I made a perfect BLT today. You might think that this is not particularly impressive, especially when you hear that the it was actually a BST — Bacon, Spinach and Tomato. But it was so good that a profferred bite to someone out the door, en route to lunch, resulted in a plea for one.
It’s hard to make a bad BLT (or BST) in August, when local tomatoes are abundant. It helps, too, that I, behind-the-curve-type that I am, became fiercely devoted to the local farmers market this summer, rising at 7 most Sunday mornings to go stock up on tomatoes, spinach, kale and berries. (Super foods all!) Today, I added a fresh loaf of whole grain bread, mushrooms, two eggplants, an onion and some cukes, all for twenty bucks. After returning home, I walked, in the still bearable morning temperatures, to the grocery store for applewood smoked bacon and tahini, having determined that baba ghanoush was the best use of the eggplant. And then I decided to make homemade mayonnaise because I had always heard it was far superior to anything store-bought, and pretty easy. I am no enemy of easy. Luckily, I already had everything I needed — eggs (from last week’s farmer’s market), canola oil, mustard, plus some green onions, purchased at the grocery store with an eye to making my mother’s cucumber soup later this week. I minced those and stirred them into the mayo, as recommended by one of my essential cookbooks, Mark Bittman’s HOW TO COOK EVERYTHIING. I consider mayonnaise decadent, but this was so creamy and tasty that a little went a long way.
See, that’s what’s interesting and challenging about farmer’s market — you can’t go with a fixed list, you have to go with an open mind, see what looks best, then work from that.
The last stages of a book are not unlike that. With a month and perhaps 25,000 words to go in this fourth and sort-of-final draft (there’s still my editor’s pass and a copy edit, and I intend to start rewriting as soon as I send it off to my editor, polishing what I have), I have what I have. Sure, I can make a last-minute trip for a missing spice or season, maybe whip up some mayonnaise from what’s on hand, but I can’t, say, will raspberries into coming back into season; they’ve come and gone. And if I need an avocado, I better have time to let one ripen. That’s why the cucumber soup has to wait until later this week.
Ah, you think, another anecdote about writing, no real memories in this. But I am thinking about the first thing I ever made in the kitchen, from a spiral-bound book of recipes for kids. It was called five-minute fudge,and it was a super easy version that required no candy thermometer, no soft-ball stage, no rolling out on a marble surface. Heck, I wish I still had that recipe. I have a candy thermometer, but I have little luck with any dessert that calls for one.
What’s the first thing you ever cooked? What’s your biggest kitchen disaster to date? (Like a cursed character in some Eastern European fairy tale, my bread no longer rises, although I once made yeast breads all the time, even turning out perfect Parker House rolls for Thanksgiving.) Who taught you to cook? Did you take home ec in school? I did, in seventh and eighth grade, although I confess I have blocked out almost every memory of it, probably my brain’s way of healing/protecting itself. (For close, careful readers — Sunny’s “corny” dress in WHAT THE DEAD KNOW was from a Simplicity pattern that I came to know very well.)
The first thing I recall ever really wanting to make was a cake from a children’s recipe book. My mother left me to my own devices one Saturday night and I closed off the doors to the kitchen so as not to be disturbed. It was a two layer yellow cake, only for whatever reason, the cake didn’t rise. Well, maybe it rose about 1/4 inch each layer. Didn’t taste like much either, but I did it all by myself. I was 11.
My cooking over the years has been a variation on that theme. My biggest kitchen disaster, one of many that comes to mind, was setting fire to a hamburger patty I was “grilling” in the oven. This time I was 23 years old. I opened the oven door, saw flames, closed the oven door and panicked. This was before smoke detectors. Of course I ate it. Charbroiled burger.
I took Home Ec in 8th and 9th and 10th grade. I made a blouse (yuk), a jumper (turned out great) and an apron (so-so). The food item my group prepared was Corn Flakes and Milk only I was the only person who didn’t put milk directly on her cereal (and still don’t).
A microwave oven is a kitchen essential.
Jackie, I don’t put milk on my cereal, but I also don’t have a microwave.
By the way, I did a change-up — made a roasted eggplant dip with parmesan and olive oil, rather than baba ghanoush. One of my favorite meals on the planet was the eggplant dip on parmesan toast points at the Liberty in San Antonio, followed by a piece of what they called, IIRC, Virginia Greene Chocolate Fudge Cake. It was divine. A good friend used to ask for a helping of milk and pour it on the cake.
When I go to the Farmers Market here in Anchorage it’s usually to get squash or greens and locally grown tomatoes. So when I’m strolling through the stands I look at all that’s available and often find a surprise or two. I love perfect BLTs too but I suspect we have different ideas of what that means.
My mother taught me to cook, no big surprise there. She was an awesome cook and taught me the things that one needs to know to make a recipe turn out the very best it can. Such as for cookies to make sure all the ingredients are well mixed not just thrown together and stirred. Speaking of stirring the first thing she taught me to make was pudding as that was in the 1940s and there wasn’t yet Jell-O brand mixes or if they were already out there then we didn’t use them. The big thing about making pudding from scratch is the constant stirring over a medium heat. You can’t even stop stirring for a minute or it will accumulate on the bottom of the pan and make lumps or burn. The biggest disaster now is that I can’t make a pie crust to save my life and I had always used my mothers recipe which was to die for but now it just won’t work. It’s a mystery where that got off to in my brain.
I took home ec in school, it was required back then but I failed it as I couldn’t get my head around how to make a skirt. Sewing was not something I was even interested in doing. It’s ironic that my art of choice involves a needle and thread. (beading)
I did notice that bit in WTDK and it took me right back to that classroom where I tried to make that skirt. I truly hated every minute of being there and doing that. I also didn’t like the way they taught cooking, what a joke. It’s a real treat to see such a personal thing like that in a novel, I love how you write.
Learned how to make an omelet in either 7th or 8th grade Home Ec. Home Ec was only offered one year, I think, and I got an introduction to sewing, but can’t remember what I might have made. Being a budding feminist, I disdained the “womanly arts”, much to my dismay today. I wish I had a single useful skill.
I once managed to set a peanut butter sandwich on fire. Left the (plastic) plate too close to the gas burner where I was heating up some soup to go along with it.
I’m not allowed in the kitchen much.
My first cooking venture remains one of my favorites today: a bird’s nest. An egg fried in the cut-out middle of a piece of buttered toast.
And my worst disaster was sending my future in-laws to the hospital with food poisoning one Thanksgiving. Something about that cranberry sauce, they said …
Oh, Maryland tomatoes in August–one of the things I miss most!
Home Ec was in Jr. High – 8th and 9th grades, I think. I remember making a red plaid pleated skirt, and the meringue recipe we were to halve, that someone forgot to halve part of. I think we were to use 3 or 4 eggs, and ended up wasting a whole dozen, trying to make it work. No one at my ‘table’ ever admitted which ingredient had been incorrectly measured, and none of us ever told the teacher what had actually gone wrong, although in hindsight, I suspect she knew.
I had just turned 15 the year my mother had to go to the hospital a day or two before Thanksgiving, and I had to cook the entire meal. Besides the gravy being a bit overcooked and lumpy, overall the meal was okay. I must have previously learned how, although I can’t really remember cooking anything specific at home before that.
Dusty…seems that tactic works for a lot of people to stay out of the kitchen
Home Ec…can’t sew and hated it and cooking was comprised of making broiled grapefruit…something I won’t eat at all!
My mom was a good basic cook and taught me how to do a roast with all the trimmings including kickass Yorkshire pudding and other little gems..but she was the best pie maker ever and I can’t do a crust so don’t even try..and I think I have lost her recipe for shortcake as I really wanted one during strawberry season and have searched hi and low for it but it remains elusive. She did teach me how to make nanimo bars that are to die for so they have become something that both my sons “have to have” on special occasions. My youngest son is in the restaurant industry so he does cook for us now on his rare days off..infact he smoked a brisket and ribs all day during this heat wave we are having but boy were they yum!
The milk and cake story reminded me of an old friend I had that always used to stuff his wife’s homemade chocolate cake in a glass of milk and eat it that way.
BLT’s are always best with a thin swipe of smooth natural peanut butter (not the sweet jar of Kraft stuff)instead of mayo….don’t laugh till you have tried it…and plenty of black pepper on the tomato!
Funny how food brings back a lot of memories? Local tomatoes are what I wait for every year but find that even homegrown ones don’t seem to have the same flavour that tomatoes of years gone by had…or maybe it is just me
I don’t remember cooking in home ec, which I think carried into high school early grades. We weren’t allowed to take shop, which now seems SO stupid. I taught myself most of my cooking skills, from cookbooks and Gourmet magazine.
What I now miss, and wouldn’t have remembered 8 years ago, are the fabrics from the home ec sewing projects. The veggies for the apron (with pleats!) and the hot pink small paisleys for the sheath dress.
I too made a good BT sandwich today, with tomatoes from the one plant I planted by my front door. They were just as red and good as the ones I remember from Baltimore County.
Anyone else remember hucksters? The one that came down our street called “straw berries! blueberries! Cher rr rries!”
As the oldest of six children and an overachieving Junior Girl Scout, I got my cooking badge when I was eight, and could make spaghetti sauce from scratch (well, with canned tomato sauce) by the time I was nine. “Cleaning up as you go” was the one part of the badge requirements I had trouble with, but I noticed early on that Julia Child never cleaned up after herself.
I have spent most of my life trying for the perfect pie crust — which, according to an article in the NYT Magazine last year, would require me to render my own leaf lard. So far, that’s beyond me.
Just shortly after we were married….eons ago, I decided to make a peach pie using my mothers tried and true crust recipe…it was cooked at the right temperature but was so rich it was almost like eating a custard…so never again LOL.
Homemade blueberry pie is one of the best desserts ever..wild blueberries are heavenly.
There was the time I roasted a chicken and didn’t realize that there really is a significant difference in quantity needed between <em>dried</em> thyme and <em>ground</em> thyme. Gecch.
Home Ec in junior high — wow, I’d forgotten about that. I made an “octopus” pillow with three legs. I think it’s still at my parents’ house, somewhere.
My first cooking venture was butterscotch topping for ice cream from the Fannie Farmer Junior Cookbook that I bought through Scholastic in Jr. High. I never took Home Ec. in Jr. High or High School, I was a band geek. I did learn how to sew i 4H and still have all of my outfits. I won blue ribbons at the Hillsdale (MI) County Fair for all of them.
My most embarrassing cooking moment? The Christmas before I got married my soon to be husband and I got together with some of his friends for dinner. I made a dessert that was a complete and utter disaster. Picture me on Christmas Eve running into the bakery exclaiming that I would take anything they had that didn’t cost over $50.00. I got a very nice Yule Log complete with merangue mushrooms. We got to dinner and everyone ooed and ahhed over it. All through dinner they kept talking about it until I finally couldn’t take it anymore and confessed that I hadn’t made it. They still tease me unmercifully about it. A couple of years ago I took a cooking class and learned to make a Yule Log, complete with mushrooms I produced one that year for our annuam gathering. It was good but they still tease me.
No fair! Once you’ve made a successful Yule log, not only should all teasing cease, but you should be recognized as a goddess.
My last Coca-Cola fudge cake tanked, and I’ve been scared to make it again. But I think I’m going to have to get back up on that horse. Fudge cake. Whatever.
The first thing I ever cooked was boiled water with salt and pepper. I thought that was soup. (I was 9 okay??) Anyhoo, the REAL first thing I ever cooked that my family dared to eat was a Sunday roast, by my mom’s recipe…practically foolproof. You stab the chuck boneless roast with a long tined fork to tender it up (purists would say marinate, not me!). Then you take a roasting pan, line it with aluminum foil, two layers, one hanging off the ends, the other the sides. Then you put ONE can of Condensed Campbell’s mushroom soup (don’t use substitutes, doesn’t work as well; makes YUCKY gravy), and ONE package of Campbell’s DRY onion soup mix, the kind WITHOUT mushrooms. Then you place the roast carefully on top of this gooey mixture, pressing hard until the mush flows out from the bottom and touches a bit up the sides of the roast. (Dang, I’m getting hungry just typing this!). Then you put ANOTHER can of mushroom soup on top, with ANOTHER package of DRY onion soup mix on top of that. Mush that around with a spoon a little bit. Then pour 1/2 to 1 cup of WARM water (depends on how much gravy you want and how deep the pan is) over the whole thing. Then you take the sides of the foil, and fold it up over the roast, and smush them together, then take the ENDS and do the same thing, making dang sure there ain’t no gaps. Then you put it in a 350 degree oven for a couple of hours, sometimes more, and let it cook. Works great for during a church service…when you come in the door, you can smell the aroma…and then you make REAL rice, not the kind in the bag (shudder), and a salad for the side, anykind, you pick. For a fruit, you take pear halves, put a little miracle whip in the middle of the dip on the end, then put grated cheddar cheese finely on top of that. Aw, and you have to have REAL brewed Southern Style iced tea, not the kind from an instant jar. Oh, and don’t forget the sour cream pound cake. if you want that recipe, you’ll have to kidnap me. Family secret!
(now, I’m gonna HAVE to go out to lunch! YUM!)
The first thing I ever cooked was a cheese omelet when I was eleven or twelve. Hmmm. Sounds good. I think I’ll have one for breakfast this morning…
My worst kitchen disaster: Many years ago, when I was in college, I rented a house with some friends. I invited some family members over for Thanksgiving and, right before I served the turkey, a cockroach scurried from beneath the platter. Everyone dutifully ate the meal, but I could tell what was on their minds the whole time…
Which Coca-Cola Cake recipe do you use, Laura? The one in the Southern Living Cookbook has never failed me, but you need to make sure the oven is preheated and the rack is centered. E-mail me if that’s not the recipe you have…
I think peanut butter on a BLT sounds wonderful.
After several weeks of going faithfully to the farmer’s market, I have found a stand that has multiple varieties of heirloom tomatoes (although the term may be used a little loosely.) Last night, I tried in vein to remember the type I chose, based on the hand-written description. I think it began with the letters “Marg,” but you can’t prove it by my Googling.
However, I did stumble on a variety of heirloom known as the Paul Robeson, a so-called “black” tomato. (Really closer to purple.) I found this rather appalling, but it’s from Siberia and Robeson was a hero in the Soviet Union, so I think this was meant as a heartfelt tribute.
It seems to me that one could construct a pretty nifty mystery that was somehow connected to heirloom tomatoes.
As for piecrust — Bittman got me through, again. His secret? ALL BUTTER. No shortening. I used it to make blueberry pies on the 4th, and was very pleased with the result.
Very important question: What beer goes best with a BLT?
VG
The second one.
Man, I need to learn to proof read, sorry about all the typos in my last post! I agree that the yule log teasing should cease. Even though I never have to make another one, I do make the merangue mushrooms and add them to whatever dessert I make for the annual dinner.
I have to admit that I seldom make BLT’s at home, I like to make Bacon, Tomato and Cheese sandwiches instead. They are open face with green pepper and onion on them as well. They must be made with Miracle Whip rather than mayo though or else they don’t taste right.
Victor,
I still vote for Dogfish Head, although I had to drink a McHenry because that was all I had. Nothing wrong with McHenry, a fine local brew, but Dogfish Head (Raison D’Etre) remains my favorite.
You are a goddess. The Perfect BLT is nirvana, is satori, is on beyond the heights of perfection. You are getting off the wheel and don’t have to come back in your next life unless you want to. Please do. After all all of US will still be here.
Home ec – cooking (I knew how to cook better than the teacher, which isn’t saying much since her introduction was to cook something called cheese biscuits. However, she failed to cut the cheese and salt in half when she cut the other ingredients and they were inedible.
Her sewing skills were sneered at by my mother who really taught my sister and me to sew. She always cited the skirt which the woman had somehow “helped” my sister cut out which apparently had to be pieced into place or recut 3 times. I was never so glad as to be put in an advance class that met during Home Ec so i got to skip it. what a joke it was back then. Shop for the boys, home ec for the girls. And what was “economic” about it? We learned NOTHING about budgets, shopping, coupons, store brands, dates on items, whatever might have helped us learn to be good little homemakers.
The first thing I recall “cooking” was baked potatoes. We had a little potato baking thing that sat on the top of the stove and as my mother worked from the time i was very young (as a “latchkey child”, I was made to feel very responsible and never neglected.) I was helping to get dinner ready. Mom did it in stages I am sure she did not plan; first, watch her, second time, help with something easy, third time, etc. By about the 4th time, did I think I could do it myself? sure. I still rely on some of my mother’s recipes and ideas and they still are good.
Worst disaster in the kitchen? Thank the gods it was a solo endeavor. I swear to you I tasted that red powder (the label had fallen off the spice jar) and it was not kick-ass hot. So i was sure it was paprika.
It wasn’t. As I once wrote in a fund-raising cookbook, mistaking one of the green things for another green thing is MOSTLY okay (as in parsley for oregano, basil instead of parsley) (mostly – not always). But substituting one red powder for another is NOT. The Chicken Paprikash wasn’t – because the red powder was cayenne and even with all that sour cream it was NOT edible!
We love our local farmer’s markets now; I won’t even buy tomatoes at supermarkets, I don’t CARE how good they look, they’re nerf balls. We had a guy drive through the neighborhood when I was a kid – not often but yeah, I remember him selling fruit (this was in the blue Hills neighborhood of Hartford.) And we had a milk box on the back stoop for delivery. And we’d drive out into the “country” for produce at roadside stands and over the hill to Avon for cider. Neat stuff.
Dusty – we once watched a tv spot which showed how easy it was to ignite “coffeemate” or whatever that powdered “creamer” is – essentially it’s all fat, and not really dairy. Ask us about the Poptart that wouldn’t die though….