crock pottery

as you might remember, i don't cook. but i just discovered something i can do to keep myself fed that takes place right in my own kitchen. gather a bunch of foods you like and throw them in a slow cooker for 6 hours with a couple of cans of cream of anything soup. you can make 5 quarts of sustenance at a time. ingenious. it was all very confusing to me at first. why would i put food into the same container the salon uses to simmer wax? i'm sure there's a frauier way of going about it but for the culinarily challenged like myself it's like a miracle. do you ever get crock-potty? are there super good recipes or rules i should follow?

there is no 'y' in mucus

and isn't that sunny way to begin my first post in a long while???

well, what can i say? the trials of sterling cooper draper pryce are over. glorious summer has turned into a damp fall. i have my first seriously-bad-shit-will-happen if i don't meet it deadline coming down the pike. i had my first anxiety dream about that deadline over the weekend. and the exercise regimen that i planned to start this fall still hasn't started yet and it is three weeks into october. this is the perfect time to fall under the influence of the rhinovirus, with its attendant fuzzy-headedness and sense of lost possibility, right? and fall under its influence i did on monday.

now four days later, i am sitting in bed, having beaten the bastardly virus back, contemplating the fact that tomorrow i will get dressed in real clothes and venture to my office for the first time since monday night, i realize that i have learned something in all my years of cold-catching, about how to have and recover from a cold. i'm actually kind of a master at it. i have developed, over lo these many years, a system. a strategy. a plan of attack.

so, here, in this brief post, in honor of the beginning of yet another cold and flu season, are my frau tips for getting through the worst of it.  i have to go to bed soon (see below) so i'll make it short. trust that all of this advice has been rigorously tested over years of cold-catching--and while little of this advice will be new to you, i believe i have now come to the point where i can discern verifiably good suggestions that will diminish your discomfort from stuff people tell you do so that you will feel better even though none of it really works.

one caveat: none of my advice will make up for your ill-advised decision to keep getting showered and dressed and braving traffic to go to work even on the worst day of your cold. sick days were made for this, people. stay home, get the laptop, plug in the extra long cord, and accept that you are not doing anyone any favors by going to work and sneezing on them. i understand that you have stuff to do and not all employers are as understanding as universities about this stuff, but do your best to try and stay at home. it will save you time and improve your productivity and that of others in the long run. even though watching hulu for 9 hours straight may not make you feel particularly productive...

oh and if you aren't sick yet, go get a flu shot. really. go get one. 

without further adieu, the things you should do:

1. FLUIDS. the doctors tell you to drink fluids and i know you try. but, seriously, people, this is one of the few things that i have learned MEASURABLY REDUCES THE DURATION OF YOUR MISERY. but, when i say, drink fluids, i mean swill, swallow, gulp, rinse and repeat. we are talking about so much water that your pee will be colorless. and you will spend most of your time peeing. you know what, though? it is real. it works. my advice for how to drink all that water? get a big glass (measure out how much fluid it holds) and do not get out of bed without filling it up again. if you're lucky, you can get a really fascinating drink-to-pee rhythm going that convinces you that you can actually feel your liver going into overdrive.

2. lay off the caffeine and the booze. really, it is sad. because you feel so awful that going without caffeine seems like you're being kicked by God when you're already down. do it, though. drink a cup of black tea every few hours to keep withdrawal symptoms at bay but don't drink coffee. and although a little booze can help you fall asleep, stay away from the regular doses. if you must drink either caffeine or alcohol, you must consume at least two 8 oz glasses of water for every cocktail or cup of coffee.

3. eat early, eat often, and eat colorful things. this generally means little if any processed food and a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit. again, not rocket science. you've heard it before. but do it. don't just eat ramen or campbell's tomato soup. drag yourself out to whole foods, get a huge container of various salady things, and eat that WITH your soup. also, eat bready things. this is not the time to eschew the carbs.

4. one word, people. one unpronounceable word. GUAIFENESIN. this stuff thins your mucus. and, when it all comes down to it, mucus is your friend. it is the reason you are drinking all that water. from my not unimpressive research, i have learned that mucus is the stuff that flushes out all those terrible virus bugs. THAT'S WHY YOUR BODY MAKES IT!!!! so, you don't want less mucus, you want more. and LOTS more. this medicine helps you make it. it is like magic!!!! so, go to the drug store and buy lots of it! in big doses! and for God's sake, buy generic. it'll be right next to the boxes of Mucinex (grossest commercials of all time, by the way). take the maximum dosage of this stuff every day. this plus tylenol will help alleviate the worst symptoms while encouraging your immune system to do its thing.

5. neti pot. you've heard of it. you've seen it on oprah. now, you are hearing it from frau. this is the thing that is worth the trouble it takes to learn how to use it. go to cvs and buy this thing. use it twice a day when you're sick. it will help you breathe easier (after you get the hang of it). the salt water will make the burning red pain around your nose better. and it will help you prevent sinus infections, which can be the worst legacy of a bad cold. here is a youtube video (not for the faint of heart) about how to use one.

6. mario badescu's healing cream, available here, is the best weapon against ouchy nose or whatever you call it. it makes all the pain go away and the redness. it is amazing.

7. finally, SLEEP. do whatever you have to do to get 8 hours of real sleep at night. this can be difficult when you're sick so take the sleepy medicine stuff (i use this); have a hot toddy (herbal tea, honey, and whiskey); prop the pillows up so you can sleep without exacerbating your stuffed sinuses. get the room temperature right--no air blowing on your head. and try to sleep properly.

well, that's it, really. remember, mucus is your friend. make mucus not war. visualize whirled mucus, etc. etc. etc.

(echo)

Frau-au-au-au-au.  Will you ever return?

super duper summer salad

my husband can cook. not me. today he asked me what I wanted and I told him something with french lentils. here is the recipe he made...it is fantastic. it combines some really interesting flavors I normally wouldn't put together.
the original recipe was from cooks illustrated but john made enough alterations (because I forgot stuff at the store) that I don't feel uncomfortable reproducing the recipe as he made it.

1 c. french lentils - picked over and cleaned
1/2 small onion
1 small carrot - peeled and cut in half
1 med. rib of celery - cut into thirds
1/2 tsp. table salt
1 and a 1/2 tbsp. of dry sherry
1/2 tbsp. vinegar
3 tbsp. of a spicy brown or whole grain mustard
1 tbsp. caraway seeds, lightly crushed (this is the amazing secret ingredient)
2 med. cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
4 radishes, diced (this is the second key ingredient)
1/4 c. minced fresh parsley leaves

Directions:

1. bring first 4 ingredients plus 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. boil for 5 min. reduce heat; simmer until lentils are tender but still hold their shape (approx. 30 min).

2. meanwhile, mix vinegar, sherry, mustard, caraway seeds, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste in small bowl. slowly whisk in the oil to make a vinaigrette; set aside.

3. drain lentils and discard the vegetables. add warm lentils to vinaigrette; toss to coat. cool to room temperature. stir in radish and parsley. serve.

the incredibly infuriating egg

you may have noticed many of my posts are about eggs - how can you tell they are fresh? how do you poach them? and today -
how the hell do you peel hard-boiled eggs without ripping them apart? (please imagine that I wrote this in caps because I'm super frustrated...but I hate all caps so I refrained.)

I decided to make deviled eggs for my mad men gathering this evening. they are such an amazing appie but absolutely a pain in the butt to make. most frustrating - spending 40 minutes hunched over the sink peeling them.

I cooked two dozen eggs. I did not have a single egg pristine after peeling - all of them got pitted and scarred.

I read stuff on the internet about how to best peel an egg and nothing seemed to help. frau what do I do to master this incredibly annoying task? currently I tap the egg on each end with a spoon and try to peel them underwater in a bowl. it is not a good approach.

mad men appies

yes we all know a mad men party needs good cocktails, but what are some good vintage 60s hors d'oeuvres to serve with said old skool cocktails? I'm looking for something a bit more refined than chex mix, but I'll do it.

hosting

frau -

can you give some guidance on hosting - dos and don'ts and maybe (and most importantly) ways to juggle cooking and hosting? when we have parties in the summer much of the cooking is done on the grill but an equal amount of prep work is done in the kitchen along with mixing drinks etc.

john ends up spending the entire first 2 hours of the party constantly making pitchers of drinks and working on odds and ends - then he doesn't get to talk to anyone....I mean who the hell wants to be in our cramped kitchen instead of sitting on the lake? not me.

what are the most important things to remember when being a good host?

And Then There was Gin

Just a quickie post this time—indeed, you can read this post in the time it takes you to throw a cold gimlet down your gullet. Because gimlets are exactly what we are going to discuss this morning, people. (No, it isn’t even 10am yet but I’m merely talking about a gimlet not drinking one. Anyway, don’t judge…).

Of the many wondrous things that Mad Men has brought into my life over these past three years, the gimlet is perhaps the most treasured. More so even than the hours it has given me to watch Jon Hamm being perfect in my living room. This is really saying something because Jon Hamm looks like this: 

You see, I grew up among teetotalers, so other than the rare tipple of Bailey’s Irish Crème that my godmother would slip me at her hairdresser’s shoppe (if they are serving cordials to the ladies under the bonnet dryers, then the place deserves two p’s, don’t you think?), my early experiences with cocktails were despairingly limited. (One more thing to resent about growing up in the ‘80s…cocktails were so "out." Thanks, Michael Crichton for making everyone drink Asahi). Anyhow, in college and graduate school, I explored the worlds of wine and, later, beer, punctuated by the occasional Cape Codder. It seems foolish to have limited myself like this but I suppose I thought I was being an intellectual. How wrong I was about all of that...

It was only when I received a tenure track job (while still finishing my dissertation…) that I turned to the hard stuff with any regularity. I like to think that this stemmed less from the newly arrived burdens of adulthood than from the revival of The Cocktail in American food culture. Either way, I started flavoring my own vodkas so that I could mix up pitchers of Bloody Marys on Sunday mornings. I made Sea Breezes for dinner guests. I started drinking Hot Toddies on cold winter nights. I discovered the caipirinha on a friend’s porch one spring evening while the sky turned green.

I moved on to gin not long after that first winter on the Plains. Ah, gin. My first meaningful encounter with this alimentation came in the form of a fairly wet martini served to me by a wonderful friend, esteemed scholar, and all-around libertine to whom I shall always be grateful. It was garnished with an anchovy-stuffed olive and presented with the mischievous warning that, unlike other victuals, “gin goes straight to your brain stem.” Perhaps it was my brain stem talking but I fell in love with gin then and there. And I fell hard.

The OED first defines the word ‘spirit’ as “the animating or vital principle in man (and animals); that which gives life to the physical organism, in contrast to its purely material elements; the breath of life.” If ever a liquid spirit has reached that potential, for me, it is gin. Sweet and good and honest gin. It is piney and healthful. It enjoys company. It is also happy to sit quietly, alone, being itself, with nothing but a lowly twist of lime to keep it amused. From that first martini onwards, my kitchen became a ginocracy. I bought artisanal tonic water. And just like that, my evenings began with mixing a martini for Mr. and a G&T for myself.

And then Betty came into my life. Vain, frivolous Betty. In episode 2 of the first season of Mad Men, Betty joins Don and the Sterlings for dinner in the city. Don orders an old-fashioned, Roger orders a vodka martini, and Betty orders a vodka gimlet. “What is this gimlet,” I asked. I googled ‘gimlet.’ And I said, to no one in particular, “Gimlets? Originally made with gin? What? What is wrong with Betty Draper? Could it be the calories? Oh Betty....” The rest is history. On the cusp of my 3^rd decade on earth, I discovered my cocktail and I began liking Don’s mistresses more than his wife. Sorry, Betts.

 

Which brings me to the topic of today’s post: gin + cake! More specifically, gimlets + cake! Inspired by the ladies at Purity and Danger, I have begun to explore creative mergers between dessert and liquor. Dolly and Laine @ P&D produced an ingenious gin & tonic inspired angel food cake. I decided to experiment with all things gimletty. And, so, today’s recipe: Gimlet Cake with Blackberry-Gin Sauce. The recipe is based on Smitten Kitchen’s Lime Yogurt Cake with a few important alterations. I provide my version here:

Cake

3/4 cup whole milk plain unsweetened Greek yogurt

¼ buttermilk

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup sugar
zest of three limes
1/3 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons gin

2 eggs
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Like this (note the Corona has no role in this recipe...except moral support):

Sauce

12 ounces fresh blackberries (I have only used fresh but I imagine you could use frozen if you reduced the amount of water in the recipe)
3 tablespoons water

3 tablespoons gin
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a springform pan with oil (if you don’t have a springform pan, line the bottom of a regular 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper after greasing).

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt, buttermilk, oil, sugar, gin, zest and juice. Add the eggs one by one, whisking well after each addition.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together, right over your liquid ingredients. Stir with a spoon until just combined. It will look a little lumpy.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is pale brown and a knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let stand for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the pan to loosen. If you’re using the springform pan, release your cake! Otherwise, flip the cake onto a plate and flip it back on the rack. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature. Continue to cool for another 10 minutes or so. Sift powdered sugar on top. If you want to eat this cake warm, dig in. I, however, prefer it cold, gimlet style,

Sauce:

Combine blackberries, water, gin, sugar and lime juice in blender. Purée until very smooth,. The sauce will seem thin in the blender—don’t worry about this! Then press through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds. Put this in a jam jar and refrigerate until cold.

Isn't this promising?

This cake is ridiculously easy--you make the whole thing in one bowl. And, if you are a Mad Men devotee, then what better way could there be to celebrate the beginning of season 4? If you are not, then, I repeat: GIN + CAKE!!!!

Here is a slightly fuzzy picture of the final product, fuzzy like it would be after a few gimlets.

Stew You, Thomas Keller

If, as a young fraulet, I ever had a sport, it was cooking. Unlike “normal” kids who ran around and chased things (balls, pets, other kids…), I spent many of my otherwise idle hours of childhood pouring through cookbooks and food magazines. I started subscribing to Food & Wine at the age of 9; Gourmet a year later. I watched Saturday morning cooking shows on PBS instead of Saturday morning cartoons. I spent my pocket money on exotic ingredients and kitchen tools.

I am not entirely sure why this was the case, although I suspect it had something to do with the fact that my father, whom I adored, was a preternaturally talented and enthusiastic cook. I say “preternaturally” because, until the age of 28, he had never stepped foot into a kitchen. That sounds impossible, I know, but, in his case, it was true. He was born into the kind of elite Iranian family for whom the kitchen was just another “out-building.” There were three cooks whose days were devoted to the preparation of rice alone. So, the fact that this cavalier gourmand turned into an ingenious and industrious gourmet was something of an unlikely outcome. But, this is exactly how things turned out. And by the time I met him, in his late fifties, what couldn’t the man cook? Persian food was the bread and butter of his repertoire but he branched out early and often—Tex-Mex, Italian, Chinese. The only cuisine he shied away from was French food. He’d throw together the occasional cheese fondue or crème caramel (and béarnaise sauce on eggs for brunch…oh, how good that was) but he never had the patience to fuss about with composed dishes. He most definitely did not master the art of French cooking. What he did cook, he cooked without ever consulting recipes. He never once thumbed through a food magazine. He rarely paid attention when Julia Child was on except to celebrate her as an example  for his daughter of a brilliant, funny, capable, tall woman (that was back when I was predicted to be tall...). A scientific mind, his was keen on experimentation. What fun was cooking if someone else had taken the mystery out of it by writing things down?

For these reasons, I think, I started my life in the kitchen with a desire to supplement rather than duplicate my father’s skills.  La cuisine francaise it was going to be. I dreamed that I would one day dazzle the family with my patience and fortitude as I took on multi-page, multi-stage recipes. I prepared four course meals for special occasions. (A particular achievement was Crepes Suzette, which I made for a New Year’s Eve dinner when I was 11. I didn’t have the stones to light the thing on fire because I was SCARED OF FIRE but I made an otherwise serviceable showing). I bought cookbooks that were littered with the words “complicated,” “detail,” and “perfection.” I read Julia’s Mastering the Art and nearly memorized it. I repeated her mantra that the kitchen was a place to be at your best, that technique mattered. I added “garnishing tools” to my kitchen staples. In short, I became a recipe follower and a seeker of technical mastery.

As I grew older, however, I became more confident and less patient. I had built up street cred among my family and friends. I began to dwell on the jazz metaphors—improvisation was the true evidence of technical perfection. Who needed recipes when you had instinct? So, I stopped measuring things. I stopped laboring over every step. I stopped buying new and ever more niche-y gadgets. I stopped baking altogether. I started cooking to eat and to feed. I got lazy (and, yes, pudgy…).

And, then, three years ago, I read The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Towards Perfection. The book, written by Michael Ruhlman, chronicles the labors of Thomas Keller, the uber-chef behind The French Laundry and Per Se. Keller, as it turns out, is what you would get if you crossed a Swiss assassin and Pablo Picasso and taught that hybrid man-beast how to cook. He is an inveterate technician yet he is also instinctively creative. He is the philosopher-king of the kitchen. He is quiet, thoughtful, and rather polite for a mercenary perfectionist. He is Keller. In addition to running these restaurants, he collaborates with Ruhlman to write cookbooks so that the rest of us can learn the fine arts as he practices them. He has faith in us.

Keller’s first book, The French Laundry Cookbook, features the restaurant’s impenetrably-complicated classics. The book is fussy and gorgeous and expensive. One would not want to get any actual food anywhere near it lest it become irretrievably besplattered with the evidence of one’s gastronomic shortcomings. Each dish costs no less than $150 to make if you include equipment and fancy white plates to serve it on. No mere mortal can really cook out of this book, beautiful though it is. The exception that proves this rule is the indomitable Carol Blymire who cooked and blogged her way through The French Laundry Cookbook with great success. (Okay, so I feel badly here. The book isn’t THAT difficult. If I quit my job and stopped watching TV and fucking around on Facebook, I could totally cook from it. It does not, however, suit the life I actually live; only the one I wish I were smart, talented, and rich enough to live. And, at the end of the day, who needs that kind of pressure from a cookbook?)

Much less intimidating, however, is the sequel to The French Laundry Cookbook, Bouchon. The book dwells on the “casual” food served in Keller’s bistro of the same name—a restaurant he opened because, as he explains, he wanted to “have a place to eat after cooking all night at the French Laundry.” The book is entirely about technique, about rediscovering the wonders of humble ingredients, artfully prepared. As Keller notes in his introduction, “Bistro dishes have become somewhat debased…by over-use and lack of understanding.” Here he is speaking my language. The immeasurable delight of a plate of good roast chicken or steak frites is one of the many joys of returning to my favorite restaurant near Les Halles. It comes from eating something that the people in the kitchen have made a thousand times for a thousand boisterous diners, exactly the same way their grandmothers did. And so, I bought the book with the intent of rediscovering technique, of remembering the satisfying tedium of preparing something in many steps with care and attention, and of re-creating the simplicity of a meal that is not just good but is also fine. I thought this would be fun.

I will begin this paragraph by quashing the hopeful tone of that last sentence. Preparing a meal out of Keller’s Bouchon was not, actually, any fun at all. Full of devotion to the task of creating the platonic ideal of a bistro dish, I invited some friends over for Saturday night chez nous, went shopping, and came home to begin the three day-long process of preparing a classic boeuf bourguignon. I chose to make this dish of beef braised in wine because it had been one of those things I had taught myself how to make from “instinct” back in college and I wanted to see how a proper recipe compared. In addition, I love it. I love it more than I love many things and people. It is hearty and filling and sublimely rich. It is beautiful to look at because it is a big jumbly mess of delicious things. In addition, the ingredients were all available locally and in season (save for the wine). It all seemed to be coming together.

Keller begins his recipe by writing that “the primary techniques for Bouchon’s beef bourguignon are those of refinement—removing the impurities at every opportunity.” As I embarked upon this recipe, I repeated those words to myself, full of faith in the inherent decency of the undertaking. No one wants to serve one’s beloved amis impurities, after all. And what frau doesn’t strive for refinement at every possible turn? Little did I know, my friends, that what at first sounded like a virtuous and pure-hearted endeavor was really a cruel eugenic food-engineering project.

It all went wrong with the stock, which is, piteously, the first and most important step. The recipe is in the back of the book, under the heading “Basic Preparations and Techniques.” The objective is a rich, beefy brown stock. Okay. Simple enough. I’ve made a thousand beef stocks. This one was a bit different but, cool, technique. I’m learning. So, sensei TK, what do I need? First, I need bones. Meaty bones. And lots of them. My butcher cut them into Keller’s requisite 2-3 inch sections. I heard the saw buzzing away. Yum! Here is my big bag o’bones. Meaty, hmm?

While the bones are roasting at high heat and emitting a smell that is decidedly less pleasant than one might imagine, we are instructed to halve an onion crosswise and place 1 half, cut side down, in a dry skillet over indirect heat for 30 minutes. One wants a charred onion half. “This will add color to the stock.” Like this:

Here is the hot mess of roasted meaty bones. 

They smelled like dead animal. Not good. But, faith I had. I was feeling good, like I was refining something, like mysterious powers to cook perfectly were just waiting for me to harness them. I felt like this:

So, after all the roasting, you throw the bones and seasonings (including 10 peppercorns, not 9, not 11!) into a big stockpot and cover with filtered water and let “gently simmer” for five hours, skimming often. You would think that this would be the moment you could move on to something else, returning “often” to skim impurities from the top of the pot. If you thought that though, you would be completely wrong. As wrong as I was. Which was terribly, terribly wrong. Turns out that when you are seeking refinement, you must be ever-vigilant. For five hours. Because if during that five hours you allow your stock to come to anything more than a very gentle simmer (like a simmer as gentle as the breeze caused by the flapping wings of a butterfly on the other side of the yard…), your stock is totally fucked. Irremediably, irredeemably fucked. It is cloudy. The OPPOSITE of refined. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. So, yeah, that happened. It happened sometime between hours four and five, when I needed to pee so badly that I thought my internal organs might burst and when my relief watch was on the telephone. After returning to see bubbles on the top of the stock (Bubbles!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!), I gathered my wits about me and finished the process. A little cloudy stock won’t ruin this whole thing, I thought cheerily. All the while, a dreadful feeling sat in the pit of my stomach, as I knew that somewhere, Thomas Keller felt my failure. Thus endeth Day 1 of beouf bourguignon. I went to bed with the smell of roasted bones in my nose and a twinge of regret in my heart. “Why, oh why did it have to boil?????” Here it is after I strained it through a fine mesh strainer like, 14 times, and then through coffee filters. Really. I was desperate. 

I call this "Piss Off, I Like Being Cloudy" Beef Stock. (And so should effing Thomas Keller, for that matter). 

Having slept on my disappointment, I was workmanlike on day two. Day two involved cutting up a lot of delicious stuff and cooking it all separately. First, fingerling potatoes, then carrots, then bacon and mushrooms, then pearl onions (12 red, 12 white, cooked separately). See, that’s technique, bitches!

Day two also involved the main event—searing the beef. This went pretty well. Look at all those perfect cubes!

The day’s tasks culminated in putting together the actual dish and cooking it so that it could supposedly marinate in its own juices overnight. Even though my quest for refinement was pretty well compromised by la catastrophe du fond, I followed Keller’s instructions to a tee. I chopped vegetables and laid them out in my dutch oven in perfect order. See:

This step—putting cheesecloth on the vegetables and wine and then laying the beef cubes over it—seemed like a much more important guarantor of refinement anyway.

Maybe the stock didn’t matter all that much after all, I thought, with hope in my pitiful heart. After cooking, one must strain the sauce over the beef cubes and refrigerate. The vegetables that were so carefully chopped to Keller’s merciless specifications were tossed out having sacrificed their flavor to my impure sauce.  

Day three dawned bright. Guests were coming. A lemon tart was prepared. A lovely little salad with a Dijon vinaigrette was assembled. The beef was reheated per the Maestro’s instructions and was subsequently plated (Oh and I went out and bought fancy white plates…Keller’s imperious gaze made me do it). See? 

"Wait, you're putting this perfect meal on THOSE plates? Hold on a minute, why is your sauce cloudy?"

The separately-cooked carrots, bacon, mushrooms, pearl onions (two colors!), and potatoes were delicately placed on top just so. A whisp of fleur de sel and finely-chopped parsley was sprinkled on top (sorry no pictures…too busy telling my guests this story…)

Finally, after three days of agony, I awaited the moment of ecstasy. The ooh’s and the aah’s. The “technique is everything” moment. I pondered the next attempt. Perhaps I would cook this dish over and over again until I got it right, until my stock was perfect and my sauce was glassy. Until it looked not just LIKE this but exactly like this:

I put a morsel in my mouth. I chewed. I looked over expectantly at my darling. As he finished his first bite, he spoke true words. “This is good…but isn’t it just beef stew?” Sometimes, this sweet and brilliant man can verge on the artless in his commitment to honesty, but on this occasion, our minds could not have been more in sync. What sat on our expensive new plates was, after three long days of struggle, just beef stew. It did not transport me to Les Halles or make me feel the cobblestones of Montmartre under my feet. Indeed, all I felt was sore from standing for the hours of fruitless skimming (skimming, skimming, skimming!) that I had undertaken two days earlier. Of course, it was just beef stew because boeuf bourgignon IS just beef stew. And the dinner party was a success not because I spent five hours making stock but instead because we had good company around the table and several bottles of red wine on top of it.

What lessons do I draw from this frustrating episode? I suppose I learned that while Thomas Keller may believe that refinement is everything (and as a potential diner of his, I am grateful for his commitment to that ideal), I believe that good food, like life, happens while you’re busy making other plans. Yes, talent and execution matter but, for the most part, they matter less than we’d like to believe. And, yet, we use this as an excuse NOT to cook. How many times have you heard the phrase, "...but I don't know how"? If one intends to cook for money, then the quest for perfection is a remunerative exercise. After all, no one would pay Thomas Keller to make them“Just” Beef Stew. But, if you cook for pleasure and for sustenance, instincts will take you much farther than precision. Good eaters make good cooks. The kitchen then, is, in my experience, a place in which to lead, not to follow. Alas, I fear that this realization means two things for me. First, I will never get paid to cook. And, second, the soul of this chef will never reach a state of perfection. By the same token, however, I will never go hungry and as long as I’m nearby, neither will you.

what in god's name is farro?

we are going to have a vegetarian couple hanging with us over the holiday weekend. we obviously want to grill and make nice little salads but I don't want to make the same old, same old - I found a good blog with a recipe for 'farro with red cabbage and feta' - I'm embarrassed to ask...what the hell is farro? I did in fact wiki farro which was of no help. if I can't find this stuff at the local grocery store can the frau think of another ingredient I can swap out?

also please feel free to pass on any good vegetarian dishes for the grill...other than skewers which are simply too obvious.

the incredible edible egg

there's a bar nearby that makes its own sour mix with egg whites. it makes a HUGE difference. I'm very intrigued about how to properly beat an egg white (please don't say a hand mixer because I'm not going to get a huge machine dirty for one egg white) - how do I know it's done?

also - please enjoy this link which discusses the revival of egg whites in old school cocktails. I want that gin fizz desperately but I must admit I'm one of those people that are afraid of raw eggs. madam frau, are they really safe to eat (well drink)?

p.s. where the heck does one get 'orange flower water' as indicated in the gin fizz recipe?

not shaken, not stirred

Here is an excellent post from theguardian.co.uk on martinis in London...enjoy the lovely images of frosty glasses and LOTS of booze.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/mar/02/how-to-make-perfect-martini

egg in my face

I need to know how to make a poached egg well and consistently. mine all explode or end up uneven or the yolk overcooks etc.

J's REAL 10 item list

This is like how David Denby and Anthony Lane can't write one New Yorker best films of the year column...

These are the real things you need. And, these are, for all intents and purposes, single items instead of single categories like "knives" or "utensils."

1) small chef's knife (less than 8" so it can double as a paring knife without risking a major injury).

2) serrated knife (imagine slicing bread or tomatoes with anything else...disastre!)

3) large skillet (preferably non-stick but good quality non-stick so you don't wind up sterile).

4) dutch oven. (what she said).

5) colander (unless you want to remove pasta from boiling water with your bare hands)

6) baking pan (she called this a jelly roll pan, because she is pretentious...like david denby)

7) prep bowl (plastic with a spout so you can pour stuff out of it; you don't need three. you need one)

8) silicone spatula

9) measuring cups (spoons are good too but you can use normal spoons in a pinch or to measure a pinch...)

10) cutting board. big. bamboo. no plastic crap because it dulls knives and harbors germs unless you want to use bleach on a regular basis, which you don't (unless you're vp who once bleached everything in her house, including her cat).

see, ten things. just ten. if you want eleven, buy a good pepper grinder. pre-ground pepper is basically dirt that comes in a metal tin.

10 items or less

VP's query about the must-have equipment to keep in a small kitchen prompted lots of conversation. J and I have really thought about it and we're finally prepared to share our MUST-HAVE list.

1. Le Creuset 5 QT+ Dutch Oven. On low heat in the oven, this turns into a crock pot. And you can bake incredibly good no-knead bread in it. So, this is pretty much my desert island cookware. (Incidentally, Cook's Illustrated just rated the Tramontina pot here as a good budget alternative to LC, but, seriously, fraus, a LC dutch oven is something you owe yourself).

2. Ideally, you'd want saute pan AND a cast-iron skillet.  If you were really pressed for space, I'd say you should go with the saute alone. Get a Lodge cast iron skillet and just season that thing well enough to cook eggs in. (Not hard to do as we've discussed).The saute pan is perfect for pasta dinners for two as well as any kind of roast or braise you might want to make.

3. Obviously, unless you really ARE on a desert island, you'd want some sauce pots. We have a variety of stainless steel and copper pots. As you weed out your collection, keep in mind these three requirements: 1) make sure they nest for easy storage; 2) make sure the lids exist and fit properly; 3) make they don't have burn spots that you can't get off no matter how much elbow grease and steel wool you use.

4. Knives. I can hardly keep this list to 10 items if I include knives, but I'll try. You absolutely MUST HAVE GOOD QUALITY KNIVES if you really want to be frau. I tried, for years, to avoid spending $$$ on knives and it was all folly. Now, that I've dropped a few hundred bucks on a coupld of excellent knives and now that someone in my house keeps them sharp, I am happier, shinier, thinner, and have tons more energy! So, which ones do you need to invest in: 1) chef's knife or santoku; 2) serrated bread knife; 3) paring knife. These are the knives I simply could not live without. We have a GORGEOUS Mac chef's knife (what a gift, thank you, Tom!!!!), a relatively good serrated knife whose brand I can't remember, a Wustof santoku, and a Sabatier paring knife. Here is the best knife store on the web. Of these, here is my favorite. I use this little guy so often, he is so perfectly suited to my hand, we love each other, etc. Here is an excellent guide to knives from Cook's Illustrated, for those who need a little advice on what knife does what in the kitchen. The big thing with knives is 1) use your sharpening steel often (every couple of uses); and, 2) take high-quality knives to a professional sharpener at least once a year if not twice a year. We have someone here in Lawrence who does this for $2 a knife. Brilliant. If you have trouble finding someone, you can generally ask the manager at your local Williams & Sonoma or somesuch for advice. But dull knives are useless and dangerous. A bad combination.

5. Assorted utensils. Again, keeping this meta-list to 10 items is obviously impossible so I'm collapsing utensils into one category. I'd say, a strong wooden spoon, a fish turner (great for flipping eggs and anything else delicate--this is my favorite utensil), a silicone spatula, and a whisk are pretty essential in my book. The whisk can, in a pinch, be replaced by a fork. Just like this:

can be replaced with this:

In short, find a place to put a damn whisk.


6. Bowls. You need bowls. One big one that you can use for salad and for baking. And, a few smaller ones. Buy stainless steel. It isn't pretty but in terms of versatility, you cannot go wrong. For example, a stainless steel bowl put over a simmering pot of water is a double-boiler. You could technically do that with pyrex but stainless steel is lighter, easier, and won't ever break.

7. A pizza stone. I know. This is thinking outside the box. But, if you are doing any serious baking at all, you want a pizza stone. Hands down.  And they are cheap. Here is ours.

8. Jelly roll pan. This is the most important pan in your cupboard. Obviously, you can use it for cookies. You can also use it to make delicious Sicilian style pizza (recipe on frau from last year). But, flip it over, toss some cornmeal on top, and you have yourself a pizza peel, which you will need if you ever want to bake naan, thin crust pizza, pita breads, etc.

9. Food processor. Get a good one. Don't fuck around with a mini-food processor just because you have a small kitchen. Seriously, if you own a mini-food processor, you are that:

The mighty food processor is the kitchen device that most separates the fraus from the rest. You can do almost anything in it. It will take up space but it's worth it. This thing can stand in for a mixer, a blender, a grater, a salad shooter, whatever. It will mix bread dough, pasta dough, cookie dough, etc. Get it with all the blades. Buy yourself a plastic tub with a lid. Put the accessories in the tub. Wipe the machine down with a moist sponge after each use. Love it. Care for it. You need this. Really, you do.

10. Finally, we could not live without our kitchen scale. Michael Ruhlman is an evangelist about this and if you have read his new book "Ratio," you will understand why. Here is his rationale. We believe it. We have a scale and use it for everything from baking to portion control.

And that rounds out the list. I am sure I left things out and this really is painful because my kitchen is the best-furnished room in my house. I have pretty much everything you could need to start a five-star restaurant on that desert island. I do have a few rules though, and perhaps these can guide you even if you inch up past the 10 essentials...

The first rule is: don't buy something that only has one use unless you really do a lot of that thing. Our ice cream maker, for example.

The second rule is: don't buy anything sold through an infomercial. No matter how useful it may seem, believe me, it won't be. You do not need a pan full of edge brownies. That's not how God intended brownies to be and deep down in your heart, you know that.

The third rule is: don't buy cheap shit. Buy things that you intend to care for and keep well into the future.

With that, dear fraulets, I bid you adieu for another week. Next time: reader questions.

chicken little

I have a lot of vegetarian friends as of late... I don't know how this is humanly possible considering the fact that I believe foie gras is a reasonable substitute for butter. But nonetheless it is the case.

I have a lot of great recipes that could be veggie friendly if only they didn't call for chicken broth. I need a savory substitute for chicken broth...none of this veggie/mushroom broth crap that has zero fat and even less flavor. the key here is tasty not just veggie.

anyone got a vegetarian broth recipe approaching that naturally salty, fatty and golden flavor from our friend the chicken?

layering for warmth

It has been cold here. Really cold. Unbearably cold. Freeze the balls off a brass monkey cold. And, after returning from an all-too-brief trip to southern California during which I basked under a bright sun, I have not been particularly good about putting up with this winter chill. I have mumbled complaints. I have whinged loudly. I have screamed bloody murder waiting for my car to heat up (try it; it helps). I have even cried while walking from my car to the supermarket door (though the tears froze immediately upon falling from my eyes). In a word, I have been insufferable. So, to soothe my malcontent, my beloved suggested that we do a little hearty cooking. Nothing fancy. Just a vegetable lasagna, a crisp salad, and some “American-style” garlic bread. But, stick-to-your-ribs cooking nonetheless.

Lasagna is, of course, nothing more than a template. It is a casserole, a baked dish of infinite variability as long as you have some kind of starch and some kind of sticky stuff to hold the layers together. There is the classic American version, with which most of you are no doubt familiar from your desperate visits to the Olive Garden/Macaroni Grill/Vinny T’s/insert generic Italian-American restaurant name here.  This is most often made with a tomato/meat sauce, dried noodles that have been par-boiled, a usually rather dull ricotta/spinach mixture, and oodles of part-skim mozzarella cheese. There are the many versions from Martha Stewart, who almost always insists on including butternut squash (something about the color palette, I’m sure). There is the classic Italian version, too. Usually made with sheets of fresh spinach pasta, a long-simmered meat ragu, a bit of parm, and, glory of all glories, a béchamel sauce. This last ingredient is the subject of my post today.

Béchamel sauce. It sounds difficult, not least because it has a haughty little accent above the first “e.” It is not. Indeed, learning how to make a béchamel sauce (less intimidatingly called a “white sauce”) is one of those tricks that, once learned, opens myriad culinary doors for you. One of those doors leads to consistent lasagna success, no matter what kind of lasagna you make, even a totally classic American style lasagna, which is basically what I made.

The classic béchamel starts with a roux. That’s the most difficult part. A roux is nothing more than a flour paste. You cook it a little to take the edge off the flour (later in life, Julia Child became totally and unhealthily obsessed with this issue…apparently she had been offended by the scourge of floury roux one too many times). Then, you pour in milk, (whole milk, as if you had to ask), slowly at first, until this frothy thing bubbles up and all the liquid is magically absorbed into the roux. This paste will thicken the milk as you continue to add it (and you want to do this carefully, stirring to incorporate the milk into the roux before adding more). Within about five minutes, you have a gorgeous, creamy white sauce. You throw in a little salt, a little freshly ground pepper (white pepper if black flecks in your white food seem disconcerting to you), maybe a wisp of freshly grated nutmeg, and you’re done. You have the mortar of one great lasagna, to use an unappetizing metaphor.

Yes, you can still use your ricotta cheese or whatever else floats your lasagna boat. You could even ditch the lasagna and use barely cooked penne or other pasta. The béchamel makes the dish. If you want to do a traditional tomato/veg lasagna, do it. Just pour a thin layer of béchamel over each layer of tomato sauce and finish with pasta+sauce+béchamel+parm. You think that bubbly mozzarella is good? Bubbly, crunchy, tomato-ey béchamel is better.

And there are so many other things you can do with béchamel. You want classy mac and cheese? Stir a cup of extra sharp cheddar into your sauce and pour over pasta. Or smoked gouda? Or Point Reyes blue? Add some crumbled bacon, maybe some caramelized shallots, a pinch of Smoked Spanish paprika and you’ve really got something good on your hands. Top it off with some chunks of buttered bread and you will find crunchy, buttery bliss. You can even use the same cheese sauce to make a Welsh Rarebit, spreading a bit of the thick cheese sauce on toast and broiling. Are you convinced yet that this is the little black dress of sauces? I feel like I’m selling something…

In sum, make a béchamel sauce tonight, people. With a few minutes, some ingredients you already have (or should have…), and a little attention to the process, you too could be a warm and happy frau with a full belly.

Hardly a Recipe for Classic Bechamel Sauce

4 tbsp butter

4 tbsp AP flour

3-4 cups of milk depending on how think you want it

salt to taste

pepper to taste

nutmeg, freshly grated (fussy, I know, but it really is better)

1. Melt butter over medium heat in heavy-bottomed saucepan.
2. Add flour and stir (with a wooden spoon, preferably) until paste forms.
3. Cook for about two minutes, until golden. It will bubble. Just watch that it doesn’t burn (you’ll notice the smell changing as well as the color; the fragrance should be nutty but still retain a whiff of flour).
4. Add ½ cup of the milk and stir. Milk will evaporate. Slowly add the milk in cupfuls. You might want to transition to whisk here. Don’t worry if you see little tiny lumps of flour. Just keep whisking and they’ll eventually melt away.
5. Sauce will continue to thicken and become saucy. You have reached the ideal consistency when you can draw your finger down the back of the wooden spoon and the line doesn’t disappear. (Does that make sense?)
6. Okay, the lumps aren’t disappearing. Your sauce is a little lumpy. Add some cheese. It’ll still be good. Next time, add the milk more slowly and take care to fully incorporate each batch of milk before adding more. Also, if you are really hopeless at this technique, heat the milk before you add it. And be heartened that you are "mastering" something.

kitchen essentials

listen most submarines have larger kitchens than mine. frau sheyda knows this. We must pare down some of our kitchen pots, pans, appliances etc. I would appreciate a frau endorsed list of ten must have items above and beyond the obvious dishes, tupperware and pot for boiling water. everything else must go.

on bagels

can frau youtube videos be far behind?

here, re: bagels, is a nice tutorial from ezra klein.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/lunch_break_97.html

Reader's Questions

NKB makes an excellent suggestion. Readers, ask frau-y questions. Once a month, I'll do a massive answerfest.

As a tease, I will say, cleaning cast iron isn't all that difficult. And, I'm with you about soap & water. In my book, something isn't clean unless soap has touched it. So, here's what I do. I scrape off food detritus/fat. Then, I use a gentle dish soap (I like the 7th Generation stuff) and sometimes a little squeeze of lemon juice to wash it out. I use a brush (no steel wool!!!) and some warm water. Then, I rinse it out immediately. Put it on the stove and turn heat to med. Let the water remaining on the skillet evaporate. Finally, give it a little brush of neutral oil with a paper towel.

The only real no-no with cast iron is letting it soak for long periods of time and putting it away wet.

See an early frau post, "she's so heavy" for more cast iron trivia.

I Need Frau Guidance!

I would like to encourage a monthly section to ALL THINGS FRAU to allow readers to offer suggestions for future Frau posts. I am not even a Fraulein as I find the kitchen an ominous and dangerous place. Here are some pressing Frau-y questions I have:

1. Removing common stains when you are NOT at home. e.g. - I spilled oil based salad dressing on my dry clean only trousers at work. I attempted to dab them clean with cold water but I couldn't go home and change nor did I have much in the way of cleaning products at my disposal at work. The trousers are ruined. The oil stain simply wouldn't go away. I think a good post would be 'dealing with stains in non-ideal situations'.

2. Curing and Cleaning Cast Iron - I know you're not supposed to scrub a cast iron pan. But I don't feel like it's clean if I just wipe it with a paper towel after frying meat; also, sometimes if you add things like eggs or cheese they stick to the pan and wiping doesn't cut it. What is the proper away to clean a cast iron pan and still retain all of the yummy flavors in it?

3. Main courses featuring green veggies - I'm looking for some relatively easy to make signature entrees that are heavy on green veggies like beans, broccoli, spinach, and/or brussel sprouts. I don't think I'm eating enough veggies these days and it's one of my resolutions to eat more nutritiously. These dishes don't need to be vegetarian or super low on fat or calories but that would be preferable.

It’s a new day, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new year, and I’m feeling full…

Well, patient readers, resolutions have been made and, as it turns out, giving my ever-faithful Frau followers more content (any content at all…) wound up high on the list (especially after NKB told me to put it there in 140 characters or less sometime a few minutes before the ball dropped).

And really, it’s not that I haven’t thought about you. (I have). And, it isn’t as if I haven’t cooked. (I have). In fact, as my groaning hard drive can attest, I’ve even taken lots and lots of pictures of the makings of many a sumptuous repast. I don’t know…I’ve been busy? Let’s just agree to put it behind us and see if things don’t look up in this shiny new decade.

To that end, I’ll begin where I began on the morning of 1 January 2010. To welcome the new year, I awoke early to make bagels. I know, I know. Why didn’t I just run out and get bagels? Mainly because while we live in a region of country that is, for most of the year, a veritable cornucopia of delicious food, this is also a bagel desert. Not just a bagel desert, actually. The Sahara of bagel deserts. Lawrencians reading this will scoff. “There is an Einstein Bros. on Mass Street,” they will exclaim. “And a Panera!” Indeed. But, although those establishments may purvey circular bread-stuffs with holes in the middle, neither Einstein Bros. nor Panera produce anything that can be accurately called a “bagel.” I’m really not actually trying to be a typical, New York Times reading, latte-drinking, elitist, East Coast bagel snob; I’m just saying that if you can put cinnamon chips (whatever those are…) and bananas in it, it may be bagel-like, but be assured that it is merely a simulacrum.

So, having grown accustomed to the pleasures of consuming a chewy, savory treat every Saturday morning during our many years back east, I find myself feeling a kind of emptiness, an incompleteness, when I go too long without a proper bagel. And so, I learned how to make them. Several years ago. Like, when we first moved here. Since then, I have made them…thrice. I don’t know why I haven’t done it more often. It is ridiculously easy to do. Therefore, in addition to food blogging, I have resolved to remember how easy bagels are to make and to make them regularly in 2010. I thought that this might be a fitting way to resurrect All Things Frau.

Thus, without further ado, I bring you bagels, demystified. If you, too, live in a bagel desert, really, nothing should stop you from going into your kitchen right now and making these. The recipe upon which I have relied is, strangely enough, from an old issue of Cooking Light magazine. Go figure. Still, I have compared this recipe to several others and I still think it rises above the rest, if you’ll pardon the pun. It yields the perfect ratio of crustiness to chewiness and produces a nice, mildly yeasty flavor. I’ve altered the recipe a little, so find the improved version posted below. Use any beer you have in the fridge, except for a pilsner. Unless it has some real body, you’re not going to get much flavor from it. Having said that, I’ve used anything from Belgian white to oatmeal stout. (Generally, I use the fancy microbrew stuff that people kindly bring to the house for parties and that no one drinks because it tastes weird). So, friends, go forth and make bagels. They are INCREDIBLE right out of the oven, but keep well too. I imagine you could freeze them, if you should find yourself with any left over. The only thing you CANNOT do, under ANY circumstances, is put cinnamon chips and bananas in them. When you’re craving whatever that is, head out to Einstein Bros.

EVERYTHING BAGELS

Yield: 10 bagels

• 2 (12-ounce) cans/bottles brown beer (some kind of brown ale is ideal), divided
• 1 cup water
• 2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast (this is the stuff that says “Rapid Rise” or “Bread Machine” yeast on the label and comes in a little glass jar)
• 1 large egg white, lightly beaten (mix yolk and 1 teaspoon of water in separate bowl and set aside)
• 4 ½ cups bread flour, divided (Alas, you really must use bread flour. You need the higher gluten content here for chew. I swear by King Arthur Flour for all things floury)
• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
• Cooking spray or neutral oil
• 4 cups water
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon stone-ground yellow cornmeal
• Sesame seeds
• Poppy seeds
• Dried onion
• Kosher or coarse sea salt
• Dried Garlic bits

Directions:

1. Heat ½ cup beer and 1 cup water over low heat in a small, heavy saucepan to between 100° and 110°.

A digital kitchen thermometer really helps here (scroll down for my cheap equipment suggestions) but if you don’t have one and if you do have experience with baby bottles, bring the water to the temp to which you’d bring a milk bottle (test on the inside of your wrist). If you are not experienced with babies or their bottles, there is apparently an old trick that works just as well. Bring a spoonful of water up to your chin. If it feels hot, it’s there.

2. Combine beer mixture and yeast in a large bowl, stirring until yeast dissolves. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in egg white.

3. While the yeast is resting, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Keep ¼ cup of the flour in a separate bowl.

4. Add 4 ¼ cups flour and salt to beer mixture; stir until a soft dough forms. Turn dough out onto a floured surface.

5. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 8 minutes); add enough of remaining ¼ cup flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands. The finished dough will still feel a little sticky—tacky is the perfect word, I think—but it will be pretty elastic and will form a generally smooth ball.

6. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray or oil, turning the dough ball to coat top.

This step is important because you want to prevent a crust from forming on the dough. The crust will inhibit rising. So, be sure to coat the entire thing with a thin film of oil.

7. Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until doubled in size. (Gently press two fingers into dough. If an indentation remains, the dough has risen enough.)

8. Preheat oven to 400° an hour before baking. I go ahead and throw the pizza stone in the bottom of the oven but don’t fret if you don’t have one.

9. Punch dough down; cover and let rest 5 minutes.

10. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 10 equal portions.

11. Working with one portion at a time (cover remaining dough to prevent drying), shape each portion into a ball. Make a hole in the center of each ball using your index finger. Using fingers of both hands, gently pull dough away from center to make a 1 ½-inch hole. With the bagel on the board, move your fingers around in a circle until the ring of dough is kind of rolling around. This will stretch the dough out with minimal hassle and make a nice looking finished product.

You can also roll your dough pieces out like a breadstick (think about how you made play-doh snakes as a kid…) and then, looping them around, pinch the two ends together.

12. Place bagels on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 10 minutes (bagels will rise only slightly).

13. Meanwhile, combine remaining beer, 4 cups water, and brown sugar in a Dutch oven or stock pot. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to a simmer (180 degrees if you have a thermometer).

14. After the bagels have risen for 10 minutes, gently lower bagels (I put in no more than 3 at a time to keep the water up to temperature) into simmering beer mixture. Cook 45 seconds. Turn each bagel with a slotted spoon; cook an additional 45 seconds.

Don’t worry if you cook them a little longer. The goal here is to boil them enough to seal in moisture without fully cooking them, so just keep it to under a minute on each side.

15. Transfer bagel to a wire rack lightly coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining bagels.

If you don’t have a rack, try to find some way to get the bagels laid out so they are not sitting in their own water. Maybe an inverted cookie sheet with something under one corner so the water rolls off?

16. Now…to flavor. At this point, if you are a purist, or cooking with boring eaters in mind, you could just brush with the egg wash you made by mixing the yolk and a bit of water together. Or, if you are really making bagels, you can set up a nice little assembly line by putting the toppings in little bowls or plates. Brush the bagels with egg wash and then, sprinkle or dip or whatever you like with as much flavor as you want in whatever ratios you prefer. Just remember to finish off with a sprinkling of salt.

17. Place bagels on a baking sheet coated lightly with cooking spray or oil and then sprinkled with cornmeal.

18. Bake at 400° for 17-20 minutes or until golden.

19. You can either cool these on a wire rack or you can hastily tear into them, which I suggest.

Okay, see how easy that was. “18 steps easy,” you retort. I know, there are some 18 steps, but that’s because I broke each little thing down into its own step so you could see exactly how easy it is. Really, the whole thing takes about 45 minutes of active preparation. The rest of the time, you’re just waiting on things to rise and rest, during which time you can be doing your own rising and resting.

If the thought of this much activity before brunch gives you the shivers, you could do much of this work the night before. You’d then put the dough in the fridge after the main rise and let it stay in overnight. This process arrests the development of the yeast, and while I haven’t done it yet with this dough, I have used this method to great success with cinnamon roll dough. So, I set my alarm, stagger out of bed long enough to turn the heat on in the house and get the dough out of the fridge to warm up, and go back to bed. An hour later, the dough will be ready to proceed with remaining steps.

Finally, I promised some advice about equipment. A good digital thermometer and a cooling rack are invaluable tools for the home baker. Happily, both can be purchased at reasonable prices. The anal-retentive “product testers” at Cooks Illustrated give major props to this Polder digital thermometer. (Okay, so the words “anal” and “thermometer” have no place in the same sentence on a cooking blog…). Anyhow, we use one very much like it from CDN because I was impatient and couldn’t wait for Amazon to send me a package when I was in my cheese-making phase last year (that’ll have to be a retroactive post). As for a wire rack, they are super-cheap. My only preference is size (big) and nonstick. Here’s what we have.

And with that, post #1 of the ‘Tweens comes to a close. I hope that 2010 brings us many opportunities to gather around tables, both virtual and real. In the meantime, eat hot bagels with abandon. It’s cold outside and you need the carbs.