When I began writing my memoir-in-essays I-
wrote the bulk of it in the sauna of a gym while Moonie was in the daycare long before Maddox was even a daydream. At the time I was convinced that I only wanted one child- the horrors of pregnancy, the lack of postpartum support, the trauma that we endured with feeding my newborn all while swimming in the pool of adrenaline only birthers can understand that encouraged me to dig my heels into the ground and insist that I would do whatever, and I mean whatever, it took to successfully (who decides?) breastfeed my child.
TLDR I decided I wanted a second child when she was three, just long enough for some of the horrors, and my memories, to subside and I began to write in a way that felt real and true, outside of the logistics of facts. The only way I knew how to do that was to somehow, albeit adjacently, show how food intersects with the mundane. Not necessarily how we envision food-storytelling to be done but in ways that food tethers us to memories- a vehicle to summon imagination with as little as remembering the feeling of sugar crystals on my tongue and the artificial saccharine of “peach flavored” gummies while I shoved my mother’s “kit” (used for intravenous drug use) back down into her duffel bag and went about my day.
You’re following, yes?
The lessons I have learned about writing often began in the kitchen and vice versa. The unhurried braise and the essays we set aside to revisit but not too frequently. The splatters of sauce and oil that stain most of my hoodies and sweatshirts because I am apron-adverse, and the way my lack of formal education shines through in less-than-perfect grammar and punctuation. Slicing garlic into see-through petals with a sharp knife and combing through my notes with self-taught precision erring on the side of self-induced perfectionism. My point is, and as I mentioned in my previous post, all of this and me and my work and my creation is food//and- coexisting as teachers this way.
There are anecdotes to cooking that are my gospel. Rules that I have not only adapted but preach. If ever I am in church again, let it be within the confines of a space with proper cutting boards, sharp knives, and a Dutch oven. In no particular order, here is a list of kitchen rules, a sermon if you will. Take what feels relevant and leave the rest behind.
If your dish tastes flat try these things before you add (more) salt
Vinegar or citrus. Almost everything, and I do mean everything, needs some kind of vinegar or citrus to brighten and even deepen a dish. For tomato based dishes I tend to reach for red wine vinegar. I’m talking a teaspoon or so to start depending on the size of your dish. Start slow and small and taste as you go. For meat and braises that don’t have tomatoes try a bit of apple cider vinegar or even regular white. If you’re making (one of my favorites) coconut milk braised beef or a curry, try adding a bit of rice vinegar or lime juice. Tikka masala loves a bit of lemon, tom kha begs for lime, and in every batch of marinara I have ever made, there is just a splash of red wine vin. If you’re adding just a bit you will not risk your dish being “vinegary” although I admit I have done it. It’s not great, but live and learn.
Soy sauce and miso are your friends. When I am making a tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes I almost always add just a bit of soy sauce or miso paste that I have first emulsified in a tablespoon or so of warm water. The acidity needs to be mellowed with umami and these are my favorite ways to do so. No, your dishes don’t end up turning into some Frankenstein-fusion dish if you are, as I mentioned, starting slow and easy. This is also a favorite trick of mine when a dish seems as though it’s just missing something. When it’s fine but you know it could be better.
Salt. Finally salt and always salt. Salt in your baking recipes, salt with chocolate (even if something more in-you-face such as Maldon is not your style), salt in every single dish.
Speaking of salt and seasoning
Don’t salt your onions or veggies that you’re beginning to soften immediately upon putting them in your pan. Give them a minute, literally 60 seconds will do, to begin to sweat on their own and then proceed with giving them a helping hand.
Season in layers. When I make chili, something that requires a lot of dried spices, I season with all of the spices I’m using 3 or four times. Once in the beginning as I am sweating down and softening my alliums and veg, again when I add whatever meat I’m using, once more just before I add any liquids IE stock, beer, tomatoes, beans etc, and then once or twice more during its actual cook time. This allows flavors to meld and build. It also aids in giving life to spices that may be older and therefore lacking flavor.
A bit of salt in the beginning, tasting often as you go, and then again just before serving. If you are adding all of the salt you intend to use straight away you’re not taking in account the way things cook down or reduce. Adding too much salt can make things tough and not enough can actually hinder their level of tenderness.
Salt your pasta and poaching/blanching water. However, do not add oil to your pasta water unless very specifically noted in a recipe and not because the box of pasta instructions tells you to. Adding oil creates a slick barrier on the pasta which makes it difficult for sauces to adhere to. On this note, do not rinse your pasta unless you need to stop the cooking process for, say, a cold pasta salad. Another note on rinsing things- you should always rinse your rice prior to cooking so long as you’re using it in a dish or as a side, not always the case with sticky/sweet rice dishes but I usually even rinse then.Rinse it until the water runs clear. Pasta tastes like flour, sometimes egg. It needs to be seasoned. So does the water you use for blanching green beans etc. Salt enhances food, it shouldn’t taste like salt, but your water SHOULD taste salty comparable to the sea.
Taste the food
You have to, and I cannot stress this enough, taste your food and taste it frequently. You won’t know if a dish is flat or ___ until you get in there and find out for yourself.
Heat is your friend
Sear your meat. If it’s going into a stew, a braise, a sauce, sear it. I know it’s an extra step but the way meat builds additional flavor to a dish after just the edges have begun to caramelize is paramount to a dish and adds that je ne sais quoi. If you feel as though your dishes lack depth, start here if there’s meat.
If you prefer to use stainless steel pots and pans, you’ve got to use heat but also understand the heat. If every time you make something in your stainless steel and it sticks to the bottom and you’re scraping off burnt eggs until the end of time, your pan, and whatever oil you used as a base, wasn’t hot enough. Don’t be scared. Get it up there, make sure a water droplet steams off or crackles in your oil. Put down your meat, let it stay high and hot for a minute or two, even your eggs even if it’s just for a minute, and then knock it down.
If you’re searing meat and it’s stuck to the pan, it’s- in a pan that isn’t hot enough or it’s simply not ready to flip meaning it hasn’t actually seared. Meat that has been properly seared will slide around and move with ease. Just give it another minute or two.
You have to stop fiddle-faddling with your meat. Whether you’re searing, grilling, browning hamburger for Hamburger Helper, I am begging you to leave it alone. Make a drink, start chopping your veg. Tell your dog to stop begging and PLEASE LAY DOWN SOMEWHERE THAT IS NOT ON MY FEET. Seriously, leave it. A sear is only going to happen if you let it sear. Your burgers are dry because you’re constantly flipping them and therefore all of the fat and juices are seeping out. Your ground beef is steaming instead of browning because the heat is too low, it’s overcrowded and/or you’re flip-flapping it around constantly. Let it brown, let it get crusty, and then flip it and begin to break it apart. Once you’ve broken it apart, leave it alone again.
Speaking of ground meat
As I mentioned above, you do have to actually let it brown. You also need to make sure you’re not jam-packing your pan with a ton of meat, ground or otherwise, because even if you leave it alone, heat isn’t circulating as it should and therefore it isn’t browning at all, it’s greying, because it’s effectively in a steam-sauna. Ever eat a dish with ground meat and it’s…mealy? That’s exactly due to the aforementioned (or it was cooked all the hell) and this is exactly what we want to avoid.
Everyone has a meatball recipe, don’t they? It doesn’t matter to me the recipe here (I don’t think?) but rather the technique in which we are forming our meatballs. In the video you will see that I am tearing bits of the ground beef and Italian sausage and barely coaxing it all together with the other ingredients. What I’m not doing is aggressively mixing everything together to form a meat paste. I incorporate the egg, spices, breadcrumbs, and cheese loosely with my fingertips and then barely press the mixture together to form a ball. Why? Because of what I mentioned above. If you are forming balls out of a meat paste you have assembled, you will inevitably making steamed meatballs. Instead of tender bites, still being able to detect each ingredient, you will be left with a ball that you can slice into thin sheets. I want a ball that crumbles a bit and doesn’t slice perfectly when I press down onto it with the side of my fork.
If you aren’t sure, listen and learn first
As with anything that you feel unsteady with, being in the kitchen requires listening and learning prior to executing. If you’re making something for the first time or it feels a bit more challenging, find and use a recipe created by an expert. Want to learn how to make proper gyoza? Find a Japanese grandma on YouTube and let her be your guide. The worst thing you can do is recreate a recipe and methodology before you’ve ever made a thing. The people that write scathing reviews on recipes that didn’t make the recipe as listed or subbed out 1/3 of the list of ingredients? That’s not only unfair to the developer and creator but silly. Make it as the recipe states, and once you have a baseline, tweak as needed.
Go to church
If ever there is a time that I need to process big feelings, I am stuck in my writing process, I’ve got a bout of the Sads but have a little something in the tank, I feel pent up energy in my body I can’t place, I am celebrating, I am grieving- you can find me in the kitchen. It isn’t always a project bake or a labor intensive afternoon of fresh pasta, marinara, and meatball making. Sometimes it’s making a loaf of no-knead bread (a gorgeous place to start for the baking-adverse), or a stock in my pressure cooker that I can cool and properly store for future use. Sometimes it’s pizza dough that I can freeze to use the following Friday, biscuits that I prep and freeze to bake another time. Sometimes it’s something as simple as taking a minute to assemble a bowl of full-fat yogurt, freshly sliced fruit, and a bit of granola (homemade granola is so easy and so good and you can control the level of sweet which I love since I find the store bought stuff to be too sweet. On this note, consider using olive oil and a good amount of salt if you really want to curb the sweet, as I do), taking the time to make it look a bit nicer as opposed to whacking it in a bowl and calling it good, as I do 98% of the time if I am feeding myself.
xxx
A friend of mine thrifted a pasta machine for me. After a good scrub down and a replacement handle ordered, I started Legislative Session Season the same way I ended it in 2023-with fresh pasta. Of course this requires a bit of time but it doesn’t require experience. Just some time, a bit of figuring out how to get the damn thing clamped down to the counter (I never did figure this part out) and a willingness to fumble as you go. I’d like to dedicate an afternoon to this in an effort to portion out and freeze for a rainy day, but that’s neither here nor there. While the dough rested, I made my meatballs. After both were assembled, I started out on my sauce. It is this/my marinara, a very versatile recipe I might add, and one that I use as a base for several variations of what we know as red sauce, and let it cook down on the stove for a few hours on low.
All-in-all it wasn’t painstaking; I would hardly consider it a project to be honest. Just a little bit more time, dedicated to grounding myself as we edge into our busiest season of the year.
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