by Cathy Erway
I left my dad to wander around the festival for a while as I got back to my chili-serving station. The other participants in the contest were great company. I’d seen them all at previous Takedowns but had never really had a chance to talk to any of them much. Three of them were guys in their late twenties or early thirties, and one was a middle-aged woman. Instead of being competitive, we teased, chided, chatted, and helped one another at our serving stations when it was needed. We talked to the endless flow of festival-goers, too, telling them about what we had put in our unique formulas. I got the feeling that none of us cared who won the contest at all.
I ran out of chili by the last half hour of serving. The throngs of people that came in for that time period didn’t get a taste, and I knew I’d missed any chance of winning the vote. When Matt finally rounded up the contestants to announce the winners, we each took a turn at the microphone to talk about our recipes. I could see my dad in the audience smiling proudly as I explained my interpretation of the dish—which I’d named, for Pete Seeger’s sake, “If I Had a Pepper.” When I was awarded third place out of five, my dad proudly clapped and kept smiling, as did Nora and Andrea, her roommate, who’d showed up for the announcement ceremony that afternoon groggy from their long night of partying. I wasn’t surprised at all when first place was given to the guy who’d made a smoky chili with turkey sausage, bacon, and a good ratio of vegetables.
I stuck around with friends and the chili contestants for a while afterward. By late afternoon, Pete Seeger still hadn’t begun his act, and my dad was beginning to feel a little tired. To my surprise, he decided to take off early. It was drizzling anyhow, and the tarpcovered field where the music stage was set looked soggy and sort of unpleasant. No big deal, he said. I shrugged and thanked him for coming.
I made sure to take plenty of pictures of Pete Seeger while I watched him sing that afternoon. My dad had been right; it was muddy, and people were camped out on tarps underneath a huge tent that covered the field. Still, the crowd that had come out for the performance was enormous. Families, young people, and old people in wheelchairs alike were smiling, nodding, singing along, and in some cases shedding a tear of gratitude. And Pete Seeger could really sing—still. He had fire in his voice, a warmness and dearness made all the more sweet due to the fact that his backup vocalist and guitarist was his grandson, Tao Rodríguez-Seeger. The other performer, a bassist who frequently played with the duo, was Guy Davis. I didn’t hear them play the song “If I Had a Hammer”—perhaps I’d missed it by the time I got to the tent—but I heard plenty of other songs that my dad must have listened to with his friends when he was about my age.
A couple of weeks later, my mom called me to tell me that my dad was attempting to make the same braised-pork-shoulder-based chili that I’d made for the cook-off.
“It’s like he never knew you before or something,” she said, after telling me that my dad had reported having a good time that day. She’d been slightly surprised by this.
“You know, he never really paid much attention to what you were doing,” she went on. “And now he’s all like, ‘Whoa! This is what you can do! You can cook like this!’”
I smiled. In the last couple of years since I’d been cooking so much, my dad and I had found more things to talk about through a mutual appreciation for cooking techniques, traditional dishes, and so forth. I was touched that my chili from the cook-off that day had inspired him to make a copycat batch.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the Chile Pepper Fiesta and stopping to watch Pete Seeger perform. I bumped into a couple of old friends, as well as members of the Chili Takedown gang again. I was stopped by a middle-aged couple who told me how much they liked my chili and that they had voted for it. I popped into a cooking demonstration from a family-owned artisanal chutney company and ate several of their homemade Indian specialties with the sauces. After the demonstration, I chatted with them for a few minutes about the intricacies of making chutney. They beamed as they described their process, passed down from family recipes for several generations, in between shushing their grandchildren as they scampered noisily about. I decided I wanted to try making my own chutney sometime soon. I bought two jars of theirs and thanked them for the demo.
Cooking is infectious, I thought, patting my belly. It can be passed up and down through families. It can be spread all around. It was something I wanted to keep doing, and keep learning from, for a long time yet. There was so much left to explore about food and cooking, without limiting myself to things like not eating in a New York City restaurant.
After the Chile Pepper Fiesta, I headed straight to Jordan’s apartment for her birthday party. When I arrived, a small table in the living room was filled with bowls of sushi-making ingredients, just like we had seen at Aaron and Mai’s apartment. I spent the rest of the night there along with several of my best friends. At some point in the night, we got to talking about dim sum. Dan, Jordan, and I made a plan to satisfy our cravings the next morning with a dim sum brunch in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It was past midnight by then. Opposite week was officially over. So was, as a strict rule, not eating out in New York. A part of me felt bittersweet to see the journey over. But most of all, I was hungry to move on. After dim sum, who knew what would be next? I’d have to choose carefully. There were a few new local and sustainable-minded restaurants that I wanted to check out. Cuisines of the city’s ethnic populations that I’d never tried. There were whisperings about underground supper clubs that I’d never been to happening all the time. There was another cook-off around the corner, organized by a new host at a bar I’d never been to. There was a local farm benefit and an amateur beer brew-off the next night in Brooklyn. There was a pig roast that I was helping to cook for. I was doing a cooking demo at the Grand Army Greenmarket in a couple of weeks, making risotto with vegetables, wine, and cheese from the market. There was the food newsletter with Saha, and we’d decided to start the project by throwing a dinner party first. My clip on the Ask Aida show was going to air soon, and I wanted to have friends over for lasagna to watch it with me. There was Mark’s Brooklyn-themed dinner to go to. Michael’s crazy mock-French Laundry menu to prepare. A new restaurant in my neighborhood. And we still hadn’t held a second SOS.
But for now, I was excited about going to dim sum with Jordan and Dan the next morning. I opened my cell phone and began typing a text message to Keith, asking if he wanted to join us. My mouth watered as I thought about all the steaming trays of bite-sized food that would soon be before us, maybe even some hangover-curing braised beef tripe. A dim sum double date, I thought to myself with a smile. That at least didn’t sound too contrived or boring.
Oh, what the heck. Dating is dating, eating is eating, and if it was dull at times, then no matter. I certainly didn’t plan on starting a blog about not dating in New York. Someday I’d have to find the courage to do that home-cooked-dinner first date, too.
My cell phone dinged with a message from Keith.
“Is it on?” Jordan asked.
I gave her and Dan a thumbs-up.
The next week, I went on a date with the chili cook-off winner.
Coffee and Cigarettes Ladyfinger Sandwiches
This was part of the dessert course at the A Razor, A Shiny Knife dinner described in the first part of this chapter. It incorporates finely ground tobacco in the cookie batter for a spicy, zesty bite, and ground coffee in the frosting.
(MAKES ABOUT 24)
4 egg whites
4 egg yolks
⅓ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup flour
¼ cup extra finely ground tobacco (ground in a food processor)
1 stick butter, softened
About 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup very finely ground coffee
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat the egg whites with an electric beater until stiff peaks form. Beat the yolks with the sugar and vanilla until paler in color and fluffy. Gradually a
dd the flour until smoothly incorporated. Gently fold in the egg whites and the vanilla. Transfer batter to a piping bag (or plastic bag with a small corner snipped out) and pipe long, cigarlike fingers onto a well-greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes or until just crisp around the edges. Transfer to a cooling rack.
Whisk the softened butter in a large bowl. Gradually whisk in the confectioners’ sugar, ½ cup or so at a time, along with the coffee. Transfer to a piping bag and pipe frosting onto the back of one of the cooled tobacco ladyfingers and press together with another cookie to make a sandwich. Repeat with the rest.
Four-Pepper Pulled-Pork Chili
This is a chili similar to the one I’d called “If I Hada Pepper” at the Chili Takedown in this chapter, but with fresh corn and pumpkin puree for a little more sweet to go with the spicy.
(SERVES 4-6)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2-3-pound piece of pork shoulder
Pork, chicken, or vegetable broth to cover (or substitute water)
2 large onions, roughly chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
About 1 teaspoon each of cumin, cayenne pepper, paprika, oregano, and chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup strong black coffee
1 6-ounce can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, crushed or blended in a food processor
1 24-ounce can whole peeled plum tomatoes with juice
4 strips bacon
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup pinto beans
1 cup fresh corn kernels
1 Anaheim or New Mexico chili, seeds removed and diced
2 sweet bell or Italian peppers, preferably red, orange, or yellow, diced
3-4 jalapeños, seeds removed and roughly chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, heat the vegetable oil on high for 2 minutes. Pat down pork shoulder until very dry and place in pot. Let cook on each side about 2 minutes, until most of the surface has been lightly browned. Remove from heat. Scrape bottom of pot and deglaze with pork stock. Place the pork shoulder back in the pot, and add the onions, garlic, chili pepper, jalapeños, spices, and salt and pepper. Add the coffee, chipotles, tomatoes, and enough stock to just cover the meat. Bring to a boil. Line the top of the pork shoulder with the bacon strips. Cook, covered, for at least 2 hours.
When the pork has been braising for 2 hours, remove from oven. Carefully remove the shoulder and transfer it to a roasting rack that will sit on top of the open pot, to catch any juices that drip from it. Return shoulder, now on a rack on top of the pot, to oven and roast for another 15 minutes at the same temperature. Remove everything from oven, and set shoulder aside to cool completely. Blend the braising liquid in the pot with a hand blender, or by transferring it carefully to a blender or food processor, until mixture is smooth. Add the pumpkin, pinto beans, and corn, and adjust seasoning to taste.
Pull the pork shoulder into ½-inch-thick or so shreds. Add the pulled pork to the rest of the chili mixture. Stir until thoroughly distributed. Continue cooking, reducing to a thicker consistency if necessary or seasoning to taste. Add the diced sweet peppers or sprinkle on as garnish.
Epilogue
So, what did I gain from my week of only eating out? Well, to start, I’ll compare my spending for the two back-to-back weeks. During normal week, I went grocery shopping twice and spent a total of $19.54. I also bought snacks during the day, usually at work to stave off hunger (or boredom), which I’ve already added to that total. Then there were items that I consumed that weren’t purchased in that week, like eggs, butter, flour, and a package of dried cranberries I’d polished off one night in front of the TV With these in mind, I think it’s a fair if somewhat generous estimate to put my food spending at $25 for that week.
Over the course of opposite week, I saved receipts whenever I could. So with my brunch at Stone Park Cafe, snacks in Flushing, Queens, kimchee noodles and dinner at Char No. 4 the next day, sushi lunch and Caribbean dinner on Tuesday plus an iced coffee along the way, the Pax Wholesome Foods lunch, bagel breakfast, pea soup lunch, a previously unmentioned snack of watermelon cubes from a deli, Doughnut Plant doughnut, Chinese takeout lunch, and slice of pizza, the grand total of my food spending was $116.51. This total does not reflect the Szechuan dinner in Flushing that my parents paid for. It also doesn’t account for the expensive dinner at Walter Foods that my date paid for, or the Momofuku Noodle Bar dinner that my date, again, paid for. Finally, opposite week was really only six days instead of seven, since I didn’t eat out that whole Saturday of the Chile Pepper Fiesta and Jordan’s party. So the grand total was one day and three restaurant meals short.
I guess it’s not so uncommon to get treated for three meals in a week for those who typically go out to eat. This skewed the final tally for my opposite week significantly, though, and I hadn’t been expecting it. I’m not complaining, however. I imagine that if I had paid for my own meal, I would have spent about $15 for the family meal at the Szechuan restaurant in Flushing. Splitting the check at Walter Foods plus tip would have set me back at least $60, as a lowball estimate. And the food I’d split with Michael at Momofuku Noodle Bar plus tip probably would have cost about $30. So, adding these sums to $116.51, a more accurate estimate of what I would have spent if I’d paid my own way that week would be $221.51.
Now, in contrast, what if I, instead of my friends or parents, had been the one treating for one or two of these occasions? What if I were a guy who took dates out to dinner maybe three times a week, and wanted to foot the bill each time—you can imagine how skewed my total would be then!
I got on the scale again at the end of opposite week, too. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a slight gain. My taste buds at least were unaccustomed to encountering so many rich foods in one week, especially that doughnut. I could imagine that they did their damage on the rest of the body. But God bless the mysteries of metabolism—when I stood on the scale one week of eating out later, not a fraction of a decimal had budged from my beginning weight. The number was the exact same one the dial had read on that street corner in Flushing a week before. I’ll keep that number to myself, though. It’s a sensitive topic that no woman likes to share, her weight. For me, it’s a little awkward because I tend to weigh what a healthy middle schooler might, even though I consume many more calories than I deserve for it. It must be in my genes; my mother’s weight has remained static and she stays slim regardless of her rapacious appetite, and some of her clothes from when she was my age are much too small for me now.
But these facts aside, during opposite week I was reminded of how much I do appreciate fine dining, and the institution of restaurants as a whole. They are not “the enemy” (though this revelation might seem painfully obvious to most). As long as you don’t fall hideously sick from a tainted oyster—like my friend Matt did recently—there’s little harm in spending a little extra money on a special occasion for a nice meal at a restaurant. But that’s the way I’d like to keep it: special. I’ll treat eating out as an indulgence and a luxury. Doing it every day is just not for me—not mentally, physically, or financially. Eating out may be unavoidable for many busy people in this world, but as long as I can still squeeze my favorite hobby into my schedule, I’ll be cooking happily ever after.
And what did I learn from my two years of (mostly) home-cooked food? Well, people will say that the world of restaurant food is vast. But the world of cooking and eating in far exceeds it in scope, even in a city as seemingly disinclined toward home cooking as New York. There are foragers in the parks as we speak; anarchist freegans lurking around the trash cans while you sleep; cook-offs being thrown and/or dreamed up by the second; and food bloggers eagerly tapping away at their computers with flour-coated fingers, taking in the rich smells of something wonderful cooking in their kitchens. It’s a jungle out there. And unlike restaurants, there is no finite limit to the number of menu items that can be ordered and consumed within the
realm of home cookery—so long as a person has a kitchen and the imagination to create something tasty all their own.
Just as there are social traditions, customs, and interactions related to eating out, there are those particular to eating in. These are the things about cooking for two years that have meant the most to me. From making brunch for hungover friends to having Christmas dinner with my family, I hope there is never a shortage of opportunities to cook and eat with people on a regular basis. Getting involved in supper clubs has proven for me a pretty good way to keep this up constantly, though running one yourself can be time-consuming and costly if you’re not careful, as I humbly learned.
What had begun more or less as a simple ploy to save money actually ended up expanding my culinary scope in ways I had never imagined possible. Who knew I’d learn how to make sushi rolls, Moroccan tajines, and spicy Mexican tripe stew? There is really no limit to what can be done in the home kitchen. While not eating out I gradually mastered a slew of cooking techniques, prep skills, and entertaining savvy through practice, practice, and more practice. I cringe looking back at some of the older recipes on my blog. My experience just with handling food and seeing how it interacts with heat and other processes has sharpened my cooking skills infinitely, well beyond what just research and cookbooks can do. And that, to a foodie, is priceless.