Happy 4th: From My Village to Yours.

Watermelon Salad

Where I work, there are a small handful of men who occasionally begin their sentences with the phrase “In my village…”

“In my village, we have a festival.” “In my village, we would never treat an octopus in such a way.”

These men can get away with saying such things as easily as they can get away with calling women “baby”  because they are Greek. The have the accent, they have an old world charm about them that clings like the smell of clove and stale cigarette smoke.

And I have always been a little bit jealous. If I were to ever pepper my sentences with the words “In my village…” People would most likely assume it was Greenwich Village. And I can just forget about using the word “baby.” Ever.

Well, I can get away with things they can’t, too, like speaking only in Sondheim lyrics. And giving Greeks a hard time about, well, being so damned Greek. But it’s only because I love them, I really do.

We clearly have our differences, but that is something I cherish. For example, in my childhood village of Anaheim, summer outings often included salads made from fresh Jell-o and organic, vine-ripened mini-marshmallows from my neighbors’ gardens.

In the villages of my Greek co-workers, however, one will find strange, unnatural combinations. Things like tomatoes and cucumbers or, ripe watermelon and feta cheese.

They are crazy people, these Greeks.

Crazy good, I mean.

If you haven’t tried this flavor combination, then you have not tasted summer. I know, that sounds like bad advertising copy, which is why I remain poor. It’s true, nevertheless.

Give it a go this weekend. I mean it. You’ll thank me for it later, baby.

Karpouzi me Feta (Watermelon Salad)

Serves whoever, wherever and as many as you need

I’ve brought this dish to a few picnics in my day. The initial reaction to it is usually one of strange curiosity. Watermelon and, what? Feta? How interesting. I would never have thought to pair watermelon with cheese.

Well, I’m glad somebody did.

This is such a pleasantly simple dish to make. And it takes about five minutes to create a big bowl or platterful. The watermelon, which smacks of summertime, offers a bit of sweet refreshment and hydration, while the cheese lends a bit of salty protein. And the olive oil, of course, gives you a shiny, healthy-looking coat. It is the perfect antidote to drinking alcohol in the hot sun and, therefore, the perfect Fourth of July picnic salad– all Red, White, and Green, just like the American flag is to the marginally colorblind.

Ingredients:

One of the best  things about this recipe is that there really is no recipe, just a list of ingredients. You want a lot of cheese? Go for it. Lots of olive oil? Absolutely. And let it dribble down your chest a little and rub it in for a deep, dark, Bain de Soleil-like golden tan. Delicious.

1 small, ripe seedless (or not) watermelon, rind removed and cut into reasonably-sized cubes

Feta cheese. Good feta. Greek Feta. From Epiros, if possible. Cubed or crumbled.

Good olive oil. Extra virgin. No, it does not have to be Greek.

Fresh basil, torn into small pieces. Or even oregano.

Toasted pine nuts or pumpkin seeds. I thought pumpkin seeds were an inspired choice given the pumpkin’s shape and vine-grown status. That, and the fact that the pine nut bin at the store had been ravaged by the time I got there.

Preparation:

1. On a picnic platter or other, preferred serving dish, place cubed watermelon.

2. Crumble the feta over the watermelon, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle the mass with herb-of-choice and nut/seed-of-choice.

3. Serve immediately.

4. Watch the he-men crow and sweat over their grills while you kick back, have a drink, and accept compliments about your brilliant salad.

Clafoutis: The Pride Is in the Pudding

Well happy Pride weekend and all that.

Frankly, I had conveniently managed to forget about it until my friend Sean mentioned that Cloris Leachman was to be Grand Marshall in this weekend’s big parade.

I’ve never much cared for Pride Weekend. It’s not that I don’t enjoy being gay, because I do. I can quote old movies with abandon, not worry about child support payments, and get away with saying things that most straight would never dare to say.

And, of course, I am proud of the fact that I know who Cloris Leachman is. I think every homosexual is required by law to quote freely and liberally from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I love being gay. I just don’t love big parades– they make me wonder how I’m supposed to get across town. It’s kind of like how I feel about Christmas. I love the spirit of the thing, but I hate the clothes, the crowds, and the decorative motifs.

So no pink today, no Sarah-Tucker-there’s-a-rainbow-on-your-table.

But there is fruit.

That’s the best tie-in I can think of for clafoutis.

Clafoutis

Many of you know this dessert already– it is, at heart, baked pancake batter dotted with fruit.  There are recipes for  apricot clafoutis (delicious), clementine clafoutis (if you don’t know how I feel about clementines, please visit here), and eggplant clafoutis (?). If you can stick it into pancake batter, it’s probably been made into a clafoutis.

A traditional clafoutis, however, is to be made with cherries. Amen.

Some folks run with the pancake theme, serving them warm and puffy and fresh from the oven for breakfast like one would a Dutch Apple Pancake. Do what you will, but the flavors blend together and texture becomes more custard-like if you have the patience to allow it to spend the night in your refrigerator.

The clafoutis is sort of like a Pride weekend trick– if light and fluffy, fresh and hot is your thing, go for it. Out of your life and on to the next dessert, as it were. I just happen to prefer my clafoutis after it has hung around my kitchen for a little bit and settled down.

And I’m kind of proud of that.

Cherry-Almond Clafoutis

Serves 4 to 8-ish, depending upon how you slice it.

This charming, no-fuss little number hails from the Limousin region of France, located not quite in the heart of the country, but more or less where the liver might be located.

Traditional clafoutis calls for leaving the pits in the cherries, the wisdom being that the pits lend a pleasant almond-like flavor to the dish. Of course, there are so few people left living in the Limousin region and those who remain are mostly elderly, that chipping a tooth is not considered much of a risk.

Ingredients:

1 pound of cherries (or enough to populate the surface of an 8-inch pan without touching each other), pitted or not pitted. The choice and the risk is yours.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

3/4 cups heavy cream (you can get away with using milk, but the day-after texture will suffer greatly, I promise).

6 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/3 to 1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Powdered sugar, for dusting

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F

2. In a blender, combine eggs, flour, cream, salt, vanilla and almond extracts, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Blend well, scraping down the sides of the blender from time to time. Or whisk aggressively. Your choice. When blended, add half the slivered almonds to the batter and stir them about.

3. In an 8-inch cast iron skillet or heat-proof baking pan, add butter and 2 tablespoons sugar until all is melted, slightly nutty-smelling, and syrupy. Add cherries; cooking and coating them for about two  minutes.

4. Pour the batter gently into the pan around the cherries. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the and pop into the center of your oven.

5. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until sufficiently browned and puffy, remove from the oven and let cool.

6. If your clafoutis is not sufficiently browned and puffy, do as I both say and do– sprinkle the remaining almonds over the top and pop it under the broiler. Works like a charm unless you burn it.

7. Dust with powdered sugar for garnish just before serving with crème fraîche, lightly whipped cream, or all by itself.

Whatever Happened to Wilkins Coffee?

Clearly, television viewers didn’t get the message.

Violence always seems more charming when there are proto-muppets involved.

On My Shelf: The Sweet Life in Paris

There are myriad guidebooks to Paris: Pudlow, Michelin, and Lonely Planet, to name a few and all of them worth the money. They tell you where eat, where to stay, and what to see.

And then, of course, there are guidebooks to Paris– those that tell you all of the above plus a little bit more, like how to navigate unfamiliar social customs, how to blend in with the landscape– in short, how not appear as though one has arrived from Central Casting to play the Ugly American. The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz is that and a bit more:

It has recipes. Lots and lots of recipes.

Granted, The Sweet Life in Paris was neither written nor is it marketed as a comprehensive guide to the sights and flavors of the city. Rather, it’s more or less an organic extension of Mr. Lebovitz’s blog, which chronicles his life and experiences as a San Francisco pastry chef who packed up everything he owned and moved to Paris– and all the pleasures, pains, and frequent head-scratchings that accompany French Culture Shock.

I refer to his book as a guidebook because that is precisely how I used it on my recent visit to his adopted city– an entertaining, human, and extremely useful guide.

For example, his chapter “The Most Important Words to Know in Paris” warns that one absolutely must say “Bonjour Monsieur” or “Bonjour Madame” to the first person one makes eye contact with in any store or restaurant or “even in an elevator.” It’s a minute, but extremely important bit of information to share with Americans who are by nature accustomed to a thin veneer of anonymity when out in public. That and the knowledge that even the most feeble attempt by an American to speak French goes a very long way with Parisians. Having French-speaking abilities on par with a backwards two year-old, I found this comforting knowledge and entirely true in practice.

I purchased a copy of The Sweet Life in Paris the afternoon before leaving on my trip, hoping to read it on the flight over. It’s a smooth, pleasurable read that I decided to put down at around page 200 so that I might finish up in the city itself.

Perhaps I should have read one chapter further…

Prior to my visit, I contacted Mr. Lebovitz, suggesting that we might meet up for lunch or a glass of wine so that I might talk to him about this latest book of his, to which he politely agreed. Two days into my stay, I resumed reading and was horrified by what I read next:

In “The Visitors”, Lebovitz shares his growing distaste for out-of-towners– especially friends of friends– who expect him to drop everything to meet up with them. Here’s an excerpt:

The final straw was when one of those friends-of-friends types, whom I foolishly agreed to meet, deeply insulted a waiter at what was once my favorite café in the Marais. The charming waiter, who liked to joke around with me, said to this fellow, who ordered his drink in English, “You should try to speak a little French, after all, you are in France!” To which my gracious guest glared and shot back, “You know what? I don’t even want to try.” It would have looked a little funny trying to disappear by sliding under the table, so instead, I gulped down my drink quickly and got out of there as politely as I could And I haven’t gathered up the courage to go back. After that, I swore off guests forever.

As an out-of-town friend-of-friend, I gulped and quickly shot him off an email underscoring the fact that lunch or drinks or shiny baubles were on me. 

I had short list of questions I wanted to ask Lebovitz when we finally met up for lunch, which happened at 5 pm and turned into a bottle of wine and no food except the obligatory bar snack that seems to arrive anywhere, anytime you order a drink in Paris. And I don’t think I asked a single book-related question. I didn’t really care. I was enjoying myself.

Some people read better on paper than they do in person. Sometimes the persona a blogger dons is bigger than the one he wears in real life. Neither are true, so I discovered, with Mr. Lebovitz. 

After a couple of hours and a couple of glasses of red wine later, Lebovitz offered us some advice as to where to have dinner. With that tip, we said goodbye and I headed off to the suggested restaurant, A la Biche au Bois.

Upon arrival without a reservation, I looked the man I took to be the owner in the eye, said “Bonsoir, Monsieur,” and, in my terrible French, apologized for not having a reservation, but that we would very much like to “eat of the food here.” He looked around at the very crowded restaurant and back at me to say, “There is no room  for you!” Then he paused a moment and said, gruffly, “Come back in 45 minutes.” 

45 minutes. No problem. But he didn’t take our name, which would have been the expectation, had this been happening here in San Francisco. Instead of worrying about it, we just decided to do as he said, go next door, and drink a kir or two (which happens to be the first recipe on offer in The Sweet Life in Paris and purely a coincidental occurrence). 

At the agreed-upon time, we re-appeared, and so did the tall, bald linebacker of a man who told us to come back in the first place. He waved us to the rear of the restaurant and wedged us into a tiny table next to the service station, where a basket of old silver spoons lay tantalizingly within reach.

In short, the meal was simple and wonderful. It remains one of the favorite memories of my stay in Paris. And the best part of all? When Monsieur Gruffiness came by at the end of our meal, he looked at our water glasses and said, “You’d better drink up, boys.”  We did as we were told and emptied them in a gulp.  He then refilled them with Armagnac from an obscenely large bottle he held under his arm. His serious scowl was replaced by a grin which led me to think he may have had one or two snorts himself. He roamed the place pouring out the bottle to his guests. 

From the moment I entered the restaurant to the time I left, I  played the “W.W.D.L.D.”* game. From how I said hello, to what I ordered, to how I attacked the cheese platter, to how I eventually (and reluctantly) said goodnight.

It was a little bit of Paris for which I am grateful. Though it could be argued that nearly any Paris guide could lead you to such a place, how many of them will tell you,  an American in Paris, what to do when you get there? The Sweet Life in Paris does.

And, of course, the others don’t have recipes. 

 

*What Would David Lebovitz Do?

Bismarcks: Storming the Gates of Paris

I’ve currently got Paris on the brain. I’m about to invade that city for a week of eating and drinking and wandering and thinking.

So, naturally, the first thing to pop into my head for today’s post was, “Oh, I should do something German.“

Because that’s how my mind works.

Oh, it’s not what you’re thinking. My mind has been on the Franco-Prussian War, naturally enough, since I’m currently re-reading The Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne. 

Paris is a city that has been, at least historically, in perpetual turmoil. It started with the Norsemen pillaging and burning the town until they were bought off with a big chunk of land in the North (Normandy). Only to see those same Normans a couple of centuries later restyling themselves as Englishmen and setting the country afire during a little conflict known as The 100 Years War.

Then, of course, there were several plagues, internal revolts, sieges, and revolutions– 1789, 1830, and 1848 (twice in three months), World Wars I and II, and a near-revolution in 1968.

But never did the city of Paris suffer more than during what the French refer to as L’Année Terrible, 1870-1871.

The Year in Review

A sickly Emperor Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 19th, 1870, hoping to distract people from the problems at home in his dying Empire. It was a bad move, but one made with characteristically Gallic flair. The French were trounced, the Emperor was captured six weeks later at Sedan, and that was pretty much that.

Or so the Parisians thought. They celebrated the fall of the Empire with a lot of cheering and declared The Third Republic two days later. The war was lost, but at least it was over.

Or not. The Prussians, with the iron-willed, iron-fisted, all-around Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck forging policy, kept on coming. The French, Bismarck felt, needed to be taught a lesson. 

So they marched on Paris.

Surrounding the city, the Prussians sought to starve Paris into capitulation. For five months, the only contact Paris had with the outside world was via hot air balloons floating up and over the enemy filled with letters and dispatches from those trapped inside. The only messages in came from an occasional carrier pigeon. Rats, horses, house pets and nearly every animal in the zoo (one exception being monkeys because, apparently, the Parisians embraced Darwinism) were consumed by the hungry Parisians in their effort to fend off starvation*. By the time the French surrendered, Germany had united over the near-dead body of France and declared itself an empire. At the palace of Versailles, of all places. Nice touch.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

As happened so often in Paris, the working class sparked a revolt, leading to a government take-over. In a nutshell, The Paris Commune was set up, socialist reforms were attempted and things went generally crazy. The Tuilleries Palace was burned to the ground, the Vendome Column toppled, even Notre Dame barely escaped destruction– it’s benches had been piled up and doused with kerosene but was saved at the last minute.

The Commune ultimately failed– stamped out by the what was left of the French government and army in the bloodiest moment of the city’s history– 20,000 Parisians were slaughtered in just one week alone. The city was shattered.

Or was it?

What has always amazed me is the resilience of Paris. Each time it is beaten down, it seems to come back a little bit stronger. After a year of alienation, isolation, the pounding and ensuing humiliation by a stronger enemy, self-destruction, and thanks to a 5 billion franc war reparation bill, crippling debt, Paris rebounded into one of the most brilliant (or at least, fondly remembered) periods of its history– La Belle Epoque, which lasted nearly 43 years. Solidly, it returned to and confirmed its status as the cultural capital of Europe, if not the world.

It’s as though Paris can historically shake off its woes with its world-famous shrug.

So why the history lesson today? 

Well, I’m coming out of my own p’tit année terrible, one that strangely mimics the year Paris faced, but on a much smaller, human scale. So I’m off to see how the Parisians manage it; to do a little shrugging of my own, you might say. I will eat and wander and observe the natives in a place that is more than likely Bismarck-free both in terms of the pastry and the guy who brought Paris to its knees. Or the one who brought me to mine, for that matter.

And maybe I’m hoping for a little belle époque of my own to begin. 43 years? Yeah, I think that will do. That will do nicely.

I will be back blogging June 19th.

 

* On the bright side, the Parisians were never in any danger of running out of wine.

Bismarcks

Bismarck is the Canadian/American name for the German pastry Berliner, as in John F. Kennedy’s famous declaration, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” In Berlin, however, they are referred to as Pfannkuchen. 

Call it whatever you like.

Apart from the time spent allowing the yeast dough to rise, these doughnuts are relatively simple to make. And delicious– the unfilled pastry being light and airy and not especially sweet. Fill them with whatever you like, sweet or savory. Hell, toast one and use it to bookend a hamburger, while we’re eating things named after German cities.

It’s a good thing Kennedy wasn’t in Hamburg when he decided to make that speech. Or worse, Vienna.

Ingredients

Makes 12 Bismarcks

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole milk

2 packages of yeast

4 tablespoons of sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

8 egg yolks

a pinch of salt

Raspberry Jam for filling

Powdered sugar for dusting

Preparation:

1. In a saucepan, bring milk to a boil. Turn off heat and stir in butter and sugar. Cool to lukewarm. Sprinkle yeast over the top of the milk mixture and leave it to bloom and reanimate for about 10 to 15 minutes, until it starts to foam up.

2. Add this yeasty liquid to a large bowl in which the flour and salt have been patiently waiting. Stir and fold to combine into a sticky mess of dough. Cover with a damp, clean cloth and set in a warm place to rise for two hours.

3. With floured hands, turn dough onto a lightly-floured surface and roll to a 3/8-inch thickness. Cut into circles (I used a 3 1/2- inch cutter). Place them on a baking sheet or what-have-you and cover with the same damp cloth to rise for another 30 minutes or so.

4. Fry the Bismarcks in 350° F vegetable oil or lard for 4 minutes. I find flipping them every 30 seconds helpful for some reason. Drain on a paper towel-lined rack to cool.

5. If you are filling these pastries (and you should be or they’re not Bismarcks), if you lack a pastry syringe, cut a small opening into the side of each bun and wiggle  your knife or (what I used) scissor blade around the inside to create a small pocket into which the jam might find purchase. 

6. Put jam into a pastry bag with a plain tip. Place the tip into the pastry’s hole and pipe in the jam until it starts to spill out the side like some mortal flesh wound. The jam should be cold, like the blood of Bismarck himself.

Serve fresh, and not over anyone’s white carpeting.

On My Shelf: The Food of a Younger Land

From Mark Kurlansky, the author of Cod and Salt, comes The Food of a Younger Land  (Riverhead Books: 397 pages, $27.95)– “A portrait of American food before the national highway system– before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional– from the lost WPA files.”

That’s quite a mouthful.

Reading this book at a time in history when eating local, organic, seasonal food in an urban setting like San Francisco is either a genuine passion, a fashion statement for those wealthy enough to afford it, or somewhere in between, it’s a pleasure to find a book that chronicles a time when eating in such a manner was not a matter of choice or politics, but rather one’s only option.

Culled from boxes of manuscripts originally intended for publication nearly 70 years ago as America Eats, Kurlansky  took on the task of finishing what the Federal Writer’s Project under Katherine Kellock could not, thanks to an interruption of funding and interest created by a little something people called World War II.

Writers and would-be writers in the late 1930’s were given the task of collecting recipes, statistics, and food lore from around the country to create a comprehensive tome of American foods and local culinary traditions,region by region, the likes of which had never been attempted. All paid for by the United States government and its Federal Writer’s Project,  an organization poet W. H. Auden, as Kurlansky states, referred to as “one of the noblest and most absurd undertakings ever attempted by any state.”

While Kurlansky’s claim that American foodways are quickly becoming homogenized or altogether disappearing (for a good musing on this, please read Jane and Michael Stern’s review) is arguable, and not all of the writing is, well, brilliant (Kurlansky shares that an alarming number of entries began with the phrase, “In the Fall, when the air turns crisp…), there are a number of gems worth mining in this work.

Some (very subjective) highlights include:

“Diddy-Wah-Diddy”, a one-paragraph story by Zora Neale Hurston.

“An Oregon Protest Against Mashed Potatoes” by Claire Warner Churchill.

“New York Soda-Luncheonette Slang and Jargon”, uncredited

And, naturally, an uncredited poem entitled “Nebraskans Eat the Weiners.”

It’s good fun, and a grand source of old-fashioned– even obscure– recipes and traditions. I, for one, can’t wait to try baking a Depression Cake (p. 316), but might just take a pass (for now) on Kentucky Oysters (p. 157). Not because I’m squeamish, mind you. It’s just not the right season for it. I’ll have to just wait until the fall.

For more on The Food of a Younger Land, listen to Michael Krasny’s interview with Kurlansky on Forum.

Check, Please: How to Pay without looking like a fool or making everyone uncomfortable.

 For most diners, paying one’s bill at the finish of a restaurant meal is a simple, uncomplicated process, a no-brainer. Or should be. It never fails to amaze me how many people screw this up.

The ideal execution of bill getting-and-paying should be a near-non-event. The only words exchanged should be those of thanks between the payer and the server, and from the recipients of the evening’s generosity to one giving it.

This should be obvious to most of you out there. Hopefully.Sadly, it isn’t to everyone.

Here are a few handy tips on how to pay a restaurant bill with grace:

1. In a fine dining environment, when a server delivers the bill to a table, he or she will either place it  nearest the host or hand it directly to him/her if the host reaches out for it, or place the bill in the center of the table if the host is not clearly certain (for example, if more than one person orders wine or food for the table as a whole). Typically, we assume that the person paying is the one who asks for the check. If that happens to be you, please proceed to step 2.

2. When you are ready to make payment, place your credit card, cash, cowrie shells, or whatever method of payment is accepted inside the bill folder with just enough spilling out to indicate that you are ready to make payment. This is important. It is most likely (and hoped for) that your server will not be staring at you as you rifle through your wallet. When you have accomplished this feat, place the bill folder at the edge of the table next to you or, if you are seated in a booth, the end of the table nearest the server’s approach.

I find it surprising how many people  do not understand this small-but-important ritual. The folder could be stuffed with cash, but if it looks as though it has been both untouched and unmoved, it’s not going anywhere. Servers are often expected to read the minds of guests, but I think they deserve a little help on this one. Please, make it obvious that you are ready to give payment.

3. When the server hands you back your bill, sign it at your leisure, but when you are finished, please place it back on the edge of the table. Your server may then take it away. He (in most cases) is not taking it away out of greed, but rather to take care of the paperwork, especially if you have paid by credit card. Your bill must be closed with the proper paperwork. Read: the restaurant’s copy of the credit card receipt. If, in your wine-soaked joy of the evening, you have accidentally pocketed the receipt (and we’ve all done it at least once, waiters included), the server might gently ask you for it as you leave. You might expect your server to guess what sort of wine you might like with your pork, but do you really expect him or her to guess the amount of gratuity you’ve left? I didn’t think so.

Isn’t that easy? Yes.

Now for a couple of other hints.

You’ve been Declined

If your credit card is declined, it is not necessarily your fault (credit card companies sometimes put a hold on cards on which an unusual amount of spending has occurred at any given time, etc.), but it definitely is not your server’s. As a waiter, this can be remarkably painful. I worry that I am embarrassing one of my guests– especially one of my guests who happens to be leaving me a tip. Any server worth his salt will just treat it (outwardly) that it’s no big deal and, rather than say, “I’m sorry, your card’s been declined,” will say something to the effect of, “Excuse me, do you have another card? This one doesn’t seem to be working.” Unless I’m handed one of those black titanium American Express cards. Then I always give a little frown and tell them it’s declined. The response is invariably one of, “Uh huh. Sure it is.” And then I go away and giggle. 

Essentially, if you are planning on taking people out to dinner, have a back up payment method.If you see no reason your card should be declined, your server will be happy to make a call for you and look into it. Remain calm.

Fighting Over the Check

One of the most irritating things about waiting tables is guests fighting over the check. Suddenly, the food-and-alcohol-induced peace and harmony at the table is shattered by diners grabbing the checks and credit cards out of each others’ hands in a seriously misguided effort to pay for the meal and be “hospitable.” Or they’re just trying to play Alpha Dog. There is a certain ritual to this that must be followed:

One of your dining partners grabs the check and insists on paying. You then say, “Oh, no, I just couldn’t let you do that.” Then they counter with something like, “But I’d really like to treat you to dinner tonight. Really, it would make me very happy to do it!” You are then supposed to respond with something to the effect of, “Well… alright, if it will make you happy, but I’m taking you out next time.”

And then you’re done.

Do not, I repeat, do not drag the server into this. At my tables, I have in most cases been spending the previous two hours making sure that everyone in my charge is as comfortable and happy as possible. I am not there to referee. Taking sides is not in my economic interest. If I am approached privately by a member of a dining party who hands me his or her card and insists on paying, I will: a) run the credit card and hand back at the end of the meal, run and ready so that he or she is one step ahead of arguments, or b) if the card-giver is not the clear-cut host, I will hand the card back uncharged. To the host.

In extreme cases, when different people start shoving cards or check presenters in my face (it happens) saying everything but “Pick me! Pick me!” I am polite, but firm. And mildly, chidingly sarcastic. I tell the contenders something akin to, “Oh, you’re all just so wonderful to want to pay for dinner, I wish I could pick all of you!” I then take a step back  from the table, saying, “I can’t wait to see who wins!”

And then I walk away.

I Hate(d) Peas

Look at me, I’m eating peas. I’m nearly 40 years old and I’m eating peas. Who says middle-aged men don’t have growth spurts?

I never cared for peas as a child. Perhaps that’s too mildly put. I had always hated peas. No, still not enough. I had a terror of peas as a child.

That’s more like it.

I would not touch them, I hated looking at them, and I certainly would never eat them. If I saw them on television, I would either cover my eyes or run from the room, just as I did anytime I saw two people kissing. Peas,for no good reason, caused me acute emotional distress. When it was beef stew night in our household, I thought my mother was making it specifically to torture me.

I would spend the hours before dinner time hiding in my room, wondering what I had done to deserve something as hideous and traumatizing as beef stew made with a heavy dose of frozen Green Giant peas. When finally lured to the table with threats of punishment, I would sit quietly with my eyes puffy from crying and my hands sore from wringing, and think to myself, “what greater punishment is there than a plateful of stringy beef dotted with disintegrating potatoes, carrots, and grey-green peas?”

I couldn’t think of anything.

I would drink several glasses of milk trying to get the stuff down without having it immediately brought back up. Nights would be sleepless knowing those little green monsters were inside of me.

As I grew a little older, I learned to work my way around the peas. My place at the dinner table was closest to the Tomorrowland-blue napkin holder. I would line my lap with three or four of napkins and, when my mother wasn’t looking, dump a forkful into onto my semi-protected pants. The warmth of the stew caused an unexpectedly pleasant sensation, which I will not go into here.

When my lap was full of warm stew, I would quietly fold up my bundle with one hand while trying to keep the dogs’ noses out of my crotch with the other, and politely ask if I might be excused to go to the pantry cupboard, which was where we kept our trash bin, cereal, dog food, and was, coincidentally, very near my mother’s seat at the table. I would walk around the table, past my brother who was more than likely too busy separating all the ingredients on his plate and then eating each one in alphabetical order to notice what I was doing in my lap, past my sister and her glass of Mountain Dew that she could not seem to drink without tinting it some even-more-unnatural color with Schilling food coloring, and over to the cupboard, where I would pause and give a thoughtful look at the childhood growth markers that covered the inside of the door. When I thought my mother wasn’t looking, I would drop my bundle into the garbage.

This ritual would be repeated at least two more times during the meal.

I don’t know who I thought I was kidding. Certainly not my mother. Apparently, she just go tired of fighting with me over the peas and the stew, so she let me carry on my charade– it freed her from an annoying confrontation, it freed me from having to eat peas, and it freed everyone from having to listen to me cry and gag.

Win-win-win.

And now, I am an almost-40 year-old man eating peas. Why? I have no real idea. Perhaps I just grew out of hating them.

Then again, I may have this salad to thank…

Green Pea and Feta Salad

Serves 4

There are a few seasonal dishes we obsess about at work. This is one of them. Towards the end of every March, someone will ask our chef, Erik Cosselmon, this question: “Are peas in season yet?” The question will be repeated about every two days until peas do finally make their appearance. I never thought I would join the ranks of pea-loving waiters, but I have.

It’s an embarrassingly easy salad to make (apart from shelling the peas). The saltiness of the feta that has been creamed together with good olive oil mixes with the sweet burst of the peas as they pop inside your mouth (which is one of the things I hated about them as a child) makes for a remarkable combination.

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh English or Snap peas (typically, one pound of peas in their pod yields 1 cup of shelled peas)

About 1/3 cup feta, crumbles (Greek. Use Greek feta. Really.)

2 to 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (I will give you a pass if you don’t use the Greek stuff here)

The juice of 1/2 lemon

a small handful of both chopped mint (or cilantro) and scallion for garnish.

Preparation:

1. Blanch peas is simmering water for 1 to 2 minutes (they should appear bright green). Remove the peas and place them in an ice bath to prevent further cooking. Cool and drain.

2. In a medium-sized bowl, cream together the feta cheese and olive oil, but not obsessively. lumps are both texturally necessary and attractive. Add peas and mix enough to coat them thoroughly with the feta and oil.

3. To serve, place pea mixture in a serving-appropriate dish, squeeze the lemon over it, and garnish with mint and scallion. If you are making this dish in advance, I would advise you to add the lemon only just prior to serving. If left in contact with the peas for a long time, the lemon will turn them an unappetizing color. Just think about what lemon juice does to very dark-haired people when they rub it in their hair and then go out in the sun. Sort of like Sun In, but organic.

39 Rue de Barbe

Rhubarb. I have loved it for years. And why not? It’s a tart, refreshing, and completely extraordinary thing when handled properly.

Of course, it is also highly seasonal. It’s one of the first bits of produce to show up in markets when the ground warms up in the spring, it hangs around in the summertime, when the living is supposedly easy, but it has a predictable habit of disappearing when the weather gets rough. It’s a fair weather thing. And, though most commonly lumped together with fruits, it is, in fact a vegetable– a truth I’ve found very difficult to grasp over the past few years.

When you slow down long enough to really notice the word, when you break it down into its two syllables and sound it out, it just seems like a really bad idea.”Rue”, as a noun connotes sorrow. As a verb, it means to regret. And barb? It can mean any sharp protrusion that points backward, like a hook or an arrow. It is something that prevents easy extraction. When you put the two pieces of the word together, however, it evokes freshly baked pies and springtime. Or, of course, it can conjure up some sad, sorrowful thing that pulls you in and won’t let you go. Take your pick. I have been historically attracted to both, but that is one for my therapist. I can just see the silhouettes of the Electric Company’s Oscar-winning duo, Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno, sounding it all out for me. Rhu. Barb. Rhubarb. They make it sound like so much fun.

The Latin name for the plant, Rheum rhabarbarum, should give one pause. At its base is barbarum, which indicates that the plant was, for the Greeks and Romans at least, from some place other. In the case of the rhubarb plant, this place was the Volga river– an area at the time populated by what the “civilized” Mediterraneans considered barbarian: bearded and coarse, with a language totally incomprehensible to their own.

And Rheum? From the Latin rheuma, it means “a watery discharge from the mucous membranes, especially the eyes and nose.” Charming.

The Greek word bárbaros, by the way, refers to the sound of random, incomprehensible noises one hears when listening to a language one cannot understand. The sound they made to mimic this was “bar bar”. The terms “babble” and “blah blah”, may be derived from this. One usage of the word “rhubarb” certainly is– it is one of the words chosen by stage actors to chatter repeatedly in order to provide indecipherable background noise in crowd or party scenes.

Only the stalk of the rhubarb plant is edible. The green leaves of the plant– the part of the organism from which it derives its strength and energy– are toxic, containing the nephrotoxin oxalic acid. When eaten in quantity or over a long period of time, one may suffer kidney damage. The roots that give the plant its stability are rich in anthraquinones like emodin and rhein, which are natural laxatives and cathartics.

Well, I’ve had about enough catharsis, thank you very much. I no longer see rhubarb through the rosy-hued glasses that bare a remarkable resemblence to the color of the stalk itself. With the exception of the following recipe, I’m not giving rhubarb much thought anymore. Instead, I shall focus my energy and attention elsewhere. Like going to Paris for a week– a place where the only rue-ing I’ll be doing is wandering the streets of that city and the only barbs I will encounter are the bons mots flung by a couple of charming and very clever friends.

Now that’s the kind of rhubarb I can really get behind.

Rapaperikiisseli (Finnish Rhubarb Soup)

Serves 2 to 4, depending.

And why not Rapaperikiisseli? It is a word I do not understand and could never hope to pronounce. It’s all bar bar to me. I’ve simplified the dish somewhat, omitting the need for cornstarch. It is, in a real sense, rhubarb boiled down to its essence, with just a little help from its good friends Mr. Sugar, Señor Water, and a couple of spicy numbers from down the street. It requires little in the way of time and effort, and even less in terms of thought, which is pretty much what I should have been giving rhubarb all along.

Enjoy.

Ingredients:

2 cups cold water

2 cups rhubarb, chopped and peeled (reserve the peel for use, please)

1/2 cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick, whole

a pinch of ground clove

mint, if you like, for garnish (I am not one of those people who garnishes everything with mint. It just happens to work nicely in this particular case.

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized saucepan equipped with a lid (for future use), place water and rhubarb peel. Bring to a simmer and cook the peel until the color has been leached out. Remove and discard peel.

2. Add to the now-pink water the sugar, chopped rhubarb, and cinnamon stick. Stir, bring to a simmer, and cover. Simmer until the rhubarb falls completely apart. In my experience, it will do this with some regularity over the span of a few years. In the case of this recipe, however, give it 15 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick and let cool enough so that, when put in a blender, the top will not burst off and scald you with hot liquid.

3. When the rhubarb is blender-ready… ummm… blend. Continue to do so until it is of a smooth, even consistency. Set to chill in the refrigerator.

4. Serve chilled in appropriate serving bowls with bits of torn mint thrown over the top. Or add little fluffy clouds of whipped cream or a dollop of crème fraîche. Your choice. The rhubarb is yours to do with as you please.

Coronation Chicken Salad: Fit for a Queen.

…and, boy, I know a lot of them.

Last weekend, I was (cheerfully) roped into helping prepare and serve a “proper” English tea by an old friend who had offered up her home, her china, and her silver tea pots for the benefit of my goddaughter’s school. I have placed the word “proper” in quotation marks, because this was a tea hosted by Canadian-Americans, which means that it just might have been even more so than a true, English tea. The Canadians, after all, still celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. The English, however, have long since moved on.

Scones were baked and served with Devonshire cream, butter, and jam. Little tea cakes were made available as were a number of precious, crustless tea sandwiches: cucumber, egg salad, smoked salmon, and Coronation Chicken.

It was the last one that really caught my attention. I asked Mary Pat, my friend Shannon’s mother (and my former, formidable piano teacher), about it and she explained that the dish was called Coronation Chicken Salad because it was served at a luncheon in honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Well, that seemed straightforward enough.

It also fit in nicely with the conversation about World War II food rationing I was having with my friend Craig and my goddaughter, Zelly, on the way to their house. Don’t ask. These things just happen. We got so involved talking about u-boats, the Battle of Britain, and how Queen Elizabeth (mother of the present queen regnant) was glad Buckingham Palace was bombed so that she could then “look the East End in the face”, that we forgot to stop for some necessary but overlooked tea supplies.

The Back Story

Coronation Chicken Salad was created by chef Rosemary Hume and the credit grabbed by one Constance Spry, a social-climbing society florist when students at her Winkfield Domestic Science School (at which Miss Hume was an instructress) were asked to cater a luncheon for the leaders of the Commonwealth Nations gathering together for the new queen’s coronation.

Yes, Winkfield. The dish was anything but new at the time; merely a rehashing of the chicken in curried mayonnaise concocted for Elizabeth’s grandfather, George V, in celebration of his Silver Jubilee. The name of the dish was, unsurprisingly, “Jubilee Chicken”. And you’ll never guess what was served in honor of Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee. It’s true. Jubilee Chicken.

But we made it because we thought you loved it so much. I can just hear her mother (god rest her soul) saying that.

The recipe was published in the newspapers ahead of the coronation so that the common people might partake of what their new queen would be eating on her very special day. However, since food rationing did not end until 1954 (several months later), it is very doubtful that most of the common folk had had sufficient amounts of chicken and dairy products on hand to whip of a batch of the stuff. If they had learned anything in 14 years of food restrictions and shortages, it was to make do, to improvise. Perhaps that is why there are so many different versions of this particular salad. Individual households approximated the dish with what they had on hand.

Today’s Coronation Chicken Salad is, essentially, cold chicken in curried mayonnaise. Simple but good. The original version, however, is a much more complex organism that included a cooked-down sauce of red wine, bay leaf, and tomato purée, and an addition of apricot purée and heavy cream. Throw in some mayonnaise and curry powder and… I’ll put it this way– I get the feeling that anyone who ate it would be spending more time on the throne than Elizabeth Regina.

Coronation-ish Chicken Salad

This is not the original recipe. Given the food rationing of the time, I think it’s entirely in the spirit of the thing to improvise with ingredients one has on hand. For example, if a bottle of red wine is opened in my house, there will never be any left over for use in a chicken salad. Instead, I have added vinegar. I’ve also omitted the original call for heavy cream, and the cooking of the onions, owing to my own preference for bolder flavors and an even stronger tendency towards laziness. Feel free to add or subtract whatever ingredients you like. Except for chicken, mayonnaise, and curry powder. I don’t mind, and I don’t think Her Britannic Majesty will mind much, either. For the original recipe, please visit The Greasy Spoon, a site I stumbled upon and of which I am now rather fond.

Note: I had chosen to serve my salad clad in nothing but a crown of watercress. Upon examination of the opening photo, however, I realized that crowns are meant to be worn upon the head, not sat upon. It is a small but important error. If it bothers you, please feel free to turn the whole thing upside down and place upon your head or the head of the queen nearest you.

Ingredients:

Serves 4 to 6

4 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, poached and diced

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon curry powder (more or less, according to taste.)

2 tablespoons mango chutney or apricot preserves

1/2 yellow onion, finely diced

1 stalk celery, finely diced

1/4 cup currants or raisins

1 tablespoon vinegar: cider, champagne or whatever

the juice of 1/2 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup chopped cashews for garnish

watercress, washed and de-stemmed, for garnish

Preparation:

1. Combine mayonnaise, curry powder, vinegar, chutney, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Stir well.

2. Throw in the chopped chicken breast meat, celery, and currants/raisins. Stir until everything is well-coated.

3. Refrigerate overnight to let all the ingredients get to know each other a little better.

4. To serve, place on a bed of watercress and top with chopped cashews. Or slap some between two slices of bread. I will leave the decision of whether or not to discard the bread crust up to you.