken from a cookbook that my mother wrote, gathering family recipes, particularly those she ate at the family farm in Southern Ohio. A number of these recipes- stuffed cabbage, peppers, kielbasa, sauerkraut, appeared on a semi-regular basis in the dinner rotation when we were kids. I was always surprised when I lived in Atlanta and London that some people had never heard of these foods let alone eaten them. Sounds like everything is set for the next week of eating. It´s been fun to use a lot of hyphens too.

23 February Thursday

Cooking for occasions. It´s time, yes. This week, the cooking has been simple-another pot of chili, and a big bowl of coleslaw. Coleslaw, now there´s a thing. I don´t know anyone that doesn´t like coleslaw, but it is always a presumed side to American BBQ and etc. When was the last time you said to your loved ones ¨Let´s get some coleslaw tonight!!¨ or ¨I´m in the mood for coleslaw, who´s down?¨ Probably never. But when a mountain of slaw appears on the table, look out. Guests will crowd the buffet, and you are lucky to get out with your own life. I myself can enjoy a serving as a main course. It comes in many varieties, Southern, Asian, Russian, etc. all of which are delicious. I did the ole´Traditional one with cabbage, carrot, onion, mayo, sour cream, Dijon mustard, and apple cider vinegar.

Next thing- a request for homemade cabbage rolls and pierogis. That will be this weekend, in addition to the now multiple requests for Hot Cross Buns. That´s right, it´s also Hot Cross Bun time, Lent. Hot Cross Buns are one of the recipes I´ve developed myself over the years. My special buns are filled with raisins, currants, candied orange peel, clove, and nutmeg. I ¨wash¨ them with simple syrup and make the crosses with Royal Icing. Also, always make them with bread flour for a chewier bun. These good. Real good.

Finally, Oscar season. I am bringing back my little party, making dishes that are featured/eaten/discussed in the nominated movies. The person(s) who pair the dish(es) with the movie(s) win(s). What do you win(s)? Nothing. Just be happy and proud of yourself for being so attentive and having a strong memory for small details. Wouldn´t that be wonderful?

OK, stay tuned, there is some good stuff a´comin.