TO: Postwork Jenny
FROM: Prework Jenny
RE: Family Dinner, Making It Happen
DATE: July 9, 2004
LETTER OF AGREEMENT
I, Prework Jenny, would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Postwork Jenny, for committing to a home-cooked meal tonight. This letter of agreement will provide our terms regarding the event (henceforth referred to as “FAMILY DINNER”).
This confirms my commitment to initiate the process of FAMILY DINNER before I leave for a day of doing things I don’t feel like doing (henceforth referred to as “WORK”). Said list of processes may include, but are not limited to: deciding what the main dish is, transferring any appropriate product from the freezer to the fridge to allow to thaw (including, but not limited to, raw meat, premade sauces), chopping 2 (two) medium onions, marinating chicken, chopping red potatoes into a medium dice and soaking in water to prevent browning, filling a pot of water and setting it on the stovetop burner, because it’s the law that you always end up needing a pot of boiling water for dinner. My commitment will be for the duration 8:00 a.m. to 8:03 a.m.
Your commitment will be for the duration 6:30 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. and will be to (a) walk in the door on time and (b) close the FAMILY DINNER deal.
If FAMILY DINNER is canceled or postponed due to unforeseen events regarding stalled trains and/or chatty officemates at work, I reserve the sole discretion to make you feel really, really guilty. Guiltier even than when you missed Music Together last week. If you agree to the terms, please sign and send a duplicate copy of this letter to me before you leave. And don’t forget your breast pump.
Sincerely,
Pre-Work Jenny
Buttermilk Oven-fried Chicken with Rainbow Salad
Total time: 45 minutes
4 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 garlic cloves, halved
6 to 8 chicken drumsticks, skin on
Cooking spray
1½ cups plain Kellogg’s Corn Flake Crumbs, salted and peppered
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Leaves from 1 sprig fresh thyme
½ teaspoon cayenne
Salt and black pepper
Before you go to work: In a bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, mustard, and garlic. Add to a large zipper-lock plastic bag with the chicken pieces. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 12 hours.
When you walk in the door: Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large shallow baking sheet with foil and coat lightly with cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine the corn flake crumbs, herbs, cayenne, and salt and pepper.
Pull the chicken pieces out of the marinade, letting the excess drip off. Dredge each drumstick in the bread crumbs until well coated and then place on baking sheet. Spray the pieces lightly with cooking oil. Bake until golden and cooked through, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve with Rainbow Salad.
Rainbow Salad
You (and your kids) have probably heard by now that the easiest way to tell if a meal is healthy is by checking to see how many colors are represented— the plate should look like a rainbow. That’s how we came up with this salad. Every color on the spectrum is represented: red (pepper), orange (pepper), yellow (frozen corn), green (peas), purple (cabbage). I make it with mostly corn because that is the big draw for the girls. Just finely chop the peppers and cabbage, heat everything in a small saucepan with a little water for about 5 minutes and then add butter and salt.
September 2005
The Marketing Plan
When Jessica Seinfeld’s book came out—the one that told us to hide vegetable purees in our kids’ food (including dessert) if we were having trouble getting them to eat nutritiously—there was a lot of resistance from parents who felt it was the easy way out and, in the long run, counterproductive to healthy eating. How would a kid learn to choose spinach for himself if he had only ever eaten it pureed into his chocolate fudge brownie? I’d like to take this high-and-mighty stance myself, but the truth is, I find it’s almost impossible to feed a kid without employing some sort of trickery or, as I’ve sometimes heard it referred to in the business pages, marketing.
It is amazing how many marketing principles apply directly to feeding children. (A warning: Success rates are all relative. Do not expect your kid to inhale his broccoli by commanding “Just Do It.”) I’m not just talking about using the heart-shaped cookie cutter on the PBJ; I’m talking about strategies for how to roll out a new food, how to package and rebrand old foods into new ones, how to personalize it so your customer—I mean child—feels special and comes back for more. Here are the main principles we employ on a weekly, sometimes daily basis.
Spinning and Packaging. Like most parents, we figured out pretty quickly that so much of launching a new food in the marketplace, aka the family dinner table, depends on how you spin it. I doubt our kids would have gone within a mile of cauliflower had we not first introduced it to them as “white broccoli.” They wouldn’t have tasted Brussels sprouts had we not sold them relentlessly as “baby lettuces.” Same goes for baked beans (“sweet beans”), yellow and orange bell peppers (“rainbow peppers”), and on and on. I think our most genius move to date has been repackaging fish en papillote as “fish presents.” Fish en papillote is a complete meal (protein-veg-starch) that is wrapped up in parchment paper like a gift, then baked, then presented on the plate still in its little package. The kids could hardly believe their luck the first time this showed up on the table. Especially since Andy had built up the suspense as expertly as Steve Jobs might have when releasing Apple’s latest change-your-life product.
“Dad, what’s for dinner?”
“A present.”
“What?”
“A present. I’m giving you a present for dinner.”
“But it’s not my birthday!”
“Doesn’t matter—you deserve it anyway.”
“Well, what is it?”
“You’re going to have to wait to find out.”
When we finally placed the little packages onto their plates and opened them up (we had to do the opening part since the trapped steam inside is really hot), we had two girls who were pretty damned excited to eat fish and cabbage. I like to think this is because we took a meal that was unfamiliar (read: scary) and turned it into an adventure, an experience, something a four- and five-year-old might relate to better than a meal whose sole purpose is to provide a vehicle for protein and fiber.
Fish Presents
Total time: 30 to 35 minutes
1/4 cup olive oil
Few dashes of red pepper flakes
1½ pounds fish fillets (gray sole, flounder, salmon, tilapia, sea bass, snapper)
3 small potatoes (any kind except baking potatoes), unpeeled and very thinly sliced
1 lemon, sliced horizontally
½ medium red onion or 1 shallot, sliced
Green vegetables, such as 10 baby bok choy (which have been boiled in salted water for 2 minutes), 10 to 12 asparagus spears, 2 dozen haricots verts, or 1 cup stemmed, chopped kale
Chopped fresh herbs, such as chives, parsley, or cilantro
Sesame oil (optional)
Salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Pour the olive oil into a measuring cup and add the red pepper flakes. Lay down four 15 x 15-inch squares of parchment paper or foil and place 1 fish fillet on top of each sheet. Top each with a few slices of potato, lemon, onion, and desired vegetables and then drizzle with spicy olive oil. (You can use plain olive oil, too, if you want to avoid heat.) Top each packet with fresh herbs, a dash of sesame oil (optional), and salt and pepper.
Next, wrap the presents (see below): Lift the sides of the parchment paper up until they meet above the fish. Turn down a few times and fold the ends under the fish—picture the way the deli guy wraps a sandwich—creating a seal so the steam doesn’t escape. Slide the presents onto a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes. (It’s hard to overcook the fish
when steaming it like this.) Remove from the oven and serve one present per plate. Be careful when unwrapping, though: Steam is hot.
HOW TO MAKE FISH PRESENTS
1. Place fish and vegetables in center of paper.
2. Pull up sides together, then roll down edges until it lays flat on the fish.
3. Fold overhang underneath bundle.
4. Place fish present on cookie sheet.
Branding. A couple years ago, Andy’s brother Tony invited us over for a barbecue. He was serving steak, a food that Phoebe would reliably gobble up as though it were a Hershey bar and that Abby would reliably never deign to touch. Tony marinated a flank steak forever in teriyaki sauce, grilled it, then thinly sliced it. Abby was, of course, skeptical. We begged her and tried to reason with her and explained how steak was exactly like a hamburger, only sliced instead of chopped, blah, blah, blah—can’t you see that?—and finally bribed her—I mean incentivized her (“You want ice cream tonight, right?”)—to have a bite, one bite . . . at which point her stubborn little mind was blown. She had seconds, then thirds, and Tony’s Steak was born. When we tried to re-create it at our own house we skipped the teriyaki sauce in favor of a marinade that somehow achieved the perfect balance between sweet and salty, but we still called the finished product Tony’s Steak. Without even the tiniest bit of shame. And we will do it forever if we have to. If I’m not mistaken, I think that’s called creating brand loyalty. And by the way, re-branding is also highly effective strategy. Remember those basic chicken cutlets from chapter 1 that I have been eating my whole life? Appropriately, the girls first ate them at my mom’s house, so they were rebranded “Grandma Jody’s Chicken.” No matter what I do to the dish (like add brain-boosting ground flax to the bread crumbs or serve Milanese-style with a vinegary arugula and tomato salad on top), when I call it Grandma Jody’s Chicken, it goes down the hatch. In your own kitchen, you might consider slicing the cutlets into thirds and calling them “Chicken Fingers.”
Tony’s Steak
Total time: 2 to 4 hours (most of which is marinating time)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown suga
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
½ cup chopped scallions (white and light green parts)
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 teaspoon hot sauce
Juice from 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
Salt and pepper
1 flank steak (about 2 pounds)
Add everything to a large zipper-lock plastic bag, seal it, and marinate in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours (closer to 4 is better). When it’s time to grill, cook the steak 4 to 5 minutes on each side, flipping frequently (or stick under the broiler for 4 to 5 minutes on each side), keeping in mind that flank steak is thin, and it’s easy to overcook. Remove and let sit for 10 minutes before cutting. Slice on the bias against the grain, as shown at right.
Customizing. I once heard a marketing guru give a self-helpy speech at a Direct Mail and Database Marketing convention in Des Moines. (In case you are wondering, this convention was every bit as scintillating as it sounds.) This was probably fifteen years ago and while I don’t really remember exactly what the theme of the guru’s speech was, I do remember how he began it. “What’s the sweetest word in the English language?” he asked, stretching the moment out as he sauntered across the stage in his slightly sheened, well-tailored suit, which I’m pretty sure held a pocket square. A few brave audience members wagered guesses, but none got it right.
“The sweetest word in the English language is your customer’s name!” He pounded his fist on the podium when he said the word name. “If you remember nothing else from this speech, please remember that.”
So I can make fun of this guy’s liberal use of the phrase “abundance mentality,” but I have to admit that I said a silent prayer of thanks to him and his marketing-speak on the day Abby took her first bite of chicken pot pie. It was the same pot pie I had made for Laurie way back when, the same pot pie I had probably baked three dozen times in the past decade, but for Abby, who had always declined to try one bite, it was something different. That’s because this time I had fashioned the letter A out of extra crust and stuck it on top of her mini pie. (I had also used ramekins instead of the regular 9-inch plate to maximize the appeal.) The look of delight on her face upon spying her very own, made expressly for her, monogrammed mini chicken pot pie was enough to erase all those years of rejection.
Monogrammed Mini Pot Pies
Total time: 1 hour
Cut 1 store-bought pie crust (such as Pillsbury or Trader Joe’s) into four pieces. Follow the pot pie filling instructions. Once the filling is ready, spoon it into four ramekins and cover them with the quartered dough, pinching it around the sides to seal. Using a sharp knife, trim the crust on each ramekin, leaving only about a half inch of overhang. This should leave you a few scraps of extra crust. Combine all the scraps into a ball, then roll into a skinny snake. Shape your strand into the appropriate initial, then place on top of your pie. Brush with lightly beaten egg and then bake 15 to 20 minutes in a 425°F oven until crust is golden and filling is bubbly.
A is for Abby: Monogrammed Mini Pot Pies.
March 2006
The Onion Trick
Over the years, I’m sure my mother has told me a lot of stories about Joan, her best friend from college—whom I’ve only met a handful of times—but there’s only one story that has stuck with me and that I think about almost on a nightly basis. Or at least a weekly basis. It’s the onion trick story.
When Joan first got married, she was expected to cook. Which would’ve been fine except for one problem—she hated to cook. And because this was forty-five years ago, before women actively embraced the role of not cooking, she was routinely figuring out ways to pretend she was cooking so her husband wouldn’t be disappointed by her complete antipathy toward the kitchen. This is why she started chucking an onion into a 350°F degree oven an hour before he came home from work. Even if she had no use for that onion in the meal she would ultimately make and eat, she felt better knowing her husband was walking into a house permeated by the smell that signaled soups and stews, roasts and braises—meals that require clocking some serious hours in the kitchen. I never did find out what happened at dinnertime, when she’d serve him something that was more likely inspired by Peg Bracken (author of the legendary I Hate to Cook Cookbook) or a pouch of Lipton onion soup mix.
I love this story so much and have been known to employ Joan’s onion trick at holiday parties that are 100 percent outsourced. (Is there anything more depressing than showing up to a party and not smelling the food?) I’m also proud to say that I’ve also come up with my very own onion trick over the years, albeit a little more practical. It goes like this:
When I have no idea what I’m going to make for dinner, I start caramelizing an onion and then assume a meal will fall into place from there.
Because when you cook onion slices over low heat for even just 15 minutes, you know you have the start of something special for dinner. The onions, which get all silky and candy sweet, elevate almost any ordinary meal—whether you stuff them into an omelet, sandwich them inside a turkey burger, or heap them on top of pasta pizza or baked potatoes. And most important, your home will smell like you know what you’re doing.
How to Caramelize an Onion
In a large skillet set over low heat, add 3 to 4 good glugs of olive oil. Add 2 to 3 onions, sliced, to the pan and cook for at least 15 minutes and up to 45, stirring every few minutes. During the last few minutes, add a small drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
September 2006
Entertaining, Part 2
We made the mistake of sending out invitations to our Eighth Annual Holiday Party (in 2004) with “Kids Are Welcome!” across the bottom of the card. It was our second holiday party in our new house, but the year before, we kept the guest list manageable (read: we hadn’t made any new
local friends—either the little or grown-up kind) and Abby was only two months old so it was easy to pass her around like a football to anyone who would take her. The next year, though, we thought it would be “fun” to invite families. It would make it easier for our guests (no need to book a sitter) and also Phoebe and Abby would enjoy themselves more since they could hang out with their friends, too. There was, of course, a small problem with this theory: Abby had just celebrated her first birthday and her idea of hanging out with friends was to hang around my neck and cry if I tried to have a conversation with my friends. Not that this was even a possibility considering that my friends who had brought their kids (thanks, Jenny!) looked just as relaxed and festive as I felt.
That was the first time I learned the rule that when entertaining, one kid under five counts for five times as many adults in terms of volume and energy—and I couldn’t hack it. It was our Eighth and Final Annual Holiday Party. We consoled ourselves by saying we’d start up the tradition again when the kids were older or at least until they were able to restrain themselves from fighting over the green M&M cookie in the holiday dessert spread or spilling nail polish all over our new rug. In the meantime, we’d just have small dinner parties instead.
And by small, I meant one couple, no kids. That went for our kids, too. During this period, if all went according to plan, the girls were bathed and pajamaed before our dinner guests even rang the doorbell. It wasn’t that we worried about them being unruly or unpresentable, or that we feared Phoebe would pillage the crostini plate (okay, maybe we did worry about that). It was more that usually the people we’d have over for dinner were parents of young kids, too. Parents who had already spent the waking part of their day doing what parents do—suffering through another Teletubbies marathon, doling out snacks, pretending to lose at Pretty Pretty Princess—and probably didn’t feel a real powerful urge to spend valuable babysitting hours doing the same with our kids.
Dinner: A Love Story Page 14