Cooking & Eating

Not to Crack the Wind of a Poor Phrase

   Adam Zolkover

Yesterday in class, I posed the following riddle to my students: I will give you a list of ingredients, I told them, and you will tell me what the recipe is called.

Not to crack the wind of a poor phrase -- a Hamlet riddle

3 Eggs
2 Slices of Prosciutto
Crumbled Blue Cheese (Stella, or its international equivalent)
Pepper
Salt

Is it an omelet? they asked. It is, but that’s a genre, not the name. Is it a cheese omelet? A blue cheese omelet? A ham and cheese omelet? Is it just called — Stella? Finally, I gave them a hint: if something is rotten in the state of Denmark, I told them, it had better not be those eggs.

Then finally, one of them perked up: Is it a Hamlet? he asked, somewhat tentatively.

Yes! I proclaimed. A Hamlet. Or a Hamelet. Or, if you’re being extra fancy about it, a Hamelette!

They’ve been living with the poor mad Prince of Denmark for the past week and more. And yet — not a single one of them laughed.

At least I amuse myself.

Purple Sauerkraut, Well Garlicked

   Adam Zolkover
Purple Sauerkraut, Well Garlicked

One thing you should know about the making of sauerkraut is that it’s important to massage the shredded cabbage. You may pound it with a potato masher or with the end of a French rolling pin. And I always do, to start. But the goal of the exercise is to bruise the brassica bits, and induce them to yield up their water. The goal is to mix cabbage juice with salt, such that the vegetable essentially brines itself. And to accomplish this most effectively, hands are by far the best tool.

As I was making this batch of very purple sauerkraut, there was a moment when Sarah turned to say something to me and found me elbows deep in cabbage. I was moving it around, squeezing handfuls between my fingers, and apparently — says Sarah — singing softly to myself. So struck was she by my display of what she deemed pickling madness that she insisted on taking this photograph of my manual manipulations.

V-Day and the Snow

   Adam Zolkover
V-Day and the Snow

Yesterday, as the latest in Philadelphia’s series of serious winter storms began littering us with heavy, wet snow mixed in with pellets of ice and freezing rain — just about at the moment it became apparent that I wouldn’t be going outdoors, except perhaps with an oversized shovel — it occurred to me: I have on hand most of the ingredients belonging to several of my go-to V-Day culinary treats. But for none of those treats do I have all.

For chocolate mousse, for example, I am currently in possession of the eggs and the chocolate. But there is no cream to be found anywhere among my stores. For baked custard, I have saffron on hand, and (again) the eggs. But I’m all out of milk. For cake I lack frosting fixings, and for cookies chocolate chips. And I’d gladly whip up a mess of decadent French toast — a favorite of Sarah’s, and totally Valentine’s appropriate — except that in the absence of bread or dairy, what’s left might better be called an omelet.

Coming Soon to Philadelphia’s Science on Tap

   Adam Zolkover

I am pleased to announce that — thanks to the generous patronage of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and Mütter Museum, and thanks to my thoughtful friend Anna — I will be the featured speaker on April 14 at Philadelphia’s Science on Tap.

If you don’t know, Science on Tap is a monthly gathering at Philly’s National Mechanics bar and restaurant in which folks wander in to drink good beer, eat good food, and listen to an informal presentation by a scientist or other expert followed by lively conversation. The goal, say the Science on Tap folks, is to promote enthusiasm for science in a fun, spirited, and accessible way, in the sort of venue where people are at their most relaxed.

Split Pea Soup with Ham Hocks

   Adam Zolkover
Split Pea Soup with Ham Hocks

Split pea soup has a slightly unfortunate place in the landscape of American popular culture. Especially, I think, for fans of classic horror. Just to mention it in the same paragraph as Linda Blair or Jason Miller is enough to evoke the scene in The Exorcist. It’s enough for us to recall — with a vivid, sickening churn of the stomach — that moment when Father Karras challenges the poor, possessed Regan.

If that’s true, Karras insists, if my mother really is in hell, and you’re really the Devil, you must know her maiden name. What is it? What is it?

He steps forward to drive home his point, and Blair’s response comes in the form of liquid. A green, gloppy, almost laughably gross bucketful, complete with a splattering sound effect.

Beet Pancakes with Orange and Tarragon

   Adam Zolkover
Beet Pancakes with Orange and Tarragon

My kitchen sometimes seems to have a problem of over-abundance. It’s not a bad problem to have, you understand. It’s much better than the other thing. But in part because of where my produce comes from — CSAs, farmers’ markets, Sarah’s garden, and the like — I have a kind of limited control over what comes into the house. Which means that fairly often, I end up with strange surfeits or even stranger imbalances.

Six pounds of cabbage and no onions, you say? For me — not an uncommon occurrence.

This is a problem, I seem to recall, that I wrote about last summer when the issue of the day was squash. Zucchini has notoriously high yields anyway, I think I said. And by the height of the season — just about the time it’s no longer novel — there’s so much of it around that farmers are selling it for next to nothing, and you’re forced to resort to leaving midnight care packages on your neighbor’s steps just to keep your own stock under control.

Black Eyed Peas With Ham Hock

   Adam Zolkover
Black Eyed Peas with Ham Hock

We’re cutting it awfully close to the wire, here, for making a New Years themed blog post. But I wanted to share this one in particular before the calendar turned.

The thing with this recipe, and with black eyed peas in general, is that they’re good luck when eaten during that liminal space as we step from one year to the next. The thrust of the tradition is that they represent coins and prosperity. And that our eating them represents incoming cash.

Madeira, Wine, and The Sea

   Adam Zolkover
Madeira, Wine, and The Sea

There’s a moment in Edith Wharton’s piercingly funny, devastatingly beautiful novel, The Age of Innocence, when Mr. Sillerton Jackson — consummate dinner-guest and even more consummate gossip — weighs the relative burdens and benefits of dining in the home of the Archer family. The food, he muses, is inevitably far from good. But the conversation is sure to be fascinating. And at least — luckily, he thinks — the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape.

I’ve read The Age of Innocence many times over the years, and even taught it. But that comment — that at least the Madeira had gone round the Cape — has always confused me. Because what I’ve always known about Madeira wine is that it is very sweet (sort of like port), and that it is either very bad or very expensive (neither of which holds a whole lot of appeal). And nothing else about it has seemed particularly relevant to my life, or to my tastes.

Twice Cooked Thanksgiving Recipe Index

   Adam Zolkover

The moment of truth is upon us, Thanksgiving cooks.  Now is the time for a frenetic flurry of brining birds and baking bread, looking up last minute formulae for oyster dressing and sweet potato pie.  At this late date, there’s little I can do to soothe your jangled nerves.  But I can at least do this.

Thanksgiving Thoughts: Vegan Pumpkin Soup

For your convenience, here is an index of Twice Cooked’s Thanksgiving recipes from this year and last:

And here are a couple of other recipes that you might find useful (and seasonally appropriate) as you plan your Thanksgiving meal:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  And happy Chanukah, too!

And when all the food is eaten and all the dishes are done, remember to support this site by clicking through here to Amazon.com to do your holiday shopping.

Thanksgiving Thoughts: Pumpkin Mousse

   Adam Zolkover
Thanksgiving Thoughts: Pumpkin Mousse

I would appreciate it if you would all take the word ‘pumpkin’ in pumpkin mousse to be a metonym for a larger category, rather than a thing unto itself. I’m not trying to mislead you about the content of this dessert. You could, in fact, make it using a pumpkin. But this is a companion piece to my recent entry on winter squash purée. And as such, I feel it is my duty to inform you that in my version, there is nary a proper pumpkin to be found.

As I said in that post, the issue is not that I have any antipathy toward pumpkins. Far from it. But as I look out at the landscape of tough, warty, leather-skinned gourds at my culinary disposal, I find that there are lots of better ones — even to use in dessert.