Of Pot Roasts And Physics

A week or so back, the weather in Lotus Land was conducive to a pot roast.  (Remind me to expound at some point about how completely whacked the Southern California weather has been this year….or not.)  At any rate, it felt “Fall-ish” and I was in the mood for big-time comfort food, which of course, pot roast exemplifies.

Now.  When I was a snot-nosed kid, I *hated* pot roast.  Just loathed it…….dunno what the heck my problem was.

Well, actually, I think it was an overload of “good, solid, Midwestern meat and potatoes” meals when I was growing up.  God knows, my mother tried, tried, to inject some variety and some *gasp* SPICE into her cooking, but Daddy, well, Daddy didn’t like much of anything that didn’t sit on his plate and declare itself in a loud voice as being “BEEF” and “POTATOES”.  OK, pork was allowed (if it was in chop/ham/bacon form) and chicken made the cut (breasts only, please, never a whole and roasted bird).  And rice and noodles were OK.  Noodles only, please.  Pasta?  Come on, them there’s foreign.  Spaghetti and meatballs (and very, very occasionally, when we were livin’ on the edge, spaghetti and Italian sausage and peppers) were OK.  Tacos were most absolutely NOT OK.  Nor was lasagna.  Chili was acceptable, so long as it was ground beef, canned kidney beans and canned tomatoes.  Light on the onions and garlic.  NO fresh chiles.  A dusting of chile powder (mild) would pass muster.  I hated that stuff too.

My poor mother.  She was open to experimentation, and loved to cook.  Finally, when I got to be a snot-nosed young adult, she took to making two meals.  She’d cook a roast or stew or a pot of spice-less chili for Daddy, and then she and I would have tacos or manicotti or enchiladas or whatever.  Trust me, for us, in the day, THAT was exotic !  It actually worked out fine, especially once I started cooking and would take over making dinner for Mom and me.  Compromise, baby.  It’s what it’s all about.

But back to pot roast.  I actually used to tell my Mom when she cooked it, that I couldn’t understand how pot roast could smell so good when it was cooking, but taste so blah when it was done.  Maybe my snot-nosed palate couldn’t appreciate the beauty that braised meat becomes when cooked properly.  Maybe my Mom’s recipes sucked (onion soup mix anyone?).  Who knows?  But in my advancing dotage, I’ve certainly come to not only appreciate the delights of a pot of braised, succulent meat in a silky, savory sauce (braised beef short ribs are my absolute favorite, death-bed type meal), but to respect it and anticipate it.

Marry that with some (yes) potatoes, creamy and smashed, and well, it’s pretty much Nirvana (not to mention comfort and warmth) on a plate.

And…as an extra added bonus (insert wild applause here), we learn a lesson in physics !  YAY us, especially considering again, I never actually, technically *passed* a college-level math class.  Nor a college-level (ok, fine, even a HIGH-SCHOOL level) physical science class.  But I rocked in the biological sciences……does that count?  I think it does.

A word about food...

Since this is a blog about food -- the cooking, sourcing, and enjoyment of it, and the creativity we can all find in its preparation, and especially about the appreciation of the beauty of the ingredients and the finished product, it seems only fitting that we take a moment to think about those in this Country, possibly even our neighbors, who don't have enough of it.

This month, the United States Postal Service, in conjunction with the National Association of Letter Carriers, Feeding America and several corporate sponsors, will be holding their annual "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive.  As you can see, Saturday, May 14 is the day.  This is the 18th year that the USPS and their carriers have participated in this project.  Last year, over 77 MILLION pounds of food were collected by USPS carriers, and delivered to local food banks all over the country.  That's a lot of food, but there's also a lot of need.

We can all help by leaving bags or boxes of non-perishable food items by our mail box on the morning of May 14, 2011.  Make sure that the donation is placed there before your mail is delivered.  Items donated should be things like canned meat, fish, soups, vegetables, fruits, juices pasta, cereals, dried beans and grains.  Items that are shelf-stable and do not need refrigeration.  Also, no glass packaging, and no expired products (this is not an excuse to clean out your pantry).  I would take it a step further, and hope that the food you choose to donate is also nutritionally sound....salt free, or low sodium, fruits in natural juices, not heavy syrup, and no sugar bomb cereals.  My bag has some rice, some dried pinto beans, some no-salt canned peas and corn, tuna in water, canned milk, etc.

I'm giving you enough notice so you can do what I did.  In these economic times, I fully understand it can be tough to get our own food budget stretched far enough to cover our own needs, let alone the needs of others.  But, by taking a dollar here, and a dollar there, over the next couple of weeks, most of us can fit in a few "extras" to help those in need.

Here's a link to the official  "Stamp Out Hunger" website.  You can get more facts and information there, as well as some downloads to get your kids involved.

I hope you'll join me in this effort.  You'll feel good about yourself, and you'll fill a need (not to mention some tummies) that is far greater than we all know.

Thank you.

A Stroll Down Memory Lane

If you grew up in Southern California during the 50's and 60's, you have two very strong memories of local bakery operations which you fondly revisit to this day.  Talk about "taste memories", these two companies built 'em deep and strong for us Boomer SoCal-ians.

One was the Helms Truck.  Think of ice-cream trucks, only with baked goods.  Back in the day, you put a sign in your window, and the Helms truck stopped and Mom ran out to buy bread, doughnuts, cookies, rolls, whatever.  Or you, as the snot-nosed kid, ran out when you heard the "TOOOT-TOOOT" whistle, and watched in awe as the uniformed Helms Man, who also wore a tie and a jaunty hat, (much like a police officer's dress hat), pulled out drawer after wooden drawer filled to the brim with cookies and doughnuts and brownies and jelly rolls and Danishes and other delights, all lined up like sugary soldiers in neat rows.   To me, those drawers were magic.  I can see them still in my mind's eye.  The wood working on them was stunning.  Highly varnished, with dove-tailed joints, and lined with parchment, they stretched the width of the truck, and slid out, smoothly and soundlessly, from the back.  It was absolute nirvana for a kid.  A bakery on wheels !  At your door !  What could possibly be better?

Sadly, as times and consumer habits changed, along with the milkman, the Helms Man passed into memory.  Delivery service stopped in 1969, and Helms products were never offered in supermarkets.   So, when delivery service stopped, Helms sadly faded into the ether of nostalgia and childhood memories.

The other local baked goods icon still exists in a limited form; at least it's brand name does.  Van de Kamp's Holland Dutch Bakery.  Their logo was, of course, a windmill, and it was bright blue, on white packaging.  These products WERE sold in supermarkets, and back in the day they had Van de Kamp's Ladies in the stores, who were sort of what we'd call "brand ambassadors" today.  I think they stocked the display shelves, and answered questions about the products.  The ladies wore starched, white pinafores over bright blue dresses, and they had prim, starched white lace hats.  They all looked like your Aunt Helen.

Gentle and Warm Comfort

This is not the post I had intended to write today.  I had *intended* to post about a very good, if unplanned day in the kitchen I had earlier this week.  That post will come, in time.

Today, I woke up late.  Way later than I wanted to, even for me.  And when I woke up, it was cold.  And I was cold.  Cold in the house, and cold outside, and cold in my bones and cold in my soul and brain.

Yes, cold.  OK, it's a Southern California cold.  The house thermometer showed it was below 65°F in the living room, and the patio thermometer read just a hair over that around mid-afternoon.  For us, in mid-April, that's cold.  And it was windy.  We'd had a bit of a pseudo-storm blow through yesterday, which the weather weenies were saying was a very, VERY unusual, "winter-type storm event" in the Spring.  Some areas got a deluge and thunderstorms, some areas got brief interludes of hail, and our local mountains got snow.  Me?  I got about 2 minutes' worth of spitting rain on Friday late afternoon, and cold winds from then 'til now.  I have my heater running, and I can't remember the last time I ran the heater this late in the year, ever.  And I've lived in this house for 40 or so years.

Anyway, for me, in SoCal, it's cold for April.  And I had some tsuris in my mind and soul which made me colder.  I woke up, let the girls out, and felt chilled to my core.  I thought about running the errand I'd planned, and making the dinner I planned, but the only thing that sounded good to me was my blankie.  So, after sleeping a bit longer than I ever intended today, and putzing around the house a bit, and reading a bit, and watching TV a bit (Saturdays are still good here for PBS cooking shows), I took a little nap with a couple of willing, snuggly dogs.  When we finally roused ourselves, I realized we were still going to need to eat something.  The girls of course, were easy.  Pull the can of IAMS out of the fridge to warm up a bit.

For me, my first thought was, as it frequently is on these "cold,  blue" days, just to have a bowl of cereal for dinner, and call it done.  But that was too....cold.  My next thought was what I call my "Bad Day Blue Box" of macaroni and cheese.  Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it.  I do eat (and enjoy, there, I've said it), Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.  But I *HAVE* up-classed a bit from my childhood.  At least now I get the "Deluxe" kind with the squeezie cheese goo, rather than the powder that has to be reconstituted.  I like it.  It's pure comfort food, and easy and warm in the tummy.  Like a hug when I'm in that blue grumpy mood.

But today, on my way to the "Bad Day Blue Box", I spotted a package of konbu and a package of katsuboshi I'd purchased about a month ago at a local Asian market, with the intent of *someday* making dashi  for "real" miso soup.  I had the miso, I had the makings for dashi, I had some veg I could throw into the broth, so I decided I was there.  No tofu.  Don't stock it, don't like it.  I've tried, still don't like it.  I'll eat it in hot & sour soup, or miso soup, in a restaurant, but reluctantly, and mostly not to be a rube and offensive.

So.  I did the requisite web search to find some proportions (because the instructions on both the konbu and katsuboshi packages were written in Asian pictographs I don't read), and off I went.  I soaked the konbu in water for about 10 minutes, after wiping it down, then brought it to a gentle boil.  Plucked the konbu out, and let the resulting broth come to a full boil.  Then I dumped in the katsuboshi flakes, and stirred them around a bit.  I cut the heat, and let them steep for another 10 minutes in the hot broth.  Then I strained the broth through a sieve lined with a paper towel, back into another saucepan.  As I was bringing the broth back to a boil, I tossed in some thinly sliced carrots.  (The add-ins for miso soup on the web site I found suggested potatoes, tofu, sweet potatoes, carrots, scallions, peas, etc.)   Again, this is a tofu-free zone, and potato didn't seem right to me.  So I went with carrots, scallion and some beautiful, FRESH sugar snap peas from my CSA (we'll talk about my CSA in the future....they're amazing).  After the broth got back to a boil, I ladled out about half of it into a bowl with the miso paste (I had red miso) and stirred it around to dissolve it.  Then I stirred THAT back into the pot, added the thinly sliced scallion and peas, and let all of that warm up and soften.

This was the first time I'd made miso soup at home.

My first reaction was "it tastes just like what I get at Japanese restaurants".  Which was a GOOD thing, because the dashi alone smelled, well......fuhhhnn-kaayyyyyy.

Then I took a big, deep breath, and realized I'd been warmed.  I was....WARM.  From the inside.  From the outside.  From my gut.  Gently.  That was how I'd describe that miso soup.  Gentle.  It was like someone wrapping a warmed blanket around me.  My hands warmed up.  My feet warmed up.  My brain warmed up and my tsuris and blue grumpies vaporized.

I was warmed.  Life looked a bit better.  The storm clouds, literally and figuratively, cleared.

Unfortunately, miso soup is not tremendously photogenic, but here is the wonder broth that restored my spirit tonight.

The girls?  They got the leftover veggies (carrots and peas, no onion) mixed in with their IAMS.

Yes, the heat's still running, but my world is warmer due to miso soup.