Sweet, Sweet Thanksgiving

    Granddaughter, Anna Rose, and Uncle Warner

Our dining room table was pushed to the brink, I think, when we gathered 20 adults, children and various animals around it for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a spectacular feast with a variety of appealing dishes that would have rated high marks even from the testy food critics at the New York Times.
by Charlie Leck

Though we led with a big, free-ranging and organic roast turkey at our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, it was surrounded by so many wonderful accompanying dishes that even Mark Bittman of the New York Times would have approved. (See his column of 20 November 2012: All Hail the Sweet Potato.) Indeed, as Bittman promised, the sweet potatoes were delicious and surprising.

Bittman, a brilliant food blogger and an extraordinary cook, thinks that the turkey is generally a waste of time…

“At the hands of all but the most experienced, careful or lucky cooks, the more than 700 million pounds of turkey we’ll buy this week will wind up with breast meat that’s cottony-dry and leg meat that is underdone, tough, stringy or all three…

“It’s not entirely the turkey’s fault; when you think about it, few holidays are really culinary [1], and in general Thanksgiving is a celebratory feast that has little to do with the harvest or the brilliance of the food but rather family and memories and, usually, obligations.

The Thanksgiving Sweet Potato
And, he thinks the sweet potato is the savior of this holiday dinner so boldly headlined by the turkey (his column so deeply impressed me that I gave extra-careful attention to my sweet potato this year and I found it an absolutely wonderful and compelling experience)…

“If you bake a sweet potato properly – in its skin, with a few holes poked in it (they’ve been known to explode, in a messy but not dangerous sense) – you will get a combination of textures that no other food can offer, and with no added ingredients: sweet stickiness from the caramelizing liquid that oozes from the inside out; a little bit of crunchy chewiness, from the parts of the skin that this liquid helps brown; a soft, velvety yet slightly leathery skin, perfectly edible; and, of course, the meltingly tender, ultra-luxurious flesh, which can range from creamy white to familiar orange to deep red and even purple, and is perhaps best enjoyed with a sprinkle of salt.

“I’m not one to extol the nutritional benefits of one plant over another — we should be eating more of all of them, and less of tortured, chemically enhanced birds — but sweet potatoes are almost unfairly potent, especially when it comes to beta-carotene (happily, made more bio-available when eaten with a little fat), fiber and a host of micronutrients, including not only common ones but those whose benefits are still being explored. If that alone isn’t a reason to eat them, it’s a reason to consider eating them instead of a bag of pretzels when you’re craving starch, or a handful of cookies when you’re craving sweets.

“The sweet potato, of course, is not only fit for baking: it can be grated and stir-fried; sliced and steamed, sautéed, broiled or roasted; wrapped in foil and baked in a fire; fried or, even better, cut into “fries” and baked with a little oil until crisp (or included in tempura); made into soup, a pasta sauce, a filling for ravioli or pie; used as a thickener; dried and eaten as a snack; reheated and drizzled with olive oil; braised in curries or soy-based dishes or European-style stews. Turkey, actually, is not nearly as versatile.”

Well, I gave it up for Mr. Bittman and even tried to propose a toast to him, but it was immediately taken up as some sort of joke by the diners and they laughed the toast and me off before I could even commence. So instead I proposed some sort of delight in the year past and gave thanks for it and offered the hope that the coming year would be as successful and happy.

    The glorious sweet potato!

But I kept giving eye to a remarkable standing rib roast that my NYC daughter had spent a great deal of time preparing on Thanksgiving morning and presented at just the exactly right moment when the Thanksgiving dinner commenced. It had been roasted at a very high temperature for a very short time and then allowed to come to perfection in a closed but tightly sealed oven for the next two hours or so. She had also rubbed it affectionately and thoroughly in a concoction she had invented that morning right in our own kitchen from ingredients she stumbled upon in the pantry.

So, with the help of some remarkable wine recommended by my favorite wine seller up in town, the sweet potatoes and the boufe magnifique were my personal winners at the table yesterday; but, perhaps, they had been aided by the wondrous beet salad and the carefully constructed green lettuce salad that joined them on our table. Bittman, as he usually is, was correct about the turkey. It is a necessary part of the Thanksgiving dinner, but, my, it is certainly not to be considered the star of the table’s list of players.

Follow it all with more wine and the taste sensations drawn from the Apple Crisp and the Pumpkin Pie and you know that Thanksgiving has again been more than simply wonderful.

One wonders, however, how any Thanksgiving dinner, surrounded by such happiness and love could ever be anything other than wonderful!

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A Delightfully Simple Little Salad

The Minimalist has actually made me a decent cook!
by Charlie Leck

Sometime ago (18 months, perhaps) I discovered the Minimalist -- also known as Mark Bittman. He has a regular blog called Bitten that always provides wonderful recipes and cooking tips. I never miss it. Then, too, he produces wonderful weekly videos (The Minimalist) that show you how to cook lovely items in a minimal amount of time and with a minimal amount of work. I try the majority of them and most have been rousing successes. You can find the videos and navigate to their archives file by going to Bitten. I actually tried homemade crackers a couple of weeks ago and found out they're really simple and much fresher tasting then those you buy in a store -- and much, much less expensive. Remember, everything he shows you how to do is done easily and quickly -- but have a food processor for sure.

I struggle some in coming up with appropriate salads for a lot of my dinners. But, the other night, thanks to Mark Bittman, I had a smashing success with the salad I served with an extraordinary tomato based lamb stew. It's an idea I never would have dreamed of without this tip.

Sliced Oranges and Fresh Black Olive Paste
Don't snear at this one until you've given it a try because the zesty combination here is spectauclar and the contrast of the competing flavors is nothing short of captivating.

Here's Bittman's recipe for the salad:

a cup good olive oil
cured black olives, pitted
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (optional)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more as needed
4 navel oranges, peeled and sliced into rounds
fennel seeds

1. In a food processor, combine olives and thyme, if using, with a bit of olive oil. Pulse machine once or twice, then turn it on and add remaining olive oil rather quickly; you want this purée on the rough side. Thin with more olive oil if necessary. (You can
refrigerate this for up to a month.)

2. Layer 3 or 4 orange slices on each plate, drizzle with a little more olive oil, top with a tablespoon of olive purée, and sprinkle with a few fennel seeds.

[See the recipe on-line including a photograph]

Now the Minimalist has posted a video showing him making this salad!

The cup of oil in the above recipe is very important. I made it another time and tried to hold back on the olive oil and I got chopped dry olives instead of a lovely paste. I've also tried the recipe with and without the thyme. It's much better with the herb. The recipe works better with a tasteful olive and not bland ones. I went to the olive bar and tried black olives until I found one with plenty of flavor.

___________________________

I also have a couple of Bittman's cookbooks and they are wonderful.

Cooking is a Gas!

Time over the stove is great – now
if I just didn’t have to clean up my mess!

by Charlie Leck

A reader wrote to ask where my love for cooking came from and when it began.

I loved to watch my mother cook. She was so intense about it. There was no pantry full of pasta sauces by Paul Newman’s famous company, with 40 different flavor combinations from which to choose. No, a great pasta sauce was an all-day process, done with love and great care. She began her peeling and chopping early in the morning. The herbs and spices were as fresh as possible. The onions and mushrooms were picked out carefully in the produce section of our local grocery store.

I can hear my brothers chuckling as they read that line. There was no local grocery store. We lived in such a little, hick town, in the farmlands of central New Jersey, that there were few resources for the creative cook. We had a fine, talented and creative butcher, but groceries and produce were another matter. The A&P in Netcong was nearly 10 miles away – a pretty long trip in those days.

How I enjoyed, as a little kid, going on those shopping trips with her. When she shopped for a leg of lamb, it had to be the left hind leg, of course, because “lambs always lie down on their right sides” my mother would tell the astounded butcher. These days, I live with lambs all around me, baaing early in the morning like an invading army. I take notice of how they rest. With apologies to my mother, there’s no consistency – left side – right side.

She knew the produce manager in the big supermarket personally. She often asked for some of the produce that may have been removed from the shelves that morning because it was “too” ripe. Most produce was never ripe enough for her. Peaches, tomatoes, avocados, artichokes – the better stuff was probably removed from the shelves that morning and was only waiting for someone like my mother to ask for it.

By afternoon, our home-business – house-general store-luncheonette-soda fountain – was filled with the incredible aromas of my mother’s pasta sauce that was cooking gently and slowly on a low flame in our kitchen. Fresh, totally home-made bread would be baking in the oven.

Businessmen arriving home from their day’s work in the city, miles away, would stop in for the afternoon paper (yup, we had them in those days) or a quart of milk (in a bottle with real cream floating on top) and they’d catch a whiff of the simmering sauce and the baking dough!“Oh, my,” they’d say with a broad smile, “any room at the table for a guest tonight?”

How often I think of my mother’s skills in the kitchen? Is it a hyperbolic memory of every child? Was mother really not that great a cook at all?

I can only say I’ve never had a Yankee Pot Roast again, since the last one mother prepared for us that could come close to hers. I can say the same of those left legs of lamb; and the lapin allemande; the baked ham with that black, black, thick gravy; the fried chicken that drove us all wild with anticipation; the borscht soup served with thick, heavily crusted slices of home-made white bread; the roasted duck served with stuffed, baked apples; the pot pies with perfectly browned, bosomy crust; and the red, rare, thick slices of prime rib and mashed potatoes and the most delectable gravy you ever tasted. There were many other meals that I didn’t care for so much, but which Father loved with ecstasy – the kidney pies, the big, white, milky looking hunks of fresh, baked cod with boiled red potatoes, and also the liver and onions. I keep searching for the perfect split pea soup, like Mother’s, but I simply can’t find it. It was so thick one’s spoon would stand up in it. It had flavors that left you floating in delight. How she did it, I’ll never figure out. Her lentil soup and all her various stews were just as good.

She was fully Bohemian. Her mother and father and all her grandparents were Bohunks. Her cooking leaned toward the cuisine that is so identified with that part of the world. For instance, she made the best kolache I’ve ever eaten – bar none – better even than those I’ve tried in the Czech communities around Minnesota. Unlike the ones out here, my mother’s were in a triangle shape and flipped closed. The crust was lighter and flakier, somewhat like a croissant from Paris, than the crust I’ve encountered here.

My father was thoroughly German and that fact motivated my mother to adventure in that direction for some of her recipes as well. Her hassenpfeffer (deutsches kaninchen) was outstanding.

The ethnic influence remains with me now. Today I’m preparing a Grand Borscht – thoroughly Russian, but adopted with pleasure by both the German and Slavic parts of the world. It’s cooking right now, boiling slowly on the stove-top and it smells the way heaven must smell.

“A little too much vinegar,” my wife said, when she tasted the borscht. Tastes vary! To me, the sour flavor was pungent, but just about perfect.

Fully retired now, I turned to cooking because my wife works awfully hard all day long and deserves to just be able to crash when she returns home. She says, stroking my ego, that the food in her home is better than that of any restaurant in the region. High praise! She’s a sweetheart and loves me, however, so I don’t take it completely literally.

My problem is that I can’t stand the pressure of doing a dinner party. Cooking for more than two and getting several courses all to finish on time, and getting them to the table at the appropriate time, is too much for me. Cooking for two is something else completely and I love it.

I have an advantage over my mother. She didn’t have the resources so near her that I have. One of our kids is teaching me about Asian supermarkets and the extraordinary new flavors that are available there. Mix and match some of them with plain old American cooking and you can come up with an extraordinary essence. I grilled some bratwurst the other night that I had rubbed with Japanese miso paste. Oh my, the diners who bit into them couldn’t believe how incredible they tasted. Miso paste works great on barbequed spare ribs, too. I use miso paste and Japanese fermented black beans in lots of my cooking now. I sautéed some uncooked, large shrimp with those beans a few weeks ago and it was sensational. Bak Choy, which has become a regular feature in dining at our house now, was in the pan with the shrimp, along with some minced garlic. Wow! It was great! Hoisin sauce creeps into lots of my cooking as well. Now I’m venturing south of the border and I’m trying out South American and Mexican flavors and dining ideas. Mix and match and you can create some wonderfully unique and interesting meals. Soon I’m going to venture into some of the Mexican markets that are springing up all over town.

Last night I did short ribs, using an extraordinarily simple recipe from Mark Bittman. The key to it, and Bittman was correct about this, is in the browning. Brown them properly and the rest is easy. Another successful idea is the way Bittman skewers lamb and fresh, whole figs on rosemary stems and grills them outside [watch this very short video]. I tried this last week and it was a big hit.

Bittman has really influenced me. His scheme is to cook wonderful meals with a minimum amount of work. His video podcasts are wonderful and so is his cookbook, How to Cook Everything.Check out Bittman’s blog. I go to it regularly.

I also go to the dining section of the New York Times at least once a week and review everything that has been published that week and watch nearly all the videos. Today there is a wonderful story about how so many people are almost cultishly devoted to the in-season tomato. These beauties will be showing up at market stands and farmers’ markets almost any day now and I can’t wait. The great tomato, in season, is nature’s most perfect and wonderful food as far as I am concerned. A friend of ours has a farm near here, called Two Pony Farm, where she produces the most wonderful organic, heirloom tomatoes – better, I tell you, than steak.

Today’s edition of the Times also has a story about the return of the lost Jersey tomato. It is very worth reading. The story has a photograph of an enormous tomato sandwich. Do one of those correctly and it is heavenly eating.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s Splendid Table web site and blog on National Public Radio is extraordinary. I check this one out at least once a week, too, and I’m on their email list for notification about special recipes.

My copy of THE 150 HEALTHIEST FOODS ON EARTH arrived and I’ve torn through it. I read nearly 100 pages of it this morning, stumbling over a lot of the scientific terminology (methylhydroxychalcone polymer), and I’m finding it a very valuable book. You can find out plenty about it on its author’s, Jonny Bowden’s, web site. I bought the book on the American Book Exchange (ABE), where I buy most of my books, and got it (including shipping) for under $15 (brand new). I can’t tell you how delighted I was to see coffee on the list and to learn there are substantial benefits in drinking a few cups each day. I just paused to have a sip from my pleasant mug of Sumatra blend. If I’m disappointed with the book, it has to do with my own unreasonable expectations. I’d been led to believe that Bowden was going to provide tips on how to use some of these herbs, spices, vegetables and foods. He rarely does that, but one more step into a few cookbooks won’t be that difficult for me. I’ve set a goal to try to use most of these foods in my daily cooking and in our snacking. For instance, I’ve learned that pumpkins seeds are actually very good for you, providing beta-sitosteral for lowering cholesterol and some help with prostate problems as well (perhaps reducing the number of trips to the bathroom at night).

“Pumpkin seeds are a rich source of minerals, especially magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus. Interestingly, the roasted kind have far more protein, at least according to the USDA food database. (They also have a lot more calories.) The roasted kind also have way more magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium, as well as more zinc, fiber, and cancer-fighting selenium. Both have a nice amount of manganese, an important trace mineral that’s essential for growth, reproduction, wound healing, peak brain function, and the proper metabolism of sugars, insulin, and cholesterol. Ultimately, both the raw (dried) and the roasted are nutrient dense.”

That's just to give you a little taste of the book. Below are a list of some of the web pages I regularly look at when searching for a recipe or trying to find out about some food.

• Chow Hound


• Cooking Index (dining tips as well as cooking tips)


• Crock Pot (This is a commercial site but they have a host of wonderful recipes, including very good lamb recipes)


• Crock Pot Recipes (This site has some wonderful recipes – even great ones – but they’re difficult to navigate and there are commercial pop-ups everywhere)


• Epicurian


• Epicurius


• Martha Stewart (I don’t go to it often, but it has good stuff!)


• Reluctant Gourmet

a fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi

Thoughts from up near Lake Wobegon
by Charlie Leck

I’m sitting in my lovely tree-loft study, letting a multiplicity of random thoughts play around in the various recesses and accesses of my limited mind.

(1) I fall asleep evenings listening to the public radio. With its range of mono-tones and monotony it is perfect for putting one to sleep. My wife arranged this little speaker that is actually imbedded in my pillow, so I can listen and yet not disturb her. It’s a clever invention. A fellow last night was rambling on about what motivates writers to keep working and producing when they don’t really sell or get read by vast audiences. He thought it was a fear of death – the desire to be as immortal as possible – to leave something of oneself behind. I wondered if it couldn’t just be the sheer love of doing it; yet, I’m aware that I do want my grandchildren to have some sense of who I was and what made me like I am (to mix tenses a bit).

(2) Years ago, perhaps 20 or 25 years ago, a friend gave me a little sculpture that he had created. I keep it proudly near me here in this private place where I write. It’s only about 6 inches high and a few inches across. The base is a piece of roughly hewn hardwood. A thin piece of steel protrudes from it and rises to about 6 inches. Slender tongs at the end of the piece form a resting place for a smooth, egg-shaped rock or stone. He called it: “Between a rock and a hard place!” We were in business together at the time and that’s where we were.

(3) I’m trying to get a closet-full of old photographs – prints and slides – organized, cataloged and, in some cases, digitized to archival quality disks, so, when I shed this mortal coil, there won’t be such a mess for those who will need to go through these things. I find that I pause most often over photographs I took here and there of my wife. They remind me of one of the reasons I fell in love with her and they often take my breath away. They also remind me of the very good times we’ve had together. The photograph that introduces this blog is one of those that I found wasting away on a slide that had never been printed. I took the photograph with a wonderful old Minolta camera that served us well for many years. We were traveling in Germany and on our way to Stockholm for the 1990 World Equestrian Games. Anyway, it brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. I love traveling with her and wish we’d do more of it. A farm and its animals is not conducive to long get-aways.

(4) Van Peebles Land is a blog -- The Shambolic Postings of an Irishman Living in Wales – that I enjoy reading. It’s written and maintained by David Williamson. I want so much to respond to some of David’s meandering thoughts, but he has a complicated defense against anonymous scammers and I can’t leave my compliments without having his email address. David, if you are out there, give me some assistance! I’m one of your fans.

Now this Irishman’s blog isn’t something I’d necessarily recommend to everyone. It just happens to be one of those places I enjoy going for a change of pace and scenery. David seems a solid guy and a clear, uncomplicated thinker. Pay his blog a visit if you want a breath of fresh, Welsh air.

For instance, a few days ago he wrote about the visit of the French President, Nocolass Sarkozy, to England.

“The sharpest knives may have been locked away when French president Nicolas Sarkozy dined with the Queen yesterday.”

(5) I do nearly all the cooking around our house these days and not because I must, but because I enjoy it. I’ve resolved to get much better at it, too, and I’m getting hooked on the concept of better, fresher and more local foods – foods that we know about and whose life-histories we can nearly document. I’m bitten by a blog by Mark Bittman. He calls it Bitten. He also does a weekly column, The Minimalist, in the dining section of the NY Times and regularly produces marvelous videos. I’ve tried his recipes enough times that I know they work extremely well. To accomplish them, however, I find myself having to find new sources for various foods, herbs and spices. So, I’ve discovered the Asian and Hispanic markets in town. What a neat adventure! Next I’ll try one or two of Bittman’s cookbooks.

This resolution about my food in the future led me to discover Moonstone Farm. My, what a lovely place! It’s down in the Minnesota River Valley. Pay them, at least, an on-line visit.

“River-friendly meats...local artisan foods...guest cottage...handthrown pottery...all from the gently rolling bluffland of the Minnesota River Valley. Our 240 acres offers a varied landscape, plenty of trees, and a home to humans and cattle, corn and alfalfa, beaver and coyote, coneflowers and big bluestem. Meander through our site, get to know a bit about us and Moonstone grass-based beef. Be assured that customer visits, electronic or in person, are always welcome.”

The farm has been in the Handeen family since 1872. It’s a joy to feel the deep respect this couple has for the land and what it produces. One can visit their farm store and have a very nice time.

(6) I’m thinking a lot about the Sojourners movement these days. I’ve been so disappointed with the Christian Church in America during my life time –the traditional Protestant Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the fundamentalist, evangelical churches. There’s too much division, finger pointing, claims to exclusive understanding. Scripture has also been badly misunderstood and brutally used as claims to universal and exclusive truth.

Now I’m going to a blog by Jim Wallis, called God’s Politics, and I find it refreshing and hopeful. There’s no finger pointing and no claims to exclusive possession of truth and no guarantees of salvation. Wallis’ latest blog about Pastor Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama gave me some hope. The perspective of Jim Wallis on this incident is unique and strikes to the heart of what’s going on.

I’ll watch this organization (or movement) for a while yet; however, I think I’ve found a vehicle for religious and faith expression. I’m probably going to get involved.

(7) Freakonomics is one of the most delightfully amusing, entertaining and enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time. My discovery of Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt is one of the best things that’s happened to me in a while. I’m not at all an economics or finance guy, but they made economics come alive for me. They have extraordinary senses of humor. Read their terrific book and also visit their blog of the same name.

(8) Just a few last thoughts about books and then I’ll close. I’m a bit of a John Grisham fan. He’s published 20 books and I’ve read all of them. I just finished his most recent work, The Appeal. It wasn’t too appealing and it was very predictible. I’d put it down near the bottom of my list of his books. My two favorite of his books are A Painted House and The Innocent Man.

I also just finished Bill Bryson’s book about Shakespeare. Bryson has a very readable writing style and his sense of humor makes his books marvelous to read. I’ve never been disappointed with any of them and I think I’ve read them all. If you’re a Shakespeare fan, or if you’d just like to know more about good old Will, this would be a suitable title to pick up from your local library. Here’s a tidy review of the book by the London Times.

I’ve rambled on long enough. I’m off to the Asian market in search of some baby bak-choy.