VINE CHAT

I was pregnant with my second child, my first one still in diapers, when someone said to me at a book fair "There's nothing like a good Scooby cartoon", as I held a Scooby book in front of my two-year-old son to generate interest.

I didn't know what the guy was talking about.  I never watched Scooby.  I watched Popeye and Speed Racer (my daughter's middle name is Penelope after Penelope Pitstop).  But I got the book, and soon my little guy was asking to watch Scooby cartoons.

We both got hooked.  Especially the new Scooby movies, Cyber Chase, Zombie Island, Witch's Ghost, Alien Invaders.  Everyday we took a nap together watching Scooby.  Every night we watched Scooby before bed.  Snuggling with my little guy, getting hungry watching Scoob and Shag eat everything...this time is spotless and sweet in my memory.  I keep that memory tucked safe in a special place because I need it a lot.

I recently saw a bumper sticker that said, What Would Scooby Doo?

Eat.  Scooby would eat. Why not?  It's not arguing, it's not ignoring, it's comforting.  Eating is a great coping method - I didn't say eating trans fats, sugar or unhealthy food, I just said eating is good for coping. (Who can have enough bruschetta? Has eating seasonal, organic produce ever hurt anyone?)   

And did you ever notice how no one in Mystery Inc. takes shots at each other (not talking about the non-animated movies, I just don't think those qualify)...Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby are very well-adjusted. It is the most benign cartoon I can recall. I'll watch it over and over.  Having a big appetite isn't even a vice in Coolsville, Shaggy and Scooby never get fat (wouldn't it be nice). 

Someone is always commenting on my Shaggy/Scooby size appetite.  Last night at dinner my father said "She must be pacing herself tonight, she's only eaten two other dinners besdies her own."   Life is meant to be tasted, so I eat freely when we go out.  All of the other six nights of the week I'm watching my portions.  But why go out if you're going not going to indulge a bit? I'm defending my four egg bacon and cheese omelette, hash browns, sliced avocado, biscuits and gravy and half of my husband's huevos rancheros.

It's not like I do the elliptical for fun. I do it so I can eat.

And I'm going to keep eating, indulging modestly, letting myself get hungry as I watch Scooby Doo. Food is peaceful (unless you're John Belushi in Animal House), food is communal, food is the centerpiece of the global table.

Full bellies are happy bellies.  That said...I wish full bellies for everyone, and enough Scooby Snacks for every animal.

Bone appetit!

Every year at Christmas, my brother-chef buys me a Jamie Oliver cookbook.  He always forgets which one he bought me the previous holiday, so for three years now, I've received "Jamie's Dinners" consecutively.  I don't complain.  He's just like his brother who I fell in love with sixteen years ago (brother-chef is actually brother-in-law-chef).  They're so characteristically absent-minded, I can't imagine them any other way.

So when I went to Borders to exchange the book/inquire about a signing for my book, I scoured the shelves in the "FOOD - COOKING" aisle for the book I intended to get for my exchange of "Jamie's Dinners".  I selected "Jamie's Italy".

He states in the book that he should have been Italian.  I HEAR YOU!  Oui, d'accord (oops, wrong language).  I married a Greek man who will tell you that Italians are really Greek (at least, Sicialians are), so I suppose I married accordingly - that my destiny lies somewhere in the Mediterranean.

I got Giada's cookbook for my birthday last month - and so inspired by Italian cuisine, I've made risotto twice in one week.  Baby Melia adores it.  As I type, she has one risotto grain on her chin, three on her pink and white t-shirt, one in her hair, just above her right ear.  Tonight I made parmesan risotto, two days ago it was parsley risotto, with steamed clams.  The roasted chicken and carrots I made tonight beckoned for starch, so when reaching into the pantry for rice, I spotted the risotto, and grabbed it as if the pantry were trying to keep it from me and would restrain it upon my discovery.  

The scent of the arborio wafting through my kitchen, with the hard, pungent parmesan added and the aroma of roasted chicken with lime filled my senses and made me happy - I needed it.  Hubby is out of town, two of my three babies at the neighbors.  A little lonely, I fed the baby and myself with abandon, an Italian rice, with Italian cheese, with a roasted meat torn from the bone and dipped in pan juices...and I felt better. 

Suppose I'll be giving the baby yet another bathie-wathie with the addition of arborio rice in her hair.  That's fine with me.  I don't mind the extra effort if it involves food.  My children will grow up knowing how to cook a chicken, something I didn't learn until my thirties (same as Julia, though - so no shame).  My children are growing up in the kitchen.  My children know love through food.  My children have good appetites, after all, they're Mediterranean-bred...and my culinary aspirations aren't far behind.

Italian, Greek, Welsh, Russian - when we come to the table together, ethnicity dissolves into the flavors of the food, and there are no other differences between us.

Ciao.  

What is January, February, too, besides dead air between the winter and BASEBALL?

Oh, there is Valentine's Day thrown in there somewhere, an annual date night for adults, a red, pink, sugary mess for parents, and those things people call new years resolutions...but this time of year is pre-baseball, the countdown, some trades here and there, time to get spring training tickets.  For the Padres, that means Peoria.

My husband goes to Arizona every other month to be with his son, Dillon - and I guess my husband will see Greg Maddux pitch in a Padres uniform before I will.  That is alright, because come regular season, I'll be the one who gets to go to the games on school nights.  We had this discussion years ago.  If Mad Dog ever plays for San Diego, you know, babe, I'll have to go to all the games he pitches.  I know, hubby shook his head in surrender...I know.

47 days and life begins anew ...We're born again, there's new grass on the field...

Spring time makes me sneeze, I can never decide whther to wear shorts or jeans, and I still crave winter food like roasts and soup - though I begin making asparagus risotto, crab salads, ceviche...I affirm the best thing to eat during this transition of seasons and baseball renewal is a dog and a beer from field level.

March 1st I'll have more reasons to get out of bed than my three little monkeys and the mug of fresh, hot coffee hubby leaves for me bedside at 6:45 a.m.  I will have set the DVR to record the first game in case play dates or grocery shopping keeps me from the ceremonial first pitch.  I'll make black bean, shrimp and cotija nachos, get a dark ale, and try my hand at buffalo chicken for the first time.  And wedges of iceberg with a homemade buttermilk bleu cheese dressing will go nicely.  I wonder who will pitch the first game.

I don't care.  It's pre-season, but I don't care.  I need baseball and sping and all of the seasonal food the way Scarlett and the other southern debutantes needed naps in the afternoon, the way Jack Sparrow craves the horizon.

47 days...I can make it. 

If you don't start with the right ingredients, you're screwed.  You can try upgrades, fanciful add-ins, and an array of different techniques, but if the fundamentals were never good to start with...good luck, honey.

Yesterday I kicked up my heels at the helm of my stove, just dying to try a tomato soup recipe from one of the new cookbooks I received in December.  But I made on fatal error:  my canned tomatoes were not San Marzano, nor were they fresh, vine-ripened.  They were (God forgive me) generic foodstuffs, which sometimes is just fine, but in the case of tomatoes that need gentle, loving care when placed into tin cans and placed onto shelves for who knows how long - I made an unfortunate decision which I have lamented for thirty-six hours or more.

Halfway into it, I knew it was going south.  I tried everything - mascarpone, brown sugar, I even pulled down the Roman blinds in the kitchen and retrieved my white truffle oil which is hidden next to the saffron threads - I put my hands over my eyes and poured (not drizzled, poured).  I was desperate to save it, my tomato soup so beautiful in color, so drab in taste.

Today it didn't taste half bad.  I actually liked it, but until I can make soup better than the "Gourmet" counter of the local food store, until I can create smoked tomato bisque similar to what I ate everyday while pregnant and working at the hotel, I won't be satisfied.

I can order smoked tomatoes or San Marzanos over the net - I can get almost anything from any corner of the world I want, I have access, I have experience, and gosh darnit, I can spot a rotten piece of just about anything now.  It didn't come easy - I have learned, man, have I learned, that you can't add truffle oil to a crappy tomato and expect delicious results.  Sometimes, no matter what you do - you just can't help it, save it, or go back and alter your choices.

If it looks rotten, smells rotten, it is rotten.  It's not a difficult concept, nor is tomato soup, but the most obvious things escape us sometimes.

Oh, and the grilled cheese sandwich that accompanies the tomato soup - how could I fail to mention it?  Because therein lies a romantic rescue effort, an interdependent culinary love story. 

There will be days when the grilled cheese, the devoted other half of the tomato soup meal, will rise to the occasion when the soup doesn't meet standard; days when the soup has been simmered perfectly and the sandwich on the griddle a little too long.  But they have each other.  Despite the changing ingredients that effect the overall demenor of them - for the grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, it's the idea of each other, the perfectness of their pairing, the history they have -  they go together. 

A tomato and bottle of olive oil meet a loaf of bread and hunk of cheese - they bring out the best in each other.  Start with the right ingredients and it'll be fine.

My Grandpa was exactly like Doc "Moonlight" Graham in Field of Dreams.  Same genteel mannerisms, calm demeanor, warm disposition and oh yeah - they wore the same type hat.  When I got into Southern Cooking, after I read "The Witching Hour" by Anne Rice in my early twenties (a book which also inspired me to change my major from Lit to History), I started making black-eyed peas on New Years Day for Grandpa.  He was from Texas, but Oklahoma and Kentucky are in there somewhere.  He loved southern food and added Tabasco to everything...everything.  My husband does the same.  That vinegary, eye watering smell doesn't lure me to top all of my food with heat, but it smells familiar and American.

So, I made black-eyed peas for the better part of ten years before Grandpa died.  Pete (hubby) loved them so much, and I believe in starting the new year off with a little luck, so I kept making them.  Why not?  Grandpa is still here in spirit, Field of Dreams is always on during the holidays, and southern cooking just feels right.  I frequent bistros, I adore trattorias - but nothing says home like low country food.  I wish I could send some to the men and women serving far, far away.

So anyway, I have always followed black-eyed pea recipes from my two hundred southern cooking cookbooks or downloaded something with five stars next to it on the recipe websites.  But two days ago when we went to the grocery store, those f*****s that call themselves savvy retailers were all sold out of bags of black-eyed peas.  Way to be prepared! I muttered under my breath in aisle fourteen.  Shit.  Plan B.

Grabbed three cans of black-eyed peas.  Improvisation is the test of a skilled home cook, and I could do this - although I was teary eyed the rest of the shopping trip because the savvy retailer f*****s had failed me, my Grandpa, hubby, and put a glitch in my family tradition.

("Never, NEVER **** with a winning streak") ~ Crash Davis.  I digress.

When I grabbed two packages of pancetta for the tomato soup I planned on making, I had a great idea for the peas.  I decided to follow my home cooking instinct.  Create a new dish...I thought, refine an old tradition, you won't negate the luck scenario, you'll probably end up with a new, personal recipe that will be all yours, and the tradition will remain intact.  Although I wanted to mutter a few expletives at the front end manager, I was infused with hope and vigor as I waited for New Years Day to make black-eyed peas the 2007 I waited to long to shop way.

After I looked through one of my new cookbooks while drinking my coffee this morning and my husband yelled at the Auburn quarterback, Zoe and I sauteed pancetta in extra virgin olive oil.  Then we added diced sweet onion.  Then freshly minced garlic, a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste, a bay leaf, and the three cans of peas with two cups of chicken broth.  We brought the peas to a boil then simmered for ten minutes.

Grandpa would have loved them!  I don't usually eat them but Pete and I have each had two bowls, I ran some over to the neighbors, my picky son ate a bowl (with Tabasco =), and the baby ate two helpings after her nap.  I've learned a thing or two in the kitchen and the best results occur when I follow my instincts. 

This year, with a little luck, my instincts won't be wrong.