Brat Like Me » food

A Culinary Tale

Jean Curtis — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:23:40 +0000

It was magic. I had hearty leftovers with big ideas. Some pork, some roasted root veg could so easily be made into omelets or bubble-n-squeak, but no I remembered a trick my mama used to do. If I was hungry and the dinner window was not open, she would give me a snack that wouldn’t curb my appetite. She would offer healthy foods done all fun like. I was of the generation before baby carrots, so she would thinly slice cute carrots for me to nibble on while I waited for dinner. Her other trick if carrots were not available was the ol’ toothpick routine. You see, offer a child anything in bite-sized pieces with a toothpick and you hit gold. She would give me a small dish of red kidney beans with a toothpick that shut me up until dinner was ready. It’s all about presentation, I tell you. So riding this wave, I thought what could be more funner than soufflé?! Not a damn thing. I’ve made a fair bit of soufflé and nary a catastrophe have I encountered. Until, that is, I tried my first savory soufflé. It all worked out so perfect. The leftovers a-go-go, the soufflé mash nicely fluffed and the timing right on. I stuck it in the oven and got a great rise. But let me tell you, the soufflé doth rose but it was a total flop. For some reason, the innards were an absolute stream. Boo! And there goes my blog post. “no, soufflé is so easy, why don’t people do it more often?” I’d ponder. “Are they afraid of a little egg fluffing?” Ha ha, but the joke is on me. Brent thinks the oven was too hot. I think he was right (but, please don’t tell him. It’ll ruin my perfect score). I recooked the little bastards and they cooked all the way through. At that point, it was more omelet, less soufflé.

Cut to the next day. My soufflé debacle slept on and a need for our next soup. I’m trying to always have a pot of soup on the stove to keep us healthy and warm. I know you can’t stick a toothpick in soup, but the kids enjoy it mostly. From where I eat lunch I can see the chicken coup. It’s a coup with too many roosters. I want to make soup … I have too many roosters … I look at recipes. There’s one that I’ve made before called “poule au pot” that is LOVELY. You stick an entire chicken in a pot and make it all soupy with yummy legumes. I don’t have a chicken. Though I notice, one finger pointing at a recipe calling for “farmer’s chicken” and four fingers pointing back at me (well, three fingers pointing back at me and a thumb in desperate need of a manicure pointing down at the ground somewhat). Aw well, I’ll go do the laundry. I’m not afraid to air my dirty laundry. We have a lot of it as we are a family of six and making dirty laundry seems like our M.O. I hear a squawk. I hear a thump. I see a black chicken fall. Legend is fairly good with the chickens, but has an uncontrollable need to chase ten specific chickens. Sadly, Zora was one of those chickens. She would have gotten away were it not for that nasty window she thunked into. It wasn’t looking good for Zora, so I had to act fast. I suddenly saw soup in our future. I gave Zora a few moments to recover from her nasty run-in with the window to see if she’d perk up. She didn’t. Then off to youTube for “chicken processing.” TONS of videos on how to process chicken. And so off I went. I will tell you this, the “coning” went fine. The plucking needs work. The gutting went okay. The smell of the soup bubbling away, divine. I woud’ve kept Zora for eggs, but she made a wrong turn into a window. We’ll soon see how the poule au pot turns out. As with most great things, it’ll take some time.

Well, I’m a Sel Snob

Jean Curtis — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:57:18 +0000

Thankfully it fits within my peasant farmer budget. In Seattle, I was approaching Salmon Snob. I never could master salmon ‘ella ella ella … eh eh eh. But, I really loved that white, wild caught white salmon that turned up at my favorite fishmonger to which I paid my yuppie premium. No, but salt. I can tell you now that I prefer sel de Guérande to sel de Camargue. I taste it. I could prolly do a blind taste-off. It’s rad. I’m pretty satisfied with your run-of-the-mill sel de gris, but give me a Guérande and fah-guetta-bout-it. Love that taste It’s truly better. Husband is playing Britney. K. now J-loi and Pitbull doh! now David Guetta (well not so bad and hard to avoid as he dominates the radio and I hate him but DAMN! everything he creates makes you want t screeeeeeeeam! and here you are reading a silly little post about salt not knowing shit about David Guetta. knowing more than you knew about David Guetta. you go!). K. done here.

Cinnamon Buns

Jean Curtis — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:07:23 +0000

Well, cinnamon rolls really. Our family loves the word “buns.” I make buns every so often. I could even see myself running a line of Jean’s Buns in the future. I’ll stick anything in a bun with sauce. My mom every so often would make cinnamon rolls for Christmas day. I thought I’d giver ‘er a go this year and makes me some buns. It was my first effort. Though they were edible, they were also a bit delayed. I was hoping to pop them in the oven when the kids giddied around the house on Christmas morning. Not only do you need to raise the dough once, after you roll your cute, little buns, you need to raise them again for a couple of hours. And according to Nutella WeatherCam ™, it was a bit frosty today. Which means inside this Gascon house, Nutella spreading requires heated crêpe to spread. This is all to say that my dough doth not riseth. I did nestle it in all cozy like next to Mr. Green, but I think the yeast had checked out. I did get a little rise out of it and decided to stick it in the oven to see what would happen. After twenty minutes, delicious buns emerged. I popped a quick sugar glaze on those babies and off they went.

Now with each passing day, I find myself more of a Fannie Farmer kinda girl. It’s the cookbook that instructs recipe after recipe to stick shit in a bowl, mix it, cook it. After twenty minutes, everything comes out just fine. I do, however, have a pile of Cooks Illustrated material. I often start there when I’m trying something new. Quickly I descend into a mumbling housewife, looking for her wine and wondering when this damn Cooks Illustrated recipe will get on with it already. They tend to go ON AND ON about how they determined this recipe to be “the best” recipe. And, I don’t care. I do enjoy many of their recipes, but I wish they were five double-clicks removed from what they publish. So many times have I started with Cooks Illustrated, got pissed and began to abandoned steps left and right. It’s rebelish. It’s liberating. Then I consult Fannie Farmer and low-and-behold, my missing steps match up with the Fannie version. Fannie is for people who want to cook good shit without all the pots, pans and nonsense. This cinnamon roll recipe was the makings of Cooks Illustrated with the execution of Fannie. Even with sheepish yeast, the buns tasted a’ite.

Thanksgiving In Parts

Jean Curtis — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:40:29 +0000

Back in America we would host Aliens Thanksgiving. Every year, Seattle has a lot of foreigners wandering around on the fourth Thursday of November wondering, “where the heck is everybody?” We’d turn on a little turkey beacon and invite them in. I was usually the only American at the table and was forced to explain the meaning of thanksgiving. I’d mumble something about crazed European nutters taking over other people’s land in search of help from the locals to get up and running while simultaneously killing themselves and the natives with disease, laughing it all off at the end of the day with some corn on the cob. Now please, pass the stuffing. No, but really it’s a feast of brown and good friends and warming up the imminent cold, dark days.

Lucy sets the table for everyone. She refused to do a “kids table.”

Now that we’re in France, I’ve missed our cloud of aliens eating, drinking and giggling. Each year we’d meet new people as the aliens would get married, have children or bring other aliens. One dude married an American who increased our native count to two (love ya Kris!!). Brent did most of the cooking, Kevin played sous chef and I picked up the rest. Kevin caught a moment during 2002 when Brent, dressed in chef wear, had just pulled out the Turkey. Bassam is playing the role of restaurant owner. This photo is in my kitchen and I cherish it.

The dust of our new life in France has settled a bit and we’ve managed to put on a proper American feast. Brent is officially American now so as a family, we are the aliens. We had British and Australian representation as well as a lovely Scottish accent and a Swede at the table. I cooked as much as I could the day before and prepped the rest the morning of. It was a little difficult because I burnt the crap out of my hand two nights ago. Not unlike Mr. Toht from Raiders of The Lost Ark, I felt I should model a replica of the scar and see if it will lead to forgotten treasure. Instead I prepared the turkey with the fat-salt-pepper routine and learned first hand what salt does to an open wound. With thanksgiving dinner locked and loaded, I could relax and giggle with our guests. It was an enjoyable evening.

Tosca rests up for an evening of dropped Thanksgiving bits.

Having Thanksgiving in France forces a few tweaks in a traditional meal. The main difference is in our part of France we can’t buy a whole turkey to roast. I had dreams of raising a turkey for this day, but other important things took priority. Instead, I went to the shop to pick up a small collection of turkey parts. I managed to locate four turkey legs and two turkey roasty ball things. So we had a four-legged, two-balled turkey. I did a few turkey part roasts in the past and I’m starting to prefer this way of cooking turkey. You can pull the legs out early and let the thicker breasty-ball-roast keep cooking.

The other Thanksgiving tweak is we eat on Saturday. France is alive and working on the fourth Thursday of November. Our giant meal doesn’t fit with school the next day. The cool thing about having Thanksgiving on Saturday in France is that the next day is Sunday. On Sunday in France nothing is open. This means you are not enabled by giant money-saving super sales preying on your trypto-coma to spend your money. It’s a “spend nothing” day.

I wish all the Americans, Aliens and European nutters out there a Happy Thanksgiving.

Otto plays with the plasma ball

A Fleeting Moment On My Kitchen Bench

Jean Curtis — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:37:41 +0000

I set my glass of wine down as I was looking up a recipe in Fannie Farmer for apple pie and suddenly I felt a photo coming on. This counter is oozing with Autumn. Market apples for one fiddy, pumpkins from the neighbor and field mushrooms brought in from Brent’s pasture walk sit patiently as I prepare for processing. Last year’s garlic and shallots hang expectantly next to some dried peppers we received from another friend. I hope next year I will hang my home grown ones. They are snugged in nicely in our new veggie patch. Now I wait.

Culinary Nirvana

Jean Curtis — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:33:09 +0000

On the door of our fridge, I rolled out some white board contact paper. On it I list “what’s in the fridge.” A few days ago I hit a chef’s dream. Not only did we have various animal fats to cook with, we had a surplus of duck parts and pastured pig.

I’m very proud of the contents of my fridge. I try very hard to keep it full of local food free from packaged nonsense.

On the list was:

To Cook:

Duck Breast

Sausage Meat (made by me! and like, it tastes good! OMG!)

Foie Gras

Duck Hearts

Pumpkin Purée

Poitrine fumée

Duck yum for stock

Charcoochie-coochie:

Pâte

Brie de Maubert

Salers

Strausberg

Mirepoix on standby, champagne chilled, I was ready to cook damn near everything. I’ve not picked up foie gras in awhile because it’s been out of season as well as expensive. When our grass-fed beef is sold and loved, I hope to add our weekly foie gras back in the budget. This set of duck parts was given to us by our neighbor. Their brother accidently cut down our a boundary hedge and fence which was REALLY disappointing. Brent called them on it and they felt very bad for their mistake. A few weeks later the lady stopped by with a pile of duck. When we shared our experience with an American friend of ours, he pointed out that often this type of mistake is usually resolved with a lawsuit rather than foie gras. Honestly, I think I prefer the foie gras route.

We’re still in warm-mode. The only fires we’ve burned have been more for novelty than necessity. On the Nutella Weather Station, we’re still spreadable but with chance of stodgy bits. The Nutella is beginning to need a bit of warmth to spread. Bug the cat has assumed his winter position under Fremont. Every once in awhile he’ll step out to cool down before another warming session. GreyCute, our house-cat-in-training, has following his lead by snugging for hours on the green chair.

Hola, Jalapeño

Jean Curtis — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:40:57 +0000

A friend of ours gave us a peck of peppers. I’m not sure if there were literally a peck, but in this day-and-age, a peck to me means a shitload. We are grass fed beef farmers. I am a native southern Californian. This means I know Mexican food. Some of my bestfriends are Mexicans. I know what I like and I know what tastes good with beef. And so, my experimentation begins. I am aiming to offer a few lovely sauces to accompany our beef. I have two in mind. One, a mild tomatillo sauce that will be like crack, but better. I have my tomatillo seeds locked and loaded waiting for their time to grow. The other sauce, is a hot sauce. A few drops will do. Brent and I have experimented with a wide range of hot sauces. Two that stand out are Dave’s Insanity Sauce and Dixie’s BBQ “The Man.” These are not sauces of Mexican origin, but they are fricken hot. I would like to keep closer to baja roots and add some Southern Californian notes that will be enjoyable as well as spicy. I will refer to this magic as Substance P. That’s ‘P’ for pain. We are working on names of this sauce. Wait now, that’s it! Substance P™ . Of course a name can’t stick until you taste it. We’ll see how this batch goes.

Whenever I spend time in the kitchen, I have my peanut gallery. Tosca, Legend and Bug eagerly await meaty treats that fall on the floor. Legend picked up quickly that this dish wasn’t putting out. Tosca was the last animal standing. She finally groaned over for a nap without leaving her spot should any calories fall her way.

Hola, Jalapeño is a favorite kids book. ”Cheese is melting out your end!”

Man Potato

Jean Curtis — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:17:21 +0000

The kids dug up some potatoes for today. Lucy planted a pile of potatoes in the neglected veggie patch. Neglected by me because Zélie took priority. Despite the drought and neglect, the potatoes did very well. We have a lot of small ones, but if you keep looking you can find a “man potato.” This is what Otto exclaimed when after finding ten teeny potatoes he uncovered a giant, man potato. All up we found six man potatoes and a pile of teeny ones which made for a lovely dinner with some left over.

Blanquette De Brain Dump

Jean Curtis — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:08:33 +0000

I made blanquette de veau this evening. I’ve never cooked veal before nor have I blanked it. I work with a very cool French cookbook that I love called Ripailles that assumes you sort of know what you’re cooking. Which I don’t so it takes a few tries sometimes. I’ve consulted with resident French people who’ve helped me translate what “ajouter” and “eplucher” all mean. Google translate does a fine job with all this as well, but I like talking to people. Google translate lacks the hand gestures so passionately displayed by French people when they describe how you “eplucher” a carrot with exciting peeling hands.

I’m a huge food fluffer. I love taking photos of food. I enjoy positioning food and food paraphernalia to give it that “I’m totally doing this” feel. Yet as I cook more and more, fluffing is not necessary. I see moments where I’m cooking things and if you took a picture you would totally believe it had been fluffed. The wine half empty with flour dust on the glass, the butter so used, the carrot peel so ready for bunnies all add up to a Pottery Barn advertisement I’ve long since recycled. A friend gave us a half of pumpkin, which I processed along side the veau. A HUGE pumpkin that will give us enough pumpkin soup and pie for the winter I’m sure. I’m a firm believer in seasonal eating. You become limited in what you can cook and suddenly the possibilities are endless.

Brent’s tractor was in need of a little love and tenderness. He ordered the part and Monsieur Mechano popped by to get ‘er done. M. Mechano is a man I’ve met a few times in France. He’s an energetic lad who is mistakenly described as an old guy. He’s full of life. He’s fast. He’s funny. He’s happy. These people exist in America, but they’re rare. I’ve met a couple. We had some dead trees removed from our home in Seattle by one of these guys. To this day Brent and I still use “rock-n-roll” to mean “cut a whole lotta overgrown shit down.“ This guy would not occupy wallstreet. This guy is too busy to whine because he has stuff to do and a life to live.

Broody and the chicks are still alive and well. Broody is a fantastic mom except when it comes time to roost. When the sun begins to set, Broody snugs in to her spot. If the chicks join her then great, but if not … meh, no worries. So each night, at “chickie hour” I let whatever I’m cooking simmer for a minute and pop the chickies in with Broody. I find them huddled together under the coop trying to keep warm while Broody settles in for the evening after a long day. She did this with her adopted chicks. Some point soon, the little chicks catch on and hop in the coop with mom.

What Do You Have?

Jean Curtis — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:42:04 +0000

A friend of ours, let’s call him “Josh,” gave us a cookbook all about cooking pork. Many, many pages dedicated to cooking everything but the oink. Sadly he gave us this book at a time when we were experimenting with ways to feed our family. The pork book arrived at our “vegan phase.” I doubt this was a cookbook-of-the-month regift opportunity and we thanked him for a thoughtful gift. After moving through various ways of eating as a family, we settled in on “the way grandma used to eat.” Which is great because right now, if grandma has a lot of pig, a book like the one “Josh” gave us would be VERY HANDY! So I made my first ever pâté from this book. Otto loves pâté de campagne as do I. Over the few years I’ve lived in France, I’ve tried my share of pâté de campagne. Only now am I brave enough to try to make my own because I think I know what I like. Mexican food I’ve got down. I grew up in San Diego and Mexican food is what I know. Pâté is a brave new world to me. Another friend of mine, we’ll call him “Roger,” advised me a long time ago to: never undergo a project without the purchase of a new power tool. When you make pâté, you need to grind meat! Thankfully, we purchased a meat grinder attachment for the giant kitchen-aid. Said grinder was used once by Brent, then packed away in a little plastic box labeled “kitchen aid attachments” and laid to rest for seven years. At last it has surfaced. I see a bright future with my little meat grinder attachment.

The pâté was easy to make and dare I say palatable. I need a few tweaks on texture. More importantly, I made it because I asked myself, what do I have? In the last few weeks, I’ve stopped cooking what I want and started cooking things with what I have. It opens up a whole new way of cooking for me. This approach allows us to support our decision to eat the way granny used to eat. An example, the chickens have been laying eggs in places I cannot find. I think they’ve surfaced a couple of days ago as fluffy little chicks, but that still leaves us short for breakfast. I have a little flour, a slab of bacon and piles of lard … sounds like bacon biscuits! I would like very much to not spend a dime at the store other than sugar, toilet paper, coffee, chocolate and baking soda. I think I can improvise with the rest. Or at least trade for goods.

… speaking of chocolate. Chocolate cookies. A magical meeting of brownie meets cookie. I highly recommend them. I’ve been making cookies almost everyday. Because really, what’s a cookie but fat, sugar, flour and an egg. Slap it in a bowl, stick it int he oven and you’ve got a quick snack for the kids.