As You Wish: A Party from the Pantry

-->

Be ready. Stock the fridge and the pantry with big, happy, wintry foods that set up quick and settle deep (beany-beery chili, corn chips and hearty veggies, a few good breads and cheeses). Make sure you’ve got plenty of firewood, some beer and wine. Pull out the folding table, extra chairs, some board games, plastic utensils. Nothing fancy. All you need now are one or two very good friends and a miracle.

With almost no planning and a great deal of luck this weekend, I conjured such a miracle in the middle of a storm of foul moods and foul weather.

Every December my husband’s impending birthday seems to suck him down into the Pit Of Despair. He’ll shackle himself with worry over possible ideas for celebrating. He’ll list, and then methodically reject, all kinds of outings, meals, cakes, and general family merriment. He will mope around the house for days, terrorized by the threat of another year passing with nothing to show for it.

“I don’t want a party,” he’ll declare. But then, inevitably, about 18 hours before the big day, he will realize that only being around friends and family will cure him of his annual birthday blues.

I’ve spent the last twenty years building up an immunity to his birthday malaise, so I refused to be sucked into his Fire Swamp of drama. Instead, like the raspy old Albino, I set about nursing my poor husband back to his pre-birthday health.

Thankfully this year the winter weather predicted for his big day forced the cancellation of many regularly scheduled activities, and our neighbors were feeling a bit restless. So when we summoned them over on the morning of the event, they gratefully agreed to storm our castle for a few hours of merry-making.

We spread out a lavish buffet of mis-matched munchies. Ben happily chunked together a pot of his famous turkey chili while I steamed up some ciabatta (recipe here). There was no time for cake, so our friends brought a big tray of homemade holiday cookies. (Even with no chocolate coating, they went down easy.) 
Brave wet friends tramped in, dragging dominoes and soggy children behind them.

Wine flowed, fire crackled, sarcasm reigned. Songs were sung, games were played, and no one bothered to keep score. My husband was revived. Love and laughter had conquered all.

Ironically, this is the second consecutive year that we’ve thrown an impromptu birthday party for my husband. I should have known it would come to this.

Next year, I’ll be ready for my true love’s annual drama, but still I’ll wait for him to figure out the solution. Just when he’s almost dead from the stress of facing another birthday, I’ll remind him that we simply need to take stock of our assets, then call in the reinforcements. With my brains, his chili, and maybe a holocaust cloak thrown in for good measure, we’ll be prepared to be spontaneous.

As you wish, dear, As you wish.

(photo credits: MGM)

Ben’s Turkey Chili: A Loose Guideline

2 lbs ground turkey

5-6 peppers (sweet red and green, banana, chili – whatever combination you like)

6 cloves garlic

2 cups celery

6 dried ancho peppers, reconstituted and seeds removed

28-oz can of crushed tomato

1-2 bottles of dark, malty beer

4 tablespoons cumin

3-4 cans of beans (pinto, black, roman, cannelloni – whatever combination you like)

Garnishes: chopped cilantro, tomatoes, shredded cheddar, chopped jalepeno peppers, variety of hot sauces, sour cream, etc.

In a large skillet, brown turkey and remove to a large pot.

In the same skillet, sauté peppers, onion, celery and garlic until soft. Add this to the turkey.

Place dried anchos in blender with a little water and grind. Dump this into the pot with meat and vegetables.

Add beer, tomatoes, cumin and beans. Throw in a little water, until pot is 1/3 full

Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. Taste. Add more water if necessary, or replace with beer.

Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Simmer for another 30 minutes or all day until guests start getting cranky.

Serve warm with fresh bread and allow guests to garnish to their hearts’ delight.

The Making of a Chicken Soup Snob

I am Jewish. I am a mother. Therefore I must make chicken soup.

This legacy is no small burden. The ability to conjure massive pots of steaming liquid gold out of a few bloody bones and a fistful of herbs is a critical part of the job description.

According to stereotype, being a Jewish mother means that I am required to ply everyone who enters my house with mountains of heavy food. In particular, I should supply those foods of our Eastern European ancestors, such as leaden sweet and savory kugels, over-baked chicken, Heinz-infused brisket, and any dish whose primary source of nutrition is schmaltz. Should you, as my guest, dare to suggest that these meals are imperfect in any way, I need only employ a little spit and a few carefully-chosen Yiddishisms to place the curse of the evil eye upon you. This food is what my mother cooked, and what her mother cooked, and her mother before her. Ask any Jewish daughter and you will get the same answer: Don’t mess with a Jewish mother's cooking. Ever. (Unless you’re an ungrateful, over-confident, budding foodie Jewish daughter like me. But we'll get to that.)

Learning to make chicken soup is a serious right of passage. I missed my first opportunities to learn to cook -- at the knees of my mother in the kitchen of my childhood. Mom claims, and I can attest, that I was always too busy in the other room reading to be bothered with helping to prepare family dinners. So when I was twenty-something, living away from home for the first time and not thinking a whit about cooking or my potential future status as a  Jewish Mother, my mother had the foresight to send me a completely unsolicited note in the mail:

“I didn’t want you to ever say ‘I wish my mother had taught me how to make chicken soup,’ so here is my recipe…”

My mother was thinking ahead. Way ahead. She sent this note about a decade before I even had conditioned myself to remain in the house while a chicken carcass was bubbling away on the stove (the smell was repellent). So when I received the recipe, inked in her flawless cursive hand, I carefully tucked it away for future use. For years that recipe languished among the tangle of recipes that I had inherited from dozens of well-meaning relatives. I cracked the spine of my recipe binder only when I needed to add a new, equally unsolicited recipe to the stash.

But mothers always know, don’t they? My mom knew that sooner or later, fate would step in to squat me squarely and inevitably into her shoes. Eventually I’d need to serve chicken soup to my own family. I might as well learn how to do it right.

Before I could say "kaynahora," I had a house of my own, a husband at the office, and a growing family to nourish. I was forced to overcome my aversion to the smell of cooking meat, and I began boiling up bottomless vats of chicken soup with matzah balls to see us through the season of sneezes and wheezes. I even learned to enjoy the aroma of onions and chicken pieces slopping their rich flavors together in a boiling hot stockpot. Matzah ball soup is now one of the most requested soups in our household, and desperate is the day when I must turn to stock-from-a-box for any of my other soups. I’ve become a chicken soup snob.

It has taken a lot of practice, trial and error, and even some advice from the MOTH (a shrewd kitchen maven if ever there was one) to become comfortable with the alchemy of chicken soup. Over time and at great risk of eternal damnation, I’ve adjusted some of the details of my mother’s recipe (see “salt” and “herbs”), but Mom gave me a baseline from which to start, and for that I am grateful. I’ve completed my culinary conversion and now I understand: homemade chicken soup really does make everything feel (and taste) better.

As with most of my recipes, the one that follows is a fairly loose interpretation, with lots of room for personalization. Again, I owe my mother an apology for halving the salt, and for replacing some of the parsley with a bundle of fresh herbs. But at least there’s no dill (which is certainly curse-worthy in her soup world). 

No matter how you prepare it, I am confident that you’ll agree that there is just no substitute for homemade chicken soup. If you are lucky, that soup will be made with love by a genuine Jewish Mother who Knows What She’s Talking About.

This Jewish Mother's Chicken Soup

• 2-3 pounds assorted chicken parts (I like to use 4 raw, bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and 4 chicken drumsticks, but chicken carcasses, including backs and necks – previously baked or raw -- work just as well)
• 3-4 large carrots, in 3-inch chunks
• 3-4 stalks of celery, in 3-inch chunks
• 2-3 medium yellow onions, sliced in half, with or without skins
• 3-4 cloves garlic (optional)
• 2 tablespoons salt plus 2 bouillon cubes
• a large handful of fresh thyme, oregano, sage, or a combination of all three (20-30 sprigs)
• approx. ¼ cup dried parsley, or 3-4 stems of fresh parsley
• approx. 2 teaspoons ground black pepper (if you have whole peppercorns, you can use a teaspoon of these instead)
• 3-4 bay leaves

Throw all the ingredients into a 20-quart stockpot. Fill the stockpot with water to about 2 inches below the lip and boil it for an hour, stirring occasionally.

Remove the chicken parts.

Reduce the heat to simmer and continue cooking for 2-3 more hours.

Taste the broth and adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Strain out the vegetables and herbs.

Cool the soup in the refrigerator overnight.

Skim the fat (schmaltz) off the top of the soup and save it in a plastic container. This will keep in the freezer for months and it is perfect for making matzah balls later. (Check out this cool iPad cookbook by Michael Ruhlman to learn more about what else you can do with schmaltz.)

De-bone and chop the chicken to use for anything your heart desires. You can place it in the bottom of individual soup bowls when serving the soup, or turn it into the base for chicken pot pie, chicken salad, chicken burritos, or any number of other dishes.

To make matzah balls:

Go buy yourself a box of Streit’s Matzo Meal, some canola oil, a dozen eggs, and some plain seltzer water. Follow the recipe on the box, substituting a couple of tablespoons of schmaltz for some of the oil, and using all seltzer instead of plain water. (This will create light, fluffy floaters, which are almost universally preferred over sinkers.) 

Cook the matzah balls in the broth, not boiling water, as the recipe on the box suggests. Why would you waste all that good flavor?

Serve hot soup with matzah balls and chopped chicken, if you wish.

Note: Broth freezes well. Matzah balls tend to change their texture when defrosted.

Detox In A Box: Quick (or Slightly Longer) Kale and Sausage Soup

Re-entry into my version of reality after a trip to the ancestral homelands in Buffalo, NY is always a bumpy ride. After eating my weight in fried foods and custard, not to mention the survival food consumed during 16 hours on the road, there is always a serious adjustment period.

Like most of the Midwest, Buffalonians eat lots and lots of heavily salted meat. It's also hard to find a meal that doesn't include french fries. Salad, the primary vegetable offering, comes in one variety: iceberg lettuce, a tomato and a cucumber – although sometimes croutons make an appearance. And no one skips dessert. Ever. In fact, double dessert is not uncommon. And of course mom’s cookies are available for snacking on 24/7.

This lifestyle is fun when I’m on vacation, but any more than a day or two of this and my digestive system begins plotting terrorist activity. By day three I’m ready to declare myself a full-fledged vegan and I’m silently pledging to kick up the workouts, become a personal trainer, a nutritionist, and/or a full-time health foods writer upon my return to Connecticut.

But being the sensible girl that I am, I usually begin my new regimen with my own version of a detoxification diet. And by the time the cruciferous veggies, whole grains and beans begin working their magic, all thoughts of career, um, change? have vanished.

I have no shortage of detox remedies. This week, because I was in a hurry and craving kale, I pulled out my quick and easy Kale and Sausage Soup recipe. Yes, it has meat in it, but once it’s all cooked down, you can drain and/or skim off most of the fat, and the soup becomes a lean, mean, body-cleansing machine.

This recipe is quite flexible, and once in a while I give myself permission to Sandra Lee it. That is, I simply remove the pre-bagged, pre-canned and pre-boxed packaging and dump it all into a pot. By the time I’ve loaded the travel laundry into the washer and sifted through the junk mail, the soup is ready to eat.

Conversely, when I have any time at all, I will buy, clean and chop my own kale and tomatoes, and if I’m uber-prepared and have made stock the week before, I’ll use my own chicken broth. Any one of these touches can take this soup from very good to great, and with the exception of the stock, none of them takes that much extra work.

Still, if you need a quick fix for settling that rebellion in your belly, there’s no need to get fancy. This is digestive warfare -- do what you need to do.

Quick (Or Slightly Longer) Kale and Sausage Soup

If you’re in a hurry	If you’ve got a little more time
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 lb of Italian sweet sausage (loose sausage meat, not casings, is easier)	Buy the good stuff from the butcher
4 large cloves of garlic, sliced
1 – 3 tsp crushed red pepper, to taste
6 cups (1 ½ boxes) of chicken stock	Use your own stock, or even “Better than Bouillon” works well and lives up to its name
1 can peeled, chopped tomatoes	Place 2-3 fresh tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds, until skins begin to tear. Remove from water, cool for a minute, then peel skins. De-seed the tomatoes (if you’re ambitious -- and wearing an apron), then chop. Discard skins and seeds before adding to soup.
about 8 oz (½ bag) of chopped, cleaned, frozen kale	Buy loose kale and clean and chop it yourself –- use about 3/4 of a bunch, and cook for an extra 10 minutes or so once you’ve added it to the pot.
1 can chick peas	(Okay, you could cook your own beans and also use some of the bean water to thicken and flavor the soup, but let’s not get crazy.)

• In a large pot, brown the sausage in the olive oil over medium heat.
• When sausage is almost fully browned, add the garlic and crushed red pepper (start out conservatively – you can always add more pepper at the end).
• Let mixture cook for 2-3 minutes. When garlic begins to brown, add the liquids.
• Add chicken stock and tomatoes, including the tomato juices, to the cooked sausage mixture.
• Let simmer for 10 to 15 minutes before adding the kale.
• Cook the kale in the soup until tender.
• Drain chickpeas and add them in the last few minutes of cooking.
• Check the heat. Add more crushed red pepper if necessary.
• Serve with a crusty ciabatta and a good red wine. If you’re in detox mode, substitute these with whole wheat bread and good clear water.

________________________________

Survival food for a long road trip across a food wasteland

Here is the list of fundamental travel foods we’ve identified after many many many hours and days on the road. All food groups are represented: sweet, crunchy, salty, caffeinated and the pure junk needed just to keep your jaw moving and your eyes open. Of course you could add to this list (trail mix is a nice treat, along with coffee, if that’s your thing), but this is our idea of the bare minimum that you must pack if you 're going to survive the journey across the long, dreary culinary wilderness of I-90.

Note: although many similar items are now available at rest stops on I-90, waiting to stumble upon said rest stops, the quality of said items and/or the price of "fresh" produce on the road should be enough to deter you from taking a risk. Just pack these up ahead of time and the trip will be more pleasant for everyone. Trust me. I know.

• Pita chips or pretzels
• PB&J sandwiches
• Baby carrots
• Apples
• Twizzler’s or Swedish Fish
• Real, homemade chocolate chip cookies
• Lots of water
• 64 oz. iced tea, to start