I haven't died

As you may have noticed, I am on a bit of a hiatus for the holidays. . .I promise more exciting food talk soon. Stay tuned!

Art for art's sake? Food for food's sake.

I’d like to get a little theoretical for a moment. I know, thus far, my posts have been light and recipe centered, focused on specific foods and how they immerge from my life. I do hope, however, that you’ve been able to pick up on my dirty little secret. While my tales are actual occurrences from my life as a not-as-young-as-most-of-my–classmates, culinary student living and loving in New York City, they are really about how I think food and life intertwine.

I read something disturbing on Saturday in a book by one of my, dare I say, idols in the culinary-lit world. Michael Ruhlman on page 13 of The Soul of a Chef says, “Poetry is an art form. Cooking is a craft. (Oh, I know how the foodie blowhards – and even a lot of chefs – love to talk about food as art! But I’m sorry, noodles spun into towers and designs on plates with different-colored sauces do not equal art, so don’t talk to me about food as art or chefs as artistes.)”

Well, certainly Mr. Ruhlman is correct, in a way. Plating is not art. It can be a pretty and a sometimes ingenious craft. Anyone who has ever eaten at Grant Achatz’s Alinea (or at his last gig Trio) can confirm that. If you don’t believe me, check out this wackiness: http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/pages/gallery/gallery_cuis.html

Art is not simply arranging things - paint, bits of clay, musical notes, or food - in a pattern pleasing to the eye. Art is how the arrangement and how the items themselves inspire thought, feeling, and even action. How do you like that all you art scholars worldwide?! I figured it out for you! While this may be a facile statement on the oh so complex subject of art, I think there’s something to it for our discussion here. The artistry of cooking, food, chefs, and grandma in her kitchen is not what the food is or even how it tastes, but what it can do to you. What could be more truly artistic than making something that with one glance, one whiff, one tiny taste can send your mind rushing back to October 28, 1984 when you in your red corduroy jumper walked hand-in-hand with your mom along delightfully muddy paths of the Apple Holler orchard in Bristol, Wisconsin. . .your hands sticky with the honeyed-tartness of Macintosh and Red Delicious picked, tasted, and bushelled? I’ve had an apple pie that could do that. What could in one eye and heart opening meal of impossibly pillowy gnocchi and decadently rich and tender osso bucco make you plan a week long trip that leads to a month sojourn, which leads to a new life in a new home with a new purpose? I’ve had a meal, which has made me come close to that, oh so close.

Chefs as artists: clearly not all of them are. Most cooks and chefs would never claim to be artists and would never want to be called such a dirty name. Some believe themselves to be, but really for all the time they spend arranging and all the time they don’t spend thinking, feeling, and remembering, they are really just painting Elvises on velvet. Maybe there aren’t even any chefs that are artists all the time, but there are certainly meals and dishes that are works of art. Some dishes can transport us not just to another place and time in our own past, but allow us to see a future we couldn’t fathom before we sat down at the table. If that’s not art, I sure as heck don’t know what is.

Oatmeal Wonderland

Baby it’s cold outside. . .New York City is all a flutter with winter pleasures and winter pains. Sure, Central Park (and Prospect Park, it’s younger, some say more intelligent sister) was breathtaking and glistening for approximately 6 hours after that first snow fall. Fifth Avenue is ablaze with giant star-shaped light installations and red velvet bedecked wreaths. It’s also a jumble of holiday shoppers, tourists craning their necks, angry cabbies with scores to settle, and well, general chaos. It seems a festive idea to bundle up in your puffer coat and scarf and shop till you drop, accomplishing all of your holiday shopping in one successful day. At least that was my plan last Saturday. Somehow it didn’t quite work out that way.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning with visions of shopping bags and crossed off holiday lists dancing in my head. Industriously, I made coffee and jumped in the shower. I immerged to find we were sadly out of milk. Now, I am a New Yorker, I must have my coffee light. So I quickly grabbed my coat to trot down to our local deli to pick up a gallon. Wowza McGowza, it was frigid out there. Colder than body parts of witches that will remain nameless.

After sprinting home with my milk, I sat warming myself with my coffee, cuddled in an afghan, desperately trying to summon the courage to go forth on my mission of commerce. Just as I was about to leap up, grab my purse, head for the door and not look back, Ian (my boyfriend) awoke, yawning and asking, “What’s for breakfast?” Hmmm, interesting, breakfast. “Can you make oatmeal?” he poked. Indignantly I replied, “Of course I can, I’m in culinary school for goodness sake. Just sit down, I’ll hook you up.”

Of course all of the bravado was to hide the fact that, truthfully, I couldn’t recall ever having actually made oatmeal. I have always been a cream of wheat girl myself. But to keep up my rouse, I would have to make, pretty much, the best oatmeal ever made. With only what was rattling around in my fairly barren kitchen, I pounded it out. If I have to say so myself (although, actually Ian said so as well, and the cat sniffed happily at it too) it certainly turned out to be pretty scrumptious.

Now, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wow, how productive she is, making a warm and tasty breakfast to fortify her on her valiant journey through the crowded New York City tundra to single-handedly finish all her holiday shopping in a single bound!” I must admit. I never went shopping. While certainly the oatmeal had warming, sticking to your ribs qualities, somehow after my steaming bowl on the couch with Ian, a nap and a pay-per-view movie seemed more in order than elbowing tourists to get at the last periwinkle cashmere scarf marked down to $29.54 at Century 21.

Maybe this weekend. . .although we do have some overripe bananas on the counter, they may do well in a little oatmeal themselves. . .perhaps a little maple syrup. . .

Oatmeal Indulgence

Serves 2

2 cups whole milk

1 ¼ cups Old Fashioned Oats

Pinch of Salt (VERY IMPORTANT, salt brings out the sweetness, don’t skip, one pinch of salt won’t kill you)

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 Granny Smith apple (or other tart, firm apple) pealed and cut in a small dice (cubes)

½ c pecans, chopped

1 t cinnamon

½ t nutmeg

½ T vanilla extract (real, imitation is a waste of money)

Combine milk, salt, and oats. Bring mixture to a boil and reduce to a low simmer. When simmering stir in cinnamon and nutmeg. Simmer stirring constantly about 5 minutes until thick and creamy. When the proper consistency, add the vanilla and ¼ cup of the brown sugar and stir to incorporate and dissolve the sugar. Pour the oatmeal into warm bowls and top with the chopped apple, pecans, and the rest of the brown sugar (split between the two bowls). Do not stir in the apples, pecans, and sugar. It’s more fun to do so as you’re eating!

I have been remiss

After 10,873 requests, I have decided to include the recipe for the Chicken and Dumplings. Please understand, I am risking disownment. How will Pop and Mom in Pleasant Prairie, grandma from Kentuky, Liesl in Minneapolis and that 1950's T.V. chef react to my blatent commercialization of my proud heritage? But as a wise man once said; don't worry about the mule going blind, just load the wagon. So here we go. . .

Chicken and Dumplings

Makes 4 servings (truthfully we usually double the recipe, just for kicks)

1 chicken cut in pieces

Chicken stock to cover chicken while cooking by 1/2 inch

4-5 stalks of celery trimmed and cut in half

1 ½ cup flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

¼ cup shortening

1 egg slightly beaten in a measuring cup

¼ cup milk approximately

Salt and Pepper

In a dutch oven or small stock pot, put chicken and celery in cold stock (don't heat stock before you put in chicken). Season with a little salt and pepper (not too much, stock will reduce a bit when cooking). Bring to a boil and lower to a simmer. Simmer until chicken is done, about 1 hour. Take chicken and celery out of the pot. You can either keep the chicken warm and serve along side the chicken and dumplings (Pop and grandma style) or remove the meat from the chicken and mix into the dumplings just before serving. Celery, some people love to eat it, some people hate it, your choice.

For the dumplings: mix the dry ingredients. Cut in shortening until lumps are pea sized. Break egg into measuring cup and beat slightly. Fill cup with egg inside with milk until it reaches ½ cup. Mix milk and egg mixture gradually into the flour mixture until a soft dough is formed. Turn onto a floured board and knead 20 times, working flour into the dough until it is pliable, not gooey but not too stiff. Roll as thin as possible using flour extremely liberally (it makes a thickening for the broth.) Grandma says that you should be able to see the table through the rolled dumplings.

Cut into strips about 1 ½ inch wide and 2 inch long. Bring liquid back to a rolling boil. Drop into the boiling chicken stock individually, stirring constantly. When all of the dumplings are in, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to make sure dumplings don't stick.

Serve. Enjoy. Make a tradition.

Home Schooled

I grew up in a culinary world of comfort. I come from Midwestern parents who are also from Midwestern parents (with a branch of the tree reaching a bit into the South). We ate, and still eat; pork roast, corn on the cob, meatloaf, mashed potatoes (from the box), and most importantly Chicken and Dumplings.

Chicken and Dumplings (rightfully pronounced Chicken 'n Dumplins) is my family’s food equivalent of a family heirloom. It is our go to dish for any out-of-town guests we want to impress, everyone’s favorite birthday dinner, and the menu every year on the last Sunday of the summer before we trudged back to school. It even has a legend that goes along with it, told over and over every time they are served, morphing each time to fit the teller’s fancy.

Sometime, round about 1956, my father, as a boy of 7 sat in his family’s living room gazing at the black and white, wood encased T.V. set. His mother was busy in the kitchen readying the evening meal. Suddenly a howl came from the living room.

“Mom, mom, hurry, come here. . .” As she rushed to the living room, carrot and peeler still in hand, fearing the worst, little Gary continued, “. . . and bring something to write on!!”

On the screen a TV chef (well, they weren’t exactly called that then) was putting chicken in a pot, cutting celery, and rolling dough into thin dumplings. My pop sat enthralled and drooling (newest embellishment to the story by my sister, a nice visual touch, possibly added to embarrass my father). And so the famed Chicken and Dumplings came into my family, changing us and making us all fuller and happier people.

Currently in culinary school, I am in the level in which we cover aspects of catering, and generally cooking for large groups. So, each night, we prepare a meal for the entire staff of the school and the restaurant. In addition, once a week, we prepare a formal buffet for the staff. As scheduling would have it, with the holiday season, those of us in the group of students in charge of the formal buffet were left with an extra day. We had just presented our buffet the class before and weren’t scheduled to move on to our next area until the class to follow. Our very French chef suggested we each think of a dish, something that can be made with fairly readily available ingredients, make it and add it to the “family meal” for the day.

Well, of course what else could I possibly choose, but “The One” the fabled and famous Chicken and Dumplings.

Chef was skeptical. He kept looking at my pot containing only chicken, stock, and celery, "You want to put some carrot, onion. . .bouquet garni inside, yes?" he proposed. My response a solid "No."

As it bubbled away, he passed by and said, slightly baffled, "hmmmm, smells good.” While at my cauldron sized pot with my huge sheet pan of cut dumplings, dropping and stirring, he pushed "So what you do with rest” After several back and forths trying to decipher his “Franglish”, I discovered he meant the dumplings. He doubted that such a large number should go into the amount of broth. My response, "Chef, it's Chicken and Dumplings, not soup, just wait, you'll see."

And see he certainly did. The moment of truth, my vast hotel pan (a large rectangle pan often used on a steam table) of Chicken and Dumplings went down, no parsley sprigs, no pretty piles towering, nothing but the chicken and the dumplings swimming in their thick and lusciously simple gravy. My chef was the first in line to taste it. After the first bite, he exclaimed, "Wow this isss goood! Iss very goood for a nice cold day by the fire. Very nice. Grandmas always know the best way, yes?!" I laughed secretly, while my grandmother does magically make them the best, she would never be so bold as to claim they were anyone but my father’s and the T.V. chef’s invention.

Chef proceeded to eat three plates himself, badger every chef and most of the students who came through the line to try it, "Issss good!", and package up a quart container of the extra to take home.

So, last week in culinary school we made seckel pears poached in Poire Williams, stuffed with bleu cheese with a spiced red wine reduction sauce. The week before that I butchered an entire leg of veal. Yesterday, I showed an exalted, experienced French chef the simple ecstasy of Chicken and Dumplings. Culinary school is really a kick. . .