Peaches: Eat Me, J. Alfred Prufrock.

Some things stay with you forever, no matter how hard you might try to forget them. Sights, sounds, smells, words. You name it. You might not think about them on a daily basis, but they are filed away, ready to jump you at the strangest of times. Things like the scent of glue sticks or the melody of some Bangles song playing in the background the night your first boyfriend broke up with you. You think you’ve buried them, but they keep rising up and biting you on the ass like directionally-impaired zombies who hunger for your brain.

My personal undead companion of the summer has been a small chunk of lines from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of  J. Alfred Prufrock”, which I learned in high school and, evidently, never quite unlearned. I think of them every time I encounter a peach, which is often, given the season:

I grow old… I grow old…

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

When I first heard the poem as read to me by a wonderfully hammy , Scottish-brogued English instructor, I didn’t take away any sense of Prufrock’s failure, isolation, or tortured psyche. No, all I took away at the time was:

What’s with the peach? Why can’t an old guy eat a damned peach? It’s a soft fruit for God’s sake. He could probably gum the thing to death.

And then I went back to reading Sylvia Plath because I was so sensitive.

Well, like Mr. Prufrock, I grow old, though I doubt very much that I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, since I can usually be found in shorts. I am, however, much older than I ever thought I would be. And I happen to like that just fine. It’s just that half of the men on my mother’s side of the family never made it past their 30’s. In a few days, barring accidents, I will have reached 40– mid-life or, if put into seasonal terms, Midsummer. Not old, but, as I see it, just about right. To borrow from another literary source, I may be, like Miss Jean Brodie minus her attraction to Fascism, in my prime.

I think it more than just coincidence then that  Midsummer is when peaches are in their prime. Fully ripened, barely hanging onto the tree, easily bruised, and fuzz to be found in nearly every nook and cranny. God, I’m like a peach in more ways than I had previously imagined. No wonder that bits of a monologue-style poem I learned about an older guy briefly wondering about fruit has come to back haunt me.

And so I leave you with a simple recipe that will help keep me and my fellow peaches in good, supple form for just a little longer than the typical season allows.

Oh, and Mr. Prufrock? Go ahead, eat me. You know you want to.

Brandied Peaches (adapted from the Linton Hopkins recipe at Food & Wine)

What better way to preserve the beauty of a just-ripe peach than with the help of a little alcohol? It’s like fruit botox, but vegan.

Serves 6 to 12

Ingredients:

6 small to medium-sized peaches. Free stones. Really, cling stones are a real pain in the ass.

1 ½ cups water

2 cups sugar

2 cups brandy

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon of cardamom

Preparation:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, then reduce to simmering. Cut a small “x” on the bottom of peaches with a sharp knife and gently lower them into the water. Leave the peaches in the water until their skins loosen and their screaming stops. Remove with a slotted spoon and let cool.

2. In a large saucepan, combine sugar, water, cinnamon, and cardamom over high heat, stirring occasionally to ensure that the sugar is dissolved. Simmer for about five minutes, until a lovely syrup is formed. And I do mean lovely.

3. Excorticate peaches when they are cool enough to handle. Cut in half, remove pits (or stones, if you are English or Canadian), then transfer them to a hot, 2-quart canning jar or 2 1-quart canning jars, equally hot.

4. Add brandy to the syrup and bring to a boil. Ladle the hot syrup over the peaches and close the jar(s) tightly. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least on week before serving. The pickled peaches can be stored in your refrigerator for up to three months. As if they would really last that long.

The Martuna: A Sandwich in Every Glass

“Do you have a cocktail list?” is one of the first questions I am often asked as a waiter in an upscale restaurant. It is one of the few questions I get to cheerfully answer with a big “no.”

“You should really have one,” is sometimes the response that follows. “Don’t you have a signature cocktail or something?”

No, we really, really shouldn’t and no, we do not.

And then I get to say something along the lines of “Well, we thought about it for a while, but Greeks don’t really drink cocktails– they drink wine, and beer, and ouzo. I suppose we could mix them all together for you, if you like.”

More often than not, they will need a moment to get the imaginary taste of that concoction out of their mouths and regroup. Quite often, their drink of choice ends up something depressing, like a Cosmopolitan, or something perfectly respectable but equally unimaginative, like a martini. And the  martini that is ordered is often done so incorrectly.

On one hand, I do see the point of cocktail lists. People seem to need help with their drinking. The thought of facing a full bar stocked with hundreds of liquors blended into thousands of different combinations is enough to pickle anyone’s brain, even before it has become clouded with alcohol and a little printed instruction can often help a drinker narrow his choices to those that the list-offering establishment feels it does best.

On the other, heavier hand, I am tired of the fact that nearly every watering hole seems to have a menu of “signature cocktails” There are a few places around town (Alembic, Aziza, and Clock Bar, to name a few good ones) that offer up delicious, inventive cocktails that are, in fact, unique and they rightly highlight them in menu form. It’s all the others I take issue with. The So-and-so Martini (made with Ketel One and a splash of cranberry!). That is not a signature cocktail, that’s called pushing premium liquor. It’s also called a Cape Cod in a Martini glass.

I am also tired of the general lack of creative naming. So many venues have several (insert noun here)-tinis: The Saketini, The Mangotini, The Weenytini, or The (insert name of venue) Cosmo.

Enough already.

If one is going to create a signature cocktail, I say make it memorable. Make a statement. Create a drink philosophy and apply it to your inventions. I have currently been looking for a way to help alcoholics get more nutritional bang out of their cocktails by creating a series of meals-in-a-glass.

When discussing this idea the other night over dinner, my friend Jen stared at her beer for a moment and declared, “You know what I like about beer? It’s like there’s a sandwich in every glass.”

And so the idea took off. All sorts of cocktail ideas poured out of my friends as quickly as the beer was being poured into them, all mocking the “tini” trend: The BLTini, The Pork n’ Beanitini, the super-spicy TNTini. And then, when discussing Nabokov, somebody came up with the Tweeni. I don’t even want to think about what might go into one of those.

So today, I leave you with a future, classic drink– my first “signature cocktail”. It’s much more than a drink; it’s an entire meal unto itself– a perfect little lunchtime tipple. And, to keep Jen happy, there’s a sandwich in every glass.

The Martuna

Serves one. It will most likely be the only one.

Ingredients:

3 parts vodka

1 part canned spring water from your favorite can of tuna. Do not use oil-packed.

Ice

Mayonnaise

Ruffles potato chips, crushed. Whichever flavor you prefer

Cornichons

Preparation:

1. In a mortar and pestle, crush potato chips until fine, but not too fine– you still want a hint of their ridges to show. Empty the crushed chips onto a small, round plate in an even layer.

2. Smooth about 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise across the bottom of a similar plate. Gently coat the rim of the glass with the mayonnaise, then roll the now-wet rim into the crushed chips to create an even, attractive coating.

3. In a cocktail shaker, place ice, vodka, and tuna water. Shake vigorously.

4. Pour cocktail into the awaiting glass and garnish with cornichons.

Serve immediately.

Variations:

There are two classic twists on this All-American cocktail:

For a Martuna-on-Rye, replace the vodka with Akvavit.

For a Martuna Melt, simply swap out the mayonnaise for melted Velveeta cheese.

On My Shelf: I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

If the way to a man’s heart is truly through his stomach, Giulia Melucci has tried every trick in the book.

Or, at least in her book, I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. As the title might imply, she’s still looking for the right stomach.

In her memoir of loves won and lost, Melucci takes us on a culinary tour of her love life– from the loss of her virginity to the near regaining of it, with several interesting but ultimately wrong-for-her men showing up in between– the notable ones being given their own chapters, as they were, in fact, chapters in the author’s own life.

Though none of the men may have lead her down the aisle, Melucci’s natural instincts lead her into the kitchen with excellent results: the recipes woven into the chapters read like a kind of food diary and are alarmingly accurate indicators of the author’s state of mind– or heart, as the case may be.

In the chapter “The Ethan Binder School of Cooking”, Melucci’s Seder menu and the time devoted to its preparation read as serious commitment. To anyone who understands the meaning that often lay beneath cooking beyond the need for basic sustenance, the meal says “I love you and want to be part of your life” more clearly than any love letter. By substituting Broccoli di Rape for bitter herbs, the Brooklyn-born Italian-American author subtly injects her own identity into the menu, suggesting a desire to share her life with Ethan rather than totally sublimate it.

In the following chapter, “Mitch Smith Licked the Plate,” there are few recipes and those that are speak of disappointment and compromise (Italian Grilled Cheese for Teenage WASPs, String Bean and Potato Salad for Gringos). What else can be expected when writing about a man who could only go as far as admitting that he was “deeply drawn” to Melucci, but could never mention the word love?

Oh, and the Fuck-You Cakes (yellow cake, of course) that follow the break up of another relationship are priceless.

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti, is alternately amusing, frustrating, heartbreaking, and hopeful. It would have lost me, had the author chosen to blame her marital status woes solely on the shoulders of her lovers. Fortunately, she doesn’t:

…I had a remarkable ability for turning any picture into the picture I wanted to see: me with a husband. My imagination had the flexibility of a thirteen-year-old Chinese gymnast.

I found myself rooting for Melucci, but cringing a bit with each new chapter thanks to the giveaway in the title of the book– that each new relationship would ultimately end. For anyone who has ever loved and lost, and who loves good food, I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti is worth a read.

Even if it’s just for the Fuck-You Cakes.

Meet Giulia Melucci to discuss her book in person at Omnivore Books Saturday, July 11th from 3 to 4 pm.

Omnivore Books on Food

3885a Cesar Chavez Street (at Church)

San Francisco, CA 94131

415.282.4712

Happy 4th: From My Village to Yours.

Watermelon Salad

Where I work, there is 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.