Kitchen, four hands: My Asian grilled chops and Marion’s Asian slaw play beautifully together

Two recipes this week, both Asian inspired—smoky, slightly spicy grilled pork chops in a simple marinade and a lively slaw bursting with fresh summer flavors and packing a little heat of its own.

asian-grilled-chop

Our classical radio station recently played a Brahms piece for piano, four hands. The sound of four hands—two people—doing more with the instrument and the piece than two hands could have done reminded me of our occasional approach to working in the kitchen.

Marion and I both love to cook. On any given night, you’ll find one or the other of us in the kitchen whipping up something for dinner. Who’s at the stove will often be decided by who has time to cook or an idea to try—or whose perennial favorite dish we’re really, really craving at the moment. Sometimes we both get in the kitchen to put a meal together. Most often, one person is cooking the main course and maybe a side, and the other is called in—quite possibly at the last minute—to throw together a salad or some other side. Not only is having the extra set of hands in the kitchen convenient, it’s fun.

This past weekend, though, was one of those too rare moments when we were in the kitchen together by design. A true kitchen, four hands moment. It started with me wanting to grill something and Marion coming across a recipe she wanted to play with. Soon we were tweaking ingredients and techniques to create two Asian-inspired dishes that would complement and elevate each other—a smoky, slightly spicy pork chop and a lively slaw bursting with fresh summer flavors. Continue reading “Kitchen, four hands: My Asian grilled chops and Marion’s Asian slaw play beautifully together” →

Revelation in a shell: Eggs are better when chickens live better

Treating chickens more humanely not only improves the flavor of their eggs, it improves their nutrition. But confusing labels make finding the best eggs tricky.

organic-egg

Okay, so this should probably not be so much revelatory as it is common sense. On the other hand, the way you get pearls is by irritating oysters. Still, in a world in which we are increasingly appalled by how industrial farming is abusing animals and our environment in the name of cheap food, chickens get the shortest end of the stick by far.

According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, “Chickens are perhaps the least protected of farm animals. All farm animals are exempt from the federal Animal Welfare Act, but unlike other types of livestock, chickens are also exempt from individual state laws prohibiting cruelty to animals and from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.” The Humane Society of the United States gives an equally grim assessment of conventional egg production in our country: “Arguably the most abused animals in all agribusiness, nearly 280 million laying hens in the United States are confined in barren, wire battery cages so restrictive the birds can’t even spread their wings. With no opportunity to engage in many of their natural behaviors, including nesting, dust bathing, perching, and foraging, these birds endure lives wrought with suffering.”

Guilt alone was enough to send me exploring alternatives when it came to buying eggs. But at the supermarket, I was met with two immediate obstacles. First, a baffling array of competing claims—natural, organic, cage free, free range, hormone free, antibiotic free, vegetarian diet… Continue reading “Revelation in a shell: Eggs are better when chickens live better” →

Rustic but no plain Jane: One-skillet Chicken with Black-eyed Peas and Cherry Tomatoes

Fresh black-eyed peas, green beans and cherry tomatoes combine with wine, thyme and bacon to make this one-skillet meal complex, layered and delicious. Recipe below.

skillet-chicken

I love Mark Bittman dearly. And I’ve grown even fonder of him since he backed off his edict against canned beans. Sort of. Recently on his blog, he did a recipe with canned chickpeas [I’ll wait for the gasps to die down] and grudgingly admitted that canned beans were sometimes acceptable, but that dried beans were still better.

I don’t know about you, but for us, canned beans are one of the greatest cooking conveniences known to mankind. Yes, when we have the foresight and luxury of soaking beans overnight, we’ll sometimes do so. But honestly, the outcome is far from certain for me when I do. So naturally, when I had the chance to one up Mr. Bittman by skipping his dried legumes and cooking fresh black-eyed peas, I had to do it.

Not being a southerner myself but being surrounded by southern relatives pretty much from birth on, black-eyed peas have never not been a part of my life. I’m sure some relatives cooked them fresh, but when my mother was in the kitchen, they always came from a can. So I took up that practice on the rare occasions I cooked with them—my Curried Steaks with Black-eyed Pea Salsa, for instance.

Still, more than one person has told me that fresh black-eyed peas were better than canned. Continue reading “Rustic but no plain Jane: One-skillet Chicken with Black-eyed Peas and Cherry Tomatoes” →

Don’t just live well—live better than practically everybody else

There’s no shortage of people ready to tell you how to be a better you. Teachers, bosses, spouses, parents, grandparents, little sisters, big brothers… even cousins you see maybe once a year. But few can do it as succinctly, entertainingly and spot on accurately as Clifton Kelly.

As co-host of TLC’s What Not to Wear, Kelly routinely transforms fashion disasters into well-groomed, confident success stories. But looks can only take you so far. To help transform just about every other aspect of your life, he gives us the unapologetically confidently titled Freakin’ Fabulous: How to Dress, Speak, Behave, Eat, Drink, Entertain, Decorate, and Generally Be Better than Everyone Else.

And in about 250 pages, he delivers on all the promises the title makes. Freakin’ Fabulous is the really helpful older sibling or worldly wise aunt telling you what to do with your napkin in a restaurant [place it in your lap as soon as you’ve been seated]; all those little grammatical quandaries you slept through in school [like who vs. whom, fewer vs. less and lay vs. lie]; and that fashionably late only applies to cocktail parties.

Only Kelly is much more entertaining than your sibling or aunt. Continue reading “Don’t just live well—live better than practically everybody else” →

The Minimalist does it again: Potato salad, all grown up and 100% mayonnaise-free

Served warm, this Potato Salad with Capers, Shallots and Mustard is bursting with lively flavors and sophisticated enough to go with anything. Recipe below.

bittman-potato-salad

When it comes to lists, I’m a rank amateur. A little over a month ago, I raided my archives and came up with a list of five easy meals for summer. Thought I was pretty cool, giving readers a smorgasbord of summer cooking ideas. Then the New York Times’ Minimalist, Mark Bittman, came out with not one, but two lists. First, Summer Express: 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less. He followed it a few days later with 101 Simple Salads for the Season. That’s two lists of 101 recipes each. Continue reading “The Minimalist does it again: Potato salad, all grown up and 100% mayonnaise-free” →

What Julia Child taught us and why we could use a few more Julias today

The utterly charming movie Julie & Julia reminds us why Julia Child was so important. And Michael Pollan says that today’s food television doesn’t actually teach us to cook.

julia-in-chicago

Okay, show of hands. How many of you out there saw Julie & Julia opening weekend? We did. It was wonderful, even from the third row far right seats that were the best we could do in the crowded theater. And this was for a summer movie without car crashes, explosions or superheroes!

The crowd was spectacularly diverse, men and women, older and younger couples—even a group of teen girls sitting next to us—all thoroughly wrapped up in the intertwined stories. It’s not a film for kids, though. Julie & Julia earns its PG-13 rating with its occasionally frank celebration of love and life.

It is this celebration of life that is at the very core of Julia Child’s being. In her memoir My Life in France, she remembers her first meal there, a lunch of oysters and sole meunière in Rouen: “It was the most exciting meal of my life.” That meal—and the passion it instilled in her for French cuisine—changed how she thought about food and, ultimately, how America cooked. Continue reading “What Julia Child taught us and why we could use a few more Julias today” →

Found in translation: Simple, spicy pleasures of Hmong Beef Stir Fry

Tomatoes, cabbage, cilantro and jalapeño peppers give this Southeast Asian Beef with Tomatoes Stir Fry a fresh, lively taste. Recipe below.

hmong-stir-fry

If the Procrastinators of America ever get around to electing a president, I’m a shoo-in. The University of Minnesota Press sent me a review copy of Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America way back in April and, although I’ve spent a good deal of time looking at it, I’m only just now getting around to cooking from it.

The Hmong are an Asian ethnic group in the mountainous regions of Southeast Asia, including southern China, northern Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma. Cooking from the Heart’s dedication hints at their homeless history and strength as a people: “For centuries the Hmong have been a people without a country, always making the best of each new situation and remaining true to their culture. This book is dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the Hmong people.”

For centuries, the Hmong lived and farmed in central China. “Proud and stubbornly independent,” as the book’s introduction puts it, they refused to be subjugated by Chinese rulers. According to Wikipedia, “Hmong groups began a gradual southward migration in the 18th century due to political unrest and to find more arable land.” Spreading throughout much of Southeast Asia, by the 1950s, more than half of the Hmong people lived in what was then called Indochina, mostly in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

Because of their reputation as fierce warriors, they were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Secret War against the Communists in Laos and later, in the Vietnam War. At the end of the war, they were singled out for persecution and thousands of families fled to Thailand; from there, many immigrated to the United States, France, Australia, Canada and French Guiana.

Oh, wait. This is a food blog. Well, all this has a certain amount of relevance. It explains that while some 3 million of the 4 to 5 million Hmong still call China home, you’ll find many influences in the Hmong kitchen, especially here in America. Continue reading “Found in translation: Simple, spicy pleasures of Hmong Beef Stir Fry” →

Stop your wining: Fun, practical wine bottle stoppers for when you’ve had enough

cb-stoppers

Seems everywhere you turn these days, you read about the benefits of drinking a glass of wine or two a day. But assuming the standard four to six ounces per glass, how do you keep the other four to five glasses still in the bottle fresh once you’ve had your daily dose?

Back in college, assuming any wine was actually left in the bottle, we’d just try to jam the cork back in the bottle—assuming the “cork” wasn’t actually a screw cap. The only problem was that, once released from the bottle, the cork would often expand, making getting it back in the bottle neck an often futile [or at the very least, inelegant] exercise.

stuff_we_like_small Crate and Barrel offers some decidedly more stylish solutions. Continue reading “Stop your wining: Fun, practical wine bottle stoppers for when you’ve had enough” →