Pot Luck

Northwest did not have a cafeteria worth boasting about. Dimly lit, a raggedy assortment of tables, a salad bar that held little in the way of actual vegetables, and a food display of today's menu items left me desperate for my own home cooked food. Whenever I joined my coworkers for lunch in the cafeteria, I brought my tupperware filled with goodies and refused to share. Then one day my coworker Caitlin had a brilliant idea - we should have a pot luck.

Everyone loves a pot luck (at least if you have friends who can cook and or can bring the alcohol and tubs of Haagen-Dazs). In your typical foodie pot luck, you might see a tomato, basil and buffalo mozzarella salad, scalloped potatoes with blue cheese, or peach cobbler. The host will pull a hot roasted chicken out of the oven, or make a big vat of spaghetti bolognese. Three new year's eves in a row, my friends and I had themed pot lucks. The first year we had to make a "new" dish - something we had never made before, which resulted in homemade crackers with mushroom pesto, stuffed pork tenderloin, and a chocolate bombe cake. The second year, everyone had to bring a dish containing apples, and the third year our secret ingredient was nutmeg. The themes, the rules, and the competitive spirit (my dish has to be the best) of pot lucks are why I love them.

But a pot luck for the common, every day affair of lunch in the cafeteria was novel. I never thought of filling my tupperware with food to share. Because we were the only ones around that really cooked, or maybe because we were slightly selfish, the pot lucks were dubbed "Two Person Potlucks" and we kept them completely exclusive. Other coworkers would sit down with us at lunch and stare as we dolloped homemade salad dressing over abundant produce, or sliced slabs of lasagna in half. When you cook for yourself, you don't take as much care, but when you cook for another person, even if they're eating out of your tupperware, the effort you put into the food skyrockets. Suddenly I took more time to determine if the food I was bringing would be good, healthy, and interesting. That ruled out bologna sandwiches completely. Instead, I found healthy salads, hearty risottos, and one happy occasion for which I wrote a song, egg rolls.

Two Person Potlucks are only one of the things I miss about working in a place where I have real friends, people who support me and who listen no matter how many times I complain about my job. People who give advice when I don't know what to do, who believe I deserve better, and who will devour the food I bring them in plastic containers.

Here's a favorite from a Two Person Potluck. It's a perfect dish to take for lunch. Some advice on quinoa - washing it will drive you crazy because it sticks to everything. It's like styrofoam peanuts. You may want to skip that step.

Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa (Gourmet)
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons grated lime zest
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 (14- to 15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced
• 4 scallions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Whisk together lime zest and juice, butter, oil, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4teaspoon pepper in a large bowl.

Wash quinoa in 3 changes of cold water in a bowl, draining in a sieve each time.

Cook quinoa in a medium pot of boiling salted water (1 tablespoon salt for 2 quarts water), uncovered, until almost tender, about 10 minutes. Drain in sieve, then set sieve in same pot with 1 inch of simmering water (water should not touch bottom of sieve). Cover quinoa with a folded kitchen towel, then cover sieve with a lid (don't worry if lid doesn't fit tightly) and steam over medium heat until tender, fluffy, and dry, about 10 minutes. Remove pot from heat and remove lid. Let stand, still covered with towel, 5 minutes.

Add quinoa to dressing and toss until dressing is absorbed, then stir in remaining ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.

For Old Time's Sake

I never cooked in college since I lived in the dorms, but after college I was lucky enough to live with roommates who loved cooking. In our three years together, a pattern emerged. Weekends were spent perusing cooking magazines and cookbooks, creating lists of dishes we wanted to make, and grocery shopping together or ordering Peapod. During the week, we'd email all day about what to have for dinner and who would be home first to start cooking. We took turns cooking for each other, but the best nights were when we cooked together. The kitchen was just big enough for three - one at the stove, one chopping and prepping, maybe one peering into the oven or refrigerator hungrily.

Whether we cooked together or separately, everyone had their specialties. Somehow, I became responsible for salad dressings. It became my habit to dip into the condiment cabinet and fridge shelf, pulling out random vinegars, mustards, oils, or the occasional worcestshire sauce. I'd whisk them together, seasoning with salt, pepper, or lemon juice as I saw fit. Now at this point you might be thinking that salad dressing comes in a bottle labeled "Kraft" or "Hidden Valley" and resides in the refrigerator doorway, lasting for years all hyped up on preservatives. But why ruin a perfectly fresh, homemade salad with that? To quote Julia Child, "The perfect vinaigrette is so easy to make that I see no reason whatsoever for bottle dressings."

One of my standby dressings was a tahini dressing, which will help you use up the tahini you bought to make hummus. It's quite good on a salad of mixed greens, cucumber, red onion, and chickpeas, but it's basically quite good on any kind of salad or just as a dip for carrot sticks and the like. I usually whisk up a small batch in a bowl, but you could make a larger batch in a food processor or mini blender. The dressing is so memorable that when I recently made it to welcome my former foodie roommate back to Chicago, she recognized its creamy pale complexion instantly.

"Is that your tahini dressing?" she asked. When I acknowledged that it was, she was excited. I made it for old time's sake, but it was like bringing an old friend back into my life. It was just as good as I remembered and I'm happy to have it back gracing my table or huddling in the kitchen with me, making any ordinary salad taste phenomenal.

Tahini Dressing

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons tahini
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 large garlic clove, minced and mashed to a paste with 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
water to adjust consistency

In a blender, blend together the tahini, lemon juice, garlic paste, and cayenne. With the motor running, add the oil in a stream, blending until the dressing is emulsified. Add water to adjust the consistency to your liking. Season with additional salt if desired.

A good place for a date

I had a coworker once who told new acquaintances that he worked with models. This made him seem sexy and exciting, until his listeners realized he was talking about models of the mathematical variety.

In the same vein, I like to talk about all the dates I have. Some people have never had a date, and that is very very sad. The dates I had as a child were among the most memorable. I've had dates at Spanish restaurants and I've had dates in my own kitchen. Any place can be a good place for a date.

Dates of the gastronomical variety are rather like models of the mathematical variety. Not as sexy on the surface, but elegant and surprisingly useful. When I was young, I ate chewy date bars from the supermarket, packaged and processed but tasting like they were homemade. My mom liked them too, and we bought them all the time until suddenly they were discontinued - which is something like making a best friend at work only to have them quit. (The fact that I equate food to a best friend speaks volumes about how highly I value my friends.) At many a tapas bar, you can find bacon wrapped dates simply broiled, and why we pay so much for them is beyond me but they're delicious. Something about dates is mysterious and fascinating, maybe because they're under utilized, the bench player of the fruit squad, and by no fault of their own, often confused with prunes or figs.

As I wandered around the fruit section of the supermarket the other day, a shopping list held firmly in my hand, I spotted a little basket of dates. I was compelled to purchase them, with no particular recipe in mind, but a taste for chewy, sweet bars or bread in my mouth. But a week later those dates were still sitting on my counter making me feel guilty for buying them under false pretenses. So I hussled over to the computer and dug up a date bread recipe. Now the key to this recipe is not anything complicated in the ingredients of the bread itself, but the recommendation that you eat it with cream cheese. If you've had a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese, you know what I'm getting at. The cream cheese cuts the sweetness of the bread perfectly. Use reduced fat cream cheese if you must, but put a thick layer on the bread. This is no time to skimp and ration. The cream cheese needs to be toothmark thick - which means it's thick enough that when you take a bite, you can see your toothmarks on the cheese.

I'm hoping for more dates in my life, of any variety. But this is a good place to start.


Date Nut Bread (Gourmet)

3/4 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups chopped dates
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 350°F.

In a medium bowl, pour hot water over dates and butter. Stir and let the mix sit until lukewarm. In a food processor, puree 1/3 of the mix to make a paste. Stir it back into the bowl full of date mix. Add the brown sugar, molasses, vanilla, and eggs. Stir until combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the date mixture. Mix. Pour the batter into a butter-greased loaf pan.

Bake for 60 minutes or so; loaf is done when the top has risen. Remove the bread from the oven and cool it on a rack for at least 30 minutes before serving.

You'll Be Fine

Are you sitting down? Good. Because what you're going to make this week requires lots of sitting down. Specifically with a glass of wine and maybe a few friends, but only if you're willing to share. And you might not be after you taste these tomatoes.

Several months ago I found a book called The Improvisational Cook at the library. The author Sally Schneider has a creative approach to cooking in that she does not use recipes. That's right, she just cooks on the fly. Which is how a real chef works, I suppose. You learn about foods and flavors and cooking techniques and when you have all these tools collected and polished and lined up, you can start inventing dishes of your own. For example, she'll tell you how to infuse oil with zest and garlic and chilis and then you can make a variety of oils to drizzle over salads or fish or fresh mozzarella.

Her idea for tomatoes was simple - roasting. I'm a huge proponent of roasting, and if I haven't told you about roasted broccoli yet then you haven't been talking to me enough because I talk about roasted broccoli the way some people talk about their children or their 401K plans. Roasting brings out the best in all vegetables. Tomatoes look like they're too weak and tender to stand up to roasting but you just have to know how to treat them.

You can roast any size tomatoes. I tried large beefsteak tomatoes (which are perfect for pureeing into soup, just roast some garlic alongside and blend it all together, then let it sit overnight to meld the flavors) and cherry tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes were much faster and naturally have more sugar to caramelize and create flavor. Here's what you need to do.

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and line them cut side up in a baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Bake for about an hour and a half. While you wait, you can sit around drinking your wine and telling your friends how good they have it to know you. But don't forget about the tomatoes. You know they're done when they are dark but not black, with a little sizzle and easily smashed. You can scoop them out into a bowl, but make sure to pour all that flavorful oil into the bowl too. The tomatoes become something like a chutney or compote which you can then put on pizza, pasta, or as I did - on bread spread with goat cheese.


It's not a recipe. It's just guidelines. If the oven temperature isn't exactly right, you'll be fine. If the timing isn't exactly right, you'll be fine. If you don't serve it the same way I did, you'll find another way, maybe even a better way. Let me know what it is.

Crispy and creamy and crusty

I don't mind a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. You know, the kind with metallic tables and chairs with plastic seats that stick to the back of your legs in the summer. Where the ethnicity of the patrons gives a clear indication of the authenticity of the food. Where the floor is sticky but the ingredients are fresh and the waiter is nice not because he wants a good tip but because he's NICE.

There was a restaurant in St. Paul which my old group at Northwest, that hummus loving group, enjoyed going to. It was called Saigon, and was authentically Vietnamese, serving big, comforting bowls of pho. But I went there for the sandwiches. Sandwiches don't sound Vietnamese, but they have them as a result of French colonialism in South East Asia. They call them Banh Mi, which sounds more Vietnamese, and they're made like this.


Take a good baguette, or some kind of crusty French bread. Slather it with paté and mayo. Add some carrots (I made strips with a peeler) and sliced jalapeño peppers both pickled in rice vinegar. Top with some fresh cucumber slices. And make some peppery pork (recipe below) to slice up on the sandwich.

It wasn't a sandwich that sounded good to me the first time I was told I had to order it. The pho sounded good, lots of fat noodles and meat swimming in broth. But paté and mayo? Pickled vegetables? More pork on top? I was unsure.

But I've always been willing to try new foods. Not that I would eat dog or most insects, but in the realm of normal foods, I will try just about anything. Sometimes this leads to disgusting flavors I will never ever forget (e.g. gefilte fish, durian), but often it leads to amazing new flavor combinations. Wasabi blended in soy sauce. Candied ginger. Avocado white bean soup. Goat cheese with honey.

Why should these things not go together? Just because it hasn't become commonplace doesn't mean it can't be good. After all, the first time someone came up with a recipe for, say, lasagna, it may have gone like this:

Cook: Maybe I should mix up some meat and tomatoes and cheese.
Spouse: Why would you do that?
Cook: That's all I have left in the house. Oh and this flour that I can mix with water and egg to make dough. I'll just put the meat mixture between layers of dough.
Spouse: That sounds gross.
Cook: I'll put more cheese on top. Then it'll be good.
Spouse: You can't make me eat that.

And yet lasagna is much loved. How do we get from there to here unless I try something new?

It turns out that I loved the sandwiches, and not just because they were $2 each. And not just because my expectations were low. I loved how the ingredients from different cultures worked together and complemented each other. There were fresh crispy vegetables and creamy spread and crusty bread. Crispy and creamy and crusty, all in one package. I always ordered two, ate 1 1/2 and took the last half home to enjoy later. I miss that restaurant in St. Paul but I've heard about a good place in Chicago with Banh Mi. Until I get there, I found I can make Banh Mi at home.

Black Pepper Pork Banh Mi Recipe

1 pound of pork chops, shoulder or loin. Sliced thinly

2 cloves crushed garlic

2 table spoons of fish sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

1-2 tablespoons fresh ground black pepper. If you like the spice and flavor, add more!

2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots or onion

1/4 cup vegetable or grapeseed oil

1 teaspoon of sesame seed oil

1. Mix all marinade ingredients (except for pork) in a plastic bag. Let all ingredients dissolve in oil, then add slices of pork. Allow everything to marinade for at least 1 hour.

2. Heat up frying pan, lay slices of pork, one layer at a time. When one side is cooked, flip to other side to finish cooking.

3. Assemble pork in your sandwich with condiments.