Cooking with Capote: #Fail!

I don’t know what I was thinking.

I was whinging to Darcy that I got zero comments on my first installment of the “Cooking With Capote” feature.

Darcy: “Why the hell did you pick Truman Capote?  Is he a famous food writer?”

Me: “No.  I just liked his memoir of making fruitcake with his aunt.”

Darcy: “What about Peter Mayle?  Frances Mayes?  M. F. K. Fisher?”

Me: “Um…”

Darcy: “Don’t you think you’re asking a lot from your readers?  They have to write up a long story about what they’re cooking now, too?  And you put a bunch of pressure on them to make it ‘well-written.’  Who has time for that?!?”

Me: “Um…”

Darcy: “It’s not like you’re some influential blogger.  What do you have, 30 twitter followers?”

Me: “Actually, one of my spambots un-followed me, so, 29.”

Darcy: “Maybe you should take away the community aspect and just do your own cooking posts.”

Me: sadface

What do you think, dear readers?  Is Darcy right?  Should I just do my own cooking posts?  Am I asking too much?  What if you could post old, already written cooking posts to the feature?

I also spoke to my brother, the MFA, and he directed me to a fellow student’s hugely popular blog, Anecdotes and Apples, which contains some of the most heartbreaking food writing I’ve ever come across.  Man.  Bring your kleenex.

But reading it conversely convinced me of the value of us all sharing our food lore.  Food makes us feel BETTER, cooking provides us with a way to show our love, acceptance of our lot in life for now, and hope for better things in the future.  Bodega, while in the middle of having to face the baby party from hell, chose to make a whoopie pie cake for the birthday girls, to show that she was “OK”, and to show her friends how much they meant to her.  That story touched me so much.

So what if I call it “Bitter Infertile Foodie Club” or some other such title that we survivors of infertility and life can agree to.  Because there’s nothing better than making delicious food for a tough day.  And I have a feeling that I would enjoy your recipes A LOT.  Or even just your descriptions of how certain foods make you feel. And how family lore and traditions are passed along.

Can we brainstorm this out? Would love to get your feedback for how this might work (or, not).

Thanks in advance. Love you all!!

Cooking The Classics: An Italian Meal, With Reservations

Cooking With Capote is a community-based writing project I am starting for the month of April.  The goal is to encourage bloggers to write about food, but specifically: their emotional attachments, stories and family lore around certain culinary traditions.  It is a way to cull together a collection of well-written food memoirs and recipes.  A sort of writerly version of those dreadful Junior League cookbooks our mothers once purchased and used.

Tuscany.  The name conjures plenty of cliches about sunflowers, vineyards, rolling verdant hills and castles.  Doesn’t everyone in the world imagine themselves meandering through the wine country and beginning a life of cooking and eating well?

I went there myself with the simple idea that because I was in this famous land of enchanted cuisine, the fairy dust of centuries of epicurean excellence would just wear off on me.

We decided to rent a villa with a kitchen in the middle of a vineyard.  I imagined it would look like this:

Photo credit: By Samuel Sloan (Modern Architect) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In reality, it looked like this:

Photo credit: Public domain, via Oven Fresh.

I exaggerate, except, not.  The nearest market, a five mile trek through sketchy one lane dirt roads, possessed Buitoni pasta, tomatoes that looked like they were grown in a hothouse and waxy-looking basil.

During our vacation, I cooked pasta that might as well have been produced in Milwaukee.  No offense, Milwaukee.  Your pasta probably tastes loads better.  Our meals sucked, the “villa” sucked, Tuscany sucked.  I tell everyone I know that  I. Hate. Tuscany.  Everyone looks at me like I have seven gelato-shaped heads.

Me, contemplating the bad food, in Tuscany.  I lived in London at the time, and had decided I should look like a walking advert for Burberry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe that if you want to go to Tuscany, and really enjoy the experience, either don’t do it on a budget, or stay in a town like Siena or San Gimignano.

All of this is a long-winded tale as to why I have a love-hate relationship with cooking Italiano.

I had this elaborate plan to cook poached salmon with dill tonight.  I was forced to abort that mission rather abruptly when our local market had no dill.  (And they always have dill!).  I decided instead to cook gnocchi, the one Italian pasta I have a love-love relationship with, and so I bought the really expensive $19.99 gnocchi, stuffed with porcini mushrooms.  Imported from Milwaukee Italy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know, you are blanching at the price.  But, it makes at least three meals worth of dinner.  So says I.

I decided to accompany the gnocchi with rainbow chard.  Now, I am wary of Michael Pollan.  I’ve read “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food”.  I disagree with him on many points.  I agree with him about a few things: CSA farmers and the wonders of rainbow chard.  I LOVE rainbow chard.  It is the most delicious vegetable: in fact, there is a close tie between rainbow chard and brussels sprouts in my mind for BEST vegetable.  (Now I’ve completely lost you.  I probably already lost you at the Tuscany hate.)

I decided to use a wonderful-looking Food and Wine recipe. I pulled out the Chard.  Somehow, our crisper made it REAL crisp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whoops!  I thawed it in the strainer with warm water.  Then I worked on the prep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a beautiful vegetable.  The prep was a bit finicky.  I had to cut out the “ribs” and cut the leaves into two-inch strips.

Meanwhile, I picked sage from our herb garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I boiled the gnocchi until it floated to the top of the water.  I fried the sage in brown butter, then gently cooked the gnocchi in the brown butter.  It looked like this when ready:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was divine.  Take that, Buitoni.

The rainbow chard turned out delicious as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t LOOK delicious, because the natural light was gone by the time I finally made it.

All this is a big apology to Italian cooking.  Apparently, I had to return to my native California to be able to cook real Italian food.

Please comment below with a link to your own recipe or dinner.  Share the food love.

April: Joyful Community Cooking Project!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had this sincere, earnest goal for the month of March: meditate.  It didn’t really happen. Why?

1. I just don’t feel like I have anything new or worthy to say about the subject.  There are much better, more profound teachers who have covered this topic.  I did find my happy place to meditate in; I just didn’t have time to go there.
2. Part of meditating is being in the moment. I had a strange realization the other day: I am almost always COMPLETELY in the moment.   Making breakfast, packing lunch, getting the kids dressed, driving them to school, cleaning, laundry, picking them up from school, getting them to nap, more cleaning, writing, snack time, potty time, supervised play, dinner prep, dinner, play, bath, PJs, bed, listening to Darcy’s day, writing, tweeting, bed.

I don’t have time for my thoughts to wander. I have a hard time even thinking about tomorrow. This is probably the most zen I’ve been in my life.

—-

I did discover one thing that did bring me joy in March, and it’s the most unlikely of things.  I love cooking for my family on Saturdays.  I like bringing back the traditions of my family, my holidays, my youth, and even my travel via food.

In April, this is what I will be focusing on: not just making healthy food or under 30 minute dinners or crazy dining olympic feats of daring, but cooking as a way to bring back the past, create family lore and offer a way to bond community, among small groups and large ones.

—

“I knew it before I got out of bed,” she says, turning away from the window with a purposeful excitement in her eyes. “The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear.  And there were no birds singing; they’ve gone to warmer country, yes indeed.  Oh, Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy.  Help me find my hat.  We’ve thirty cakes to bake.”

Some of my favorite writing, ever, was in “A Christmas Memory”, by Truman Capote.  He describes how he (as a young boy) and a gentle, slow aunt gradually accumulated the fixings, then cooked the Southern Fruitcakes that they send to everyone they liked, including FDR.  So Capote is my figurehead of sorts: my inspiration.

Cooking with Capote, I’m calling it.  Every Sunday, I will be posting the results of my own Saturday meal – the theme, the tradition behind it, the recipes.  And I’d love for this to become a communal thing.  So I’m inviting y’all to post your own meal or just a dish or dessert which has special meaning for you (and explain why).  You are all such fine writers, that I feel we could generate some real, Proustian moments here. (See Lori, I used that word again!)  Link your awesome post to my Sunday entry in the comments.

Even if no one comments, that’s OK.  But it would rad for us to make a cool,writerly version of those stupid Junior League cookbooks everyone’s Mom used to have…

Are you in?