The Dinner Files

If anyone out there is re-doing their kitchen I have one piece of advice: for the love of all that is holy, do not go with black granite for your counters.

We inherited ours from the previous owners of our humble abode. They are out of sync with the rest of the very 1912 house, but that isn’t why I hate them. I hate them because 1) they look dirty when they aren’t – water spots, for example, can be seen from two rooms away – and 2) they look clean when they aren’t. Coffee grounds and grease splatters aren’t as obvious as one might hope when one is cleaning, and – I cannot begin to express the degree to which I wish I didn’t know this – mouse droppings blend right into the surface.

Mice have taken refuge from the rain this winter by scurrying into our house. They seem to find particular comfort hanging out in the closet in my study. They also enjoy the space behind the bookshelf in the kitchen. They are not eating our food, which is odd because our food is crazy awesome delicious, but they are leaving droppings on the counters every now and again and while that makes me not thrilled with the mice, it makes me furious at our counters.

Then this morning I edited the pictures I took of dinner last night and a new surge of hatred welled up inside me. After months of shooting dishes in the light box I made out of white foam board and packing tape (it folds down for easy storage!), my kitchen is finally staying light enough late enough for me to take pictures of our dinners in natural light. And so shoot I did, but I was in a rush and didn’t bother to check them very carefully. I’d forgotten that when the sun is shining into the kitchen from the west the black granite counters act as a mirror – as you can see from my hands and camera reflected in the surface of our evil counters above.

We brought our bowls into the dining room (onto a glass table that requires endless cleaning to look streaky at best) and tucked into the risotto of green peas, mint, and a bit of bacon topped with plenty of pecorino cheese and black pepper that came to mind when we were at Zuni Sunday night for spur-of-the-moment drinks and nibbles with a friend. My dashing husband’s mussels with peas and mint and our friend’s risotto with sorrell and pancetta were each tasty, but I saw them as perhaps benefiting more fully from one another. I’ve written here about Zuni before, so I won’t sum it up again, but we grabbed a table in the bar (walked right in and sat right down at 6 on a Sunday – I didn’t steal the table from anyone, but I did see it from half a block away, make a decided and serious bee line for it, and feel like a rock star for nabbing it). As always at Zuni, I felt very much in San Francisco in the very best of ways.

I couldn’t help, though, eying that shiny copper bar: easily stained and highly reflective, but you would be able to see mouse shit on it from a mile away.

This is the new favorite chicken at my house. It’s a lot like eating a salt lick. In a good way.

I used pitted black olives here partly because they are so much easier to eat but more in order to use some of the lovely pitted naturally cured olives hanging out in my cupboard that some company at some point sent me to taste. I like them a lot but I’m also way too lazy to get up right now, go into the kitchen, pull the stool over, climb up onto the counter, and root around on the top shelf where live those cans to remind myself of the exact name brand, which is why I’m always delighted but surprised when people send me samples.

Pancetta olive chicken

Note that ideally you salt the chicken and let it sit overnight. A few hours, or an hour, is better than nothing, though. This both seasons it and helps the chicken hold onto its own juices and stay moist. It might seem counter-intuitive, but science makes it so.

1 chicken

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 head garlic

3 thick slices pancetta, finely chopped

1 cup white wine

Black olives

Cut the backbone out of the chicken (save it for stock!) and cut the chicken into 10 pieces – 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2 wings, and each breast half cut in half. Put in a baking pan, sprinkle with all over with salt, cover, and chill overnight.

Heat oven to 450. While oven heats, peel the garlic cloves.

Drain off any juice that’s accumulated in the pan and pat chicken dry. Rub chicken with olive oil. Scatter garlic and pancetta over and around the chicken. Pour wine into the pan. Roast until the chicken just starts to brown, about 20 minutes.

Add black olives to the pan and roast until chicken is cooked through and the skin is well browned, about 30 more minutes.

Serve with plenty of bread to sop up with winy garlicky bacon-y olive-y chicken juices.

It is, perhaps, unfair to characterize this soup as a “clean the fridge” creation. It was really terribly delicious and satisfying – neither my dashing husband nor grade school son said anything other than “more please” about it – but I was using stuff up. Using it up fast. Using it up before I’d have to throw it out. So I hacked a hunk of bacon that had been sitting in the back of the freezer into pieces and put it in a pot and sweated out its fat – adding a bit of water now and then to keep it from scorching before all the fat had melted. While that went down, I sliced a small onion that looked like it was thinking about sprouting, chopped a small savoy cabbage that needed a few wilted outer leaves pulled off of it first, and diced a carrot that was holding its own but I couldn’t remember when it had made its way into the fridge in the first place, which is never a good sign.

All of this was sauteed in the pot with the bacon and a bit of butter and a bit of olive oil (I was hedging all fat bets) until they softened a bit, then I threw in the potatoes that needed some trimming as they were chopped, a bunch  of chicken broth, and brought the whole thing to a boil.

I simmered it all down, cooked it until everything was tender and the flavors had all blended together nicely – about 25 minutes or so, and served it up with some chopped parsley on top for color. So pretty! So fresh!

A whole grain baguette and two half-eaten hunks of cheese were placed on the table along with the soup and we had ourselves a tasty, frugal, quite French (although the potatoes would have been peeled and the whole thing likely pureed) dinner. And the fridge? It’s all ready to be filled, yet again.

A BLT. It’s my default order. I’m at a restaurant, I know no good can come of the meal ahead, I order a BLT. My reason? Even a bad one is pretty good. You can always remove the mealy tomato or scrape off the excess mayo. Nine times out of ten you end up with something edible.

And then there’s the one time.

When I’m back in Minnesota visiting family my mom and I often meet my grandfather for breakfast. She and her siblings meet him for breakfast once a week–they’re not all there every time, but if I’m in town the event usually draws a decent crowd of 3 or even 4 of his 5 kids. We often go to Keys Cafe in St. Paul where I’ve been known to order their Minnesota Supreme omelet with wild rice in it.

And then one time we went for lunch. As the platters that serve as plates passed by the table piled high with gravy-laden meats at Keys that afternoon, I ordered a BLT. A sure, safe, reasonable BLT.

I had not read the menu. Above the sandwich section it stated “all hot sandwiches served with melted cheese.” First, a BLT is not a “hot” sandwich. The bacon should be hot, but that’s it. Even the toasted bread should be cooled enough to not melt the mayo, on that point I am firm. Second, there is no cheese–melted or otherwise–on a BLT. Clearly. Finally, to say there was melted cheese on the sandwich I was served is putting it mildly. There was a solid 1/2 pound of melted cheese worked into every crevice of that poor thing.

So when I made BLTs last night I made them right. Perfectly ripe tomatoes, crispy bacon, toasted bread, snappy lettuce. Homemade aioli in place of the mayo would have been great, but that would have required a lot more work and the heat wave didn’t break until after dinner.

After some brief talk of cooking ourselves an Ethiopian feast (stay tuned–I now have that bee in my bonnet and we all know what that means), and a moment when it looked like we might drive over the bridge to go to Camino again, instead we walked a few blocks to Universal Cafe. We love it for brunch–especially just as it opens at 9 when we can grab a table on the sidewalk and avoid the insane crowds that start to build around 10. We hadn’t been for dinner in a long time. My rigatoni with braised pork shoulder, greens, and pecorino wasn’t what I pictured, but I loved it and will attempt to re-create it. Plenty of black pepper was key. My home version will have MUCH less salt, however, it seemed almost like three or four people independently salted the dish. I doubt anyone tasted it before it headed out over the kitchen counter.

As usual, Ernie did a respectable job on his roast chicken–picking up entire quarters and digging in with glee.

But overall we weren’t terribly hungry. Earlier that day we had celebrated Fathers’ Day and–why be shy about it?–my birthday with a huge brunch. I made yeasted waffles; my dad cooked the bacon. He doesn’t cook much. The standard man-grilling America expects from its fathers, but nothing else besides bacon and fried eggs, actually, unless you count toast. And, because he eats about half a loaf worth every morning, he is an expert toaster.

My parents do not like messes. Not at all. But my dad loves bacon. And, as we all know, bacon is messy. So he has devised a system. A system he implemented in my kitchen when my own system for no-messy-kitchen-bacon–cook it in a cast iron skillet on the grill (which has the added benefit of making the entire neighborhood smell like bacon)–failed due to freezing winds whipping up our hill and keeping the grill from heating up sufficiently.

Behold!

With just a morning’s worth of newsprint and a quarter roll of Scotch tape, this creation can be yours! What? You think all that newspaper next to an open flame seems a wee bit dangerous? Peshaw! It’s fine! What’s a little fire hazard when you can have easy-clean-up, mouth-watering bacon? Live a little!