It’s not a kitchen made for taking haughty bitch photos, that’s for sure.  Which makes me feel like a shitty writer.  Which makes me just eat another bowl of generic discount cereal for dinner.  I NEVER CLAIMED TO KNOW WHAT I WAS DOING.  Stop looking at me.

At Thanksgiving?  I made a pumpkin mousse pie that never set up.  For dinner on New Years Eve I struggled to make the yeasted waffles I regularly and flawlessly cooked for ages, and the result was barely successful.  I resulted to forcing the yeast in warm water, a trick that worked but had dinner two hours late to the table and still didn’t quite taste right.  The next day I made cornbread from a fresh box of corn meal and a fresh can of baking powder, and yet something terrible still happened; the bread was thin and heavy and acted like it contained no leavener at all.  And yet it did, I’m certain of it.  What happened?  I have no clue.

When I came across this post for “custard filled cornbread” at Sweet Amandine, I was overwhelmed with fury.  Stupid cornbread.  Look at her and her weird, good-looking cornbread.  Jerk. I vowed to make it in an effort to avenge myself.  And then there was a storm and I couldn’t get any heavy cream and it had to wait a week.

SO NOW.

It is delightful.  It is cornbread with a layer of cream “custard” on top, and serving it with a large pool of maple syrup underneath turns it into a curious and rich pile of breakfast carbs.  I loved it.  Mike the Viking couldn’t deal with the almost curdy texture of the warm custard, but I think the leftovers will have a texture more like cream cheese.  He’s open to trying it again.  In the meantime he is still muttering about wanting jalapeno cornbread.

I’m not saying the curse has been broken.  But it definitely took a break for a morning.

So, what should I call them?  Humiliation Bites?  Spinster Nibbles?  Shame Snax?  All I know is that Jezebel.com is going to declare a shehad¹ against me for damaging the respectability of women everywhere, and I don’t give a shit.

Just this one image should give you an idea of the horrific, Lovecraftian direction I’m going with this:

That’s pickled jalapenos, cream cheese and fake crab.  Normally I get the crab nuggets because then I don’t have to cut the crab, but only “leg style” was available the other day.  That’s how fucking awful and great this is.

I feel a compulsion toward honesty in my sharing this at all, but if I’m being true with myself I have to admit that I normally put more cream cheese on them.  So that was my humiliation line in the sand.

And behold the wretchedness and tremble in its might:

I’d like to defend myself by pointing out that if this were wrapped in rice it would be the special of the day in a college town’s most cut-rate sushi restaurant, but now that I read it all written out like that I’m not certain that’s a defense I want to make.

¹ Like a jihad, but way judgy-er.

I read through probably 10 or 15 recipes before finding the one that I wanted at Coleen’s Recipes.  I didn’t want to make a separate caramel sauce, and I didn’t want anything extra in the batter; this latter part was a trick to wrangle, as every version I could find used buttermilk, or ground almonds, or sour cream, or cat milk, or sea urchin, or wood pulp or something else I didn’t feel like using.  I just wanted yellow cake.  Coleen really pulled through on this one.

Okay, I mean, minus the part where I didn’t even feel like buying and chopping up a fresh pineapple.  I just wanted an old-fashioned upside-down cake, no shenanigans.  I figure if he was going to eat his first one, it should be a classic 1950′s one.

The recipe was 100% ideal.  Moist and buttery, a little over-sweet, the bottom and particularly the sides candied into rich buttered brown sugar outrageousness.  Mike – the Viking here, folks, a man who was disappointed when I bought a variety bag of single-serve potato chips because he just wanted the BBQ ones – even started suggesting alternative flavors, like banana or pear upside-down cake.

I used extra cherries because I primarily eat pineapple upside-down cake as a vector for eating wretchedly artificial maraschino cherries.  I drank whiskey sours the whole first two years I was of legal drinking age primarily just for the cherries, and before realizing that the sour mix was what was making me throw up every time I went drinking and not the whiskey.  LIVE AND LEARN.

I’m not going to list the recipe here because it was unchanged from Coleen’s at her website, so you can go over there and get it – just know that I used canned pineapple and left out the pecans, but do know that I even used butter flavor extract (actually, my grocery store sells a flavor called “Vanilla Butternut” that I used instead of both vanilla and butter extracts), and that’s where the evil-cackle-worthy greatness of a somewhat fake-tasting 1950′s cake comes from.  Serve with mugs of instant Folger’s and call it a day.

I don’t even remember the circumstances around his mentioning, as though I should always have known – as if I know anything at all about him after these last 10 years other than that he won’t eat beans, soup, risotto, stew, most pasta dishes, shrimp too large, “dirty” bread, frosting or grains other than rice – that he loves lemon meringue pie.  In his words: “Apple is the best pie, but lemon meringue is second.”

Well.  My answer was to repeat to him “Meringue?  Meringue meringue?”  like some half-wit monkey.  Because I find this incredibly hard to believe.  There’s no way he likes the texture of meringue.

So I made it, as much to prove to myself in smug self-flagellation that the Viking does not in fact know what he is talking about.  I’ve never seen him eat a slice of meringue pie, let alone pine for it as this “second best” beloved pie as he so claims.

I dirtied every single cookpot in the kitchen, too, I might add.  And most of the bowls.  And the food processor.  And the stand mixer.  It was a fucking massacre in there.

And this thing that came out the other end?

Turns out he does like meringue.  Meringue meringue.

Cook’s Illustrated “Ultimate Lemon Meringue Pie”
i barely changed the recipe because i’m intimidated by the esoteric nature of meringue.  most meringues are total bitches: they “weep” or sweat beads of sugary moisture, or they sink into the lemon filling, or they pee liquid all over the lemon filling and turn it back into soup or any other number of ruinous fuckery.  but it held solid, didn’t weep and the next day remained perfectly intact – in fact, the whole pie was unchanged 24 hours later, a major feat for a lemon meringue.

pie crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
6 Tbsp (3 oz) butter, chilled and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
4 Tbsp vegetable shortening, chilled
2 – 4 Tbsp cold water
1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs

lemon filling:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups cold water
6 egg yolks
1 heaping Tbsp lemon zest (about 2 lemons)
1/2 cup lemon juice (about 3 – 5 lemons)
2 Tbsp butter

meringue:
1 Tbsp cornstarch + 1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup  sugar
4 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla

• To make the pie shell, mix flour, salt and sugar in food processor.  Cut butter into flour with a few short pulses. Add the shortening and continue pulsing in until flour resembles coarse cornmeal with butter bits no larger than a small pea, a few more short pulses. Dump into a bowl.  Sprinkle 2 tablespoons cold water over the mixture and using a spatula press down on dough with until dough sticks together. If dough will not come together, add 1 tablespoon more cold water and again if it still won’t come together, but I’d be pretty surprised if that were the case.  Transfer dough to a piece of plastic wrap, tightly seal and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

• Heavily coat work area with graham cracker crumbs; I like to roll dough between two pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Place dough on work area. Flip the dough a few times in the graham crumbs to thoroughly coat it. Roll dough out quickly and efficiently (don’t roll back and forth over the same area a lot or it will get tough – instead, roll from the center out) continuously coating with graham crumbs. Flip the entire thing over at least once to make sure the underside is getting equally coated.  This is where using plastic wrap or parchment comes in handy.   Form a disc about 13 inches in diameter.

• Place pie dough in a 9-inch glass pie pan. Take care to fit dough to pan without stretching it; the best way to do this is to gently lift the edges of the dough and settle the dough down into the inside corner of the pie pan, moving around the circumference of the pan until the dough is nicely settled.  Trim all around to your taste (1 inch for thick crust edges, 1/2 inch for thinner) and fold the extra dough under and crimp the dough either with your fingers or with a fork.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes, then use fork to prick shell at  1/2 inch intervals.  Press a doubled 12-inch square of aluminum foil into pie shell, taking care to press it gently up along the sides of the shell; prick again just on the bottom and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

• Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake the shell, checking occasionally for ballooning, until crust is firmly set, about 10 to 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees, remove foil, and continue to bake until crust is crisp and golden brown in color, about 10 minutes longer.  Remove from oven and turn the heat down to 325 degrees.

• For the filling, mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and water in a large, nonreactive saucepan. Bring mixture to simmer over medium heat, whisking occasionally at beginning of the process and more frequently as mixture begins to thicken. When mixture starts to simmer and turn translucent, whisk in egg yolks, two at a time. Whisk in zest, then lemon juice, and finally butter. Bring mixture to a brisk simmer, whisking constantly. Remove from heat, place plastic wrap directly on surface of filling to keep hot and prevent skin from forming.

• For the meringue, mix cornstarch with 1/3 cup water in small saucepan and bring to simmer over medium heat, whisking occasionally at beginning and more frequently as mixture thickens. When mixture starts to simmer and turn translucent, remove from heat. Let cool while continuing with next step.

• Double check that you turned the oven down to 325 degrees. Mix cream of tartar and sugar together in a small bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat egg whites and vanilla until frothy. Beat in sugar mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time until sugar is incorporated and mixture forms soft peaks. Add the gloopy cornstarch mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue to beat meringue to stiff peaks.  You’ll probably have to stop and scrape the bowl down since the action of the beater will have flung some of the cornstarch mixture against the bowl wall.  Continue mixing a few seconds longer just to incorporate.

• Remove plastic from lemon filling and return to low heat for just a minute – it is very important that the filling is hot when you proceed with the next step.

• Pour lemon filling into pie shell. Using a rubber spatula, immediately distribute meringue evenly around edge then center of pie to keep it from sinking into filling – you don’t have to use all the meringue if you like a little less, but make sure the meringue attaches to pie crust to prevent shrinking. You can smooth the meringue down or use a spoon to make little decorative peaks all over.   Bake pie until meringue is golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature.

• No really, LET IT COOL TO ROOM TEMPERATURE.  This will take as many as 5 to 6 hours.  Do not place in fridge, and do not cut until the bottom of the pan has no detectable warmth at all.  Ignoring this advice risks having a runny pie.  To store uneaten pie, again: do not refrigerate.  Keep at room temperature and press a folded piece of plastic wrap into the cut edges of the pie, but not across the top of the meringue.  It will keep just fine for about a day.

It started innocently enough.  Her favorite bakery in Cannon Beach, Oregon serves cups of Swedish Cream in little plastic take-out containers, and since she’s a rabid predator whenever a vanilla cream of any kind is present, she bought some and wouldn’t shut up about it being the bestest dessert ever.  Thus began my trials.

Swedish Cream, it turns out, is essentially just panna cotta made with sour cream.  And panna cotta, as you know, is a creamy dessert somewhat like custard, but using gelatin to thicken instead of egg yolks.  Your mind is not yet blown, I understand.  But let’s go for a walk together while I explain this to you.

See, most custards and puddings are pretty soft, and custards in particular are quite rich, owing largely to the egg yolks.  They’re pale yellow and lush; think crème brûlée.  Which is why, upon tasting the Swedish Cream for myself, I was so shocked.

Swedish Cream, to begin with, is snow-white.  Not veering into blue or yellow, but perfectly, ethereally white.  It should really be served in clear glass dishes, but I don’t currently stock those at the Anger Burger kitchen, so you know.  Discount store white ramekins it is.  But the flavor, the flavor is something else: almost refreshing, it is tangy and sweet and mild all at once, with a distant, back-of-tongue fattiness from the dairy.  There’s nothing cloying about Swedish Cream, and you can and will want to eat much more of it than is probably healthy.

The flavor is so mild, in fact, that it’s nigh required to serve it with some sort of fruit coulis.  Just a little, and anything from mixed berries to apricots will work just fine.  You’re starting with a base of faintly vanilla-perfumed milk, after all, so it’s time to go crazy go nuts.

Of course, this is where things went awry with me.   Not the coulis – that’s amateur hour – but  the Swedish Cream itself.  I found several recipes, each with varying levels of, well, everything.  Some had yogurt.  One even used buttermilk instead of sour cream.  And there was nothing to do but just start making it, which of course I set about doing from the most complicated end of the spectrum thinking that something so delicious certainly couldn’t be simple.  I tried the yogurt and sour cream mixed together, I tried three different kinds of milk, I tried half gelatin and double gelatin.

Don’t be surprised, but I still refuse to believe that this best version – the simplest one – is still the best possible version.  There are some variations I haven’t tried yet, but we can only eat so many gallons of this stuff a day.  I realize I’m contradicting my earlier implication that you will eat all of it at once, but I admit that I’m getting older and dairy isn’t digesting like it used to.  Okay, it doesn’t have anything to do with age.  Let’s keep walking.

I’m still convinced some small quantity of buttermilk will end up blowing my mind the rest of the way, but in the meantime I’m sorry to introduce to you the reason you’re going to eat a 16-ounce tub of sour cream this week.

Swedish Cream
here is where you (and definitely my mom) may disagree with me: i prefer it made with whole milk so that it is just a little lighter, and just a little easier to eat a big cup of it in one sitting.  that being said, making it with half-and-half or even full cream will make, as you have rightfully guessed, a creamier, smoother and richer dessert.  my advice is: try it both ways.  you know, for science.

1 16oz container (2 cups) full-fat sour cream
2 1/2 cups whole milk, or half-and-half, or full-fat cream or any variation therein
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 packet of unflavored gelatin (see note)

*note: in the US, the primary brand for unflavored gelatin is Knox and it comes in little boxes containing four packets.  In grocery stores, Knox is always in the same general vicinity as the boxes of Jello.

• In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and gelatin.  Stir these dry ingredients together.  Gently whisk in the 2 1/2 cups of milk (or whatever you are using) and then place on a medium burner.  Do not walk away.  Stirring often, heat the milk, sugar and gelatin mixture together until scalding, which is when it is not yet bubbling but too hot to put your finger into for longer than a quick dip.  Remove from heat, set aside and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

• Dump the sour cream and vanilla into a medium bowl and using a whisk, slowly pour the milk mixture into the sour cream.  We are doing this only to ensure the milk and sour cream mix smoothly together, we aren’t tempering it or anything tricky.

• Ladle the cream into individual serving dishes.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.  Serve with a generous puddle of fruit coulis, fresh fruit, mint sprigs and whatever else you find in the yard.

Fruit Coulis, the General Idea
this works with just about any fruit, though some might be grosser than others – i’d avoid banana, for instance.  don’t limit yourself to fresh fruit either, frozen fruit works just as well if not better, since we’re just blending it up anyway. you can also add a dash of liquor (Grand Marnier is lovely), or herbs (rosemary goes well with almost everything) or spices (the usual suspects).

1 cup fruit (thawed if from frozen)
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
fruit juice or water (optional)

• In a blender or food processor, blend until smooth.  Taste for levels – if it is too sweet, add more lemon juice, and too sour, add more sugar.  If it appears too thick, add fruit juice or water one spoonful at a time until the sauce is as thin as you desire.

• If you’ve used berries and you’re really not into seeds, strain the mixture through a tea-strainer or something similar.

• That’s it, you’re done.

I’m a little exhausted by it all, to be honest.  At first it was thrilling – decent coffee in almost every town!  Regular grocery stores carry artisan breads!  Different salt for different uses!  But then it started to weigh everything down; recipes became complex for complexity’s sake.  Homemade goldfish crackers, really?!  People don’t blink twice at $40 and 48 hours of active prep time just to make two servings of David Chang’s Momofuku ramen at home.  There’s an iPhone app for ordering 50 pounds of tomatoes from your local farm so you can put up your own tomato sauce.  I may have made that last part up, but there’s also a good chance it’s a real thing.

Being local didn’t stop a third of these potatoes from being rotten inside.

Anyway, I get it:  food should come from somewhere reasonably nearby.  It should be free of poisons.  If grandma didn’t recognize it, don’t eat it¹ — believe me, I’ve sipped of the HFCS-free, naturally-colored açaí berry Kool-Aid and it is good.  But I’m just not going to pay $10 a pound for heirloom beans and as much as I would dearly love to “source” some hand-rendered organic leaf lard for my pie crusts, I can’t, so I guess some fucking Crisco will have to do.

I admit that my irritation extends to people that don’t deserve it.  Or mostly don’t.  Heidi Swanson of the website 101 Cookbooks is one of those people, and I felt vindication when I checked her book Super Natural Cooking out from the library.  In the comments section of this page I tried to summarize my dislike of the cookbook, which largely boiled down to that the recipes were vaguely repetitive and required the acquisition of unusual grains and legumes that I’d never again use.  Anger Burger reader Jodi of Feral Cook advised that I try the sequel book, Super Natural Every Day, and that I’ve done.  And?  Jodi’s right, it’s a good book.

I’m going to stop griping and tell you about this recipe.

Heidi calls it “Broccoli Gribiche” but I think the gribiche part might throw some folks.  Also, by the time I was through with it it wasn’t really gribiche any more, so you can see where this particular devolution is going.

Normally sauce gribiche is a French sauce for meat made with cornichons, vinegar, capers, boiled egg and herbs.  It is delicious, but Mike the Viking thinks that capers are poison, so I can’t use them.  It had also never occurred to me to serve gribiche with vegetables, and this is where Swanson gets her bitch-slap on.  This shit is dope on vegetables.

It’s milder than you might think it would be, and richer at the same time.  The egg yolks in the sauce are soothing and creamy, the herbs are intentionally mild, and if you’re so inclined, the capers and cornichons are merely starry points of brightness in an otherwise perfectly autumnal dish.

Any vegetables at all would work, and certainly the aforementioned more common meat.  I can absolutely imagine this as a heavily-dressed mix of vegetables spooned over roasted chicken.  Lord, I can imagine it.

I tried it with chopped oil-cured olives on top, and it was good, but not as good as cornichons — which are, if I’m not too late to tell you, very sour and otherwise largely unseasoned little pickles.  I can and do eat them by the jars full.

Vegetable Gribiche
deeply inspired by Heidi Swanson
i tried making this sauce as Heidi advises with a single yolk and a hand whisk, but found that more yolks and a food processor made the version that i preferred.  you can of course make it with a whisk, but it will never fully emulsify.  it tastes good, but that thick, perfectly silky perfection will never happen.

2 1/2 – 3  pounds roast vegetables, cut into bite-size pieces
4 eggs, hard cooked
1/2 C. mild olive oil
2 Tbsp. vinegar (red wine is traditional, apple cider and balsamic are tasty too)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp. maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt
2 shallots, chopped fine
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped fine
2 or 3 cornichons, chopped fine (optional)
1 Tbsp capers (optional)
1 Tbsp. chopped tarragon (optional – see note below)

*A note on tarragon: tarragon is a supposedly mild herb that to me tastes of licorice and quite neatly overpowers almost everything else.  I like the flavor, but I feel that tarragon should be used with serious moderation, particularly for American palates that aren’t as keen on the taste of licorice or anise.  Taste if first before you buy a fresh $2 bundle of it that you almost certainly will not use, then consider buying dried tarragon. This is the only time I’ll advise buying a dried herb, but there it is: at least it won’t rot before you someday use it again.

• Have hard boiled eggs ready before you start anything else – they don’t have to be cooled, just cooked.

• Roast the vegetables by coating them in a light drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt, and putting them in a 425° oven for about 15 minutes, or until they are browned in places and cooked through.

• While the vegetables are roasting, peel the hard boiled eggs, cut them in half and remove the egg yolks to the bowl of a food processor or blender.  Set the whites aside for now.  To the yolks add the oil, vinegar, mustard, maple syrup and salt.  Blend until very smooth, about 30 – 60 seconds.  Add the chopped shallot, parsley, cornichons, capers and tarragon if using.  Pulse to blend briefly, maybe 5 seconds worth, just to incorporate the chopped bits.  Taste for seasonings.

• Finely julianne the egg whites and put them in a bowl large enough to hold the roasted vegetables.  Add the yolk sauce from the blender.  This is now sauce gribiche.

• When the vegetables are done roasting and screaming hot, add them to the gribiche and stir quickly to coat.  Serve hot or warm either with some crusty bread or as a side dish.

• Leftovers are totally excellent cold the next day, dur.

¹ For the record, though, my grandma used Sweet’N Low, ate Spam, loved Cool Whip and would walk a mile for a Twinkie. I realize that Pollan actually advises to not eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food, which means we’re getting back further than I am familiar, though I suspect she would have eaten just as poorly or worse than myself if faced with a box of donuts and a tall, glistening glass of Sunny Delight.

So in short: it was actually the quintessential summer BBQ.  I just didn’t grill much.

What I did make, though, was elote, or as everyone around here calls it, Mexican corn.  I made it again a few nights later just because it’s fucking awesome and I think I’m going to eat it every night until all the corn in the world is gone.

I like the corn grilled in the husk because it adds so much flavor, and that’s coming from me, Earth’s least enthusiastic griller.

Most street vendors that serve Mexican corn will slather it with either crema (which is basically sour cream) or more commonly around here, with mayonnaise and then sprinkle it with crumbled cotija cheese.  You’re given a shaker of chile powder and a piece of lime to squeeze over it.  I prefer to mix together the mayo, chile powder and lime all together in the proportions I like; it saves time when everyone wants to get their corn ready at the same moment, and it tastes the same.

The two most common Mexican cheeses are cotija and queso fresco, and they’re interchangable for this (and much of Mexican cuisine, honestly), though slightly different in taste and texture.  They both remind me of very mild feta cheese: salty, crumbly and not rapid to melt.  Cotija is a little saltier and has a springy texture, while queso fresco tends to be mild and more tender.

We grilled burgers afterward, and for the thousandth time in my life I wondered why the hell vegetarian burgers are so goddamn tiny.

Mexican Grilled Corn
if you really can’t find Mexican cheese, you can use feta.  if you don’t want to grill the corn or it’s the middle of winter, you can actually boil corn inside the husk – it adds a pleasant, rustic and grassy flavor to the corn that i think is great, it’s just a slight horror to peel the wet, hot husks off the corn when they’re ready to eat.  but you know, beautiful food hurts.

mayo sauce:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
1/4 tsp ancho chile powder
1/2 tsp salt
zest from half a lime
juice from half a lime

corn, two ears per person
cotija or queso fresco, crumbled very fine

• Get everything for the corn ready before starting the grill.  First, prepare the corn by tearing off one outside layer of very stiff husk as well as the hank of silk dangling off the end, and then soak the whole corn for about 15 – 30 minutes in lukewarm water.

• Next, prepare the mayo sauce.  Mix everything together in a small bowl (or small jar, to keep the remainder in the fridge) and taste for levels.  It will get spicier as it sits, so spice it to just below your desired heat level.  Add more lime or salt as you like.

• Crumble enough cheese for the corn, as fine as you can get it with your fingers.

• Start your grill and when it reaches about 400° carefully set the corn on and with tongs turn 1/4 turn about every five minutes, or until the husk is quite blackened in parts and some of the kernels beneath have taken on some color.  This should take about 20 minutes, depending on the heat of your grill.

• Remove the corn to a baking sheet and allow to cool for about 5 minutes before attempting to shuck it.  Slather each ear with lots of chile-mayo and then use the mayo as glue to adhere as much cheese as you can get on it.  Eat until mayo and cheese are smeared up to your eyebrows.

French Farmhouse was covered in sticky-notes by the time it was due back to the library, at which point I realized I should just buy the goddamn book.  I mean, I haven’t yet, but I also haven’t been home, so just let me tell you about this bizarre grilled cheese sandwich I made instead.

This is an excellent example of a recipe I look at and think “No, that is no good.”  And then I make it because it’s just too weird to be convinced 100% that it is in fact no good.

The bread is first soaked in a mixture of white wine and eggs, and then grilled in a hot pan with lots of grated Gruyere cheese.

So basically, yeah, a savory French toast.  Sandwich.  To my great shock, when I ran the idea by Mike the Viking he was loudly enthusiastic.  Into the pan it all went.

The result confounded us.  Perhaps unsurprisingly — despite containing no sugar or spices — it tastes like French toast.  I never would have pegged the taste of French toast so solidly on the egg alone, but there it is: French toast is French toast whether it’s made with sugar, nutmeg and milk or with cheese, white wine and pepper.

That being said, it was great.  Well, of course it was great, it’s a pile of melted cheese on bread.  It was the texture that threw me above all else.  It is very tender to the bite, as you might imagine wine-soaked bread would be, making for a kind of nursery-time snack quality that lends itself better to rainy, black evenings.  But something else nagged me as I ate, a ghost of a flavor that kept me from enjoying myself until the very last little bit of sandwich: French onion soup.

French fucking onion soup!  That’s what I wanted!  And what wanted it!  Instead of a giant melty-cheese crouton on my soupe à l’oignon, I want a side of this damn Frenchy grilled cheese to dip in it!  A great tension left me like an energy-being leaves Deanna Troi at the end of a boring episode of ST:TNG.

Frenchy Grilled Cheese
lightly adjusted from Susan Herrmann Loomis
don’t skimp on the cheese here, the cheese matters.  good cave-aged Gruyere is best, but some cheaper Gruyere is fine. if you can’t find Gruyere, try Emmental (which is merely high quality Swiss cheese).  if you can’t find Emmental then figure it out yourself.

2 eggs
1 cup of a light, fruity white wine
salt and pepper to taste
4 – 6 slices of sturdy bread (see note)
1 Tbsp butter
2 cups grated Gruyere (about 6oz)

***Note: tender breads will not work for this, they’ll get soggy and mushy and you’ll be sad.  Use a crusty, sturdy loaf such as anything that has the word “rustic” in the title.

• Get everything prepared and ready by grating the cheese, having a non-stick griddle (or wide skillet) warming over medium-low heat, and in ideal circumstances, having a finished pot of French onion soup bubbling on the stove top.

• Whisk together the eggs, wine, salt and pepper in a shallow dish such as a pie pan.  Lay the bread slices into the pan (probably 2 at a time, or whatever fits), letting them soak for about 2 minutes each side or until they are well-coated but not soggy or falling apart.

• After melting a little butter into the griddle, place 1 piece of soaked bread for each sandwich onto the hot surface.  Set the rest of the bread (the second half of the sandwiches, in other words) into the wine and egg mixture to soak just like the first slices.  Meanwhile, mound some of the Gruyere onto the bread on the griddle.  Place the second soaked slices on top of the grated cheese slices.

• Check the bottoms of the sandwiches to see if they are browning.  They take a little while to brown, but that’s okay since we want them to really set the egg and cook through the bread as well as melt the cheese.  Each side should end up taking a total about about 5 or 6 minutes.

• When done, remove to a cutting board and cut into narrow strips or “soldiers”.  Dip in your soup and stop chewing briefly every time the storm outside causes the lights to flicker.

Since the fried rice was the more successful of the dishes, I will show it to you.

The jam is a little reluctant to incorporate into the rice, and in hindsight I wish I’d mixed it together with the fish sauce to encourage a more even application, but it didn’t really matter in the end.  Instead, I’d spooned big globs into an area on the griddle free of rice and let it warm through for a few seconds before mixing it into the rice, repeating the technique until there was enough flavor to melt my toenail polish off my toes.

It was magnificent.  It may be my new favorite fried rice, and I love me some fried rice I tell you what.  A little too late in the cooking process I thought of adding pineapple, and when I said so Mike the Viking frowned and shot me in the hip with a crossbow, which is how he says “No thank you.”  Odd, too, considering that he likes pineapple on pizza.  If it were just me, I would have added pineapple.

A fried egg on top and some terrible photography ends this lesson; when you’re starving and the food smells amazing, you may want to try and take a step back, reset your white balance and maybe break the egg open so that the golden, runny yolk dribbles alluringly into your rice, then take a photo.  Or!  Just eat your dinner and then tell everyone about how beautiful it was later.  THE END.

Chili Jam Fried Rice
if you don’t eat beef,  any other protein would be tasty, though I’d lean towards shrimp, personally.  if using shrimp, do not add them until near the end of the cooking time for the fried rice to avoid overcooking.  better yet, fry them first until just barely cooked through, set them aside to continue cooking rice as instructed, and then add the shrimp just when done to warm through again.  i’m a tremendous fan of using cooked and then cooled rice to make fried rice, though using warm rice is acceptable in a pinch – just be aware that it will be wetter and will break down a little more than usual during frying.  many stores now sell frozen, cooked rice that is perfect for last-minute fried rice cravings – don’t even thaw it, just dump the frozen rice into the pan and have at it.

1 cup jasmine rice, cooked and cooled (making approx. 3 cups cooked rice)
1 Tbsp. mild oil, such as peanut
8oz. thinly sliced beef
1/2 onion, sliced into narrow strips
3 Tbsp. nam prik pao
1 Tbsp. fish sauce
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup pineapple tidbits, drained (optional)
juice of 1 lime
1/2 cup chopped basil (Thai holy basil if you can get it)
1 – 2 green onions, sliced thin
fried eggs

• Using a big electric skillet or a really big nonstick saute pan over medium-high heat, add the oil, let it warm through for 1 minute, and then add the beef and onions.  They should really pop and sizzle.  Let them cook for 1 -2 minutes, or until the onions just start to get transparent and/or get a tiny bit of color on them.  Add the rice and using a sturdy spatula, make chopping motions through the rice to break it up a little and stir the beef and onions through it.

• While the rice, beef and onions are sizzling, in a small bowl mix together the nam prik pao, fish sauce and soy sauce.  Drizzle this mixture over the rice and again, use a chopping motion to incorporate the liquid throughout the rice.  Sprinkle the sugar over the rice and add the pineapple tidbits.  Stir again.

• Allow the rice to sit undisturbed for about 30 seconds and then start using a flipping motion to stir the rice, like you’d flip hash browns.  The goal is to get lovely browned, caramelized bits of rice away from the heat while rotating unbrowned rice down to the pan surface.  If the rice isn’t browning, increase the wait time to 60 seconds.  If it is browning too quickly, lower the heat.

• Take a moment to taste the rice for saltiness and sweetness.  If it is not salty enough, add a little more soy sauce or fish sauce.  If it has no detectable sweetness, add 1 more Tbsp. of sugar.  If it seems just entirely underseasoned to you, add 1 more Tbsp of nam prik pao.

• Continue cooking the rice in this manner until the rice is no longer very wet and sticky, and until there are small patches of lovely browned rice visible when everything is stirred together.  In my experience, this takes about 5 minutes of cooking time, though it really does change depending on all kinds of factors – it’s taken me as long as 10 minutes to fry my rice properly.

• When done, turn off the heat and add the lime juice, basil and green onions – stir through to distribute.

• In a separate nonstick frying pan, quickly fry an egg over easy for each serving.  Take a poorly composed photo of your creation and then eat it.

First, this brown rice blend from Trader Joe’s was languishing in my cupboard because it was essentially inedible.  Twice I’d tried to cook some up, each time finding myself the proud parent of a soup pot full of hard, damp rice and barley bits.  They had already cooked 10 minutes longer than advised, but still nothing.  It was like chewing rabbit feed.  And so then I thought: why not throw it into a salad?  The texture will be better appreciated, and hopefully I won’t be able to see what I’m eating.

The kale is beautiful right now, like I want to construct a car-sized pile of it and take a running leap into it.

After reading around on the internet a little,  I decided I wanted to make a dressing that was essentially hummus, but minus the garbanzo beans.  It tasted lovely and I was pleased with myself.

And how did it turn out?

Honestly?  Pretty tasty.  I liked everything about it, it was chewy and a little crunchy, rich and fresh-tasting at the same time.  And then I spent the next 24 hours sitting on the toilet playing my Nintendo DS.  So, sorry kale salad.  You go in the trash.

Kale Salad for the Stout of Bowel
i was very sad to throw this salad away, so please don’t let what happened to me because of my disease deter you from it – if you’re used to eating raw kale salads, you’ll be just fine.  also, don’t discard the lazy option of actually using hummus as the dressing – buy a tub of your favorite hummus, thin it with some olive oil and lemon juice and construct yourself this salad business.

dressing:
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1 large clove of garlic finely grated or chopped very, very fine
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt + more to taste

salad:
1 cup (before cooking) mixed grains, such as brown rice, pearled barley or farro
1 bunch Lacinato (also known as black or dinosaur) kale
1 large or 2 or 3 small Persian or English cucumbers
1 or 2 chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mint

• Set about cooking the grains – they take about an hour to cook, so they get started first.  Cook according to package directions.

• Meanwhile, prepare the salad dressing in a large bowl by whisking everything together and then tasting for seasoning.  Remember that the grains and kale can take a lot of flavor.

• Prep the kale by washing it and then stripping the leaves from rigid center rib.  Finely chop the kale and rub the bits roughly between the palms of your hands.  This helps break down the kale a little before the salad is made.  It will begin to get very fragrant with an odor some people claim smells like bananas – I can only vaguely see this comparison, maybe if we’re talking about very green bananas.

• Chop up the cucumber, tomatoes and mint and set aside.

• Add the cooked grains to the bowl with the dressing and stir to coat, then add the kale, cucumber, tomato and mint.  Stir to coat and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.