Man with a Pan

by John Donohue

  I thought kitchen trashing was simply extended postcollegiate naïveté about work and efficiency. I thought it was a slacker thing. I thought all of this, deludedly, up to the moment I began writing this essay. But as I wrote, I realized what I somehow had not noticed: that with the arrival of small children has come an insurmountable messiness, with ever more and more to be cleaned.

  * * *

  My wife, Daphne, and I split the work in our house. Because I am a show-off, and because I have amnesia, and because of allergies, I often prepare four different dishes, plus sides, at each and every meal.

  Our five-year-old, Owen, grouchy on less than ten hours sleep, can best be restored to himself by pancakes. I make them often (on Sundays with a side of bacon), employing one mixing bowl, one skillet, a whisk, and a measuring cup, plus a knife, fork, and plate. Let’s say this is a Sunday and throw in a second skillet, a pair of tongs, and a plate covered in paper towels for the bacon. Sometimes I get a chance to wash the whisk right after I’ve used it, but not if Owen’s two-year-old sister, Mira, a bigheaded small person in purple polar bear pajamas, is up. The sound of clomping feet precedes her arrival. When she gets to the kitchen, she stops and throws her lilac and gray blanket over her head.

  Owen says, “Dad, ghost. At breakfast.”

  I say, “Haunted breakfast.”

  The ghost nods.

  I scoop her up, put her in the seat we have clamped to our counter, and ask, “Do you want an egg?”

  “Mnh-hnh.”

  Mira, lover of soft-boiled eggs, gets eczema from egg whites, so I try to cook precisely, making the yolk soft and the rest discouragingly (but not unappetizingly) inflexible. Mira’s also allergic to cow’s milk, and drinks goat’s milk, which she likes to have warmed for twenty seconds in a pan. Add to the dirty list one pot, one pan, a slotted spoon, a knife, an egg cup (votive holders work well here), and a spoon.

  At this point some dialogue.

  Mira: “I want go-go!”

  Me: “Sure, you can have some yogurt. How would you ask if you wanted me to give it to you?”

  “CANIHAVESOMEYOGURT PLEASE!”

  I give her some plain yogurt (goat’s-milk yogurt) and turn around to get some honey, which we buy in half-gallon glass jars that weigh ten pounds each. Mira wants to eat an entire one of these for breakfast. I wrestle a jar down from a cabinet, stick in a spoon, prepare to drizzle.

  Mira says, “I can do it!”

  “OK,” I say. “You can do it.” I give her the spoon, full of honey. Suddenly it’s in her mouth.

  “Mmmm.” She removes it slowly, then reaches for a second dip.

  “Wait, don’t redip!” I get another spoon. “Last time, OK?”

  She dips and drizzles with total focus, allowing me to secret the honey into an out-of-sight zone on the floor. I then try to get some conversation going so the disappearance goes unnoticed. My strategy: Talk off the top of my head, fast, and with enthusiasm. Circling police helicopters in Lower Manhattan, a background annoyance and source of background anxiety (is something happening?) since 9/11, can be helpful.

  “Hear that helicopter? Maybe more than one helicopter. A group of helicopters. Is there a word for that? A group of birds is called a flock. Unless they’re crows … A group of crows is called a murder.”

  Owen: “Murder.”

  Mira: “Where’s the honey?”

  “There used to be a band in the 1980s, when Daddy was a teenager, called Flock of Seagulls. Flock of Helicopters. Flock of Copters.”

  “Where’s the honey?!”

  “Do you know they use helicopters to fight fires? Firefighting helicopters haul a big bucket full of water and dump it on the flames.”

  “WHERE’S THE HONEY?!?!?”

  “Wouldn’t that be cool if we had a remote control helicopter that could carry a bucket full of maple syrup and dump it on your pancakes?”

  “WHERE’S THE HONEY DADDY THEHONEY ?!?!?”

  “Honey’s gone, sweetheart,” I say in a neutral voice.

  “Not gone.”

  “It’s gone.”

  “But I don’t want it to be gone!”

  “You’ve got a lot there.” I point to her yogurt.

  “Not a lot.”

  “Uh … we don’t have an endless amount?”

  “You’re trying to trick me, Daddy.” I am proud of her for noticing. “We have a lot.”

  Owen chimes in. “She’s right, Dad, we have a lot of honey.” He cranes over. “She doesn’t have too much.”

  Mira: “Thank you, Owen.”

  Owen: “You’re welcome, Mira.”

  This is all time that I have spent not cleaning.

  Owen continues: “Dad, that was an interesting idea about a remote-control helicopter that could pour maple syrup on our pancakes. Maybe we could get a little jar, fill it with maple syrup, and tape it to the bottom of a remote-control helicopter. Tape it. Really, we could do that, Dad.”

  “Yes. We could. Though I was thinking you’d maybe use wire and screws and make a sort of harness. What do you think, Mira?”

  “Can I have the honey, please?”

  As a parent I cannot resist a “please.” If one of my children were to say, May I have some weapons-grade Pu-239, please? I would seriously consider the request. I put Mira’s honey back on the counter and we go through another three spoons.

  More cleaning time spent not cleaning. Mira and I get sticky and Mira asks for a wet washcloth (without saying “please”).

  Owen asks, “What’s a harness?”

  “A series of straps and buckles designed to hold people or things safely when they’re hanging in the air.”

  Owen: “Harness.”

  Pause.

  “Would you use a harness to hang from a mountain?”

  “Yes. Or a bridge, or any other tall thing. Like a building.”

  Mira mixes a lot of the honey into her yogurt, hair, pj’s. I try some spot cleaning with a sponge and do a bad job. The purple polar bears are fleece, highly esteemed, and bedtime does not go easy without them. We do have another pair in the same material, but white, and covered in black lapdogs. Whenever Mira sees this backup pair, she emphatically declares, “No Scotties!”

  I peel her an apple, then wash some blueberries and give them to Owen in a bowl, racking up two more spoons, a plate, a bowl, and a peeler. Plus cups for milk or juice and/or water for each child (if they don’t want tea). There’s so much stuff on the counter that I’m running out of space. I am out of my depth.

  New vocabulary words taught while not cleaning any of this up: murder, harness.

  Number of things needing to be washed up midway through breakfast: thirty-one.

  * * *

  In the fall of 2001, long before I became a parent, the air in our neighborhood smelled like melted plastic, and people in New York didn’t know how to behave. I felt very good (sometimes smug) about my cooking and cleaning skills. So Daphne and I started inviting friends and acquaintances over for regular Sunday night dinners that were part improvised comfort and family for people who had neither and, as I look back on it, part culinary grandstanding.

  I made a series of dishes that I now almost never make, because our kids don’t like them (Owen: “That’s just not my taste, Dad”; Mira: clamps both hands over her mouth): seafood risotto with peas (and homemade stock); gnocchi Bolognese with pork, beef, and San Marzano tomatoes from Di Palo’s Fine Foods down the street; porcini mushroom tagliatelle (fresh from Raffetto’s around the corner); spaghetti with white wine and clams. Standing in the same spot from which I now issue pancakes and honey-distracting blather, I would have long conversations with friends in the immaculately ABC’d kitchen. Everything was flavorful, everything was comforting and grounding and under control, and the next morning I would wake up and never even think about pancakes (which I’ve never liked that much, especially since developing a gluten allergy).

  * * *

  I like poached eggs. My father used to make them for
me after he left my mother, and now I make them for Daphne and myself. I can use the same water for poaching that I use for Mira’s soft boiling, but only if I poach first. I never poach first, because poaching first in the egg water requires Mira to have patience and me to have toasted my frozen gluten-free bread in advance (when the eggs come out, they go straight on the bread). I never do this, because our toaster requires a double toast, once on the dark setting and once on the medium, to get the gluten-free bread defrosted and toasty. And even if the toast were ready, I can’t poach an egg after soft-boiling because we buy eggs from a sloppy Chinese farmer who feeds her chickens organic greens and never washes away what is technically called guano but looks a lot like shit. The eggs cost ten dollars a dozen at the Union Square green-market. Last time I bought some, a woman behind me said, “Must be gold eggs at that price.”

  The yolks are a golden orange. The shells are green. I love them. But they mean more cleaning. I scrub at their crap tattoos with hot, soapy water and still never quite get them all off. I’m so grossed out after this that I have to scrub my guano-slicked hands, too.

  Then I wash and reheat the pot, add vinegar and salt, crack two eggs into a thinrimmed coffee cup, stir the water six times clockwise to create a vortex that’ll hold the egg whites together till they set, and immerse. I grab another pan to wilt greens (soaked and drained in a salad spinner) in a splash of olive oil, all the while boiling tea water and putting a coffee cup in the oven to warm for Daphne’s coffee. When the eggs come out and are set on greens-topped toast, the pot goes into the sink and gets filled with hot water and scrubbed hard. If you don’t get the egg-white residue off immediately, it becomes fused to the pot with bonds more unsunderable than those of my most heady imaginings.

  Updated count of items in need of washing: forty-five.

  * * *

  The assumption here is that this is the one morning a week (maybe month) that Daphne gets to sleep late (8:15) and I’ve done this all solo. By the time breakfast winds down, the whole kitchen is completely trashed, and because I almost always stay up till midnight or one and get only six hours of sleep, I’m trashed, too.

  The next meal will be somewhat simple, like fresh quesadillas, which provide entertainment for the kids, who can turn the dining table into a maquiladora by rolling dough balls and pressing them into disks. But there’s no controlling the great kitchen destroyer: dinner. I once made three different versions of spaghetti carbonara—gluten free, cow’s milk and egg white free (goatbonara), and a standard eggy, milky, gluteny version—requiring three different pots just for pasta, plus a skillet for bacon and a small pot for greens. I ran out of burners and counter, balanced bacon on ledges, collapsed when it all went on the table, pounded a Carta Blanca beer in a stupor, and (obviously) failed to clean up.

  Recently, Mira turned three and just ate some peas without requesting honey. Both kids’ palates continue to broaden and now include soy sauce. After dinner the other night, Owen put his plate in the sink and, instead of running off, got a wet cloth and wiped up the floor under his seat. I almost cried.

  * * *

  I’m no authority on efficiency. But in the course of these self-inflicted trials, I’ve learned a few small things.

  When you peel an apple or a carrot, don’t do it in the sink, where it’ll just amplify congestion and likely clog the drain. Peel and trim trashside.

  If you’re done with a cutting board or a pan and have a couple of minutes while something’s cooking, then wash it and put it away. But don’t get overzealous. Sometimes you will immediately need it again. Think about what you need to do next. Wash only once.

  If you have a pilot light or low setting that’ll keep your oven warm, put things there that won’t suffer from advance preparation. It’s impossible to crash a family dinner together and make everything hit the table hot and simultaneously in a home kitchen.

  If you can boil potatoes and steam spinach in the same pot at the same time, you must do this. Place the spinach in a colander that fits into the top of the pot.

  If your rice maker spits all over the counter, put it in the sink. And start the rice the second you walk in the door. And buy a better rice cooker than the one Daphne bought in college. And don’t develop a gluten allergy.

  Finally, if the evening’s starch isn’t rice, the first thing you need to do when you get home at night is to boil a big pot of water—then you’re ready for pasta, or for emergencies that require sterile surgical instruments.

  Ten years ago, on the beautiful fall day that provided Lower Manhattan with its flocks of police helicopters, as ash-covered executives came streaming up my block, the first thing I did was boil a pot of pasta. I made ravioli at ten thirty in the morning, grated cheese, sat down with the editor of this book, stranded on his way to Midtown, and began to grasp what was happening. Fatherhood, at times, has also been a bewildering state of emergency. Cooking was, and remains, my response.

  And then it is time to clean up.

  Recipe File

  Fish Tacos

  These can be as piquant and elaborate as you want, or you can go straight-forward and monochromatic for kids who are unnerved by bright food. With corn tortillas you have the added benefit of freedom from the tyranny of gluten.

  1½ pounds flounder or other mild white fish

  1 tablespoon olive oil

  Corn tortillas

  1 head purple cabbage, chopped (this is the key ingredient)

  ½ cup black beans (canned are fine)

  1 tablespoon or more fresh cilantro, chopped

  ½ cup or more salsa (store bought, or a mix of onions, tomatoes, and peppers)

  Chipotle mayo (that is, mayo mixed with the liquid in a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce—insanely good)

  Season the fish with salt and pepper and sauté in a frying pan with the olive oil until cooked through, about 3 minutes per side.

  Remove the fish from the heat, set it aside, and let it cool slightly.

  Break it with your fingers into small pieces.

  If you buy premade tortillas, heat them in a cast-iron frying pan (no oil required). If you want to make your own, just mix masa and water, roll out some golf-ball-size balls, and squash them between sheets of plastic wrap in a tortilla press—this is fun for kids, who can do it virtually unsupervised, and it tastes much better. Add salt to the masa before you roll it. Heat these tortillas a good bit longer than store bought.

  Remove the tortillas from the heat and assemble the tacos using the fish pieces and the remaining ingredients.

  Fagioli all’Uccelletto

  This freezes and lasts for months.

  1 pound dry white beans, either small cannellini or big giganti, depending on your preferences

  1 28-ounce can of peeled plum tomatoes

  1 28-ounce can of crushed plum tomatoes

  Olive oil

  3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

  1 bunch of fresh sage leaves (at least 3 tablespoons), destemmed

  Rinse and soak the beans for at least 10 hours.

  Drain and rinse them.

  Put the beans into a stockpot, and add the tomatoes, breaking the whole ones up with a spoon.

  Bring the pot to a boil and then turn the flame down really low, cover the pot, and leave it simmering.

  In a frying pan, sauté the garlic in the olive oil for 1 minute.

  Add half of the sage to the pan and sauté for another minute.

  Put the garlic and sage into the simmering stockpot with the beans and the tomatoes.

  Simmer for about 2 hours, or until the beans are as soft as desired, which, depending on the size of the beans, could be twice as long. There is really no formula here—just keep checking. When they’re done, they’re done.

  When the beans are cooked, remove the cover, increase the heat, and reduce.

  Fry the remaining sage in a frying pan (careful—don’t burn it!) and toss this in.

  Serve the whole thing in bowls with the rest of the sag
e, freshly fried, on top.

  Note: If possible, make sure the tomatoes are San Marzano tomatoes, from San Marzano, Italy. Many tomatoes are branded “San Marzano” but only the real ones have a small blue DOP seal on the label from the Italian government—look for that.

  Pistachio Pesto

  My children love this. And it is weird that they do.

  4 ounces quinoa pasta

  2 handfuls of fresh pistachios, shelled, about ¾ cup

  5 or 6 good glugs of novello olive oil (about 3 tablespoons)

  Many gratings of bottarga di muggine

  Put a pot of water on to boil and salt heavily.

  Start cooking the pasta according to the package directions.

  Throw the pistachios into a Cuisinart with the oil and grind until the nuts are reduced to chunks about the size of eraser residue, smallish but not minuscule.

  When the pasta is ready, drain it and place in a bowl.

  Mix the oil and nut paste in with the pasta.

  Serve with a grating of the bottarga on top instead of cheese.

  Note: Novello olive oil is the freshest, most vibrant oil imaginable; it is just pressed and rushed to market. Bottarga di muggine (gray mullet roe) is a Sardinian specialty, salt pressed and air dried. Both are typically available at Italian or gourmet stores and on the Web. Regular pasta can be substituted for the quinoa pasta, but the quinoa is lighter, and better with a rich dish like this one.

  On the Shelf

  The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien. I love The Hobbit because it opens with a bunch of dwarves basically raiding a hobbit’s pantry so thoroughly that it provides a whole culinary lexicon. For a seven-year-old, this was heady stuff, and it made me hungry.

  The Return of the Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver. I’m not much of a recipe person, but Oliver makes everything simple and good. I’ve never made anything bad from this book!