Onion goo

You know how sometimes you go somewhere new, and unexpectedly you end up eating something that blows your mind?  And then you spend months, even years, coming back to that memory, in odd moments, in the shower or on the bus?  And then you think, "God, I have to go on a desperate search for this thing RIGHT. NOW." but you can't find it anywhere?  And then you start wondering if it'd even be as good as you remembered, because time and memory have a tendency to drop rose-tinted veils over your senses?  And so this mythical dish lives on in your mind, floating in and out of your consciousness, causing moments of wistfulness for years on end?

Yeah.

This is the story of Zoe and the "onion goo."  Spoiler alert: it has a happy ending.

Egg-lemon soup

Yesterday I had plans for this post.  I was jazzed to write about the beautiful farmer's market lunch I put together with Amherst friends.  I was ready to rhapsodize about the beauty of seasonal vegetables, to describe the messy murder of a pomegranate that took place in my boyfriend's kitchen.  I had photos taken, cute turns of phrase lined up.  Yesterday, I was all set.

But that post will have to wait for another day.  Today I have a cold, I'm home sick from work, and all I can think about is soup.

Thanksgiving at Chez Fenson

I can play the slideshow game too!

Thanksgiving is perhaps my favorite holiday ever.  As my sister put it, it's the one day of the year when we, as Jews, can be pretty sure we're doing exactly the same thing as the rest of the country.  It's a day of humility and gratitude, sleep, family time, and lots of delicious food.  What's not to love?

This year we had an intimate nine-person evening.  For the past few years, my sister and I have been in charge of planning and cooking the Thanksgiving meal, with my mom as sous chef and advisor.  Because there are always several vegetarians at my family's Thanksgiving table, we always make a meatless spread (except for the turkey, of course).  But that doesn't mean our Thanksgivings aren't flavorful, vibrant, and joyous.  In fact--well, see for yourself.

Spaghetti alla puttanesca

As the sibling of a picky eater, I want to acknowledge something.  I know that there are people in this world who screw up their faces at the sight of a garlic clove, whose eyes well up with just a whiff of pepper.  There are people who quake in their boots at the mere mention of olives, for whom anchovies are the height of terror.  There are people who demand that food be mild-mannered, lightly seasoned, inoffensive.  I know and love a number of these people.  I pass absolutely no judgment on their eating habits.

If you are one of these people, this is not the recipe for you.  Turn back now.  Here be dragons.

Now that that's out of the way: spaghetti alla puttanesca.  This is a classic Italian sauce, rumored to have been developed in the brothels of southern Italy.  (Wikipedia tells me the literal translation is "whore's spaghetti.")  It's possibly my favorite tomato-based sauce ever--aggressive and entirely unapologetic, with a bracing balance of salt, heat, and vinegar-tang.  There are surely thousands upon thousands of puttanesca recipes in existence; this is mine.

Sausage-stuffed mushrooms

Like Zach, I am a reformed mushroom-hater.  Along with shrimp and butternut squash, mushrooms were one of the foods I most assiduously avoided as a child, only to fall in love with as an adult.  They're substantial enough to substitute for meat in many cases, and strong-flavored enough to lend depth to a variety of cool-weather dishes.  And certain types of mushrooms--cremini and portobello, in particular--have hefty, inverted-cup caps that are perfect for stuffing.

Problem is, it's not always easy to get the flavor balance right.  Unlike milder vegetables like bell peppers (which merit a whole separate stuffing discussion), mushrooms are assertive enough that they sometimes overwhelm delicately-flavored grain-based stuffings.  And too often, recipes overcompensate by piling on breadcrumbs and cheese until the whole affair is leaden and soggy.

My favorite solution, ironically, was inspired by the prepared meals in the meat case at my local Safeway.  One weekend, while my boyfriend and I were looking for a quick and easy dinner, we noticed a display of portobello caps stuffed with sausage meat.  No fancy business, no breadcrumbs, no fillers.  We bought a couple, just to try--and I've been making stuffed mushrooms the same way ever since.

White bean and tomato soup

My grandmother never really liked to cook.  She did it, of course, for many years out of necessity--in the pre-feminist 50's and 60's, with a husband and three daughters to feed, cooking was an inevitability.  And as a good Jewish grandmother, conditioned to shower her family with love in form of food, she continued to make meals for us whenever we visited.

But with the rise of packaged foods, as her children and grandchildren have grown independent and her body has slowly wound down, she's stopped cooking on her own.  Now, at age 87, with a 94-year-old strict-vegan husband, her repertoire in the kitchen is limited to cocktails in the evening and fruit salad in the morning.  Most of her recipes were handed off to my mother long ago; they're Mom's recipes now, and that's how I remember them.

But there's one recipe I do remember well from her kitchen, the only real "grandmother's recipe" I have: white bean and tomato soup.

Party? Party? Party?

As I may have mentioned, I recently moved in with an Amherst friend, as well as another roommate.  Last night, we threw a housewarming party--or, more accurately, a Zoe-moves-in party.  A Zoe-moves-in potluck party.  And boy, did our friends deliver.  So of course, what better place to brag about it than this blog?

(The following photos were all taken with my brand-new camera.  It's nice to be back in the game.)

Chicken stock/vegetable broth

A disclaimer: last week, my beloved camera up and died on me.  It had a good long life--it saw me through three cherished years of college, which is basically a lifetime for any digital doohickey these days.  I am not devastated to see it go.

However, its passing means that I have no photo for my post this week.  Which is fine, because my chosen subject is not glamorous or photogenic.  It is, however, delicious and versatile--two of my favorite words when it comes to food.

Onward!

Infusions

I'm a busy girl.  I've got a full-time job, plus three hours of commuting a day.  I'm currently in the process of moving to a new apartment.  I've got a social life--a nerdy, nerdy social life.  I get tired.  So, much as I love to cook, an elaborate meal isn't always in the cards.

But then there are the times when, exhausted as I am, my friends and I simply aren't up for restaurant-hunting.  So it was on a recent Saturday night.  Six hungry, work-weary nerds, gathered around a dining room table in someone's post-collegiate pad, trying to formulate a satisfying and minimal-effort meal.  At that point I reached into my bag o' culinary tricks and pulled out one of the simplest, most satisfying show-offs I know: infused oil.

Yakisoba

Columbus Day Weekend, 2008.  The place: Candlewood Lake, Connecticut.  The cast of characters: ten thesis-crazed Amherst students looking for a little R&R.  We spent four days at a friend's house on the lake, surrounded by sparkling water and fiery New England autumn hills, doing our best to forget about the work awaiting us back at school.  We slept until noon and spent the afternoons drinking beer and lounging on the dock.

And, taking advantage of the huge and elegantly equipped kitchen, we cooked.  We cooked like the hungry young fiends we were, overwhelmed with delight at our temporary freedom from dining-hall blandness.  We bought everything we could get our hands on at the local Costco, and put together elaborate communal dinners full of fresh vegetables and bright flavors.  And by far the most successful meal we had that weekend was our friend Shaylon's yakisoba.

Hot chocolate with a kick

Mark Twain is thought to have said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco."  Whether or not he did say it, the fact remains: the City by the Bay is damn cold in June and July.  Five days a week, I commute from Silicon Valley, which I love for its hot blue summers, to San Francisco's financial district, which is almost always foggy in the morning and breezy come midday.  It's now starting to settle into September, when the weather traditionally heats up--the past week in the city has been sun-kissed and stunning--but for most of the past few months I've been wind-blown and cranky, mourning the loss of my inland summer.

So, when I come home for the weekend, I make hot chocolate.

Pesto by hand

My boyfriend loves gadgets. He is by far one of the most gadgety people I've ever met. Going to Target with him is a dangerous proposition: he will happily spend an entire afternoon wandering the aisles of the electronics department in a gleeful daze, coming to life only occasionally to pull something off the shelf and announce, "I'm getting this." Grocery shopping is just as hazardous, because every grocery store I've been to with him has a cookware section. If it slices, dices, pulverizes, or serves food in a visually arresting manner, he is drawn inexorably to it like a moth to a ceiling lamp.

And yet, he doesn't own a food processor.

This became an issue one recent Saturday as we prepared to go shopping for dinner ingredients. I wanted pesto. I craved pesto. I was horrified by the thought of buying premade pesto for dinner, when it's so easy and satisfying to make at home. But I'd never made pesto without a food processor before. So I turned to the Internets to see if you could, in fact, make pesto entirely by hand.

Breakfast of Champions

I was born and raised in the Bay Area, and returned there after college to start my professional life. As a result, I am a spoiled, spoiled little foodie.

Everything you hear about California food is true. The produce really is that fresh, especially in the summer. The "ethnic" restaurants really are that good. The grocery stores really are that well-stocked. And yes, for all you New Englanders bemoaning your blue laws, you really can shop for wine and string cheese in the same store. My sleepy Silicon Valley town, with a population well under 100,000, has a huge year-round farmer's market--year-round!--and a wealth of gourmet, Asian and Latin American food purveyors.

I love it. I love fresh vegetables, and spices, and crazy-almost-pretentious California flavor combinations, and San Francisco sourdough with a good fatty Brie. I'll write about these things, I promise.

But for my first post, I'm going to talk about oatmeal.