Simply Cooking

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about craft. Cooking the simple meal. Writing the sharp, deliberate sentence. Craft is the way we work, a way of doing things.

I taught The Old Man and The Sea this summer. I used the book because Hemingway's ridiculously terse prose is a great way to introduce emerging writers to the idea of craft. The book urges conversation about the technical aspect of writing, the nuts and bolts. It's also a great way to get paid to talk about fishing. Double score.

Say what you want about Hemingway's life but when he wrote, he was tight. His sentences are lean and effective. Like a meal of olive oil, salt and bread, wine. Deceptively simple.

The novel's opening line has it all:

"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."

Like this one, great opening lines can be read as microcosms of the entire story to come. The drama and struggle all unfolds in concentric circles rippling outward from it.

In the line above, the reader gets the whole story in one shot, framed in one tiny window. Yet nothing is betrayed--the fight to come, the eventual loss, the lonely walk back up the beach, Santiago's dream of the lions in Africa. For those of us who are familiar with the book, I think these things are what lie hidden behind words like alone, skiff, Gulf Stream, and taking.

There is a brilliance to Old Man's opening line. Perhaps it is in the way Hem says it all, but still keeps things hidden. The essential mystery of the piece is still concealed. Like the faces of people in Rene Magritte's paintings, there is always an element of secrecy. That small kernel of truth buried at the core remains unknowable. His craft is in how he lays all of that down in so few words.

Like Hemingway, Magritte's work is full of concealed faces and objects.

But it all translates in the kitchen as well. Cooking and writing share so many natural commonalities. That's why we write this blog. That's maybe why many of you like to read it. You. Us. We know these things. It's our little inside joke. It's the reason why some of our favorite books are always cookbooks.

To me, great cooking and great writing share a common minimalism, an economy of resources. I like both best when they are unadorned, laid bare to their essential elements. Efficient. Penetrative, to the heart. Crisp and clean, like a blade. High and tight, like Derek Jeter's haircut.

But just like a great opening line of a novel, the first course of a meal can also be a microcosm. It might capture the essence of the entire meal to come. It might tantalize. If the art of seduction is the ability to both reveal and obscure at the same time, then let that be the first course.

Take my typical Friday night meal: fresh bread, roast chicken, green vegetables, potatoes, garlic, olive oil, water, red wine. I think it may be the perfect meal. It is also the simplest.

Chicken soup is the necessary first course for this meal. It needs to be. Every ingredient in the soup is something that will be served again, but in a different form later on: meat, vegetables, potatoes, spice, water, salt, warmth. When stared deeply into from above, the best chicken soups auger the meal to come. This soup must be eaten carefully.

For six years my wife has come up with hundreds of variations of these same simple ingredients every week to near perfection. The only variables are vegetables, maybe some fish here and there. Usually salmon. Maybe herring. But the main components of the meal are the same every time.

She calls me at work. She says: What should I make for dinner?

I go: It's cold outside. Can you make a chicken soup? Do we have time to make challah? Should I make garlic when I get home?

She says: What do you think?

Then: Love you. Bye.

I believe her. Hanging up, I sometimes pause, say a quick word of thanks. I have to remember to do that more. One word prayers are sometimes the most effective.

Before she hangs up I hear the shrill, hysterical voices of children in the background.

I think to myself: Please, just let there be soup.

She never has time to make the meal. Yet every week about an hour after sundown, the meal doesn't so much come out of the kitchen as emerge. It wafts out. I smell it coming before it arrives. (This happens even in early December, when the sun sets at 4:15 pm.)

If I ask her how she had the time to make such a meal, she is aloof and evasive.

I demand to know. I again ask how she did it.

She smiles and turns around, walks into the kitchen.

She's all: I don't know. I just somehow did.

Voice lilting as she speaks: I even had to hold the baby in one arm all day. He was crying. I cooked with the other. And did the bills.

Some people are secretive about their craft.

I stand amazed, but suspicious. She even went to the store for the wine? It simply can't be. I begin to snoop around the kitchen. I lift pot lids to sniff inside. I inspect things. From the corner of my eye I watch what she does with her hands.

She says: Get out.

Later on, the meal is a smashing success. She tells me not to drink all of the wine. Soon some reading, then bed.

***

Cooking with simplicity is less of an art and more of a mastery of the basic elements of what can satiate the body and soul. How to really make a meal. All great cooks have this. Some people just have an intuition of what ingredients will truly work in a dish or a meal. In the greatest ones, it's an innate alchemy. It's a knowledge of how to mix the best spices or how to invite the right guests. It's like Remy in Ratatouille.

The best cooks know how to make a meal out of the simplest ingredients.

When shopping at the market, the bread we buy should have no more than four or five ingredients. Anything more is asinine. As for preservatives, most of us live in areas where we have twenty-four hour, seven-day a week access to fresh produce, meat, or fish. Therefore to buy anything containing preservatives is ludicrous, offensive. There is no need whatsoever. The same goes for food dyes. Absolutely preposterous.

***

I think all of this may come from a desire of mine to have everything boiled down to its basic elements. To simplify. To find the grand unifying theory. Hashem Echad: God is One

I think I need that. I need to know that truth is always simple yet everywhere and unadorned. It's ubiquitous. It's as uncomplicated as a single line of prose.

In his poem The First Words, Seamus Heaney writes:

My only drink is meaning from the deep brain,

What the birds and the grass and the stones drink.

Let everything flow

Up to the four elements,

Up to water and Earth and fire and air.

Isn't that so tight? But I love that- the final dissolution of all things into their basic elements. It makes so much sense to me.

It's is as simple as the way a meal is reduced to bones on a plate and half-conversations lingering in the air. It's the way salt dissolves in warm water when stirred, giving itself over so utterly and completely. It's the way some things vanish into the air when they need to. Just like that.

***

Chilled Peach Soup

It's peach season now on the east coast. Baskets full of peaches line local farmer's market. Often, though, you buy a basket and some peaches are just too ripe. A soup is a great way to use the overripened, bruised, but still ridiculously sweet peaches. Seth originally published this recipe here.

6 large ripe peaches
2 cups water
1 cup apple juice
1/4 cup honey
Zest and juice of 1 lime
Salt and pepper to taste
Mint sprigs

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Cut a small "X" through the bottom of each peach, then drop them into the water to blanch for 20 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, transfer peaches to a bowl of ice water. When peaches are cooled, drain well then peel them, starting from the "X" at the bottom of each peach. Discard skin and pits and transfer peaches to a blender.

Add water, apple juice, honey, lime zest and juice, salt and pepper and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, about 2 hours.

Pour soup into bowls or cups, garnish with mint and serve.

To my wife, who hates it when I drink all of the wine

I'm sorry honey. I drank the rest of the wine that you were saving for yourself on the refrigerator door.

I know this angers you and that you think it is inconsiderate. I know you don't like beer or hard alcohol. I know that you sometimes like to have a glass at night when you paint. I know all of these things.

Yet still, I drank the wine. I drank it on the porch while I smoked a cigarette. It was late. You were asleep.

Before Shabbos last Friday afternoon you sent me out to the liquor store. You told me to get only two bottles because we were having company on Friday and Saturday. Instead, I bought three bottles that were on sale. I also bought a bottle of 14-year old single malt scotch. It too was on sale.

You never understand my zest to drink a bottle at the table on Friday nights. You call it gluttony. I tell you that a bottle of wine usually yields three or four decent-sized glasses. I tell you that, in the grand scheme of things, three glasses of wine is not that much. You don't agree. We debate this endlessly.

I tell you that Kiddush on Friday nights uses one large cup. Then, after singing and blessing the children, we have chicken soup. I like to sip another glass during soup. I also like to dip my challah in wine, then the soup. This makes it even more delicious.

Before the main course, we sing. I tell you that I love to sing zemirot and pound my fist on the table in time. I like to see the beats of the music make ripples in my cup. I like to see the breadcrumbs fly off the table when I pound my fist. When we have guests, their children and ours like to jump and dance together on the couch as we sing. This delights me. I look at the food on the table. I look to see if you are looking, then pour more wine.

By the time the soup is away, the chicken, kugel, salad, roast garlic, and steamed vegetables have arrived. You pour yourself a glass. The bottle is now almost gone, and we begin our conversation about how I drink all of the wine. I am always defensive, placating. You are always annoyed. You shake your head. I eye your wine, greedily.

As we end the meal I like to speak words of Torah, or of some pearl gleaned from the week. Often I tie the ideas into what is happening outside at this time of year, or in our lives. You love these the best. I am always pleased when you say this, because I have been preparing these words all week for tonight. They are just for you. When we have guests, sometimes the women leave the table to go talk privately somewhere, leaving the men to sing and talk more. I pour more wine.

We put out desert--a plum tort you made this week, some fresh fruit, hot water for tea and coffee. You grab the bottle from the table. You tell me you are saving the rest for yourself, that I am banned from touching it. You hide it on the door of the fridge, behind the tall stack of cheese slices and horseradish. I always know where you put it.

But then as we clear the meal, I notice the half-glass you have left on the table. Unfinished. It is almost time to bentch. You have forgotten about your glass. You always do. This also happens every week.

You are at the sink when I sit down at the table again. Fiddling with a final piece of cake, I flick the crumbs from my tie. I make a grab for your wine, but tonight I stop and hold myself back.

A small victory, sometimes. Soon, bed.

***

Now it is Saturday night. You have finished painting and are sleeping on the couch in your clothes. Your music is still playing, your oils are spread out on the table. The piece you are working on dries on the easel. It is a painting of our daughter. I slowly put your remaining paints back into the jars. I clean out your blades and brushes in the sink. I put away your easel and hang the painting up in the extra bedroom, where the oil fumes can air out. I look at you on the couch.

I arrive at this moment every Saturday night. Shabbos is over. I stand poised at the beginning of a week of work. It is late. You are asleep. There is one glass of wine left in the bottle somewhere in the fridge. I grab it. There is too little left to worrying about using a glass. I take a cigarette and walk out to the porch. The Bronx is so still.

I drink slowly. The wine at the bottle's bottom is mixing with the sediment and tastes sharper, more potent. I take my time smoking, exhaling though my nose. When there is no wind, I love how it sits in the air not knowing where to go, gently folding in upon itself.

I find myself here often, smoking the dregs of the week.

I think about what I'm going to tell you when you find out that I've done it once again. That the wine is gone.

How will I explain myself this time?

What will you say?

For The Love of Garlic

I think about garlic all the time. How can I use more garlic more in my diet? Is it best to mince or thinly slice? Should I juice garlic? If I eat too much raw garlic will I develop an ulcer? What's the deal with all of garlic's medicinal qualities?

I love the way the dry, brittle layer of skin cracks when you squeeze it. I love how garlic breaks apart into those individual sections that you can always reassemble back into the whole if need be.

When I come across garlic in the store, I never buy the 5-packs that come in the pantyhose packaging. When I buy garlic I have to feel it in my hands. No plastic netting shall come between me and garlic! I caress my fingers over their shape, close my eyes, bring the garlic up to my nose for a whiff. It's a system I have that allows me to instantly and accurately determine the good heads from the bad.

For the first few years of our marriage my wife was vehemently opposed to garlic. I was left wondering if we would make it as a couple. To her, nothing befouled an apartment more than the odor of cooked garlic. There was a winter night a few years ago when I was cooking a batch of garlic-laden apple burgers on a George Foreman grill in our kitchen. She was in her first trimester of pregnancy and very sensitive to smells. She walked into the kitchen and was immediately affronted by a huge waft of garlic mist.

She said nothing, just locked herself into the bathroom and started to cry.

It wasn't until I tried this recipe on her that she changed her mind about garlic. When cooked, garlic loses its sharpness and strong taste. When roasted with olive oil and soy sauce, garlic is sweet, mild and has the spreadable consistency of butter. I roast two heads every shabbos: one for Friday night and one for lunch on Saturday. We usually eat the whole peeled cloves, spread with a knife on challah with some quality green olives and a good hummus. While the garlic comes out piping hot, smooth and creamy, the olive oil becomes infused with the flavors of rosemary and soy sauce.

This is the kind of recipe you have to careful with because it is easy to eat an entire loaf of bread with it.

Simple Roasted Head of Garlic

This recipe can easily be doubled, or tripled, or maybe even quadrupled.

2 heads garlic, unpeeled
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons tamari
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place head (the garlic's, not your own) in a small baking dish. Slather each head with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon tamari, and 1/4 teaspoon thyme.

Bake for 35 minutes, until cloves are meltingly tender. Serve warm.