A Skillful Endeavor

Let’s pretend that today is the tomorrow I promised, shall we? Okay, so welcome back! I presume that you’re here for a recipe, but first I must whine to you about the near-disaster that was my latest pasta making experience. I’ve made pasta in the past and, without the benefit of a nonna looking over my shoulder, it took quite a few tries to get it right. But after a lot of practice and a few consecutive good batches, I closed my cookbook, pronounced myself a pasta expert, and felt sure every future attempt would be met with resounding success. But I’m here to tell you that there is a reason Italian home cooks make fresh egg pasta on a regular basis, and it’s not just because it’s tasty stuff. It’s also because pasta making is a craft. An art form. A skillful endeavor that does not respond well to cocky know-it-alls. Pasta puts you in your place.

My place was my kitchen, at eight in the evening the night before our last wine club meeting. I had volunteered, no, begged to make ravioli for our wine pairing dinner and I was so absolutely sure of my skills that I hadn’t even bothered to start early. Since I was a pasta expert, I thought, I could have a leisurely supper with James, a few after-dinner drinks, and then just whip up a quick batch of ravioli before hitting the hay. And I have to say, things started out well. I put a mound of flour on my counter, made a well in the center and deposited six eggs, and then stirred the whole mess together. When a soft dough started to form, I got my hands in there and kneaded until my arms were sore. Then I put the dough on a plate, covered it tightly, and left it to rest for half an hour. So far so good, right? Not quite.

You see, the day before I made pasta, James and I decided to try a new class at our gym. The class centered around the TRX training system, which looks more like a sex toy than a piece of exercise equipment if you ask me. Consisting of two nylon straps hanging from the ceiling, the TRX trainer was developed by a former Navy SEAL and allows you to perform a variety of strength training moves using your own body weight as resistance. Our class even came with a drill sergeant of an instructor to maximize the excruciating pain, I mean, efficiency, of the workout. And boy howdy, it was a good workout. The next morning I could hardly lift my arms to shampoo my hair.  You’d think the words “Navy SEAL” would have been my first clue. And you’d think I’d know better than to use the soreness of my arm muscles as an indicator of pasta dough readiness. But then, you’d be wrong.

When the time came to thin out my pasta on the pasta machine, it was clear that I’d really screwed up. The dough was sticky and it tore every time I tried to pass it through the rollers. Little bits of pasta dough lodged themselves in every crevice of the pasta machine, making it harder and harder to turn the crank. After several tries it started to become painfully clear that this pasta was just not gonna cut it. Tired and frustrated, I hurled the useless lump of dough into the garbage bin and considered my options. Cancel the dinner party? Smuggle in some store-bought ravioli? What would Nonna do? Well, I’ll tell you what Nonna wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t be defeated by an under-kneaded batch of pasta. So, hoping to make her proud, I took a deep breath, dusted off my apron, and started over.

By this time it was nearing ten, but I didn’t care. I was determined to knead that darn pasta til the cows came home, or at least until one of my arms detached itself from my body. And this time I got it right. When I finally stopped kneading, the dough was soft and smooth as baby skin and had no sign of the stickiness that had plagued my earlier batch. While the dough rested, I quickly mixed together the filling: Dungeness crab, cream cheese, lemon zest, mint, thyme. James and I set up a ravioli assembly line and churned out four dozen in twenty minutes flat, stashing them in the freezer as they were made. Just before midnight, we tumbled into bed, so tired and so proud, and oh-so-ready to eat those suckers.

The next evening, Sam and Dave arrived at our doorstep bearing the most beautiful antipasto platter I have ever seen. We devoured it anyway, along with the rest of our menu: crab ravioli with fava bean succotash, pan fried black cod over summer panzanella, fresh strawberry tart with chantilly cream. Despite the fact that I ate half the tart myself, I think the ravioli was the star of the show. And I really wish I had a recipe to share with you, but the late hour and the pasta frustration meant the filling was thrown together in a rather haphazard fashion. I will promise to make it again, more carefully, so that I can give you the formula, or you can try making your own haphazard filling that I’m sure will be just as delicious. But in the meantime, I will share with you a recipe for a super-easy cheese spread that we ate on baguette slices alongside James’s characteristically pink prosecco cocktails. It’s not ravioli, but it’s still good. And, most importantly, there’s no kneading required.

Minted Feta Spread

1 cup whole milk ricotta
2/3 cup feta, diced
1 cup mint, roughly chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper, to taste

Place feta, mint, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Add ricotta and blend until thoroughly mixed. Add salt, if necessary, and pepper to taste. Chill mixture for at least an hour or up to overnight. Serve with slices of crusty baguette. And breath mints. Lots and lots of breath mints.

Going and Going

Oh my.  What a busy couple of weeks we’ve had around here.  It started with a few “weekend” renovation projects that just kept going and going, and it ended this past Saturday with another successful wine club meeting.  We tasted four very different wines from Sicily and ate way, way too much [or was that just me?] at our family-style, Italian-inspired supper.  If only all meetings could be so much fun!  I’ll be back tomorrow to fill you in on our menu and, if you’re good, I might just post a recipe or two.  But the photo above should give you some serious hints about one of the courses from our supper and, without getting into too much detail today, I will just say that I now have an even greater respect for all the Italian grandmothers of the world.  They’re not just incredibly infection-resistant.  They also have stamina, people.  Serious, serious stamina.

Totally Unpretentious

When our friends Sam and Dave agreed to start a wine-tasting club with us, James and I were beyond thrilled. Me because wine+friends=par-tay, and James because, well, where there’s wine there’s cheese. And we all know how James feels about cheese. I had previously suggested the idea to another couple, but before I had even finished my sentence they wrinkled their noses like I’d just let a big one and said, “Sounds pretentious.”

My first thought was that they’d somehow contracted swine flu and the high fever was hampering their judgement, or else they’d finally just gone absolutely bonkers. But after further consideration, I started to see where they were coming from. It’s true that, in some circles, wine culture can tend toward the snooty side of things, intimidating the uninitiated with unpronounceable labels and a specialized vocabulary that could stump a spelling bee champ. But honest to goodness, that’s not what we had in mind. Because, frankly, we’re just not that highfalutin. So when the six founding members of La Cantina Sociale [every club needs a name, or else what do you put on the official membership cards?] clinked glasses during our inaugural champagne toast, we each made a solemn vow. We would eat a lot of good food, we would drink a lot of good wine, and above all we would remain perfectly, utterly, totally unpretentious.

In preparation for our first meeting, a bubbly and fondue party, James and I went searching for downloadable wine-tasting note sheets. Not because we have anything intelligent to say about wine in general, but because we wanted to remember the wines we liked most. And, you know, that gets tricky after you’ve been through a few bottles. But even after thoroughly wearing out The Google, we still hadn’t found exactly what we wanted. Some were too elaborate, others were too ugly, and most were, not surprisingly, way too snobby. So, in keeping with our typical DIY style, we decided to make one ourselves. Of course, what I really mean is that James sat at the computer doing all the hard work while I leaned over his shoulder and barked orders into his ear. Boy, we make a good team.

Anyhow, without further ado, I present to you our very own downloadable wine-tasting scorecards. [Click image below to download PDF.] Printed two to a page, these little beauties have everything you need and nothing you don’t. On the front you will find spaces to list key information about the wine you’re tasting and a section to record any thoughts you might have about it. There’s also a row of numbers across the top to be used in a blind tasting. On the back, you’ll find a list of some commonly and not-so-commonly used descriptive terms, for use in those situations when you just can’t decide whether that interesting background note is more gym shoes or cat urine. Of course, if you just want to use them as coasters, that’s okay with us too. Whatever you need to do to keep things — say it with me now — totally unpretentious.

Just Texan Enough

I’m sure I’m not the first person to look at a big bowl of jam-destined berries and wonder how many margaritas I could make instead. And if I am, I’m quite happy to continue living in denial. I’ve made a few kinds of strawberry jam this year, but this version is definitely my favorite. Lightly spiked with lime and tequila, this recipe is just Texan enough to cure my summertime homesickness while making a serious dent in my local berry bumper crop. All gussied up in ribbons and bows, a jar of this stuff is just the ticket to securing a regular place at a friend’s table or erasing all memory of the merlot you dribbled on the new white rug. Unless your friends don’t like margaritas. In which case, I’d hate to meet your enemies.

And now for the obligatory safety announcement regarding home canning. I am going to tell you how I go about canning jam, but be aware that it differs slightly from the method recommended by the USDA. If you go hunting for jam recipes on the interweb, you will see that there are almost as many opinions about how to safely process and store it as there are flavor combinations. If you’re new to canning, I recommend you mosey on over here and read what the US government has to say about how not to kill yourself with fruit preserves. Try not to get overwhelmed by all the frightening language about mutating, flesh-eating, kitten-killing bacteria. James’s nonna recently told me that she cans tomatoes by getting them hot, putting them in jars, and wrapping the jars in a blanket overnight. She’s in her eighties and is still kicking, so either there is some margin of error in the canning process, or Italian grandmothers really are as superhuman as they seem.

Strawberry Lime Jam

2 kg (4.4 lbs) strawberries, cleaned and hulled
1.6 kg (3.5 lbs) white sugar
Zest and juice of 2 limes
30 ml (1 oz) tequila

Chill a small plate in the freezer for jam testing. Sterilize jars and lids. [I use my dishwasher's sterilization cycle.]

Measure out slightly more than the prescribed amount of tequila, then find a creative way to dispose of the excess. Repeat this step until you feel like the high queen of jam universe.

Put the strawberries, sugar, lime zest and juice, and tequila in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Using a potato masher, partially crush the fruit while combining it with the sugar. Place the mixture over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Lower the heat to medium and maintain a gentle boil, continuing to stir very frequently and skimming off foam as it rises to the top. The mixture will thicken and darken in color as it cooks. To test jam for proper consistency, drop a small spoonful onto the chilled plate. Tilt the plate downward, letting the jam run in a line down the plate. Draw a line with your finger through the line of the jam and count to five while keeping the plate tilted. If the line has not reconnected, the jam is done and you are ready to can.

Fill sterilized jars with hot jam and wipe the jar rims with a clean, damp paper towel to remove any drips. Place a lid and ring on each jar and finger-tighten the lids. When all jars are filled, place as many as will fit into a large pot of boiling water and leave them in the boiling water bath for five minutes. Carefully remove jars from the water bath using a jar lifter [a cheap piece of equipment worth every penny] and place them on a kitchen towel or cooling rack. After five minutes, check the seals on all of the jars. If there are any that have not sealed, put them in the refrigerator and eat those first. Cool the sealed jars upright on the counter overnight. In the morning, re-tighten the lids and store in a cool, dark place.

Makes 2 liters (8 cups) of jam.

The Pressure of Perfection

Hi, my name is Kristina, and I’m a procrastinator. There, I said it. Doesn’t everybody feel better now? I did for a minute there, until I started to feel my mother’s so-what-else-is-new eye roll coming from 2,000 miles away.

Exhibit A: the anniversary picnic that never was. Oh, I had good intentions. But, you see, stuff happened. First, I couldn’t think of anything to make. So I went searching for picnic-suitable recipes and I found lots of them. Too many, in fact. And then I couldn’t decide which ones to make. And when I finally did decide what to make, I wasn’t sure how best to pack it all up for transport. So I trekked over to my favorite thrift store and came home with some fun ideas to share with you. And then my friend Sam, probably wondering why a dinner billed as low key and easy was taking so damn long to come together, sent me a very supportive email saying how much she was looking forward to reading about the picture-perfect picnic. And I beamed with pride, thinking, heck yes, it is going to be perfect. Perfect. Per-fect. The word echoed in my head. And the pressure of perfection started to mount, and I started to feel like this little picnic was shaping up to be more than I had bargained for. So then I did what any logical picnic-planner would do when overcome with uncertainty and self-doubt: I prayed for rain.

Now, at this point I think it’s important for me to say that all my begging and pleading didn’t quite result in the biblical downpour I was hoping for, so don’t send me any prayer requests just yet. But, despite the fact that we’re squarely in the middle of June, we did get a few days’ worth of magnificent, sun-shielding cloud cover and even, dare I say it, a couple lonely drops of precipitation. [This probably has more to do with complex weather systems and dispensational climate change than any of the numerous rain dances I attempted, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.]  Takeout was ordered and the anniversary picnic was — officially, indefinitely — postponed.

My granny likes to tell me that god has a plan for my life, and I’m starting to think she might be right. Because the sun did shine again on Saturday morning, but only for a few short hours, just long enough to pile into the car with some friends and hit up a you-pick strawberry farm on Oldfield Road. We came home looking like we’d killed and eaten a moose with our bare hands but we had fifteen pounds of ruby-ripe beauties to show for it. And what do you do when your tongue is entirely ulcerated but your refrigerator still runneth over with strawberries? You make jam. Lots and lots of jam.

You might be wondering how two average people and one pint-sized dog intend to eat fifteen jars [yes, really] of strawberry jam, but the truth is, we don’t. Sure, we like jam as much as the next guy, but it’s only June. And we still have blueberries, peaches, plums, apricots, and blackberries left to go. So while some of the preserved fruits of our labor will inevitably end up spread on toast or baked into a crostata, most of it will be given away. Because in case you didn’t know, folks, jam is the original hostess gift.

I’m not usually the kind of person who gets excited about the formalities and traditions of entertaining. I welcome elbows on my table and I couldn’t care less if you don’t know which fork to use. But the custom of the hostess gift is one I’m happy to continue, and I’ll tell you why. When your friends have you over, even for the simplest of suppers, it requires a measure of effort on their part. They cleaned their house for you. They cooked for you. They kept your drink topped up all night and, when you were just tipsy enough, they sent you home in a taxi while they assumed the dishwashing duties. And while they were scrubbing pots and pans into the wee hours of the morning, you were drifting off to sleep, dreaming wistfully of the next time they’ll invite you over. And invite you over they will, because before you stumbled down their front steps and into the impatient taxicab below, you pressed into their saintly hands a jar of your very own, super special, homemade-with-love strawberry jam.

Speaking of jam, my own pot needs stirring. Recipe forthcoming. Stay tuned.

My Favorite Story of All

Precisely one week from today, James and I will celebrate four years of wedded bliss. Translation for any innocent, doe-eyed singles in the room: thirty days of wedded bliss plus three years and eleven months of successfully resisting the urge to hurl each other out the window of a speeding motor vehicle. Relax, Mom, I’m only joking. Though I’ve come this close to it a time or two, I’m not ready to kill him just yet. I really do still find him adorable. Especially the way he lounges on the couch in his underpants, clipping his tree-climbing toenails and tossing them across the room — with astoundingly bad aim — at an empty beer bottle. I’m telling you, my husband is hot, hot, hot.

Toenails notwithstanding, I do tend to get a little sentimental as our anniversary approaches. Every year around this time, I start to think back to the early days of our relationship, when we were two young students in France, frolicking through fields of sunflowers and sipping cheaper-than-water wine. [On one occasion, we discovered we were inadvertently sipping a surprisingly drinkable French cooking wine. But that’s another story for another time.] I look forward to someday telling our children about how I first saw their father through a dormitory window, how he brushed past me on his way to put the moves on another girl, how it only took one conversation with me to change his mind. How we spent two years in two different countries making countless long distance phone calls and shedding hot tears of star-crossed love. And then I’ll tell them my favorite story of all: how their father proposed to me in the most romantic way imaginable. How it was two years to the day of our first date — a Bastille Day picnic in a Parisian park — when he showed up on my Texan doorstep, whisked me away to Paris, and proposed to me under the very same fireworks that showered our first kiss.

Now, I’m not generally a supporter of lying, but I do think there are certain times when a lie seems more appropriate than the truth. Like, say, when the six year-old you’re babysitting emerges from his parents’ bedroom waving an enormous hot pink unmentionable and asking, “Why does Mommy have a light saber in her drawer?” And, though you may disagree, I think that ever-so-slightly embellishing one’s own engagement story is a perfectly acceptable use of selective dishonesty, especially when the actual engagement happened via transcontinental telephone and went a little something like this:

Me: So, do you think we should get married or something?

Him: Ummmm….okay.

All this is to say that James and I are planning to celebrate this anniversary with a picnic in the park. Because if there’s one thing I can’t get enough of, it’s got to be [ever-so-slightly embellished] picnics.

Exciting! New! Project!

Hi, Mom. I know why you’re here. Besides wanting to learn how to cook (I kid, I kid), you’re here because you love me. Because you gave birth to me. And because that somehow obligates you to show unwavering support for whatever exciting! new! project! I have undertaken. And boy, we’ve been through a few of those, haven’t we? Remember baton twirling? Oboe lessons? Duck raising? Rest assured that this latest endeavor won’t break any windows or burst any eardrums or peck any eyes out. This time, I’m just here to write.

Well, I’m here for two reasons really. For starters, my husband and I have been renovating our home for going on a year now, and we have finally decided that enough is enough. We’re not ending the renovation, oh no. We’ve come too far to turn back now. We’re just ending the isolation that comes with tripping over paint cans, sweeping up sawdust, and having no real furniture to speak of. In short, we’re ready to see our friends again. You can’t really blame us for not hosting any fabulous dinner parties throughout the building process because, for much of it, we didn’t have a functioning kitchen. But now we do. Now the majority of the dirty work is complete. And though we may not have any switch plate covers for a few more weeks, and we may be living out of boxes for a few more months, the time has come to reclaim our social life. I know you might think I’m crazy, but I have a little theory about dinner parties. Want to hear it? Here goes. Deciding to throw a dinner party is like deciding to have a baby. You never think you have enough money. You never think your house is quite ready. You never think you’ll find the right time. But the truth is, if you keep waiting for all the stars to align, you might just end up waiting forever. So the point is, it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about cocktail hour or offspring, when the idea hits you, you just have to go for it. Hello? Mom? Pick yourself up off the floor. I am not pregnant. And if I were, this is not how I would tell you. I’d just leave a post-it note on your windshield: “Crap. Knocked up. Margaritas?”

The other reason I’m here is that my husband keeps urging me — with increasing fervor, I might add — to find myself a creative outlet. To his credit, I believe this clever maneuver is a sign that he has once and for all mastered the art of diplomatic husband-speak. Because you and I both know what he really means is, if I have to hear one more piece of Julia Child trivia I am going to smother you in your sleep, so help me god. And I’d rather write about food and parties than risk imminent death by suffocation, wouldn’t you?

So, to summarize:

1. Screw the renovation, it’s party time.

2. You’re invited to the party.

3. Still not pregnant. Watch for post-it.