Seasonal Cooking January 2012
My Simple, Mini Christmas Dinner
Living in New York gives you a sense of constant access. There’s always something open, so you always assume you can find what you want whenever you want it. In other cities you wake up to the reality that in most places markets close for the holidays. This awakening happened to me last week as I drove around my home town, searching for a grocery store open for business on Christmas morning.
Our official Christmas dinner would be on the 26th, when my brothers returned from visiting with their in-laws, but I’d planned a Christmas day mini-feast for my mom and dad and me. 
I’d bought a plump ‘Amish’ chicken from a local butcher shop, and took stock of what was on hand in my mom’s cupboard: potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, spaghetti squash. But about the details of my menu I dawdled. “I’ll just run to the grocery store in the morning to get what I need” I thought.
When I got up on Christmas morning I made a quick list, just a few items to fancy things u
p: some fresh herbs to stuff inside the chicken; some mushrooms to sauté with the spaghetti squash; chicken stock for extra gravy; a green veggie for an additional side dish.I hopped in my car and headed for the store. But every supermarket was surrounded by a vast, empty expanse of parking lot. My errand was in vain. I was incensed. I just couldn’t comprehend that there was nowhere to get my hands on some fresh parsley.
I still needed to get dinner on the table though, so I calmed myself down and got to work. And I realized pretty quickly that a dinner made from what I had on hand was going to turn out just fine. This was, after all, the Midwest. No one was going to care if the roasted chicken wasn’t thyme-scented.
There was milk and butter to make the mashed potatoes creamy. There was brown sugar, butter and flour for a tasty, streusel topping for the sweet potatoes (made from this excellent Epicurious recipe). Without mushrooms, I turned to a trick my girlfriend taught me to give the spaghetti squash a boost: slowly caramelized onions. I found carrots and maple syrup in the fridge and made glazed carrots. There was 
plenty of gravy for the three of us from the pan drippings augmented with a splash of the potato water. I had homemade applesauce I’d brought from home and sourdough bread from my Brooklyn neighborhood. And to keep true to my Mennonite roots I made a relish tray from the Amish cheese and sweet pickles my mom had on hand for the next day’s big feast. For dessert there were Christmas cookies. Mini Christmas Dinner was a robust, simple, homey success.
And what’s more, since I didn’t have herbs to wash or mushrooms to slice or any of my other fancy extra touches to deal with, dinner was simpler, more manageable, and made it to the table on time (well, the chicken roasted a little slower than expected, but that’s a different story). The relative simplicity of the meal meant fewer dishes, lowered stress, and a reliable serving time. And it really didn’t short-change the flavor of the meal. It’s my culinary lesson for the new year: sometimes simple is the way to go.
With the cooler temperatures of Autumn I’ve taken up bread. Years ago made bread fairly often but I gave it up after moving to Brooklyn. In Carroll Gardens, the neighborhood where I first settled, I discovered a trove of incredible Italian bakeries, small storefront shops with names like Caputo’s and Mazzola. Suddenly, home baking seemed utterly unnecessary. I found a huge range of breads: long Italian loaves and thinner French-style baguettes; bread made from semolina flour; ring-shaped loaves and sourdough and whole wheat loaves; breads studded with olives, and lard bread – yes, lard bread — stuffed with cheese and salami, that left translucent oily patches on the brown paper bag I brought it home in.
much more interesting than the sandwich loaves I’d learned to make from the Joy of Cooking. Once, I overheard one of my Carroll Gardens neighbors – an affluent newcomer, not one of the long-time Italian residents – actually complaining about the bread from these bakeries – not as good, apparently, as what she was used to getting in Manhattan. I was appalled. “Spoiled yuppie,” I thought. “Can’t appreciate anything.” How could anyone want bread better than this? What bread could be better?
visit to his place I tasted one of these loaves, and I was shocked. My brother is a good cook and an experienced baker, but even so I was surprised by the rich, deep flavor of the bread he’d made.
whether I’m baking or not), and there’s a lot of satisfaction in a pulling well-formed loaf out of my oven. But more than that, what really draws me to baking bread this way is how alive and natural it is. My bowl of bubbling levain is a mini-garden, and I’m cultivating flavor and nutrition that’s been coaxed from the very air of my kitchen. Like eating produce grown from the soil of my backyard (if only I had one), baking with my levain seems more than a little miraculous.
Maybe because it was such a a warm September but there still seems to be plenty of sweet corn in the farmers’ markets. But this late season stuff might not have the succulence or luster of the corn you got back in July; or maybe you’ve got a couple ears from your CSA left in the back of your fridge whose kernels are getting those shriveled little indentations. For this recipe, no matter. You get the chance to replenish some of that faded flavor when making a corn-spiked poaching liquid to cook fish fillets in.
Making the broth is simple: puree corn kernels together with a bit of water and a chopped shallot (onion will also work if that’s all you’ve got). Strain this through a sieve and flavor it. I’ve used this broth to cook a few different kinds of fish, but flounder has come out my favorite. Its flat fillets poach quickly, and its delicate sweetness matches well with the sweet corn broth. If you can’t find flounder, halibut or sole or just about any whitefish will work.
Try as I might I never succeeded in getting a good photo of this dish. On the plate, I promise doesn’t look nearly so much like cafeteria food these photos might make you think. I’ll have another chance soon though, even after the last of this season’s corn is picked. I expect this dish to work quite well with the corn I put up for the winter in my freezer.
It’s happened again. “Oh dang,” you say, opening the fridge door and looking in at a sad, droopy bunch of chard or lettuce or basil. It looked so hale when you brought it home from the market, and now it’s gone all wilty.
On Not Eating Out in New York, Cathy Erway and the proprietors of the 
The aioli was simple and straightforward and relied entirely on ingredients I had on hand: garlic, salt, an egg yolk, olive oil and a lemon. My dream to was to make a seasonal aioli from 
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edges. Set the colander over a large bowl and pour 1 quart of plain yogurt onto the cheesecloth. Take one of the overhanging edges and lay it flat over the yogurt; repeat with the remaining edges so that the yogurt is completely covered. Set a small plate on top of the folded cheesecloth and set the weight on top of the plate. Set aside and allow to drain for 3 or 4 hours or overnight in the fridge. Remove the yogurt cheese from the cheesecloth and keep it in a sealed container in the fridge. (I still haven’t figured out what to do with the sour whey that drains off. It’s got to be good for something.)
farm-canned apricots. Simply spreading the unflavored cheese on toast and topping it with a layer of marmalade works great too. Vanilla and honey are flavorings I haven’t tried yet but that surely would work very nicely. And what about savory flavors? Roasted garlic? Sure! Curry powder? Why not? And I’ll bet a handful of chopped dill would make it ready for that ultimate cream-cheese-replacement test: lox. Stay tuned to see if it works!