by Cathy Erway
Despite how exotic and enticing this dish seemed to Ben and me, chilaquiles were, according to Sam, one of the simplest of leftover dishes in her native Mexico—a peasant food, really. It was just another way of using up any scraps left over from previous dishes (bits of shredded meat were often thrown in, if one should be so lucky as to have any), and day-old tortillas really were the best for soaking in all these juices and flavors while retaining some measure of density. Whatever it was, we were eager to try Sam’s homemade version.
Also due for a dining-in date with us were our friends Sean and Meredith. They had recently moved just a few blocks away, and coincidentally invited us over for dinner the evening of our Sunday brunch at Sam and Richard’s. It would be a back-to-back day of being served homemade food by our friends, hence, no cooking on my part for an entire day. I couldn’t remember when I’d last had that leisure.
When we got to Richard and Sam’s apartment, the entire kitchen was steaming. It was autumn, but the kitchen smelled like a taco joint in the middle of a Mexican heat wave. Sam’s normally wavy black hair was matted to her forehead in frizzy curls as she stood by the sink, rinsing her hands.
“Whatever you do, don’t fry in the morning,” she said as she greeted me.
I looked at the counter and saw piles of crisped tortilla strips lying on paper towels. Evidently she meant business when she said she was making chilaquiles the authentic way—the corn tortillas were freshly fried at home. We sat down and brought out the orange juice and seltzer water we’d bought at the corner store on the way over. As we talked, I watched Sam layer a large casserole with the chips and ladle a green tomatillo sauce on top. I got up to take a closer look and offered to help, but she insisted there was little else to do.
“What kind of cheese is that?” I asked as I saw her slicing up rounds from a soft white brick.
“It’s just mozzarella. The real cheese they would use is queso blanco, but since it’s not in most grocery stores, this is the closest thing. It’s pretty much the same thing.” She shrugged.
With my limited experience in Mexican cooking—real Mexican, mind you, not Tex-Mex, not nachos supreme—I wouldn’t have thought to opt for the familiar Italian American pizza cheese. I admired her anything-goes nature.
She next retrieved a Tupperware container filled with shreds of pink-colored meat and began to place chunks throughout the casserole.
“I made roast pork the other night, so this is just some leftovers,” she explained nonchalantly. She left a small portion in the plastic container. “I’ll save some to top this with once it’s out of the oven.”
I helped clear some dishes off the counter and put them into the sink as Sam popped the casserole into the oven. Meanwhile, a pot was still heating over a low flame on the stove.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Black beans,” said Sam, lifting the top to reveal a mass of shiny, purple-black beads bubbling in a viscous broth. “You serve them with pretty much everything. These ones were actually half leftovers, half new ones, after I realized I had some from the other night. So some of them are going to be more cooked than the others. Oh, well.”
Fifteen minutes later, she declared it was time to eat.
“God, I’m so hungry,” Sam said as she plopped herself down at the table. A plate of chilaquiles and black beans was set before each of us. The assembly had been simple: a scoop from the casserole of chilaquiles on one side, and a scoop of the black beans flush against it. On top of the chilaquiles Sam had placed a few thinly sliced rings of onion, the warmed extra shredded pork from the leftovers, and a dusting of cotija cheese.
I took my first taste of the beans, which were salty and hearty. I could be happy just eating a plate full of those. But I quickly moved on to the chilaquiles. Sam’s homemade tortillas crackled in my mouth, and the small explosion was followed by the sharp tang of the tomatillo sauce.
“Oh, wow,” said Ben, wiping his mouth.
“Like it?” Richard asked.
We both nodded ecstatically. Sam, being modest, just shrugged and shoveled the food into her mouth. There was plenty of food for seconds, which we all helped ourselves to. From watching her layer the casserole to observing her garnishing it once it was baked, I was keeping tabs on every step of the process, thinking of how I might make it myself. But there was one key element I’d missed out on observing: the tomatillo sauce.
“How come you always see green sauce with chilaquiles?” I asked Sam.
“You don’t have to; you can make it with red chili sauce if you want. Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just whatever you have on hand.”
I appreciated this flexibility, but there was no way I’d have either tomatillo or red chili sauce left on hand very often.
Ben and I went back home an hour or so later, patting our tummies and thanking our friends profusely for an excellent meal. It was already midafternoon by the time we left, after lingering and talking at the table awhile. We’d have to regain our appetites for Sean and Meredith’s dinner by not eating for the rest of the day.
Sean and Meredith were late eaters. On typical weeknights, they both worked until at least eight or so, we’d learned of their late patterns over the month or so of becoming neighbors. Sometimes the phone would ring at eleven o‘clock, Sean asking us if we wanted to come for a round of cocktails, or to try some cake he had just pulled out of the oven. So when Sean called to apologize that he and Meredith were running a little behind for our scheduled eight o’clock dinner that Sunday, Ben and I weren’t surprised. After another call to push back the start time, we finally arrived at their apartment around nine thirty. When we stepped in, Sean was standing in the kitchen with his hands in his pockets and Meredith was holding an unopened bag of carrots. They were both dressed impeccably, even though it was the weekend, Sean in his typical suspenders, bowtie, and dress shirt beneath an apron and Meredith in a ruffled blouse and buttoned cardigan.
“Those just need to be cut up,” Sean told her, nodding toward the carrots.
“Like how? In strips? Discs?” she asked.
“Discs,” he said.
I asked if I could help with anything, but Sean assured us they had everything under control. I handed him a bottle of white wine that we’d picked up on our way over.
“Oh, thanks. I’ll pop that in the fridge,” he said, and swung open the refrigerator to squeeze it against two other white wine bottles on the door.
Sean and Meredith had moved into their place only a few weeks before, and the spacious living room had the appearance of a hobby shop filled with antique clothing and horse-riding memorabilia. An old jockey helmet was placed here, on the wall, a Gatsbyesque straw hat there on a stack of books. Boxes of more books lay in the center of the living room floor, a few thick ones with marble-painted sides placed on top and opened to ecru-colored pages. Cooking magazines littered the single wicker-framed couch, many of them opened to a page with a recipe. The walls had been decorated with old photographs and paintings with antique frames, while other framed art leaned against the walls, yet to be hung. And taking up one large card table just outside the kitchen was Sean’s liquor collection. He picked up a bottle of red wine and showed it to us.
“I just picked this out the other day. It looked amazing. It’s from this tiny little vineyard in Austria that you couldn’t get anywhere else in the States before. So I got two bottles of it,” he said, pointing to an identical bottle on the floor. They both were unopened, as were most of the other dusty bottles underneath the square side table. Some were cut-glass flasks with different-colored liquors, and the whole collection of bottles spilled out to the living room floor, well beyond the margins of the table. He pointed to a bottle of liquor with a warm golden hue.
“I also got corn whiskey,” Sean said, picking it up and bringing it to his eye level as if holding a newborn baby. “I just love the color of it.”
He put the bottle down, then clapped his hands and looked at us expectantly. “Can I fix you
a drink?”
Ben and I eagerly accepted. As Sean set about fixing us oldfashioneds, first reaching for a vintage ice crusher with a manual hand crank, we seated ourselves at a drawing table in the living room.
“Oh—yeah, I guess we can use that for dinner. We don’t really have a dining table, but that should do,” Sean said.
Meredith came over to clear a few books off the table and went back to chopping carrots on a cutting board she placed on her lap, while sitting in a chair. The counter was covered with bags of produce and kitchen tools that Sean was using. At the stove, a wide pan was bubbling with a fragrant saute.
Sean presented us with two cocktails expertly filled to the rims of the glasses, which were frosted on the outsides, having been chilled in the freezer.
“I made them a little strong, so watch out,” he warned.
“So what are you cooking tonight?” I asked him.
“It’s a recipe that I tried once; it was in Gourmet. It’s called tarragon chicken. Really nice, because you can really taste the tarragon, which is something I never really tried much of with anything else before,” Sean explained.
He scooped crème fraîche from its container into a measuring cup.
“It smells wonderful,” Ben added.
“Oh, yeah, and sorry it’s taking so long. I just realized that it needs to be served with rice, and I forgot to make it until about two minutes ago.”
We waved our hands, signaling that it was all okay. But by this time, I was starting to feel my stomach churn with hunger. It was funny; in all the time I was cooking for myself—or for myself and others—I’d forgotten what it felt like to not be in control of when exactly I ate. It suddenly came back to me: the anticipatory minutes of sitting in a restaurant, waiting for your meal, hoping that the waiter who just emerged from the kitchen was coming over to your table.
We sat and chatted for a while about our day, telling Sean and Meredith about our brunch with Sam and Richard.
“I guess we can start with some cheese,” Meredith said. She swished around in the kitchen for a bit and came back with a platter of crackers and three different wedges of cheese.
“Oh, and is that Brie still in the oven?” Sean suddenly said.
“Yes,” said Meredith. “Oops.”
The two of them scrambled around to find hot pads and finally pulled a large, uncovered casserole tray out of the oven. On it was a bubbling wedge of Brie surrounded by a thick orange sauce.
“What is this?” Ben asked.
“I just love this. We’ve made it before a couple of times. It’s just baked Brie with mango sauce. It’s a little overcooked right now, but it’s the best thing ever on crackers,” Meredith explained.
“How do you make the mango sauce?” I asked.
“Oh, you can just buy it in a jar. It’s just two things, really, cooked together.” She took a spreader and spread a mixture of the melted Brie and some of the mango sauce on a seeded flatbread cracker. Ben and I followed her lead and dug in. The hot mango sauce mingled with the mild cheese in my mouth as it went down with the crunch of the cracker.
“It’s delicious,” I said.
Our dinner was served about twenty minutes later. On my plate was a helping of white rice topped with boneless chicken in a creamy, fresh tarragon-flecked sauce. A heap of soft carrot slices spiced lightly with grated cinnamon lay on the other side. The portion was generous, and I ate heartily.
“This is the kind of food you just want to keep spooning up,” Meredith commented, after we had all congratulated the chef. “It’s just so soothing, and mushes together really well.” We agreed.
After our plates were cleared, Sean came back to the table bearing what looked at first to be a tall, iced wedding cake. When he put it down I noticed that the icing on it was stiff, like a ginger-bread house’s.
“Viennese meringue pie,” he declared. It looked like a fairy had made it appear with a swish of her wand. On top, the meringue had been dolloped in spokes toward the center, finished with a piped tube around the rim. Once cut into, the crisp, yet light surface gave way to a cognac-spiced whipped cream with fresh blueberries and blackberries embedded inside.
We left dinner that night completely filled up, boozed up, and saturated with anecdotes on European culinary history, as well as everything from men’s fashion to 1980s British comedy TV Sean was a men’s neckwear designer by day, and we had also gone to the same college together. Over dinner, we shared a few stories about characters from those days as well. Meredith worked in public relations, and she hadn’t attended school with any of us at the dinner. Often when I was with Ben and Richard and Sam, I felt as if talk about their old college days dominated conversations. It was a refreshing change of pace to experience the opposite this time.
As we walked home, I thought about how different the two hosting methods had been that day. There was no mistaking that both meals were terrific—delicious, made with care, and sprinkled with personal touches. But Sam’s laissez-faire attitude about exactitudes couldn’t be more different from Sean’s recipe-following cooking style. Over dinner, he’d shown me the recipes for each of the dishes he’d cooked, pointing out exactly what steps he’d found the most interesting or had fumbled on. Details were everything when it came to Sean. They defined how the pattern of one near-identical tie differed from that of another—patterns the normal, non-tie-designer eye wouldn’t be able to tell apart. I thought about Sam for a moment, and her artwork. All the sculptures and jewelry she made looked fluid, loosely connected, and organic somehow. She wove metal mesh by hand into naturally lopsided rings, or irregular icicle-shaped necklaces, or earring pendants that hung from a chain.
“Cooking can say a lot about a person’s character,” I said to Ben later on that night.
I began wondering what my cooking might reveal about me, or vice versa. What was my cooking style? Aside from the fact that I didn’t eat in restaurants, was there any type of food that defined me?
At this point in my experiment, I had grown accustomed to cooking every day. I looked forward to it—I’d dream up recipes during the day, or browse recipes or food stories on the Internet. Then I’d buy some ingredients and spend the rest of the night enjoying the new process, the ingredients, or the flavors. If I was too busy, or simply wasn’t up to a night of serious recipe making, I’d throw together something light and easy—like pasta with a few chopped-up vegetables and grated cheese, or a stir-fry of one meat and one veggie over rice. I found the simplicity of these dishes satisfying, too, and knowing I could always whip up one or another of these gave me the strength to bluster on.
Ben offered little more than a shrug in response. He wasn’t a hobbyist cook himself, so the rare times he did make a spaghetti dinner with jarred pasta sauce, or a bowl of cereal, said very little about his character. But Ben wasn’t completely undomestic, either. He had an eye for design, while I had none. So he took it upon himself to do all the careful arranging and decorating of our apartment. Within a week of moving in, he’d painted one wall off-white with thick, beige vertical stripes. He projected an old photograph of cross-country bicyclists on another wall and painted over the projection to create a mural. The rest of the walls were filled with framed art, and he’d picked out furniture to mesh with the setting. The way I would have furnished an apartment on my own would have been to dump a chair I found on the sidewalk here, a table I found on the sidewalk there, until the place just barely resembled a room. I guess that doesn’t say very much for my taste or character except that I’m lazy and very thrifty.
During the next few months, I found myself wanting to cook with more meaning somehow. Currently, the recipes on my blog were of all different types of food, usually ones that I had never made before and was trying out for the first time, to varying levels of success. I wanted to find more of a niche, to hone in on some sort of focus in my cooking. Was it budget friendly? Time saving? Earth friendly, perhaps? Maybe I’d try to think about all those things a little more from
now on, and see where that went. I also wanted to discover more about the idea of cooking, or not eating out, from other voices, like my friends, but also people whom I didn’t know. I wanted to see what they expressed through what they were cooking, meet them, get to know them through food. There had to be plenty of people out there who were cooking at home often, and might be doing so for purposes beyond just eating. These were the types of people I wanted to meet soon.
Smoky Black Bean and Spinach Chilaquiles
This is a savory vegetarian version of chilaquiles with black beans (which Sam served on the side with hers), and a deep red ancho chili sauce. Swap in cooked (or leftover) shredded chicken, pork, or any other meat in place of the beans if you like.
(MAKES 3-4 SERVINGS)
1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed
About 3 medium-sized dried ancho chilies
3 cups water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
½ teaspoon oregano
2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
¼ cup chopped onion
About 5 ounces fried salted corn tortilla strips; can be stale (or substitute with tortilla chips—these will get mushy anyway)
2 cups packed fresh spinach, chopped
12 ounces smoked Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (or substitute with regular Monterey Jack or Pepper Jack)