Lady T

One of the most wonderful food experiences of my entire life happened long ago, at the old Wrigley Building Restaurant in downtown Chicago by the River of that name, where the head waiter wheeled a cart out to the table where I sat and proceeded to make a classic steak tartare exactly to my specifications...he asked me whether I wanted capers, and so on, and then left me with an unlimited supply of warm freshly-made toast and a gorgeous mound of microscopically-fine (chopped to a paste, and by hand!), highly-seasoned chopped sirloin (compounded in a frosty chilled bowl, no less) with minced shallot and raw egg and herbs and Worcestershire sauce and and and. Combined with a green salad au vinaigrette, it was complete and absolute savory heaven. But I can't imagine daring to ever enter that order in any restaurant anywhere again in this life without fearing for that life; at best, I might be able to approximate it at home with my own carefully bought, obsessively prepared, and stringently stored ingredients. *Sigh.* But damn, that was an evening and a half...

Wow. Yum. Corn season's coming up fast in Chicago-area farmer's markets...nothing needed but sweet butter, sea salt, fresh-ground pepper, and about five minutes' cooking time. And something good to drink. And maybe a platter of good ripe sliced tomatoes and/or sweet onions, if you feel so inclined. There are more involved Saturday-night suppers, but none better. Edited to add, and to stay on topic: I do my bites in columns, rather than typewriter-style rows.

I've taken a multivitamin pill a day pretty much my entire life -- always after a full meal, and always making sure I'm hydrated thoroughly (if nausea visits, it always seems to be after singing three or four concerts on a hotly-lit stage with not enough water available). There are weeks when my diet is home-cooked and exemplary, and there are weeks when it all just goes to diner hell. The vitamins seem to smooth out the hills and valleys in that regard. And in my deep doddering age (53), I still enjoy running a schedule that drops twentysomethings straight from the conservatory in their tracks. I conclude I'm doing the right thing(s) for myself...

This is difficult. However... 1. Baked: one really nice oval organic russet, washed and perforated to avoid explosion, baked at 350 F for 1.5 hours. Apply S + P and sweet butter to taste. Matchless. 2. Boiled: enough washed tiny new potatoes, until done to taste. Add S + P and sweet butter to taste, plus coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley to taste. Add salmon baked in white wine and steamed asparagus. It's spring. Even if it isn't. 3. James Beard, in his 1974 book Beard on Food, published one of the most indecent, luscious things a body can do with the potato: Potatoes Byron. Involves several baked potatoes (scooped out of their shells, which then should be saved, cut into strips, and crisped for hors d'oeuvres), plus -- heh, surprise! -- salt and pepper, a *whole* lot of butter and cream, plus Parmesan cheese (I've done it with a Gruyere/Parmesan mix with herbs of choice: even better). Joyous. Yum.

I've had the nasty layered nuggets you deplore at corporate lunches, FG, and I can't agree more that they don't belong on the same table with honest food. That said -- I have wonderful fresh flour tortillas available to me from local tortillerias in Chicago, and cuddling one of those around some freshly roasted pork with the fixin's of one's choice makes for a lovely dinner. Add some fruit of the season and a good convivial glass or two, and I'm a happy lady. All that's needed is to treat the idea with the same respect we give real food, and no surprise...you get real, and good, food. The notion that a wrap can sit, uncovered, for hours and still be edible is one of the problems here, for all I can see...just another predictable failure of the 'you get what you pay for' variety, when corners are cut and quality goes fluttering sadly out the window.

Maggie -- good Heavens. A gal turns her back for a measly few months and all sorts of stuff happens. Please accept my kindest thoughts for your mother, and keep a good solid double handful of those for yourself and the Handsome One. Keep a few aside for the kitty if you like. Am working on a jar of olallieberry jam someone brought me from California (Duart's Tavern). The work requires good homemade bread, and good butter, and a baking dish and an oven set to 375 F. A cup (or two) of Kona coffee with cream and sugar is also required. Some work. Heh. Everyone should have such work on their docket.

MMMMmmmnnnn. Yes. What IS in that beautiful tart? Makes me want to go make a big pot of Kona coffee, and grab a proper knife and a pie server, and invite a neighbor or two...

Congratulations! There is hope on the horizon after white food!!

If only everyone could come into official adulthood with such a fabulous celebration! Many, many joyous returns of the day to you -- after a little rest and recuperation, at least!

I'm reading, too. Basted pork tenderloin and fresh asparagus on the grill: early summer food if there ever was. Yumm. I'm watching that sour cream cake, too...that reads like something I could take around as a guest gift, or to comfort a sick friend. (Edited to correct grammar-in-a-rush.)

Or: your co-workers try to hide the insane jealousy they feel because nobody in their immediate family constellation cooks for *them* with that kind of care!

Thank you so much for blogging. You and yours seem to live up there with a great unanxious grace, and it was wonderful to share that for a week.

A nicely baked potato with a poached egg (or two) popped inside/on top is one of the breakfasts I love best. Better yet: a bit of steamed spinach (gild the lily, and saute with a little olive oil and considerable garlic) between the potato and the egg. Accompany with a tall orange juice, and you can face any physician with equanimity when (s)he starts asking nutritional questions. A good-size serving of brown rice cooked with butter and sea salt is as good as oatmeal, and tastes wonderful with good yogurt and fruit-of-the-season; blueberries are heavenly, blackberries too. Or bananas, or strawberries, or stewed rhubarb. Add coffee with cream and raw sugar, and I can keep going until well after noon (and I have, many times). I would never dare put my recipe -- such as it is -- for "poverty casserole" up on RecipeGullet, because it involves *canned* (horrors!) kidney beans and corn. Along with finely chopped fresh garlic, good green salsa, brown rice cooked in good chicken broth and butter with sea salt and sliced shallots, plus a sizable amount of cheddar jack cheese melted in (in the last stage), it's still a nutritional powerhouse if not a gourmet masterpiece, and the leftovers are astonishingly good -- particularly with all that cheese -- over the bread of one's choice with a couple of poached eggs on top. Add juice and/or coffee, and a salad for lunch, and there's no need to be embarrassed when anyone asks whether one is adequately nourished. Does that help?

H'mf. I turn my back for a month or so, and Ronnie wiggles off the hook?! Well, all right then: I'll simply have to step up a bit and make sure I can catch him in person at a Heartlander gathering, rather than on line. Surely I'll see him at Nuevo Leon, or Sweets and Savories, or Opera, or or or... Good faring and fine dining, maestro!

Interesting. I've enjoyed hot cereal and all sorts of fruit, cooked, with milk or (much preferred) some yogurt, for dinner many times. Cold cereal, though? Never. It doesn't especially appeal to me, but nutritionally I would guess it's waaaaay hell better than some -- or most -- of the most popular alternatives.

That frozen howling mess came through Chicago yesterday; the only thing worse than the morning commute was the one in the evening. Do be careful. On the other hand, you've got the hot chocolate recipe that'll make everything right again once you've gotten home. A little Cognac would be a fine addition, too...

For sheer crazed blazing culinary variety, you may want to seriously consider the Andersonville neighborhood, whose restaurant heaven centers around the intersection of Clark Street and Foster Avenue: 5200 North at 1500 West or so on the city's street grid. Within a very few blocks of each other, you'll find the vegetarian place Reza's, the yuppie brunch haven Andie's, the superb bierstube (and neighborhood pub) Hopleaf, plus Swedish Bakery for sybaritic breakfast components and a better-than-decent sushi place whose name escapes me at the moment (on the east side of Clark, at the north end of the strip), and a new Korean joint I haven't had time to try yet, plus an Assyrian place (ditto) and the impressive bistro La Tache on Balmoral just east of Clark. About 15 minutes west of that intersection on Foster (via the No. 92 bus; more like 10 minutes by car) is Tre Kronor, home of some very dependable Swedish home cooking -- not exciting in terms of cuisine, maybe, but exceptionally fresh and exceptionally kind to the budget too. The rents aren't cheap, but they're a damn sight easier on the wallet than those you'd find on the Gold Coast. The location is about 45 minutes away from the Gold Coast by car, more like an hour to an hour and a half by public transit.

Word. Sentence and complete paragraph, for that matter.

A casserole is a dish, and also a casserole is the composed combination of foods that will go in that dish to be baked or perhaps broiled, like a gratin, before eating -- but that may be after considerable transport and/or a spell in the freezer. Which is the clue you may be waiting for, Madamethecat: a casserole is a dish in which the food is carried, yes?

Bless you in your efficiency, srhcb. No greenmarket list of mine would ever fit on a 2" x 2" Post-it. I simply plan on giving in to the urge to get gorgeous produce and make sure the time thereafter is free: early weekend evenings in summer for ratatouille orgies and roasted vegetable salads, serious baking binges in the fall when there are apples for baking, and apples for pie, and pears to serve with cheese and plums for strudel, and and and. There's always a background list or two with wines and breads and four or five kinds of herbs, and different cheeses and eggs and butter and so on -- but the produce section is the designated source of improv theater, and I give in at least once a week.

By my Midwestern understanding, hot (or covered; I've heard both terms) dishes are either sustenance for sick/shut-in folks who can't shop or fix for themselves, or kindly gifts for bereaved families around the time of the funerals, to save them the effort of fussing around the kitchen at such a sad time. Ingredients tend to be sturdy enough to survive two or more reheatings safely -- sauced/seasoned/cheese-laden pasta/vegetable casserole combinations and such would comprise one (but not the only) huge category of the genre. The terms seem to be associated with suburban/rural areas, but I can tell you that the tradition is alive and thriving in Chicago and environs: I remember the sign-up list that was passed around with brisk efficiency when a cellist friend who also sings in our church choir was immobilized temporarily by hip-replacement surgery. She never ate such a variety of home cooking in her life, I suspect.

Ohh, good. I was hoping you'd blog again one of these times; it's been too long since I've been in NYC, and reading your writing is almost as good as being there! It's 6 degrees F in Chicago, with a -3 degree wind chill. Being out there could be a mighty improvement right now... ...but then I wouldn't have just cooked a bunch of chicken thighs in white wine and tarragon, or accompanied them with an herbed roasted potato and steamed buttered green beans, or drunk a thoroughly nice cava with them all. I'm staying here in the warm peaceful apartment -- but I'll be reading right along!

Warm thoughts to all three of you from sweet home Chicago, at a whole fat five degrees Fahrenheit ABOVE zero (wind chill: three below F). The blog was superb: gonna make me a few of these soups.

"Frankenstein fromage"?!?! Dear Heaven: I turn my back and emergencies strike. Holy Wisdom, friend -- get yourself to a fondue place and do yourself an Emmenthaler/Kirschwasser fix STAT! You need the unctuous texture, the drip and stretch, and the gorgeous holy rich aroma of serious cheese, with the lovely crunch of fresh apples and the counterpoint of fresh bread. Go. Do it NOW. Check back in when the craving settles down, and let us know you're all right. Yikes.

Is leaving the omelet by me, Fresser. I'll give it a good home. Go take care of the nice lady's sandwich already...