Malawry
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Posts posted by Malawry
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What I didn't disclose was the point around 11am that day when my friend remembered that somebody couldn't have spinach or asparagus. I, well, uh, flipped out. I asked how I was supposed to cook...in California where there was so much lovely spring produce...for Passover where food is the point and you're supposed to eat spring-y things...for so many annoying and even competing desires. I have little patience for people who just don't LIKE a million things. I mean we're all entitled to not like a few things but this got ridiculous.
I am proud of my eventual success, but I sort of took it out on my poor friend briefly the morning of the seder. She listened to my rant and then calmly said she understood this was frustrating. She explained that many people in her family have a lot of control issues, and that food ends up becoming the tool they use to express those desires. She admitted she does the same thing (she's one of the no-wheat people). I can see this, although it's a little hard for me to respect.
Nonetheless, once I'd ranted I was over it and instead got all interested in how to make it all fit together. You can complain about the whininess of your guests, or you can get over it and try to challenge yourself to fit those needs. I try to do the latter, though I admit I don't tend to invite the super-picky over too often. I don't need that every time I cook for friends.
I'm curious as to how this is for those cooking in a restaurant. I think that pickiness is one of the things that makes restaurant cooking much harder than home cooking: you're not only expected to accommodate every little whim, you're expected to do so cheerfully and to make interesting and creative food within the boundaries the diner sets. And then you don't even get thanks for doing so; you don't even get the pleasure of watching the diner as they start to trust you, assuming you succeed.
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I've got plenty of picky friends too, and while I am experimenting with eating meat I am not cooking it...we have basically agreed to keep our house free of fowl and meat for now. I'm not at all able to cope with the food safety issues these foods require, and furthermore my partner doesn't eat them.
I have a lot of patience for special food requests, but I was pushed to my limit when I cooked a seder in LA a few weeks ago. Everybody in my friend's family has major food issues, and I accommodated all of them. One person only eats snow peas and artichokes for veggies. One person can't have spinach or asparagus. A couple people don't eat wheat products if they can help it. One person had to be wheedled in advance about eating salmon, despite the fact that she didn't have a problem with salmon per se...she just didn't trust that this stranger from the east coast who was visiting would make a decent salmon. (Well, I guess I can understand that one, but then she wasn't a food geek, she was just a princess! She actually said she'd at least try it after much pleading and hesitation. Sheesh.) After much consultation I set a menu and then held a lot of things on the side to satisfy those who wanted a dish without the x or y.
I found that my patience with all these competing selective desires paid off, though. The turning point was when I brought out the matzo ball soup. I asked how many matzo balls everybody wanted, and who did or didn't want spinach, so the wheat-free folks could get no wheat and the spinach-denier could also eat in peace. Once people dug into the soup the whole mood at the table changed. Everybody seemed to realize that yes, they could trust me to feed them foods they said they'd eat, and that everything I'd produce would probably be pretty good. Soon I was being asked for seconds. When the many many vegetable dishes and the salmon came out the mood was eager anticipation, and there wasn't a shred of anxiety left by the time people had tasted my fish and my onion kugel. It felt wonderful to have earned their trust.
See, I like working with limitations. Half the fun of camping is working with limited cooking sources, pots and pans, and primitive refrigeration. I enjoy visiting a condo at the beach and cooking based on what supplies are left for guests in the kitchen. I think it'd be great fun to cook in an RV, and I'm not a sports fan but I bet I'd adore tailgating.
Tonight's guests don't really have any limitations, except one of them just had his wisdom teeth out recently. So he may not eat the Pirouline cookies, and he may choose a mellower dressing than the vinaigrette if he thinks the acid may annoy him. If he can't handle the greens, well, the eggs, haricots verts, beets, and potatoes should be easily gummed.
If you have a dinner party this weekend, can I please come?
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Post! Post! Degustation, don't make me beg!
The Indian restaurant (Nikita India on Tate Street) in Greensboro, NC, where I ate until I moved to DC which has many more better Indian restaurants, used to serve the shredded spinach-onion type pakoras. These were somewhere between the fried cakes Degustation describes and the fritters Stellabella describes. They were coarsely shaped into little balls and the best parts were the bits of spinach or onion that would break away from the sphere and get real crispy. I don't think these were the most authentic pakoras in the world but they were tasty indeed.
I don't have any actual information to share, but reading this thread really made me want a plate of those things. With tamarind sauce and onion chutney.
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Malawry, as part of your experimenting with meat you could try making a Texas chili. Which requires no beans. I repeat no beans.
No beans? NO BEANS in CHILI?
*head explodes*
Seriously, I'd like to try Texas chili sometime, but I'm definitely not anywhere near ready to be cooking with meat. I'm not even eating more than a couple bites of meat here and there. I'll have to wait until somebody I'm dining with orders or makes some to sample a bit. I've always been curious about Texas chili since to me beans are so integral a part of the chili experience. I wanna know how the experience differs from a beef stew or beefy sauce.
And you're totally right about randomness. That's why I have moved away from random cooking. When I started out I was a lot more erratic in many senses, but my greater attention to technique and ingredients has resulted in much better and more consistent food.
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I'm always tempted to throw a bunch of randomness into dishes, but I've learned to resist because of the muddy-flavor effect. The one exception being vegetarian chili. I think the more you throw into chili, the better it's likely to taste. I use bits of dozens of spices and condiments, and sometimes will make chili as a way to get rid of the ends of things. (We eat so many beans that there's always leftover beans waiting around to be used.)
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I too have been exploring slowly. I have not tried beef yet, but I have had duck, chicken, and lamb. I instantly adored the lamb (and look forward to sampling it again) but was neutral on the chicken and really turned off by the fattiness of the duck. Like Indiagirl I have noticed I'm more interested in feeling out my ability to handle meat than in actually enjoying or evaluating meat, but that doesn't frustrate me. I figure that will change with time and experience. Meanwhile I've stopped quizzing waiters about whether or not the soup has chicken stock. I just order the soup.
Thanks, Indiagirl, for your diary. I appreciate the detail you've offered and look forward to more reports from the field. I'll try to remember to come back and check in too, and let ya'll know what I think.
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We're having another couple over for dinner tonight. Le menu:
Vegan cream of spinach soup, with carrot-flower garnish and a dusting of nutmeg
Jim Dixon's quadratini: mushroom risotto cubes, coated in bread crumbs and pan-fried, with remoulade sauce
Salade nicoise featuring obscenely expensive anchovies, with mustardy vinaigrette
Lemon and raspberry sorbets with purchased cookies (those Pirouline thingys)
Chocolates
I've been into doing multiple desserts since returning from the trip Edemuth and I took to NY. There's something very luxurious about having more than one course of sweets. Good chocolates are especially nice as a post-dessert dessert. Next time I do a big big dinner, I want to do three dessert courses, and maybe make some kind of petit fours.
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Last night, I made some pita sammiches. Whole wheat pita brushed with olive oil and cooked on a griddle till browned, filled with a mixture of chickpeas, pintos and kidneys. The beans were marinating in a homemade vinaigrette in the fridge...we ate all three kinds of beans over the course of the past week, and we chucked all bean leftovers into the marinade at my housemate's excellent suggestion. I picked up some "Wallaby" cheese at the farm market last weekend, so I added a few slices of that to my sammich. Also a smear of Maille mustard, some shredded carrot, diced red pepper, and green leaf lettuce. I ate it with a bunch of olives. Followed it up with lemon sorbet. Good eating for hot weather.
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How about Like Water for Chocolate?
Dude. Why didn't I think of that? I've wanted to try to make a rose-petal sauce ever since I saw that movie. The cream fritters sounded amazing too.
Welcome to eGullet.
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Washington, VA has a number of small inns and bed and breakfast type places, some within walking distance of the Inn. There are also other small towns in Rappahannock County with lodging, which may afford you the opportunity to explore an area some are regarding as the east coast's response to Napa Valley. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2....nd=true will take you to a Washington Post Escapes column on Sperryville and Rappahannock County. At the bottom of the article are some links to regional tourism Web sites.
Getting a cab to and from DC is definitely not viable. I'd plan to spend the night out that way. If I was independently wealthy I'd stay at the Inn since it sounds like it's so lush, plus it would allow you to extend the experience into the morning at breakfast. I have not yet gone, and I doubt I will wait until I can afford the room to dine in the restaurant.
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"The Cook The Thief..." made me hungry in many senses until the very end. My favorite character was the saucier, who didn't speak at all to my memory. I thought he was adorable in his shirtless, barrel-chested way. At the end of the movie there's a group shot in which he wields his ladle with righteous indignation.
This isn't a food-related movie, but my absolute favorite moment in the Red Dwarf series is when Lister orders breakfast from the somewhat faulty vending machine in the hallway. "I'll have a milkshake." "What flavor?" "Beer."
I recently saw Bandits on a cross-country plane flight. I got really annoyed at the uneducated food stuff in there. There's this woman cutting up vegetables for a mirepoix in such an unsafe and ridiculous manner...and then later an idiotic discussion about saffron being the secret to somebody's pasta sauce. Didn't the scriptwriters have a food geek they could ask about this stuff? This annoys me as much as my partner Erin (who is a choral conductor) gets annoyed at watching actors' efforts to "conduct." We're real fun to watch movies with.
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As I mentioned before, I work in the building that houses Osteria Goldoni. Well, it closed a few weeks ago "for renovations," and now there's a banner up saying it will reopen in May as Vida, serving Latin American cuisine. Is it the same owners/chef? Anybody know anything about this?
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When we have people over for a dinner plated in multiple courses, I usually either skip courses or give myself smaller portions so I can finish more quickly and get back to preparing the next course. Usually I have a "lull" between starters/salads/soups and the entree, which is required for me to do the last-minute cooking off of things that go on the plate plus time for the extra plating of multiple items served together. Edemuth is almost always there for these dinner parties, and usually offers advice on plating and assistance with table-clearing and the last-minute food prep. I serve myself last and once I sit for the main course, I don't get up again until post-dinner conversation has been going for a quite a while. I usually wait for a lull and then clear plates and ask for coffee/tea/digestif "orders." And then I take a few minutes to plate dessert (often with Edemuth consultation, as usual) while waiting for water to boil/coffee to brew.
Sometimes I serve buffet style, which allows me to spend more time at the table (epsecially if I don't break the meal out into courses). And almost any nondinner meal I serve is buffet style, or else put on a single plate and set at the table as I call people to it. There is no need to give myself smaller portions or skip courses during such meals.
I have a life policy of not rushing food if at all possible. I don't eat while walking places if I can help it, except for ice cream which I sometimes enjoy eating from a cone while walking about in the summer. I'd rather eat less food than eat while walking or driving someplace, and I loathe nothing more than eating from drive-throughs on a road trip. I try to sit down and put my food on a plate before eating whenever possible, and I don't care to scarf. So no, I don't pack it away in order to go plate the next course when I entertain. Far better to skip the soup.
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Don't stop. This is good readin'.
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I love dining with Edemuth no matter how fast or slow she goes, for the record.
I have vowed to heat or chill serving dishes as possible for future cooking endeavors to make the cold fish/warm salad problem less of an issue in my own household.
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Reading the words "Campari and lemon juice" made my mouth pucker. :wow:
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Saturday night, we ate out at a really good pizza place. We tried the pizza with garlic and cockles, and we shared another one with black olives, red onion and really good anchovies. Very good.
Sunday night I made a late, light dinner for my housemate and I: A wilted baby spinach salad with red onions, currants and balsamic vinaigrette, and some slices of baguette smeared with herbes de provence goat cheese and broiled. For dessert, we each had a shot of limoncello. Perfect.
Last night I ate a couple more of those broiled baguette slices smeared with cheese and a bowl of sugar smacks. It was late and I was tired and it was fast. I also ate a grapefruit.
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I'll have to examine my eating and talking at the same time to figure out how I do it. I don't tend to talk during the first couple bites of a dish, as I am too interested in evaluating what's in my mouth to be distracted by continuing a conversation. I also don't talk with a mouth full of food (not that I really stuff my mouth that often). But I do talk after the first couple chews in a small mouthful before I swallow, and I also intersperse conversation between smaller bites like Cabrales does. My slower dining friend does not intersperse in the same way, which took some getting used to for me when we started eating together regularly. And I, too, try not to ask any big questions just as somebody's about to put a big honkin' sub sandwich in their mouth.
Wow, I feel like a pig for admitting I talk and eat at the same time.
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I ate fairly quickly as a kid. Then I had orthodontia around age 13, and when my palate expander was installed went from being the first to finish to barely completing a sandwich during my 45 minute middle school lunch break. (And I mean nothing BUT the sandwich.) Since then my speed has picked up and I'm not exactly fast, but I'm not slow either.
One of the people I dine with regularly is a very fast eater. I don't let this affect my own dining speed, although sometimes it gets hard because the fast eater also wants to pay the bill and leave once they finish their meal. (This person is not up for lengthy tasting menus too often.) I acknowledge this desire (and indeed, it is a benefit when there's a movie to make) but will politely refuse to rush my meal or get up until I am good and ready if there's no hurry.
Another person I dine with regularly is a slow eater. Not on the order of the 50-chew folks, but still quite a bit slower than myself. If I'm in a time crunch when eating with this person, I'll simply mention that I have to go a few minutes before I must leave, and my companion will usually finish quickly at that point. (Said dining companion acknowledges their slow speed.) If I'm not in a time crunch, I just sit and enjoy the company and try not to ask my companion any questions that will make them take time out from eating to talk.
I talk and eat at the same time; the slower dining companion I referenced rarely does so. I think this distinction, more than anything else, is what differentiates between faster and slower eaters. Faster eaters don't talk at all, or talk while they eat, while slower eaters seem to do one or the other but not both. Just a theory.
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Monday night, we had pasta with some fake-chicken strips I was trying out (too highly seasoned) and a mixed green salad with roasted asparagus, pear and a mustard vinaigrette.
Tuesday night, I ate tomato soup with some Breton whole wheat crackers crumbled up in it, and lemon sorbet. I was having dental issues.
Last night we ate out at a tapas place that was fairly unsatisfying (Toro Tapas in Shirlington, VA, for those in the DC area) (I wanted to eat at Carlyle Grand, for the record). Olives with manchego, plantain strips fried into chips with salsa, garlic shrimp, salmon in a saffron sauce, and a vegetarian quesadilla. We shared all of these, except the olives which my partner doesn't care for.
Tonight, we'll make a vegetarian taco salad since we need a fast dinner. Chips, salad veggies, cheese, sour cream, salsa, a cooked bean-tomato mixture. I may skip the chips due to my teeth. And Friday we are having a friend over...I'll make roasted herb-crusted salmon, roasted asparagus with lemon zest and sea salt, and some ultracreamy potatoes au gratin for dinner. I'll probably serve the rest of the lemon sorbet and maybe purchase some cookies to go with it for dessert.
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I've had the Westbrae stoneground and dijon mustards. I don't recommend them. They're not terrible but they're not too good either.
My new favorite mustard is Barker's New Zealand Pineapple Mustard. My housemate brought it back from her recent trip to NZ and it is the best sweet-type mustard I've ever eaten. Once I smeared it on a vegetarian bratwurst and topped it with a Thai slaw I'd made and nearly swooned it was so good.
www.barkers.co.nz
I also like Trader Joe's Sweet and Hot Mustard on pretzels.
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What a great, thorough post! Thanks for your dissection.
This has got me wondering. What restaurants in DC offer a stellar service experience? Do any of them? I've had decent service in DC but have not experienced anything outstanding.
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So you mean these burgers are made of an amalgamation of cooked brisket and uncooked ground beef? Have patience with me here, I haven't cooked meat in about a decade (even if that is about to change).
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Wouldn't brisket make your burger tougher?
Dinner Parties
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I like to be accommodating. I agree that the worst is when somebody doesn't even make it possible for me to accommodate them. Gah! And I agree that last-minute guests are so beyond rude. I actually had it out with one friend recently about that issue...they had no idea that their noncommittal attitude was causing me to go through emotional and technical gyrations when I just wanted to cook them dinner sometime. The whole point of having somebody over is I want to have an opportunity to make them feel nice and show off a little in the process, plus it gives me a chance to challenge myself. It's hard to do that if somebody brings their food issues to the table, or doesn't even bother to let you know whether or not they'll be there.
I think if the seder had involved a single person with all those food issues, then that one guest would have been left off the list if humanly possible...or expected to bring a few dishes if they had to be accommodated. As it was, the person who only eats snow peas and artichokes contributed a pea dish. At least this wasn't my family; I'd be so disinclined to cook for my family if I had to deal with a bazillion issues every time.
Why yes, SobaAddict, I do eat eggs and fish and shellfish. I even eat small amounts of the other stuff these days. *bats eyelashes*