The Dinner Files

I spent a large part of yesterday in a car. Driving to St. Paul to visit my grandfather. Driving back. Driving to St. Louis Park to rent a car. Driving back. Driving to do an insane errand for my mother.* Driving back. Driving to the cabin. End.

The sun was beating down on me all the way north. There wasn’t enough traffic to slow down at all, but just enough so I had to be fully on and focused on the road and other cars. I was fried by the time we pulled up to the cabin. Too hot, too weary to eat dinner. So I forked at a multi-grain salad my mom had picked up at Lund’s. Not bad. Not at all. Then Ernie and I took a pre-bed swim and all was set to rights.

*My mom ordered a shower gift online from a registry. It didn’t arrive as expected. Sleuthing determined the gift had been sent directly to the bride-to-be. My mom would no more show up at a shower giftless (even with a cute and funny explanation) than she would show up naked. I volunteered to get something to wrap while she and Ernie went swimming. In the process I discovered these fabulous measuring beakers.

Ernie is getting his hot days. And hot nights. Last night we sat in my parents’ backyard–no fog rolled in, no wind picked up, no sweaters were needed. I picked up sandwiches, noodle salads, and spring rolls from Jasmine Deli, my favorite Vietnamese restaurant. I have no pictures for you. Camera battery went dead. Too bad. The grilled pork on baguette rolls with cilantro, chiles, shredded carrot, and shredded green papaya were as pretty as can be.

Later on I headed to Cafe Barbette to meet a friend. As she predicted, I had “just a glass of wine” (she seems to find this high-larious). She decided to have wine too, and so ordered the same thing I did. The server left and she turned to me in a panic, “that wasn’t a $20 glass of wine you ordered, was it?”

I kind of love that she thought I’d be ordering $20 glasses of wine. It sounds very fabulous, in a way. But internets, I’m a freelance writer. No $20 glasses of anything for me. $20 bottles, sure. $20 glasses, no.

So we sat and sipped and soaked up the energy that emanates from Upper Midwesterners when they have long, warm summer nights at their disposal. It is joyous. It is contagious. It is palpable. I love it.

“Thanks for making this delicious dinner, Mama,” Ernie said. “It’s the best dinner ever.” And then he continued to use his chopsticks gamely* while declaring with freakish glee, “I love tofu!”

Hmmm…. What does the child want from me? You see what we had: summer squash and tofu sort of braised in a garlic-ginger-chile-rice vinegar-black bean sauce type thing. With some cilantro. And some “bamboo-infused rice” (yes, Project Eat That Rice continues). It was good, but it really wasn’t the best dinner ever. Not by a long shot. Maybe he’s just in a good mood. Yesterday was his last day of pre-school and we’re headed off on a three week vacation to the family cabin in Minnesota (I’ll be working on this “vacation”–I’m thinking of it as a “writing retreat” to give it a vacation-esque feel while acknowledging that pages must be produced!). He has reason to be happy. So do we all. He’ll be going to a day camp (with swimming and t-ball and big kids, oh my!) from which I expect him to come home utterly exhausted.

*Hold the tops together with a rubber band to make it easier for kids to master the art.

Ernie summed up the frustration of many a San Franciscan on the way to school this morning: “Mama,” he asked, “why are these summer days so cold? Summer days are supposed to be hot.”

And yet they are not.

It’s dreary and cold, the middle of summer, and our cupboard is overrun with rice. Yes, that’s right: rice. I agree it is a better problem to have than being overrun with mice, but it’s ridiculous:

And this is after I pulled out six (6!) 1-lb.bags of Minnesota wild rice because it was just embarrassing. My dashing husband asked how it could have happened. I had no clear answer. Yes, there was a rice story for Sunset. Yes, some of the above was given/sent to me by rice growers. But still. How does a person end up with three bags of “forbidden rice”? How much risotto do I think I’m going to make? Why a 5-lb. bag? I hope it was on super-sale.

So I let Ernie pick out the rice we would have for dinner and got to work. Something warming and yet summery. I didn’t hit it perfectly, but we were all surprised by how delicious everything was together.

Some small white beans cooked in a broth of onions, celery, carrots, garlic, and peppercorns until tender, heat turned off, generous salt added, and allowed to cool in their broth until drained and sauteed in olive oil with garlic, red chile flakes, and parsley. I cooked the “wild rice” (I used some of the cultivated California stuff infecting my cupboard) with onion and celery and used the bean broth as the liquid. A handful of chopped walnuts thrown in at the end highlighted the nutty taste and texture. I will say this: California “wild rice” always seems to take about a thousand years to cook and it goes from underdone to overdone in about a second. If you’ve never had it, track down some of the real stuff. The kind that grows in rivers and marshes in Minnesota and Canada. You’ll never look back.

So now we’re warm and cozy, so we can stand a bit of summery “health salad” of chopped cucumber (garden and Armenian), red onion, and tomato. I used the red brandywines we got from the farm this week. They’re perfect for salads–firm enough to stand up to being dressed a bit. I also used some red wine vinegar I’ve been making. More on that later….

And I’m sorry for all that rhyming above. I don’t know what got into me.

I sort of wasted these luscious, creamy, small, red-skinned, golden-fleshed potatoes we got from our CSA this week. I sliced them, layered them with grated cheese, and baked the be-jesus out of them. They were tender and creamy and went well with the cheese, but I know they would have shined simply boiled and buttered, with a sprinkle of chopped parsley. But you know what? That’s not what I felt like eating. So a potato gratin it was, with an arugula salad. Oh, and we popped open a jar of the marinated baby artichokes I made in May.

By the way, I dressed the salad with a vinaigrette I’ve talked about before: 3 parts oil from the marinated artichokes, 1 part vinegar from spicy pickled garlic. A bit of salt and pepper, a dash of ground mustard if you’re so inclined.

If you are in or near the Bay Area and looking for giggles and gaffaws next weekend, check out “Getting in on the Ground Floor and Staying There” starring Tara Jepsen and Beth Lisick. I went with a friend last night instead of sensibly eating dinner. It was hilarious. I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I tell you there was naked strobe-light dancing. Yes, you read that right.

Afterwards, we tried to go to Suppenkuche, because we were feeling all 1995, but the kitchen had closed. So we headed to Absinthe. We left a few hours later happily sated with two rounds of fabulous cocktails and some remarkably pricey (!) pork rillettes. I forgot my camera or would have taken a shot of the Daedalus–whiskey, a teeny tiny bit of ginger syrup, and a twist. Yummers.

So called, I believe, because it hangs off the diaphragm. Also the only loner muscle in mammals? Can that be right? Something like that–only non-symmetrical muscle… someone should google that.

In any case, it is a delicious cut of meat. Somewhat newly fashionable. Something the butcher used to keep for himself. Something young chefs are throwing on menus left and right. We tucked into a fabulous version last night at a friend’s house. Marinated in rosemary, nicely seared, and cooked to a perfect medium-rare. I am full of iron. Ready to take on the world.

I got a little kicky in the kitchen last night. I threw some fresh sweet corn kernels (along with a giant dollop of ricotta and a handful of grated parmesan) into the pot of polenta. Assessment? Yum.

I topped the whole thing with half-moons of zucchini sautéed in olive oil with onion and garlic and a few pine nuts thrown in at the end for good measure. Pretty, easy, and everyone cleaned their plates. A bit of diced tomato on top wouldn’t have been out of place.

This is one of those “working girl’s friend” type dinners. Fast, easy, cheap, crowd-pleasing (or at least non-complaint-generating). Ernie’s came complete with the tomatoes picked out. Then he spotted a “tomato.” To you and me it was a barely discernible speck of pinkish-hued something. To him it was a tomato and he was having none of it. He remained calm, but methodically picked it out–which took some doing because, well, it didn’t really exist–and smooshed it onto the edge of my proffered plate. It was otherwise an uneventful dinner. Ernie was excited to move on to the after-dinner activity of putting together the puzzle of a train my dashing husband bought him at a junk store.

I saw it and remarked at the big, grown-up puzzle. My dashing husband explained, “He can do it, he’s really good at puzzles.”

It’s true, Ernie is unusually good at puzzles. He got a slew of 100-piecers for his birthday and loves them. I said that I wondered, that I thought he’d need some help, that this was a real grown-up puzzle. My husband, sounding perhaps the tiniest bit testy, said, “it just has smaller pieces, he can do it.”

“Honey,” I said, “it’s a 1,000 piece puzzle.”

“1,000! 1,000? No, it’s 100.”

“No, it’s 1,000.” The box was examined.

“Oh, I guess he will need some help, huh?”

So now you know what we’ll be doing with the rest of the summer….

Have such fun at your house! First, boil a mess of pasta is salty water (it should actually taste salty–don’t be shy). While that’s coming to a boil and then cooking, slice 4 cloves of garlic (or more or less–it’s your dinner), a jalapeño chile or two, about 6 green onions into 2-inch lengths and then halved or slivered lengthwise, and chop up maybe 4 medium tomatoes (I like to squeeze most of the seeds out, but I don’t want to tell you what to do). Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas. When the pasta is done drain it. Put the pot back on the stove over medium-high heat, add however much olive oil you would like and cook the garlic, chiles, and green onions until they’re all sizzling. Add the chickpeas and tomatoes. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add pasta and cook and stir until it looks hot and yummy. Serve with parmesan.

Then, and only then, when you are sated and fortified, get down on the floor and pray to whatever you can summon the strength to believe in that there aren’t any pieces missing.

I was invited to move to Portland last night. And I’m thinking about it. Of course, I’ve thought about it before. (Wait, I did it before! Wait, does going to college someplace count as “moving there”?) I’ve even floated the idea by my dashing husband. His response: “I love to visit Portland.” I know what that means. That means there’s no way in hell he’s moving there.

If I did live there I would spend a lot of time having drinks at the Secret Society Lounge. Up a non-descript, “I’m going to my therapy appointment” staircase and into a cozy, grown-up bar with a slight speak-easy feel. The breeze blowing in the open window on the warm but not sweltering summer evening made the well-crafted drinks taste all the better.

Then I would head downstairs and go next door to Toro Bravo for dinner. Amazing tapas: oxtail croquettes, mint-stuffed squash blossoms, green olive radicchio salad, squid ink fideos, churros e chocolate. A dish called “drunken pork” was a particular favorite. Chunks of meaty, juicy pork wrapped in bacon served over big but not bitter fava beans. I forgot to ask what made the pork so drunk, but I’m guessing it was gin.

That I ate anything following the afternoon of eating I had was a testament to the power of the human stomach. I split a burger, half a rack of ribs, and a charcuterie and sausage plate for lunch, then stopped in at Ten 01 for some Thai sticky ribs around 5. Of course, my friend had dragged me to “corepower yoga” earlier in the day. Have you heard of this? It’s flow-style yoga in a sauna-hot room (not Bikram!) with sit-ups and various core-building Pilates-mat-work-esque worked into the proceedings. Since my idea of a good time is long swims in cold water by myself, listening to someone tell me what to do in a dark room with a bunch of sweaty people was not so much up my alley, but it was an amazing work-out and I did feel all high afterwards, which was nice. I also felt hungry. Very, very hungry. Burger, ribs, and sausage hungry. Oxtail croquettes and drunken pork hungry.