Fights the Scurvy

It started early, in childhood, although it would not situate itself firmly into a noticable pattern until my late teens. As an adult, it is manifest.

The problem is this: I crave the foods from my reading, fiction and all. Doesn't matter if my protagonist is Raskolnikov eating stale bread, or Oblomov eating blood pudding - I read it, I eat it.

Worse still, atmosphere can trigger or deplete a craving. Consider the absence of eating in a narrative - famine, imprisonment, lost in the wild - it tempts me to fast, or maybe sip a meager broth.

I once read George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London on a long train ride from upstate. Exiting the train at Grand Central, I went straight into the market, bought a filet mignon, a baguette, an eclair and a split of red wine and went home and ate it under a bare light bulb I erected just for the emergent occasion. If I couldn't eat rare beef in the boiler room of a Parisian hotel, I could at least bask in the same unflattering light.

A year reading Gogol, Goncharev, Pushkin, Tolstoy --- boiled eggs, vodka with cucumbers, black bread and stewed mushrooms.

Sartre - black coffee and cigarettes

Becket - potatoes of course

Faulkner - corn pone

You get the idea. Once, in my impressionable pubescent years, I saw the movie Reds with Diane Keaton and Robert Redford (eye-candy romantic version of John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World, a book/movie combo all 12 year olds should read/see). In the movie version, a Russian general sits at table, an unpeeled lemon and onion on his plate, and proceeds to cut each like they are slabs of juicy ribeye. Without expression, he heartily eats the lemon and onion, bitter peelings and all.

Being 12, and impressed by stoic discipline, I tried this at home. And like the character in the movie, when my mother asked, "Pray tell, what are you doin'?" I forgave her her ignorance, and without so much as a flinch I aped the general's line...

"Fights the scurvy."

As I write this, note that I am 68 pages deep into Salmon Rushdie's Midnight's Children. The samosa beckons...

Eggs à la Nabocoque

Some years ago, Harper's Magazine published a boiled egg "recipe" by Lolita's own Vladimir Nabokov. The memory of this recipe came into my obsessive brain about 6:30 this morning and, needing desperately to have Nabokovian eggs on my plate by 8:00 (and with no sign of that back issue of Harper's), I got to googlin'. Thanks to the better archivest at Concious Choice, who braved the basement of the New York Public Libary to unearth such a thing, our buttered toast dipped into the tawdry runniness right on schedule.

Let's call this photo "Metro Egg" or perhaps "Tenement Egg"



Eggs à la Nabocoque

by V.N, November 18, 1972 [A notation in ink was made at the top:] "Maxime de la Falaise McKendry for a cooking book"[And a later notation under it:] "Never acknowledged by Maxime"

Boil water in a saucepan (bubbles mean it is boiling!). Take two eggs (for one person) out of the refrigerator. Hold them under the hot tap water to make them ready for what awaits them. Place each in a pan, one after the other, and let them slip soundlessly into the (boiling) water. Consult your wristwatch. Stand over them with a spoon preventing them (they are apt to roll) from knocking against the damned side of the pan. If, however, an egg cracks in the water (now bubbling like mad) and starts to disgorge a cloud of white stuff like a medium in an oldfashioned seance, fish it out and throw it away. Take another and be more careful. After 200 seconds have passed, or, say, 240 (taking interruptions into account), start scooping the eggs out. Place them, round end up, in two egg cups. With a small spoon tap-tap in a circle and then pry open the lid of the shell. Have some salt and buttered bread (white) ready. Eat.

The Ramps Are In!

I only discovered these wild leeks, better known as Ramps, last year. Their availability falls in such a narrow window of time that if you skip a week, or so much as blink, you'll miss one of the best meals of April.

Ramps are commonly harvested in the Appalachian region, but the tri-state farmers seem to be getting up to speed. The Ramps' strength rivals that of garlic, but they mellow out nicely once sauteed in olive oil.

This is the most basic of recipes. I'm certain there are hundreds of ways to use them, but since I seem only to make them once a year, I want them to play centerstage. No muss. No fuss.

Ramps with Pasta

Trim root ends as you would leeks. Rinse ramps repeately, shaking out the leaves in the a bath of water. They can be quite dirty.

Slice the bulbs and saute in a generous amount of olive oil until tender. Meanwhile, coursely chop the leaves and set aside. On hot linguini (or any pasta), toss in the bulbs and oil and then add the leaves so that they wilt in the pasta. Create a blizzard of parmesan and enjoy.

Pain Perdue

Another reason to make friends with your two day old baguette is its French Toast potential. My recipe for pain perdue harkens back to my early prep days in Atlanta's now-retired Baker's Cafe. The grumpy and talented chef Bill gave me my earliest training on decadent Sunday Brunches. Here's the improvised recipe:

Slice thickly enough stale baguette to cover the bottom of a baking dish. Butter the baking dish and place place bread in bottom so that edges are touching.

Mix together 5-6 eggs, 1 3/4 cups milk, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Melt 1/4 cup or so of butter and add to this mixture, making sure the butter is not so hot that it scrambles your eggs. Pour the mixture over the bread and let soak for at least a half an hour, turning it occasionally. Make certain that the bread is soaked completely so that the egg mixture, when baked, behaves more like a souffle than just eggs sitting on top of bread. You can do this the night before too and refrigerate until ready to bake.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until brown. Dust with powdered sugar if you are so inclined and serve with maple syrup.

Oven shot below...

Metrofoodie Returns: Whole Foods Rant

Where has Metrofoodie been? Let's make it a don't ask, don't tell deal and move on.


It was a last minute decision to make stock last night, inspired by a mass of soup bones at the hegemonic Whole Foods. I have tried wholeheartedly to hate Whole Foods, with its "scratch for almost any itch" approach to commodities. It's like The Gap or Starbucks - easily hateable and yet...you find yourself spending perfectly good money there.

I prefer to buy my bones at the farmers market, but it's limited in terms of time and even available stock bones. The butcher at Garden of Eden, my favorite 14th street gastro mecca, looked at me like I was nuts when I asked for soup bones a few weeks ago. I try to be loyal to the small guy. I really do! But what's a Metrofoodie to do when she needs stock and her little guy is just not delivering the goods? She tucks her tail into her Gap skirt, while the savage laws of supply and demand lead her to the $2.28 collection of organic chicken bones in the lower level of Whole Foods. That's what happens...

Hamland Security

Seems like Homeland Security has finally found its niche - protecting us from suspicious vegetarians caught protesting HAM! As a lover of ham, all KINDS of ham, I'm feeling safer already. Living in post 9/11 lower Manhattan, you can imagine how worried I've been about HAM safety.

Thanks for the update KIPlog!

The Scum Also Rises

Much like our Washington leaders, the scum also rises when making chicken broth. Much like our current political situation, the more heat you put under your broth, the more intense and disgusting the scum will be.

I've yet to find a masterful technique for skimming chicken broth, other than to labor over it with a big spoon. It's an unglamorous business - dealing with scum - but a necessary commitment to keep your stock from clouding, or your country from being robbed blind.


food
[tagging experiment]