The Foodist: Eating My Words

I think it bothers Schuyler sometimes that in spite of the vast improvement his coming has effected in our domestic cuisine, my kids remain nostalgic for mom food. Mom food is anything I managed to put on the table in the ten years we were a dadless, chef-less threesome. Since I worked at home, writing novels, I was almost always there to make dinner and almost always too financially stressed to make the kind of food we eat now. Almost as soon as he could read, my son learned to decode the supermarket placards that report not just price but price per pound. Meat was more often ingredient than entrée. I specialized in one dish meals, elastic enough to serve the variable number of folks who showed up at our table on any given night, a kind of down-home fishes and loaves miracle, re-enacted so often it came to seem quite ordinary.

My gift as a cook is to be able to look in an almost bare refrigerator, at sparsely furnished cupboard shelves and within five minutes come up with a strategy for a reasonably nutritious, at least marginally palatable meal. As culinary arts go, this one is dubious, hardly the stuff of articles in the food porn mags, where even the vegetables are airbrushed and just buying the required ingredients would compromise the budget of a small third world country. Still, it helped me to raise up a couple of kick-butt kids--ambitious, generous, funny and resourceful, and there are plenty of menus afoot in the world that cannot claim so much.

Obviously, the most important ingredient in any of these meals is attention. In a throw-away world, knowing that somebody is actually there on a regular basis, staring into the refrigerator, chopping and stirring and serving up something hot that smells and tastes pretty good is enough to make you feel like royalty. With luck, it will even make you care enough about yourself that in the absence of mom, you'll take the time and trouble to feed your own sweet self, and never ever get so confused that you mistake the food itself for love, which is why people get fat and feel empty, or diet themselves into ghosts. Commitment tastes good, independent of the skills of the chef. What other ingredients and ideas help you cook reliably on little more than good intentions?

Things to always have on hand: onions, garlic, carrots, celery, apples, potatoes, yams, raisins, frozen kernel corn, chopped olives, canned mushrooms, pinto beans, pasta, rice, tortillas, parmesan, cheddar, eggs, tomato sauce, all purpose white flour, butter or margarine, milk, chicken and beef bouillon, baking powder, corn meal, whole wheat bread, soy sauce, bacon, capers, lemons or bottled lemon juice, safflower oil.

Survival spice cabinet (may augment from a real life herb garden)--salt, pepper, basil, cumin, oregano, rosemary, chili powder, bay leaves, curry powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, celery salt.

Tip #1--you can put virtually anything in a quiche, in an omelet, on a baked potato or on pasta

Tip #2-- the chemistry of the basic white sauce may be the most important cooking thang you'll ever master. From it, all gravies and curries and creamed things arise.

Tip #3--always boil the bejesus out of a gravy. (I learned this from my aunt Adeline, a great plain cook.)

Tip #4--think about how tastes commingle and ingredients interact. If you can imagine, you can also make creative substitutions in established recipes, depending on what you happen to have on hand. You can take a stab at recreating dishes at home you've encountered at restaurants or other people's houses. Cheaper.

Tip#5--fresh baked biscuits make any dinner seem kind of special. They cost almost nothing and don't take very long to make.

Tip #6--a ham, a pork or beef roast, a turkey--any good hunk o protein--has at least nine lives. Use every bit.

Tip #7--have one great old fashioned all American cookbook for basic recipes. I use an old Joy of Cooking, nearly looseleaf anymore, for basics like coffee cake, biscuits, curry sauce, quiche filling, internal meat temperatures, basic casseroles. Beyond that, look to foreign folk cuisines. The ingredients cost less.

Tip #8--name any singular creation after the night of the week on which you invent it, i.e. Friday Night Surprise.

Tip #9--if it's a bad surprise, and sometimes it will be, be willing to throw it out. Recoup in laughter what you lose in nutrition.

Tip #10--it's actually quite amusing to make sculptures out of your food and tableware. Remember to fly a banner from the turret of your mashed potato castle. Try setting it on fire sometime, castle flambé