A Homemade Life

by Molly Wizenberg

  Immediately pour the custard through the strainer, and stir well to combine it with the cream. Place the bowl carefully in the ice bath. Let cool, stirring occasionally. Then remove the bowl from the ice bath, cover it with plastic wrap, and chill it completely, preferably overnight, before churning.

  When you’re ready to churn the ice cream, stir in the vanilla and the black pepper. Taste it: Is there enough heat from the pepper? We find that 1½ teaspoons makes a good, balanced flavor, but you can add more, if you like.

  Pour the custard into your ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer the finished ice cream to a container with a lid and put in the freezer to harden for at least 2 hours before serving.

  Yield: about 1 quart

  PICKLING PLANT

  To some people, a pickle is a pickle. I was one of those people until a couple of years ago. The pickle was the silent partner on the sandwich plate. It was a little green sidecar, the dinghy that floats alongside the ship. I usually pushed it out of the way. It was nothing to get excited about.

  But then along came Brandon and, with him, a whole universe of things pickled and brined. Brandon craves acidic foods like people stranded in the desert crave water. His private world is filled, I like to imagine, with mirages in the shape of vinegar bottles and citrus fruits. When we met, he owned somewhere between twenty-four and thirty types of vinegar, a fact that he cited during our very first phone call, and with no small amount of pride. Today our collective kitchen has happily adopted most of them, except for the few stragglers that stayed behind with his old housemates in New York. The inventory runs from the simplest white wine vinegar to fancy aged balsamics, specimens made from Cabernet grapes, and others made from cherries, and, in most cases, a few brands and ages of each. Meeting him was like winning the lottery, only instead of a big check, my grand prize was a pantry full of vinegar.

  Most of the time he uses them in measured quantities, but occasionally he will sip them from a spoon. For someone with a pretty precise palate, he takes a heavy hand to the acid on his plate. I need just enough salad dressing to coat the leaves, but one seat over, he’s slurping at the jar. You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. I have watched him more than once reach for his water glass and get the vinaigrette instead. These were accidents, admittedly, but even as he raised the jar and the scent of vinegar hit his nostrils, he kept tilting it throatward. I watched in horror as the yellowish liquid slid into his mouth. He didn’t even flinch.

  When he’s not consuming salad dressing, it’s usually because he’s moved onto pickles, another handy way of meeting his vinegar needs. Brandon has always had a thing for pickles, but until a few years ago, it was nothing particularly serious. Then he had what he calls his “pickle awakening.” He was still living in New York at the time, but once when he came to see me in Seattle, I took him to Boat Street Café, one of my favorite restaurants, and he ordered the signature pickle plate. It came to the table looking like a painter’s palette in shades of vinegar and salt: a stroke of green asparagus here, a splotch of peppers there, a splash of rosy onions and purplish prunes, spindly young carrots, even cauliflower tinted with turmeric. A heady cloud of vinegar hovered over the plate, and Brandon sniffed at it, looking genuinely moved. The word pickled feels too dinky to describe what had happened to those vegetables. Each was infused with a different spice: some sweet, some hot, some almost ticklish when they hit the tongue. These were not someone’s soggy jarred spears; they were the kind that gets under your skin. Even I got into the spirit, stealing all of the prunes and most of the peppers.

  When Brandon moved to Seattle, he applied for a job at Boat Street. That’s where he was working when he met Olaiya and Sam. He even befriended the pickle makers themselves, chef-owners Renee Erickson and Susan Kaplan. With their guidance and a few old cookbooks, Brandon started pickling on his own. Our home kitchen often moonlights now as a small-scale pickling plant. Whenever we have a surplus of a particular fruit or vegetable, he commandeers the stove and cooks up a batch. The smell of hot brine can make you cough at first, but once you get accustomed, it’s kind of intoxicating. On the right man, it makes a lovely cologne.

  When Brandon and I started planning our wedding, it was pretty obvious that there would be pickles involved. Our rehearsal dinner was to be a picnic on the grounds of an old homestead, with a red barn and cows nearby, and everyone knows that a picnic is not a picnic, especially not on a farm, without pickles.

  Our caterer offered to provide them, but we decided to do it ourselves. People thought we were out of our minds to want to do it, to take on yet another project in the midst of the wedding planning, the project to end all projects. Even my mother, Queen of Crazy Christmas Baking, tried to dissuade us. I’m glad we didn’t listen. For all the heart and guts wrapped up in a wedding, planning it is essentially a cerebral exercise. Brining carrots and grapes and onions, on the other hand, is wholly, heavenly tangible. It’s slow. It’s messy. It’s slippery and sticky. It made me feel like a real human being, which felt a lot better than being a capital-B Bride.

  First on the list were pickled red onions, a regular in our refrigerator. Second in line were carrots doused in hot cider vinegar and scented with garlic and fresh thyme. They were spindly and sweet, as small and delicate as a lady’s pinky and just the right height to stand, shoulder to shoulder, in a quart-sized Mason jar. It took all the strength we had not to eat every single one of them before the wedding. We also called into service a recipe from Boat Street for pickled grapes with mustard seeds and cinnamon. I would have never thought to pickle a grape, but they’re completely delicious, crunchy, and sweet-tart. Based on a single taste, one of our rehearsal dinner guests offered to bankroll an entire pickling business, should we ever want to start one. So far, we don’t plan to, but knowing Brandon, I wouldn’t be surprised if we did.

  SPICY PICKLED CARROTS WITH GARLIC AND THYME

  2 cups apple cider vinegar, plus more for topping jars

  2 cups water, plus more for topping jars

  ¼ cup granulated sugar

  6 (5-to 6-inch) sprigs fresh thyme

  5 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced

  1½ teaspoons black peppercorns, cracked

  1½ teaspoons red pepper flakes

  Heaping 1½ teaspoons salt

  Heaping 2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds

  1½ pounds small (finger-sized) carrots, or standard-sized carrots, cut into sticks about ½ inch wide and 3 inches long

  In a medium saucepan, combine 1½ cups apple cider vinegar, water, sugar, thyme, garlic, black peppercorns, red pepper flakes, salt, and mustard seeds. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and let cool for 5 minutes. Stir in the remaining ½ cup vinegar.

  Put the carrots in a large, heatproof bowl, and pour the warm brine over them. Cool to room temperature.

  While the carrots cool, wash 2 quart-sized canning jars and their lids in warm, soapy water.

  When the carrots and brine are cool, distribute the carrots evenly among the jars, arranging them snugly. (Hands and fingers work best for this; tongs make a mess.) Using a ladle, divide the brine evenly among the jars. The carrots should be covered completely by brine. If they are not, add a mixture of 2 parts vinegar and 1 part water to cover.

  Seal firmly and refrigerate for at least 3 days, or, preferably, a week; carrots are dense and take time to absorb the brine.

  NOTE: Covered and refrigerated, pickled carrots will, in theory, last indefinitely, but we try to eat them within a month or two.

  Yield: 2 quarts

  PICKLED GRAPES WITH CINNAMON AND BLACK PEPPER

  Adapted from Susan Kaplan

  these may sound a little strange, but they’re a crowd-pleaser. I like them best within the first four days after they’re made, but some people like them even more after a week or two. Their pickled flavor gets stronger over time, and
their skins will wrinkle slightly.

  1 pound red or black grapes, preferably seedless

  1 cup white wine vinegar

  1 cup granulated sugar

  1½ teaspoons brown mustard seeds

  1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

  1 (2½-inch) cinnamon stick

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  Rinse and dry the grapes, and pull them carefully from their stems. Using a small, sharp knife, trim away the “belly button” at the stem end of the grape, exposing a bit of the flesh inside. Put the grapes into a medium bowl and set aside.

  In a medium saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then pour the mixture over the grapes. Stir to combine. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

  While the grapes cool, wash 2 pint-sized canning jars and their lids in warm, soapy water. When the grapes are cool, ladle them into the jars. Chill for at least 8 hours or overnight.

  Serve cold.

  Yield: about 3 cups

  SO EASY

  Some nights, it’s so easy. There’s already soup in the refrigerator, and all it needs is warming. There’s leftover chicken and a bag of green beans, and ba daaaa!, dinner is served. I love those nights. I try to live my whole life that way. Except for the nights when I’m making the soup, or roasting the chicken. That does have to happen sometime.

  It helps, though, that I like mishmash meals, the kind where you reach into the refrigerator and pull out a few things that need attention—a neglected block of cheddar, let’s say, and the end of a salami, and some cornichons and olives and a grapefruit—and that’s dinner. I am a very lazy person, really, and I am also easily pleased. For as much as I love to cook, I love even more when cooking is unnecessary, and when all I have to do is eat.

  To this end, Brandon is handy to have around. He can pull a meal from the seeming ether in five minutes flat. It’s not guaranteed to be great, but it will almost always be good. When he was living in New York, he used to cook sometimes for his housemate Amie, and she has told me a few stories. Apparently, she once had a craving for hummus, but they had no chickpeas, tahini, or lemons, so Brandon pulled out a can of kidney beans, a clove of garlic, some olive oil and vinegar, and the Cuisinart. The results, Amie says cheerily, “were pretty good!” Then there was the pancake episode. Because they had no eggs for the batter, Brandon threw in some extra oil instead. It goes without saying that this was much less successful than the kidney bean hummus, though the pancakes were edible, she tells me.

  Like Amie, I have discovered that if you give Brandon a few ingredients, he will usually make good. He’ll take the dregs of a bowl of homemade salsa, dump it into a pan with a can of black beans and half a tired onion, and ten minutes later, it’s a very decent lunch. He’ll take a few shallots left over from a recipe, peel them and toss them with oil and sherry vinegar, and roast them until they’re soft and sticky. He can also take some arugula, a few pistachios, and a bar of chocolate and turn them into a salad. That’s what he did a few days before our wedding, when my mother, who had flown in that morning, was coming to dinner.

  It was a warm night, the kind when you throw open the windows and stand an oscillating fan next to the stove. While my mother and I set the table, Brandon assembled the salad. He washed some arugula. Then he chopped a fistful of pistachios and, on a whim, the corner of the block of chocolate that was sitting on the counter. Then he opened the refrigerator for a wedge of hard cheese and a jar of last night’s vinaigrette. My mother had brought some figs, half-smashed in her carry-on, from the tree in her front yard, so he sliced them into quarters and piled them on one end of a serving platter. Next to them he laid a few thin slices of cheese. At the far end, opposite the figs and cheese, he made piles of pistachios and chocolate. Then he poured a glug of vinaigrette over the arugula, tossed it with one hand, and mounded it in the center.

  It was almost too handsome to eat, but we did it anyway, with an old baguette that had been jolted to life in the oven and a bottle of champagne that, I’m pretty sure, was supposed to be saved for the wedding. It was delicious, a box of parts from different puzzles that somehow seemed to fit. My mother, a little suspicious at the start, scraped her plate appreciatively. But best of all, it was easy. Especially after planning an entire wedding. Of course, planning a wedding could make anything look easy—homemade puff pastry, hunting and butchering your own boar, making water from scratch—but really, it was.

  We’ve now made that salad countless times, with or without the figs and cheese. Whenever we mention it to other people, they raise an eyebrow at the thought of arugula and chocolate, but when they taste it, they usually shut up. We’ve already had one of them declare it her favorite salad, which we took as a pretty good endorsement, since we hadn’t even plied her with champagne. That’s why I wanted to tell you about it. There’s no time like the present to start eating chocolate with your greens.

  Brandon likes to use Banyuls vinegar, a fairly esoteric type, in the vinaigrette for this salad, but when I wrote the recipe, I found myself worrying. I didn’t want to suggest that someone go out and buy a bottle of expensive vinegar just for one salad. So I asked if he could suggest a more common substitute. He thought for a minute, and then he announced, “Sure! Tell them that if they don’t have Banyuls, they can just use Cognac vinegar.”

  He’s so warped. Which, of course, is why I married him.

  ARUGULA SALAD WITH PISTACHIOS AND CHOCOLATE

  banyuls vinegar is made from the Banyuls sweet wine of southwest France and aged in oak barrels. It has a caramelly, slightly nutty flavor, and goes incredibly well with arugula. But if you don’t happen to have a bottle of it lying around, you can substitute sherry vinegar (or Cognac vinegar, har har), or you can buy some from Williams-Sonoma or Chef Shop.com.

  FOR THE VINAIGRETTE

  1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

  3 tablespoons Banyuls vinegar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  5 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to taste

  FOR THE SALAD

  About 8 ounces arugula

  2 tablespoons finely chopped raw unsalted pistachios, for serving

  2 tablespoons finely chopped bittersweet chocolate, for serving

  First, make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl, combine the mustard, vinegar, and salt and whisk to blend. Add the olive oil and whisk vigorously to emulsify. Taste, and adjust as needed. Depending on your vinegar, you may need more oil. We often add 2 additional teaspoons, but it varies. This is a more acidic dressing than some, but it shouldn’t hit you over the head with vinegar.

  Put the arugula in a large bowl and add a modest spoonful or two of dressing. It’s best to err on the side of underdressing at first: arugula is delicate, and it needs less dressing than other greens. Using two forks or, preferably, your hands, carefully toss the arugula, taking care to handle it as lightly as you can, since it bruises easily. Taste, and add dressing as needed.

  Divide the dressed arugula among 4 plates. Serve with small bowls of chopped pistachios and chocolate on the side, allowing each eater to sprinkle his or her salad with a bit of each.

  Yield: 4 first-course servings

  I HAVE LEARNED NOT TO WORRY

  Sometimes I still can’t believe that I’m old enough to be someone’s wife. How on earth did that happen? It was only a few days ago, I could swear, that I was in the foyer of my parents’ house, bumbling and biting my way through my first kiss. It couldn’t have been more than a month ago, at most. Sometimes Brandon and I look at each other, shaking our heads, and say, “We’re married? Get out!” It’s a lot to wrap a head around.

  Our wedding meant more than just the beginning of our marriage. It meant a new family, one that starts from just the two of us. For me, it also meant walking down the aisle without my father. I never thought I would have to do that.

  I remember, in the weeks before our wedding, wondering what he would have said about all this. He would have liked to know Brandon. They would have hol
ed up in his office upstairs, listening to Gene Krupa and talking about beer. It’s strange, but sometimes when Brandon laughs, he sounds exactly like Burg. Sometimes I could swear that he was still here, sitting right next to me. Wherever he is, I would like him to know that my mother gave me his wedding ring, and that we had Brandon’s ring made from it, melted down and remolded. I know that he would have wanted that, to be a part of us in some way.

  We had an Alice Walker quote printed on the back of our wedding program. “I have learned not to worry about love,” it reads, “but to honor its coming with all my heart.” It’s hard not to worry, honestly, about making this sort of commitment to someone. But I want to honor Brandon. I want to honor what came before us. And I want to honor us.

  Sometimes I forget how improbable our story is, and how uncertain it could have felt, because it didn’t. I remember telling someone, shortly after I met him, that Brandon was like magic, that he could make things happen. He does, every day. He reminds me of something my mother once said about my father: that one of the things she loved about him was that she could learn so much from him. I know exactly what she means.

  I used to think I had a good dowry. I can make a nice meatball and bake a fine chocolate cake. I can find my way without a map around Paris, Seattle, and Oklahoma City. I stand to someday inherit that stunningly ugly ceramic boar that sat on my father’s bathroom counter. But Brandon brought with him more than I could have ever thought to want. He brought an eye for vintage champagne glasses, that Caetano Veloso song he always sings in the shower, the crease on top of his nose, and the stunning mess he makes on the kitchen counter. He brought his chana masala, his love for cabbage and chocolate, and his gentle questions about my father, whom he will never meet. He brought that mischievous look that he flashes when he asks if I want a chocolate malt, the radishes and the butter and the salt, and the way he asks me to marry him, grinning, over and over, almost every day. Sometimes when I see him across the room, I can hardly believe that I get to be his wife.