The Art of Eating In
Page 14
About a month and a half later, while biking in the park, I passed the Boathouse and suddenly recalled the date. It was just then late July. I pressed the brakes and swerved onto the gravel path just behind the pond. When I came to the bush, sure enough, it was brimming with berries that were just beginning to turn from bright bloodred to dark purplish-black. I picked some and found that the darkest ones of the bunch were the sweetest and fell off the branch the easiest. This must be a black raspberry bush, I concluded. I took the blackest ones of the bunch and put them into my emptied water bottle.
Exhilarated by the discovery, I went home and ate a bowl full of homemade ice cream with raspberries on top. For the next few weeks, I made several trips to the same raspberry brambles, observing each time the berries that had gradually turned deep black-ripe and seizing on the opportunity every time.
Knowing about the hidden raspberry bush somehow felt incredible, like I had my own little secret tucked away in the park. It also felt like a thing of the past. People must have had the same feeling, I thought—that personally fulfilling connection with nature upon finding one of its choicest treats, for as far back as human history dates. There is something dangerously beautiful about wild foods when they’re not deadly. Perhaps because there’s that risk attached to wildness that makes discovering something as delicious as the common raspberry in a forest ten times more magical than finding it in any other setting. There is also a preciousness about foods that can be sniffed out only by hand—wild mushrooms like truffles and chanterelles. I thought about the pleasant surprise that Thoreau must have had when he stumbled upon a cache of raspberries or another familiar food while living on Walden Pond. I could imagine the smug satisfaction it must have given people centuries ago, before the domestication of many of these crops. Raspberries have been growing wild in North America for ages. I wondered whether Pocahontas had led John Smith to the choicest fruits to pick in the New World, if they ever had a thing together at all. I wondered what would have happened if D. H. Lawrence’s heroine, Lady Chatterley, had found a raspberry bush while embracing the wilderness instead of her gruff groundskeeper. Would she have left Wragby to become a confectioner instead?
While I was lost in this state of fantasy, picking black raspberries from my “private” bush one afternoon, I suddenly heard a voice behind me.
“Hey—why are you picking them berries?”
I turned around; the voice belonged to a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy wearing long jean shorts and sneakers that looked about five sizes too big for his feet. Just behind him, a teenage girl sitting on a bench was craning her neck to watch us.
“Because they’re good,” I said.
“You can eat them?” he asked, eyes wide and a little frightened-looking.
“Yep, they’re raspberries,” I said.
“Those? You gonna eat those?”
I looked down at the container of berries I had just picked and scooped up a small handful. Their beads were full and shiny black in the sun. One of them made a smear of bright purple on my palm as I turned it over. I held out my hand for the boy.
“See? Want some?”
But the teenager scoffed at my offering, jumping back and making a face as if he had seen a putrefied maggot.
“No, thanks,” he said. He went back to the bench and sat down beside the girl, who instantly started laughing.
Gee whiz, did these kids not know their asses from their elbows? I thought. These were raspberries, beautiful, black raspberries—and here they were free, free for the taking!
For the next few minutes I continued to search for the ripest berries to take home with me, but my quiet little reverie on raspberry picking had been broken. I could hear the girl and boy making cracks about me, being none too careful to go unheard. Giggling in spastic waves, they talked about how they would never, not in a million years, eat something they had picked from a bush.
“Like, not if I were dying, like starving in a desert, like not even then,” the boy loudly cracked.
Back to reality. I was definitely in the twenty-first century, that was for sure.
Wild Dandelion and Pecan Turnovers with Lemon Béchamel
Wild dandelion has a sharp, peppery bite when raw and retains its bitterness when sautéed. The flavor of this vitamin-rich leaf, however, makes a refreshing alternative to bland spinach when stuffed inside a savory pastry crust. Best part: These turnovers are great to freeze and reheat in the oven whenever you want a quick “hot pocket.”
(MAKES 6)
FOR THE PASTRY:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed
1-2 tablespoons cold water
Egg wash or milk for brushing (optional)
FOR THE FILLING:
6-8 ounces fresh dandelion greens, trimmed of long stems, soaked in cold water, and rinsed
⅓ cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter
½ tablespoon flour
½ cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of nutmeg
FOR THE LEMON BÉCHAMEL:
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 cup whole milk
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Make the pastry: Sift flour and salt and cut in butter in a food processor or with a pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs no larger than a pea. Add cold water a small spoonful at a time, just until moist enough to form a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and chill while making the filling.
Make the filling: Heat up a large pot of water and prepare an ice water bath in a large bowl. Once pot of water is boiling, add the dandelion greens and cook for 1 minute. Remove with tongs and immediately place into the ice bath for another minute. Drain and squeeze excess water from dandelion greens. Chop roughly.
Cook the onions and butter in a saucepan on medium-low heat for about 4 minutes, until softened. Add the flour and stir thoroughly. Add the dandelions and stir. Add the cream and cook, stirring about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste and pinch of nutmeg. Taste, adjusting seasoning as desired. Remove from heat and let cool.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Divide chilled pastry into 6 equal balls and roll each one out to about a 6-inch oval. Fill one side of each oval with an equal allotment of the filling. Fold over the other side of the pastry, and crimp the edges shut with a fork. Brush tops of pastries with optional egg wash or milk (for a golden color). Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for about 25 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes before serving.
Make the sauce: Melt butter over medium heat in a small saucepan. Add flour and stir constantly for about 2 minutes to make a roux. Add the milk, increase heat to high, and stir constantly, being sure to scrape around the sides and the bottom of the pan, until mixture begins to bubble and thicken, about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Season with salt to taste and add the lemon juice. Drizzle sauce on a serving plate to place the turnover on top of.
Roasted Potato Salad with Beet Greens and Stems, Wild Garlic, Chives, and Hedge Mustard
Beet greens and stems are a good reminder that even though some parts of a vegetable are not as popular or as commonly eaten as the ones we’re most familiar with, they’re still perfectly edible. In the case of deep purple beet-green stems, they’re actually terrific—mild, crisp, and nutritious to boot. This light potato salad uses minimal dressing, with herbs from the park. Be sure to consult a wild edibles expert and have some experience in identifying the plants before picking, though!
6 medium waxy potatoes, such as red or Yukon gold
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
Greens and stems from 1 bunch of beets
2 teaspoons finely chopped wild garlic bulbs
1 t
easpoon finely chopped hedge mustard flower
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon finely chopped wild chives (the stems from the wild onion plant)
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Cut potatoes into roughly 1-inch wedges. Coat with about 2 tablespoons of the oil, and season with salt, pepper, and optional cayenne. Roast approximately 15 minutes or until pieces are lightly browned and crisped in some parts. Let cool.
Coarsely chop beet-green leaves and stems. Heat a tablespoon of the oil, and once it’s hot, toss in the leaves and stems. Add the wild garlic and hedge mustard along with a pinch of salt and pepper. Toss for 1 minute, or just until the leaves are wilted. Remove from heat.
Trim the toughest, thickest ends from the beet-green stems and discard. Chop the remaining stems and leaves into roughly ½-inch pieces (or pieces about the size of your chopped celery). In a large bowl, whisk the remaining tablespoon of olive oil with the balsamic vinegar and add the wild chives. Combine the potatoes, beet greens and stems, and celery, and toss to coat evenly. Can be served warm, room temperature, or cold.
CHAPTER 7
Not Ordering In LESS HASTE, LESS WASTE
By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest.
—Agesilaus
The kitchen in the new apartment I shared with Ben was about half the size of the one that I shared with Erin. Everything about it was miniaturized: the stove, the sink, and the lone slat of counter space, which was about the size of a sheet of legal paper. It fit the one cutting board I had, and that was all. But like the rest of the appliances in the unit, everything in it was brand-new. And since Ben didn’t use the kitchen for much of anything, aside from placing the spare bike part on top of the refrigerator now and then, it was also all mine. For the first time in my life, I had complete reign over a kitchen—no roommates to share cooking space with, no dirty dishes that I didn’t play a part in creating.
Once I broke the kitchen into my cooking routine, it became clear that my cohabitation with Ben was going to need some guidelines. First, I would be the cook, plain and simple. Naturally I pegged Ben as the dishwasher at first, but it turned out he had a near-phobic aversion to doing the dishes. I had seen this disorder before in many others—roommates and friends. They abhorred washing dishes as if it were the filthiest task the human race could deign to complete. So they piled up their sinks with them, leaving the leftover crusts of food to fester there for days at a time. I soon realized that if I forced Ben to be the dishwasher, this is what would end up happening. So instead, I made him the official floor scrubber, bathroom cleaner, duster, sweeper, garbage taker-outer, and uncontested handyman of the rest of the entire apartment. The kitchen was solely my territory.
With this new sense of power in mind, my nightly cooking habits took on a more ambitious turn. One of the first dishes I made using the oven was a Hanukkah recipe I had read about in The New York Times for stuffed-under-the-skin chicken. I took my time creating the stuffing and carefully packing it under the skins of the quartered chicken pieces. I’d also gone on a last-minute run to the market that evening to find the smoked paprika that the dish required. By the time I put it in the oven, it was nine o’clock. By the time the toothsome chicken was suitably cooked through, it was eleven. Ben had already given up on it and ordered pizza. So I had stuffed-under-the-skin chicken for most of that week.
I resolved to cook more quickly on weeknights from then on. There were a handful of dishes and techniques I could rely on to achieve this—if I had leftover rice, I could always make a quick meal of fried rice with eggs and frozen peas. I could also do stir-fries or pasta with fresh vegetables and grated cheese on the fly. At the end of my meal I’d put away the leftover portion in Tupperware and bring it with me to work the next day. I’d also do the dishes.
Every now and then Ben would still order takeout just to satisfy a craving. Once his meal was done, he’d pile the remains in our small garbage bin: carryout containers, aluminum foil, waxed paper, sometimes a cardboard pizza box, plastic cutlery, unwanted sauces, menus, paper bags, and the plastic bags the paper bags often came in. On those occasions when Ben ordered takeout, our garbage bin was overflowing by the end of the night.
“Why don’t you just tell them you don’t want the duck sauce or the menu?” I asked Ben after he polished off a takeout tray of sesame chicken one night. I knew that I was treading dangerous ground whenever I contested his eating habits, as he played safe by not challenging mine. He shrugged and stuffed the squeaky container into the trash can, cracking its top to fit it all in. I already knew the simple answer to this question: It was easier not to. He was not one to make special requests when ordering his food. It was also of no immediate matter to me: Ben ordering more takeout meals meant fewer dishes for me to clean and more garbage for him to take downstairs.
This comparison summed up a previously undiscovered formula about not eating out: more dishes, less garbage. Now that I was cooking for myself and eating in, I had a lot more dishes to do. Dishes, of course, are meant to be used, washed, and reused, until they break (or go out of style, at which point hopefully someone else less discerning will get to use them). It was the equivalent of a handkerchief versus a Kleenex when compared to takeout boxes and bags. I had to sacrifice both the time and energy spent cooking as well as cleaning up after it, just the things the patrons of takeout or restaurant food save by their convenience.
But on the upside, I had a lot less garbage on my hands. It struck me then how much less trash I was producing since I’d stopped eating out. It wasn’t just at home, either. At work I used to have a smelly pile of trash from my takeout lunch and sometimes breakfast wrappings in the bin under my desk by the end of the day. These days, I left the office with it virtually empty most of the time. I had stumbled upon a benefit of my original mission: By not eating out, my garbage footprint was now considerably smaller.
I thought about all the unwanted accoutrements that come with every takeout meal. Back when I was buying lunch every day at work, there were so many little things to throw out at the end of the unceremonious twenty-minute eating spree at my desk. Pushing the keyboard aside, I might have a small box of sushi one day. The molded plastic tray came with a lid that, once popped off, served as the dipping bowl for sauces. The soy sauce and wasabi came in individually wrapped packets, as did the pickled ginger and the pair of disposable wooden chopsticks. On the tray beside the sushi was a small green piece of plastic film that was cut along one edge to resemble spiky grass. Everything came inside a plastic bag, along with a stack of napkins that I used less than half of. Another day it might be a cup-sized portion of soup in a cardboard carton along with a double-wrapped half sandwich, a roll, and crackers, along with a spoon, salt and pepper packets, and another bag with more napkins.
The trash produced by food ordered by delivery was even worse. I rarely had my weekday lunches delivered, but when I was an executive assistant, I often had to order for my boss. Even if it was just coffee, the delivery man would arrive holding a big bag; inside it was a cardboard cup with a protective sleeve to keep you from burning your fingers, napkins, creamers, sugar packets, stirrers, and if the order was for more than one coffee, a four-cup holder—basically, a whole powder-room wastebasket’s worth of trash. I wonder if it’s not telling that the household trash cans of yesterday tended to be much smaller than today’s mammoth tubs.
It’s no surprise that Americans are the world’s biggest producers of garbage. According to Elizabeth Royte in her book Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, “Since 1960, the nation’s municipal waste stream has nearly tripled, reaching a reported peak of 360 million tons in 2002.” Interestingly, over the course of the same period the number of meals Americans ate in restaurants versus the number of meals they prepared and ate at home has risen nearly that much.
That isn’t to say that the restaurant industry is solely to blame for all that garbage. A home-cooked meal is rarel
y garbage free, either (unless you harvest your own foods from your farm or garden, and compost the debris). But packaging now accounts for 30 percent of all landfill space in the United States, making it the single biggest category of trash. Packaging includes the boxes that frozen foods come in, or the cardboard containers hot French fries are served in. It’s a sturdy, crisp shopping bag from a boutique, the elaborate box a bottle of perfume might come inside, the foam peanuts and crumpled newsprint that boxes are shipped with, and so on. Packaging is simply “trash waiting to happen,” wrote Heather Rogers in Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. And it’s an essential part of the takeout or delivered restaurant meal.