The COVID-19 pandemic has brought changes to everyone, world-wide. Lockdowns mean few dine out, except the hardy folks braving outdoor tables and sidewalk pods in winter conditions. Spring, and the vaccines, are coming, and hope is poised on the horizon, but we are not enjoying sweater weather or herd immunity just yet. Won’t it be fabulous when we can wander into our favorite waterfront restaurants soon, and see our neighbors, and eat food that we didn’t clumsily prepare ourselves?

I can’t wait to eat some professionally-baked, crusty French bread, smeared with good butter, drinking a flute of well-chilled Prosecco. Maybe Mr. Sanders will enjoy a platter of deliciously iced oysters, shucked by someone talented and dextrous. (When we try to shuck them at home we always feel as if we are one step closer to a trip to the ER.) This has been our option for the past year: home cooking. Some meals have been better than others. We try not to dwell on the Great Baguette Debacle.

The Maryland oyster industry has been suffering through this year of the pandemic. With restaurants closed or serving mostly take out foods, there has been less demand for our local oysters. Luckily Eastern Shore oyster-farming has gone online, and you can eat very well while supporting our local aquaculture: http://www.chesapeakeoysteralliance.org/partners/where-to-buy-chesapeake-farmed-oysters.html

There is an old saying about only eating raw oysters in the months with the letter “r”, generally September to April. Luckily we are perched at the beginning of March. Get out your shucking knives and cut up some lemons. Try a few kinds of the bi-valve from several locations around the Bay. The flavor of an oyster varies by the degree of salinity in the water. You will have lots to choose from.

This weekend, why don’t you enjoy a little home-made oyster roast? Get the fire pit roaring or bring some blankets into the back yard for a nice, socially distanced seafood fest. After you suck down a dozen raw oysters it will be time to move onto oyster stew, fried or grilled oysters, or Oysters Rockefeller or even oyster pie. And then you will wonder why you have been depriving yourself of oysters all through this COVID-19 panic. Get online to order some delicious Maryland seafood.

First: learn how to shuck an oyster. It is a deceptively simple-looking art.
https://youtu.be/n_YPxcF1ta4

Here are some recipes from some of the Eastern Shore oyster farms – you can revel in all the different flavors found around the Bay as you support our local ostreiculture:

Maryland Fried Oysters
https://www.visitmaryland.org/article/maryland-fried-oysters-recipes

https://hoopersisland.com/recipe/fried-oysters/

Maryland Oyster Stew
https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/250849/maryland-oyster-stew/

Choptank Sweets Parmesano
https://www.choptanksweets.com/recipes/choptank-sweets-parmesano

Scott Budden’s Grilled Orchard Point Oysters
https://edibledelmarva.ediblecommunities.com/recipes/scott-buddens-grilled-orchard-point-oysters

Cheddar Baked Oysters
https://fishermansdaughteroysters.org/recipes/

From some non-shore folks:

Oyster Pie
https://food52.com/blog/19531-a-simply-good-oyster-pie-that-tastes-like-the-chesapeake

Oyster Pan Roast
https://heated.medium.com/immune-boosting-meals-to-keep-you-strong-508e9ab8c1aa

Oyster info: http://www.chesapeakeoysteralliance.org

And remember to recycle your oyster shells! http://www.chesapeakeoysteralliance.org/get-involved/recycle-oyster-shells.html

https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/pandemic-could-change-the-maryland-oyster-industry-for-good/

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”
– Ernest Hemingway

We spend a lot of our time at home pinging like little pinballs between the television in the living room and the kitchen stove. There are some side trips to the laundry room to wash loads of laundry, and to the garage to deposit wine bottles in the recycling bin. That’s because we are leading an elegant home-bound pandemic life, dressed in our finest yoga pants and shapeless sweatshirts. Cooking, washing, eating, watching television. Thank goodness that Stanley Tucci has come along, to take us to Italy, at least on Sunday nights.

Stanley Tucci: nattily dressed, in scarves and jackets, slim and twinkling, is our cicerone to Italy. Remember travel? Remember getting gussied up to go some place? With vaccines on the horizon we have started to think of places we would like to go, and with Stanley Tucci beaming at us every week, the list is growing. Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy on CNN is an exploration of different regions and foods. Armchair travel is an excellent way to explore the world, but it leaves us yearning – with whetted appetites for someplace new and exotic. Thank goodness there is pasta.

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy https://www.cnn.com/videos/foodanddrink/2021/02/19/searching-for-italy-rome-2.cnn

It has taken me all winter to finally master this deceptively simple pasta recipe: https://www.thekitchn.com/samin-nosrat-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-22949332

It was worth the effort. It has amused me to stumble on this dish, only to find it everywhere. We first encountered it watching Samin Nosrat’s charming Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat series on Netflix. (https://www.netflix.com/title/80198288) I used to make a stodgy Fettuccini Alfredo with an extensive list of ingredients, back in our misguided youth. We are now Cacio e pepe converts.

I am always looking to simplify. Cacio e pepe satisfies our need for comforting, warming pasta, with fewer trips to the grocery store. It can be assembled quickly, whenever the yearning overcomes us. Spaghetti, black pepper and Pecorino cheese and olive oil all have long shelf lives. I was stupified to discover a pasta dish that didn’t need garlic!

When I walk Luke the wonder dog I listen to podcasts, because heaven knows what I would do with half an hour of my own thoughts. I enjoy the Table Manners podcast, as I have mentioned here before. There is nothing more cheering than listening to a couple of Brits nattering about their childhood lunches and their favorite meals. Trotting along behind the sniffing Luke, I listened to a guest, Elizabeth Olsen, chattering away with Jessie Ware and her mother about how much she enjoyed making cacio e pepe, because she enjoyed eating it at a very swanky Beverly Hills eatery. Jessie Ware asked her if it was hard to get the sauce to emulsify, and Elizabeth Olsen was stumped. She had skipped that step. Well, she is an actress, and not a cook. And the emulsification step is a little tricky.

And maybe Elizabeth Olsen had only cooked cacio e pepe once or twice. I have cooked it at least a dozen times now (I’ll do almost anything to avoid the grocery store – and Monday night is always Pasta Night in our house) and I think I can finally say that I have just mastered emulsification. And it is tricky damn woo. So when you get to that step, take your time. Add the starchy cooking water gradually. And stir, stir, stir. It makes a difference. You’ll get there.

I tried a variation on cacio e pepe recently. It is not for timid souls. I doubt if I will try it again. It called for using red pepper flakes instead of black pepper. It was fiery. But it did have lots of garlic. https://www.food.com/recipe/olive-oil-garlic-and-crushed-red-pepper-pasta-sauce-295835

Spring is on its way. So are the vaccines. While you wait, listen to a podcast or two. Try something new for dinner. Watch Stanley Tucci and Samin Nosrat and dream of warm Italian nights, sitting in a piazza, under strings of lights, drinking a nice rustic red with your friends and family. Bliss.

“Life is a combination of magic and pasta.”
-Federico Fellini

Don’t forget to watch Stanley Tucci in two other calorie-laden films: Big Night and Julie and Julia.

We are wandering into a big weekend – Valentine’s Day is Sunday. Forget about flowery sentiment. (And forget about the expensive short-lived, long-stemmed roses – hydrangeas are perfect whatever the occasion!) I will be dodging the chocolate calories which will be flying; fast and furious.

Mr. Sanders is a true believer in the healing powers of dark chocolate. Consequently he finds a way to consume it a few times each day. This he does with impunity, and without noticeable weight gain. I, who dwell in a real life world, cannot. I will partake, and even prepare, chocolate for ceremonial purposes, but will not eat it daily. Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion for me. I get to plan, execute, take a few bites, and then push my chair away from the table. Mr. Sanders can go to town.

We have holiday chocolate standard bearers: we always bake Boston cream pie for our birthdays. Christmas dinner calls for a flourless chocolate cake. Our traditional Thanksgiving requires a pecan pie, but the meal is made replete with the addition of a chocolate cream pie, topped with billowing whipped cream clouds, and curls of shaved Belgian chocolate.

This year Mr. Sanders will be home for Valentine’s Day, which is unusual. Most years he has been away at an annual out-of-town boat show, so I am accustomed to tucking a little box of fancy chocolates in his luggage, having scrawled a few plump Cupids with love-tipped arrows as a Valentine declaration. The boat show has been cancelled because of COVID this year, so we will be in the same town, eyeing each other over the dining room candles, toying with our wine glasses, heady with expectations that years (and years) of marriage bring. We will have a modest steak dinner, extravagant with asparagus, Béarnaise sauce and a lightly dressed green salad. And then there will be dessert.

Death by Chocolate is not appropriate this year. Mr. Sanders’s birthday is coming up soon, so we shouldn’t consider a Boston cream pie. A flourless chocolate cake is just too much for two reasonable people to eat, even over the course of a few days – it calls for a festive and rapacious crowd. Instead, we will exhibit a modicum of New England restraint, and will fall instead on a brace of exquisite éclairs. Homemade, of course.

Our friends at Food52 preach practice, practice, practice. So consider how versatile éclairs can be for many holidays: Valentine’s Day, Lunar New Year, Easter, April Fool’s, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and maybe have a side dish of them tucked away for Thanksgiving, just in case anyone is still feeling peckish. https://food52.com/blog/19579-the-perfectionist-s-guide-to-making-chocolate-eclairs

Paul Hollywood, of The Great British Bake Off, suggests using whipped cream for the éclair filling. I have had some very, very memorable éclairs filled with whipped cream. You can never go wrong. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pauls_chocolate_clairs_59944

Mary Berry, also of Great British Bake Off fame, has a fancier éclair, which is suitable for Easter: https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/mary-berry-religieuses/ Mary Berry is the master of crème patissiere, so you might have to have your own bake off to find which you prefer. See? The Food52 folks are always right; practice makes perfect éclairs.

We have been using King Arthur flours for all our baking lately: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/cream-puffs-and-eclairs-recipe

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
― Tom Bodett

 

Dr. Fauci, who is smarter than all of us, is warning us to be careful on Sunday. He doesn’t want us to be having big

Super Bowl parties. Remember parties? Remember 6-foot subs? Remember trying to figure out if you had enough beer and wine for all the neighbors who were going to stop by? Remembering wondering if there were enough Doritos?

I can tell you from personal experience that you can never have too many bags of Doritos. Whatever delicious chemical they are coated with is surely the same compound found in the endless shelf life of the domestic Twinkie. If you don’t eat them today they will still be fine tomorrow. And on Valentine’s Day. And Pi Day (March 14th), St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th), Easter (April 4th) and Earth Day (April 22nd). By the time Mother’s Day ( May 9th) rolls around you should probably invest in some new bags. Mothers don’t care for Dorito crumbs.

Dr. Fauci says, “You don’t want parties with people that you haven’t had much contact with, you just don’t know if they’re infected,” he told Good Morning America. “So as difficult as that is, at least this time around, just lay low and cool it.”

We can do that. Stay home. Watch out for each other. Let the snack time begin. It just means there will be more Doritos. Delightful.

First Half:

Nachos

We here at the Spy Test Kitchens abhor soggy nachos We bake ours at about 450° degrees for about 5 or 6 minutes. Don’t wander off to wait for the Coke commercial – they aren’t advertising this year!

Use a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil for an easy clean up.

Hint: don’t overload the chips with toppings – you’ll avoid sogginess and it is so much easier to eat lightly dressed chips with your fingers. Luke the wonder dog does not deserve any more spillage treats. Clean out your fridge and let the leftovers reign.

Corn chips plus

Cheeses:
shredded Cheddar
Monterey Jack
Colby cheese

Meats:
pulled pork
shredded rotisserie chicken
crumbled Italian sausage
browned taco meat
chorizo
grilled steak

Veggies:
avocado slices
chopped sweet or red onions
shredded lettuce (add after cooking)
refried beans
black beans
chopped tomatoes
sliced pitted black olives
diced green, red, and yellow sweet peppers
jalapeños

To add after the nachos have come out of the oven:
fresh cilantro
shredded lettuce
sour cream
guacamole
salsa

Eastern Shore folks might enjoy this variation – crab and corn nachos.
8 ounces crabmeat
3/4 cup corn
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons minced chives
1 teaspoon mustard
Spoon into tortilla scoops;
top with shredded Monterey Jack, then bake.

Second Half:

Veggies and Dip

This evolved from your basic 1950s onion dip for what I imagined to be John Cheever-y kinds of cocktail parties. I think it is a step up the slippery evolutionary kitchen slope because I use Knorr soup mix, which sounds imported, no? Regardless of the shopworn clichés and conceit, this dip is very popular with our guests, back when we had guests. It is delicious whether you are guzzling French 75s or clinking icy bottles of Coke.

Makes 2 cups
2 cups sour cream
1 package Knorr’s onion soup mix
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
2 tablespoons green onion, finely chopped
Mix all the ingredients together and chill until it’s time to serve. Excellent with veggies, but much better with the aforementioned Doritos.

If you would like to bypass all the sodium and preservatives in the store-bought mix version, and you have a time to fuss, you can make this take from the New York Times.

Sour Cream and Onion Dip
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound yellow onions (about 3 medium), thinly sliced
2 shallots, thinly sliced
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
1 cup sour cream
1 cup full fat Greek yogurt or sour cream
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 clove garlic, finely grated
Olive oil, for drizzling
1/4 cup finely chopped chives

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
Add onions and shallots and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are softened and starting to turn a nice golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook, stirring often to make sure the onions don’t stick along the bottom of the skillet. Cook until onions are a deep golden brown and reduced by about half their original size, another 45 to 55 minutes. Resist the urge to turn up the heat to make them caramelize faster. It will lead to burning.
Transfer onions and shallots to a cutting board and finely chop. Place in a large bowl along with sour cream, yogurt, lemon juice and garlic. Season with salt and pepper.
Transfer to a serving bowl and drizzle with olive oil, season with pepper and sprinkle with chives.
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019040-sour-cream-and-onion-dip?

Make a point to humor the ghost of our favorite chef, and put out a symbolic bowl of peanuts. Maybe next year we will all have a chance to get together again. We salute you, Dr. Fauci!

“Without peanuts, it isn’t a cocktail party.”
-Julia Child

The pandemic is making me nostalgic for the most prosaic and un-extraordinary occasion:breakfast out. I used to like to sit at the counter in a diner and watch everyone in action. The line cooks moved economically, reaching for bowls and frying pans, flipping eggs, checking bacon, swiping rafts of toast with lashings of butter, flipping pancakes, all while dodging legions of wait staff and kitchen help with remarkable delicacy and concentration. I could never do that work – I am too testy and territorial. I do not play well with others.

Back in the good old days, before masks and social distancing, we frequented a couple of lunch counters where the people watching was always so delicious; a real bonus because the meals always seemed wonderful, too. I loved surveying the servers, who seemed to have been on the job for years, pouring out multiple steaming cups of coffee, while also scribbling orders with nubbins of pencils, wiping down nearby tables, straightening menus and collecting glasses. We could see young families, all outfitted for soccer, perched around tiny, tippy tables, pushing crayons and maple-syrup-soaked French toast, waving slices of bacon. The tables were always sticky, and wobbly, but someone else cooked the bacon.

There is a bagel place near us that I have visited a couple of times during the last year. (Mostly the folks who frequent it don’t wear masks, otherwise I would stop by more often.) As I wait for my sad little salt bagel I peer over the display case to ogle the vast Viking griddle, crusty with years of vintage bacon, sausage and egg grease. On a corner of the range there is usually a vast stainless steel container, at least a foot wide and almost as deep, that seems to hold the world’s reserve of cooked bacon. Who completes that thankless task day after day? Do they love the repetition of the prep work, or is it a job that has sucked all the bacon joy out of that person’s life? Are they feeling minimalistic and sangfroid about their job, or nihilistic and bitter beyond belief? Imagine being a bacon sous chef. Of course, some foodie TV show could probably elevate that position to near godly status, particularly if some specially designed cooking tools and a mystical backstory were associated with bacon cooking. David Chang might already be beating a path to the bacon chef’s table. Or maybe I have been watching too many cooking shows during COVID.

During these perilous times we have been doing a lot of cooking, as I am sure you have been, too. We either cook or perish. My friends on the Slate Culture Gabfest divulged an easy recipe for tiramisu this week. And these are the folks who are supposed to tell us what books to read, and what TV to binge next. (Links to this week’s Culture Gabfest:https://slate.com/podcasts/culture-gabfest/2021/01/why-lupin-is-so-popular-on-netflix-right-now) So if I want to have a BLT, I am just going to jolly well have to cook the bacon.

Years ago a friend who worked at Bon Appétit magazine told us the foolproof way of cooking bacon. She is never wrong. Anthony Bourdain later extolled the same method, so I feel abundantly secure in passing this along to you. Forget cooking bacon on top of the stove – roast it in the oven. Less splatter, less smell, and you can cook more pieces in one cooking event than you can in a frying pan. Plus it gives you a little time to read the paper, always a plus in my book.https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/common-mistakes/article/the-4-most-common-bacon-cooking-mistakes

Now that the years have been flowing past, we have streamlined this process – because who wants to clean the oven rack? Not me. I still roast the bacon (we always use thick-cut bacon so be sure to watch your cooking time), but now we cook it on a sheet of parchment paper, and at 425ºF for 15 minutes. I don’t need to flip it. It is easy to pour the bacon fat into a container for use later on – you’ve cooked enough bacon that you can make some killer croutons for a wilted spinach salad. Now go toast some nice thick bread – ciabatta, brioche or challah. Yumsters.

For the persnickety, add a fried egg to the sandwich so you can differentiate it from a lunchtime meal. If you must. Or get very fancy, à la Food52: https://food52.com/recipes/36321-the-blt-benedict. And if we ever have houseguests again, I think this would be delightful: https://food52.com/recipes/30772-blt-revised There is nothing like a little Old Bay kicker first thing in the morning!

Be patient as you wait for the vaccine. Dr. Faucci says it is coming down the pike. In the meantime, practice your bacon cooking. This weekend I am going to try to bake my own salt bagels. Then I’ll never have to go out again!

“You know, it’s hard to beat bacon at anytime of day. But I also am a big fan of corned beef hash.”
-Nick Offerman

How are all your New Year’s resolutions holding up? Are you still walking 10,000 steps a day? Are you still eschewing alcohol (this has been a tough Dry January, but you can do it!)? Are you reading more? Are you still keeping a notebook handy for thoughtful jottings and ruminations? And what about your vegetable intake? I wish someone would sneak more vegetables into my diet, but being the chief-cook-and-bottle-washer around here, I can’t very well surprise myself with well-disguised broccoli or imperceptible beets. Therefore, I must suspend my disbelief and will finally surrender to adulting, and winter salads might be the best way to go.

I love a nice leafy, crunchy salad. I was raised on iceberg lettuce salads, so the discovery of romaine lettuce in college shifted the tectonic plates of my tetchy palate. I used to eat sun-warmed tomatoes out in the garden every summer, but grew up eating tasteless, refrigerated, hothouse tomatoes in my salads all winter long. Luckily time does march on, and we can avail ourselves of healthier greens all year long. Our local farmers have also come into the twenty-first century and are ready to nourish us with their winter bounties. Look for parsnips, garlic, turnips, rutabagas, leeks, lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, potatoes (sweet and regular), and cabbage.

The Ware family was going nuts on the Table Manners podcast this week, waxing poetical about “massaged kale”. Honestly. This was news to me, so off to Google I trotted. https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-massaged-kale-salad-15-minutes/ And as we all have delicate constitutions in this house, even omnivore Luke the wonder dog, I guess we will be massaging kale from now on. Put that hint in your handy notebook.

The dark of winter is a good time to introduce hints of color and sparkle to your salad. Cranberries! Apples! Cheddar cheese! Pomegranate seeds! https://www.foodiecrush.com/kale-salad-with-cranberries-apple-and-cheddar/

You can throw everything in a main course winter salad, by cleaning out the produce drawer in the fridge and adding shredded cabbage, carrots, Brussels sprouts, roasted squash, or chunks of apples. You will be cutting down on clutter while eating in a healthier fashion – surely that will be two more New Year’s resolutions you are attending to, because you are marvelously efficient and thorough. https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a104726/ultimate-winter-salad/

We still haven’t touched upon quinoa, grilled cabbage, or sweet potatoes. You can go meatless for weeks, and feel very smug about your resolutions. And since we can’t socialize anyway, none of your friends will know how smug you have become. Finally, a silver lining for our pandemic times: you can be insufferable in private. And when the good times roll around again, you will show off your toned legs, flat abs, and your newly bookish nature to great effect. https://www.saveur.com/best-winter-salad-recipes/

Here is a great chatty, weekly newsletter: Emily Nunn and The Department of Salad can guide you through the rest of the winter: https://eatsomesalad.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-department-of-salads

We have almost gotten through January. The first daffodil has bloomed in my front yard – I think it is regretting its rash and hasty decision already. Nonetheless, time is inching forward. Put down your phone, walk the dog, wear your mask and eat all your winter veggies. You’ll feel better. It’s almost time to plant seeds, and then the rest of the daffodils will start blooming, right on schedule.

If you are going to plant your own garden this year, now if a good time to go through some of the seed catalogues that have been arriving weekly. It’s almost time to start sowing seeds to nurture inside, while waiting for spring to arrive. https://www.almanac.com/gardening/planting-calendar/MD/Easton#

“On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there’s no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.”
–Maya Angelou

I don’t know about you, but I am ready to curl up into a little ball, and burrow into a nest of protective blankets on the sofa for the next couple of weeks. The new year is not going according to plan. I feel like retreating, and keeping warm and safe in my cozy lair. It’s hard to stir myself enough to cook dinner. That is a self-indulgent fantasy that won’t come true anytime soon. There are deadlines to meet, a dog to walk, and a couple of growling tummies every night that cannot be ignored by magical thinking. Instead, I will compromise with some easy loaded and stuffed-to-the-gills, hot, baked potatoes. And by turning off the talking heads and going to bed early with my stack of Christmas gift books. (A New Year’s Resolution I made was to read more. I hope it was one of yours, too!)

One of my culinary pursuits is perfecting potato delivery systems. I aspire to making the perfect French fry, which has been a decade-long quest. I have decided that I am terrible at making fries from scratch. However I slice or dice the potatoes, I never seem to fry the frites of my dreams. I compromise by frying up frozen, store-bought shoestring potatoes. And in these stress-y days, that is OK. Store-bought are reliably crisp, tender-on-the-inside and importantly, hot.

Baking potatoes at home is much easier. Baked potatoes do not need searing hot peanut oil (or canola, grapeseed, corn, vegetable, olive or peanut oils) with an expensive immersive deep fat fryer, with a sensitive (and accurate) thermometer. Nope. Baked potatoes just need an oven. I can do that.

For a plain Jane baked potato I use a russet potato that weighs about 10 or 11 ounces. (I only know that because I weighed the two I have in the kitchen just now.) I think you know your potato preferences, so find one of a pleasing heft, and proceed.

I pierce the potato skin with a cooking fork a few times, wrap the potato in a paper towel, and pop it into the microwave for 3 minutes on high. (You can skip this step if you are opposed to microwaves. Some people have higher standards.) Then I place the steaming potato on the rack in the oven, which has been preheated to 400°F. After about 45 minutes, I poke the potato with the cooking fork and see if it tender. When it is done, we proceed.

Now comes the fun. Just adding butter, salt and pepper is for purists. For the more adventurous, you can dabble with twice-baking the potato, which has been our latest go-to variation. Since we aren’t venturing out into the COVID world much these days, we have been trying to re-create our favorite (or aspirational) restaurant meals at home. Lately, when we are playing Let’s Go to Smith & Wollensky, we add twice baked potatoes to our homemade à la carte menu. “Jumbo Twice Baked Potato: aged cheddar, apple smoked bacon, scallions, sour cream – $12.” (https://www.smithandwollensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Dinner_Fall_Miami2020.pdf) (One upside to the pandemic is that we are saving a lot of money. Imagine if we flew to Miami to eat at Smith & Wollensky! Airfare, plus hotel, plus Uber, plus $12 for one potato. Money saved! I love being frugal.)

This recipe is for a large party of potato eaters, which we are not. But you can do the math yourself and use what you need: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/overstuffed-twice-baked-potatoes

Here is a sightly more simplified version: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cheesy-stuffed-baked-potatoes/

And for those nights when you do not feel like pretending to go to a pricy steakhouse, when you are curled up on the sofa, wrapped in your toasty blankets and ennui, you can add a variety of goodies to a potato as a special home-styled comforting treat for yourself. Luke the wonder dog wishes you will drop some bacon chunks in his direction, but he is always hopeful of little, everyday miracles, isn’t he?

Toppings
• Rummage through the fridge and look for leftover bacon, taco meat, chili, Sloppy Joe meat, barbecue, diced ham or chicken, shredded beef, smoked salmon, shrimp, pepperoni, crumbled sausage
• Cheeses: Cheddar, gorgonzola, Colby, feta, mozzarella, gruyere, Monterey Jack, Swiss
• Greek yogurt, sour cream, hummus, guacamole
• Broccoli, chives, green onion, green pepper, mushrooms, corn, tomatoes, olives, capers, jalapeño slices, caramelized onions, leeks
• Fried egg and Sriracha
• Old Bay, steak sauce, barbecue sauce, pesto, honey mustard

Let’s enjoy our daily comforts, as we venture out into the cold new year. Stay warm. Curl up with a good book. Spring is in its way.

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
― James Baldwin

2020 was complicated. Let’s ratchet down a notch and revel in simplicity while we try to adjust to our new year’s resolutions. Let’s roast a chicken. We can pretend to multi-task by reading a book, and enjoying a warm cup of tea. Winter is going to kick in soon. It’s time to burrow in.

Winter brings out the primal cook in me. It seems basic wisdom to turn on the oven, and bake, and roast, and generate a little more heat. (Remind me of this urge when I am whinging on about how tired I am of the long, torpid summertime heat…)

I would love to have a large, cozy kitchen, with a faded chintz slipcovered armchair and a lazy lap-sitting cat who would inspire me to write humorous tales about our happy little suburban lives. Instead, I am sure my kitchen looks much like yours, with ephemeral postcards, photos and receipts held up by magnets on the fridge, a Sunday book section still begging to be read, a drift of bills and papers I mean to get to soon, coffee cups in the sink and the dog toys scattered where we least expect to find them, particularly when we are barefoot and it is dark. Dog toys have replaced the bane that was Legos.

I may not have the trappings of an orderly dream kitchen, but I can close my eyes and dreamily drift along, buoyed by the aroma of roasted chicken wafting through the house. I can enjoy the illusion of a well-ordered life when I follow this easy peasy recipe for roasted chicken from our friends at Food52. Not only does it warm the house, and the cockles of my jaded heart, but it also provides two meals for us, and a couple of little snackums for the dog and that wretched complaining cat.

The Best Roasted Chicken

http://food52.com/recipes/24217-the-best-roast-chicken-with-garlic-and-herb-pan-sauce

I also appreciated that except for having to procure the chicken, everything else was in the cabinet (or fridge) at home. I hate finding out suddenly, halfway through a recipe, that shallots are a key ingredient – because I never buy shallots. Or saffron.

Honestly. I wouldn’t pull an odious trick like that on you, Gentle Reader. Because you, like me, can find the basics in your kitchen: garlic, salt and pepper, and wine. (Truth: I did have to use dried thyme, because the thyme and rosemary plants have been long-neglected in the outdoor container garden. I think they have freeze dried. Even the basil plants are looking a little long-in-the-tooth. But we always have wine…)

It was a little unnerving setting the temperature so high (480°F!), I must say. But that heat incinerated the two slices of pepperoni that slipped off the pizza a couple of weeks ago; ones that I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning off the floor of the oven yet. Thanks, Food52 for the deelish recipe!
Here is a roasted chicken recipe from Bon Appétit magazine. It sounds divine, but I worry I would forget to change the cooking temperature midway through. I tend to drift away and read, and unless I set the scary, heart-attack-inducing timer, I might forget…

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/roast-chicken-with-rosemary-lemon-and-honey

And finally, here is a Herb-and-Lemon Roasted Chicken recipe, originally from Food & Wine magazine, dissected by the guys at The Bitten Word. They are generally hilarious, and yet are so sensible! This recipe called for herb butter to be placed under the chicken skin, and then for one to flip the bird halfway through the cooking process. They were outraged! And there I was being peevish about remembering to change a temperature! Maybe that’s where the cat gets her howling and complaining ways?

http://www.thebittenword.com/thebittenword/2008/04/herb-and-lemon.html#more

“On the nights I stuffed myself full of myths, I dreamed of college, of being pumped full of all the old knowledge until I knew everything there was to know, all the past cultures picked clean like delicious roasted chicken.”
― Lauren Groff