Crazy nights and lazy mornings

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken." – MFK Fisher

I woke up this morning with no prompting, and stumbled out of bed with that youthful vigour of trying something new. These occasions get rarer as you grow older, but once, every so often, you feel a fleeting bolt of what can only be called gusto, and the invincibility that comes with the innocence of youth. It was a brisk autumn morning, one of the best kind, and one could almost smell the coolness in the air. Clayton was already pottering around the house and we exchanged pleasantries as we each fumbled around trying to wake up completely. He put a pot of coffee on as I put my feet up on the couch and mused to myself that the secret to a good day – a good life, even – must indeed lie in not having to hurry in the mornings.

Clayton moseyed off to grab the paper and a bagel and sit in the coffee place two blocks away, that he had stolen and laid claim to after I had kindly introduced him to it; but I wanted to stay home, make myself an omelette and eat it on the couch while reading the New Yorker. I was better off without him anyway; I am of the opinion that an omelette is a personal thing and should not be shared. One person, one omelette; if you have two, then two omelettes – and so forth. It is the reason – apart from laziness – an omelette is the perfect dish for when you have to eat alone. I offered to make one for him, but for some unknown reason – quite frankly incomprehensible and bordering on the sacrilegious – Clayton does not like eggs.

As I prepped to make the omelette it felt immensely comfortable to shift into a familiar gear, or a familiar series of motions. Over the years I have made many omelettes, at all times of the day; and while I do not claim to possess all the many little secrets to making the perfect one I have picked up a couple of tricks. To start: a clean non-stick pan or a cast-iron skillet. That it is clean is imperative if you do not want your omelette to stick, but you can also temper your pan with salt before you use it. By this I mean that you heat the pan over high heat and sprinkle it with salt, shaking the crystals around until they begin to brown. Discard the salt and keep the pan on high heat.

I make a three-egg omelette, adding two sloshes of milk or cream and one of beer if I have a bottle open. Then I like to poke the yolks open with a fork before I whisk them, adding paprika, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. As I went through these motions this morning I opened the kitchen cabinet to reach for the paprika and found it in its usual place – right at the front – it occurred to me how often I use this particular spice. Every cook has his or her crutch – that one ingredient that they turn to all the time; that screams to be added when the cook tastes his or her simmering sauce to correct for seasonings. Garlic, I feel, is a universal crutch. Lean too heavily on your crutch, and everything you make will start to taste the same.

But I figure that when one is cooking for oneself, one has all the liberty in the world to make every dish taste the same, if that is the way one likes it. So I do not hold back on the paprika, and soon I am ready to make my omelette. I took the pan off the burner and turned the gas down to medium low; with the pan off the heat I added a pat of butter to it. I swirled the fat around as the kitchen filled with that familiar woody scent of burning butter. Placing the pan back on the fire I poured the egg mixture in with a great flourish, and the five-minute adventure had begun.

I swirled the pan to make the edges of the egg rise up against the side of the pan – these will brown first and tell you when to flip one side over. As the centre slowly began to harden I watched for the whitening of the egg white and then threw in my ingredients – made simultaneously in another skillet. Today it was bacon bits and mushrooms with onions and red pepper. The thin crispy edge of the egg mixture on the side of the pan then began to pull away from the edges of the pan, and with a surgeon’s precision I peeled an entire side of the omelette and folded it over the rest of the egg mixture, itself not yet cooked solid. As anyone who has ever made an omelette will tell you, this is the World Cup, the Superbowl, the World Series, the shot as time expires. It is the moment every athlete trains towards – his or her one chance at glory. All the planning and prep will count for naught if this is not executed just so. There is immeasurable satisfaction at success – a perfectly folded omelette that slides neatly onto your plate – and considerable anguish at failure – a runny mess that looks more paint splash than culinary creation.

It turned out well for me today, and as I sank back into my couch with my fork in one hand and my plate in the other – my coffee on the table in front of me – there was not much else I desired at that point. Sitting cross-legged, I balanced my plate on my lap and picked off it as I read my magazine. I had nowhere that I had to be, and nobody that I had to meet, for quite a good while more, and that was exactly the way I wanted it.

Für Elise

Union Square Cafe
21 E 16th St
New York, NY 10003
212-243-4020

Birthdays are a curious thing. I like mine, because it means people have to be nice to me – regardless of how badly I may treat them. I also like to celebrate mine by breaking bread with good friends. There is perhaps nothing more enjoyable than a good dinner with your nearest and dearest. The question remains though – do I break bread with them because they are my good friends, or am I good friends with them because we break bread together? A happy dilemma, but one nonetheless.

I was on the road for my birthday this year, but fortunately to New York City, that haven of fabulous restaurants and home to some of my favourite people in this world. Morgan could not make it for dinner, but Camille, Emi and Elisabeth all indulged me on my special day as I finally made it to Union Square Café – a mainstay of the dining scene I had wanted to try for quite some time.

It was early when I got into the taxicab to go to the restaurant, but as I sat in the back of the car I grew curiously anxious and got the way I feel when I am late to an engagement. Every stop at every light felt interminable, and the silence in the car was almost oppressive. I got off a few blocks away from the restaurant on purpose so I could walk through Union Square, for there is a certain something about the neighborhood that lifts me no end. There is a growing bounce in my step as I near my destination, and with it my companions for the evening.

The hostess kept us standing at the front desk for just long enough to have a proper, light conversation; and not so long that we would get tired of waiting. This put me in a good mood as we were shown to what I thought was the best table in the house: a fourtop nestled in the corner of the room, with full view not only of everyone else in the room but also the entrance to the restaurant. One could see everyone coming and going in and out, but not be noticed at all in the bustle of the restaurant. It was prime people-watching space and I enjoyed it immensely. One would think that with good food and good company, there should be no need to keep looking around, but it is the human condition to, even when entirely satisfied, look around for someone who is perhaps having better food or better company or is enjoying themselves more than you are. I am no less human.

Elisabeth, apart from being one of the lights of my life, is also one of the most graceful people I know and has perfect posture. She sits up straight in her chair, and does this charming thing where she cocks her head gently forward when she cannot hear the conversation, listening intently and always smiling. She does not rest her hands or elbows on the table, and handles her cutlery in a wonderfully delicate manner and with expert finesse. She has a languid ease about her, and never looks the least bit awkward or ruffled. With friends as beautiful as these, who needs to people-watch?

So Elisabeth sat to my left, and Camille to my right, and they both had the arugula salad as an appetiser. It came smothered in fresh parmesan, which Elisabeth loves, and indeed it pleased her no end. Not technically a vegetable but an herb, arugula is nevertheless one of my favourite greens – it has a distinct peppery taste that works well with vinegar. But instead I had the homemade fettucine with roasted lobster and chanterelles in a basil and orange olive oil. Fresh pasta has such a sweet doughy goodness, I am ashamed that I do not make it from scratch more often. I am the world’s biggest fool for chanterelles and the orange was an interesting touch, and the dish was light and simple like all good pasta dishes should be. And like all good pasta dishes, it was gone too quickly.

Once I had seen it on the menu there was really only one choice – the duck – I was ever going to make for my main course. It was only fitting for a special occasion as this was – duck being quite possibly my favourite meat. I was a little wary at first – why does everyone pair duck with baby bak choy? Regardless, the duck came seasoned with lemon and pepper and could perhaps have afforded being done a little rarer, and it came in an intensely flavoured peach-fig chutney which was quite out of this world.

As we all plowed into the dessert that we shared – a peach tart made with some very buttery pastry – I could not help but wonder why the restaurant had had such longevity and become so well-loved by New Yorkers. The service was warm and hospitable, but there was little that was markedly unique about the restaurant and it did not lend itself to a particular personality. It was a little too large to be intimate and a little too small to be grandiose. I suppose, then, in conclusion: if you keep making food as good as Union Square Café does, then people will keep coming.

The well-laid plans of mice and men

Sometimes planning a meal can be almost as exciting as actually making it and – very rarely – actually having the meal. Certainly for me it feels like the longest stage in the entire process: how many courses, what ingredients and what methods to use, what wines to drink and obviously most important of all – who to invite. Yesterday I finally threw a dinner party that had been in the works for close to a month; I had talked Laura and Amanda’s ears off about what I would make and it was time to deliver.

Part of the planning process, I feel, and especially with a multi-course dinner, involves choosing your courses carefully so that you have a comfortable mix of dishes that can be made in advance and dishes that have to be made a la minute. I had made vichyssoise earlier in the day and was going to serve it as a starter; the lamb would take four hours and so had to be started early too. The bread pudding would be served as dessert and could cook while we were eating. Really the only things I had to make by the time dinner actually rolled around were the pasta and the couscous. At two points last night I actually stood in my kitchen and twiddled my thumbs as I wondered what to do next.

To start we had vichyssoise, a cold potato-leek soup which I was cooking for the first time. I threw in a splash of truffle oil, which felt like cheating to me but it did wonders for the soup. Morgan had told me to use more butter and fewer potatoes for a thinner, lighter soup; I followed his advice and it turned out well. I had vaguely remembered reading somewhere that one should always over-season chilled soups, and I sadly did not heed this pearl of wisdom to the extent it was intended. I made the soup and it had tasted powerful before I chilled it, but when dinner came it had distinctly lost a little of the flavour it had before and was in desperate need of salt and pepper at the table. Natalia brought a bottle of Muscadet (Muscadet Sevre et Maine, Domaine des Dorices, France, 2004) to pair with the soup, and it was a delightful course nonetheless.

After the vichyssoise we had what I thought was the best course of the night, cappellini with clams in a variation of regular pesto that had spring onions and honey in it. This had a compelling and exotic flavour, and if Natalia ate red meat I would have definitely added pancetta to it for some smoky goodness. Hunter brought a delightful, clean and crisp white (Sauvignon Blanc, Montevina, California, 2003) which was almost buttery in its smoothness, and went wonderfully with the pasta.

As everyone finished up their primi I exited to the kitchen to whip up the couscous for the next course. In the oven I already had lamb shanks braised in red wine for everyone but Natalia – for whom I made portabellas stuffed with asparagus and breadcrumbs. Laura, who could not attend, had sent on a full-bodied red to go with the course (Cabernet Sauvignon, Tisdale Vineyards, California, 2004). An Old World wine may have worked better here as I had used a Burgundy Pinot in the making of the dish but Laura’s wine was more than adequate. We also had Amanda’s bottle of Bitch wine but we never got to drinking that – I will save that for another special occasion.

At this point people were rubbing their bellies but there was one course to go yet, and miles to go before we slept. I had wanted to recreate the Portuguese sweet bread pudding at Mill’s Tavern, but unfortunately had no access to sweet bread here in DC. So in desperation on Friday I had baked my own with a recipe I found online, and promptly burnt the crusts to a deep mahogany brown. I have a feeling my oven’s temperature control is – how does one put it – not quite so reliable. The bread itself tasted good though, and I went ahead with the plan. It did not turn out quite like regular bread pudding – there is a lot of work yet that I have to do on this recipe – but I made a cognac sauce that I drizzled over it and it was sweet, sassy, saccharine goodness like all desserts should be. Matthew brought port (Porto, Taylor Fladgate, Portugal, 2000) like I asked him to, and I drank perhaps a little too much of it. One never knows when to stop when drinking port.

The conversation had not yet begun to die when the night crept up on us, and it was soon time to go. As fall and winter approach so will those awkward moments before parting ways where you have to button your jacket, or wrap your scarf, or pull on your boots at the door before making your exit. I never know what to say during those few uncomfortable seconds. Fortunately this can all be resolved quite easily with hugs and kisses and handshakes, and it was a good thing there were plenty of those to go around last night.


Cappellini with Clams in Spring Onion and Honey Pesto

2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
I can clam meat
½ cup spring onions, coarsely chopped
½ cup basil leaves, coarsely chopped
¼ cup pine nuts
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Cappellini
Dash of Old Bay
s/p

Blend the spring onions and basil leaves in a food processor – do this in small batches to ensure they are well chopped. When done, add pine nuts and repeat. When pine nuts are blended into the pesto mixture, drizzle olive oil and honey into the mixture while keeping the food processor going, stopping to scrape down the sides of the container.

In a sauté pan, cook the garlic, shallot and red pepper in a little olive oil over medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Add the clam meat and season with Old Bay, salt and pepper. Add the juices from the can and cook down for another 4-5 minutes. Pour the pesto mixture into the pan and add the cream, mixing well to incorporate it. Keep on medium-low heat for a further 3-4 minutes to cook the cream through.

Prepare cappellini per directions on the box. When done, toss evenly with pesto mixture, correct for seasoning and serve.

(Pesto will keep in the refrigerator for a week or frozen for a month, for best results store with a layer of olive oil over it.)