Guy Fieri Food: Earnest Summation

I haven't updated the cookbook reviews in months and it's been bugging me, so here comes some catch-up.

First in line: Guy Fieri Food, which Owen chose for me to cook from last summer. The cover should explain why a 10-year-old boy would gravitate toward this book and a 45-year-old woman would not.

I like Guy Fieri as a personality. I've watched his television show and he's cheerful and generous and seems like a nice man. But his recipes? Not for me. There was no way I was ever going to make his cocktail of vodka, frozen orange juice concentrate, sparkling wine and vanilla ice cream. I was never going to make his firecracker chicken wings  or Irish nachos (tortilla chips, frozen french fries, corned beef) or deep-fried string cheese sticks (wrapped in salami and egg roll skins.)

I cooked 13 of the recipes in the book, roughly 8 percent. Not enough! I should have done a few more. But I'm not going back in. For the record, we thought his gaucho steak with four herb chimichurri was fantastic. His beer can chicken was solid. His Irish Dream cheesecake (Bailey's, choclate, cream cheese) was absurd. His carrot-ginger soup was foul.

It's not a bad book. We were just ill-suited, Guy Fieri Food and me. If you want to meet cooks who  feel very differently, check out the amazon.com reviews.

Here's the recipe tally:

worth the price of the book -- 0
great -- 2 (pork blade steak piccata, gaucho steak)
good -- 5
so-so -- 3
flat-out bad -- 3 (beef brisket, the baked potatoes rubbed with Lawry's seasoned salt)

Shelf essential? No. Obviously.

Deborah Solomon stopped by last night

Q: Wow. That is one gorgeous drink. What is it?

A: Isn't it lovely? It's called an Aviation and it contains gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice and something called creme de violette that renders it lavender. Steve Martin describes this cocktail in his novel Object of Beauty and I've been obsessed with trying it for the last week.

Q: Is it as good as it looks?

A: I don't know! Wait just a second. . . . Hmm. Okay. No. It is perfumey. I don't love this.

Q: Who cares, so festive.

A: I am sitting on the sofa beside my son who is watching Phineas and Ferb and it feels not very festive. Today I had to replace my falling-apart jeans and that required much self-scrutiny in the harshly-lit mirrors of Macy's, Sundance, and J. Crew. So, I decided to skip evening spin class, buy a bottle of creme de violette, and try a new cocktail.

Q: How's that approach to dieting and discouragement working out for you?

A: I don't think that's a nice question.

Q: Yeesh. Sensitive. Fair enough. You've been working through Food Network star Guy Fieri's new cookbook. How's that going?

A: I've been moving slowly and doubt I 'll get very far. I do like Guy, but his recipes are mostly gimmicky and only moderately delicious. The other night I made his version of beer can chicken. You heavily season the chicken, impale it on an open beer can, and pop it in the oven. The beer supposedly evaporates and keeps the bird moist, while the outside crisps up. Fieri's twist is to drape bacon over the skin.

Q: And that wasn't awesome?

A: It was fine, but I would not go so far as "awesome." Plus, I had to buy a whole 6-pack of Bud. Our supermarket doesn't sell singles.

Q: Quite a change of pace from Heidi Swanson.

A: I know. I miss Super Natural Every Day. Not a lot of vegetables in Fieri's book. I was very hopeful about the Bomb Bakers (recipe is here) but they were not a hit.

You brine the potatoes for 8 hours, roll them in oil and Lawry's seasoned salt, then roast them for an hour. I was very curious about brined potatoes, except to me they just tasted like baked potatoes with inedible, salty skin.

On the other hand, I loved Guy's pork blade steak piccata. Recipe is here.

Q: What's on the table tonight?

A: Bloody Mary flank steak. It's been marinating in V-8, vodka and a lot of other stuff for the last 24 hours.

Q: On another subject entirely, how's the little goat?

A: Wild and impish and she charges at the chickens. We're petting her lots, but pretty soon we're going to need a lasso.

Q: Are you liking the Aviation better now that you're getting to the bottom of the glass?

A: It is vile. I like it so little that, to my shock and disappointment, I'm going to stop at one.

All about bedrooms and a little about brisket

8th grader no more

"Bedroom community" strikes me as the wrong term for a suburb, at least the suburb in which I live. This feels more like a factory town where the product is children. I'm not talking about babies, which, yes, are traditionally made in bedrooms. But in fact, they're often made in urban bedrooms and eventually (some) parents bring the babies out to the suburbs for finishing. I grew up in a city. That was fun. But this seems fun, too.

June is a big month, as product starts coming off the assembly line. Day before yesterday, Owen graduated from elementary school. He and his cohort have mastered their math facts and can sing Congolese folk songs. They are of middling height and physically awkward. According to the inspirational quotes they recited, they believe in striving, friendship, and the value of being true to one's self. Admirable! At the graduation, there were a lot of dresses with "bubble skirts" like this. While the ceremony was sweet, it did not feel momentous and I went straight from the graduation to buy goat ration and fly traps.

 Goof

A few hours later, Isabel graduated from middle school. That ceremony was not sweet and it did feel momentous. There were a lot of dresses like this. At one point during the distribution of diplomas the principal called the name of a girl named Ella C. who spent the night at our house several times circa 2006. I said to my husband, "Well, they screwed up. That's not Ella." He said, "That's Ella." I squinted my feeble old eyes. I still couldn't see that this was Ella.

But later I confirmed: it was Ella.

This happened again and again and again. Everywhere wandered radiant young people I've known since they were five, almost all of them taller than me with vaguely familiar faces and very long legs. It was poignant and unsettling.

Isabel went to a graduation dance in the evening where the dresses got shorter and tighter, the heels higher. I had bad dreams all night. One involved raising a baby albino alligator that I was feeding with an eye dropper until the baby alligator ate the eye dropper and swam away. In another dream, I excised a very tiny kid goat from inside of a Bartlett pear. And in the worst nightmare of all, I overheard a friend say that my bedroom looked "like a pig pen." I did not, in the dream, deny that my bedroom looked like a pig pen, merely chastised this friend for gossiping about the way I keep house. If you know how to analyze dreams, please, please don't.

Back to our scheduled programming: The other night I made Guy Fieri's Bring It On Beef Brisket.  About half of his dishes have gimmicky names like that, which doesn't bother me when the recipes work. This one didn't, not for me. It was the most disappointing kind of bad meal, because I was so looking forward to it. The photograph in Fieri's book shows the brisket is falling to shreds, collapsing under a blanket of what appears to be glossy barbecue sauce. I thought about that brisket all day and it cooked for what seemed like all day. But the the meat never softened, remaining an implacable raft of stiff gray cow flesh. The sauce lacked zest.

Three possibilities:

1. the recipe is wrong
2. the piece of brisket I got was wrong
3. I did something wrong

Last night, I made Fieri's ginger carrot soup. My husband thought this was great, but I could not eat it. I've grown accustomed to vegetable soups made with only vegetables, and the homemade chicken stock was overpowering, too chickeny, and I couldn't taste the ginger.

None for me, thanks

Tonight: Fieri's pork blade steak piccata. The grill is heating as I type.

On another subject, we've begun milking Natalie. Last night, Owen helped milk and then I went upstairs and made him hot chocolate with the fresh milk. He couldn't get over how awesome the whole experience was. I don't think I could persist in our onerous and messy animal project without him. I appreciate not just the work he contributes to keeping them, but his sheer joy at having them.

At least it wasn't Twinkle

Owen named her Sparkle. I tried to point him in another direction, any other direction, but he is adamant: She is Sparkle. And she is perfect.

The other night, I cooked Guy Fieri's lamb chops with mint pesto, my maiden voyage into Guy Fieri Food. They were excellent. I wish Guy didn't try so hard, what with the tats and the slang and the Phyllis Diller hair, because I think he has good ideas and sound recipes and all that shtick just makes him seem insecure. But I guess shtick is required these days to become a Food Network star.

It seems tasteless to post a photograph of lamb chops adjacent to a photograph of a baby goat, so I'll skip right to Fieri's chicken-under-a-brick, which I served last night.

To make this, you spatchcock a chicken and season it well, then heat oil in a skillet, splay the chicken out in the hot fat, and top with another skillet weighted down with four foil-wrapped bricks.

Roughly thirty minutes later, the chicken looks disturbing, but tastes wonderful. Serve with green sauce.

I know. 

Does anyone watch much food TV? Favorite shows? The other day, Owen and I watched Anne Thornton make s'mores bars on a program called Dessert First. It's sort of stunning that shows are devoted to recipes this remedial, but still, we watched. When it was over, Owen said, "Mom you HAVE to make those."

 I did.

And they were insanely good. One of those desserts -- buttery, a bit salty, crumbly, chocolatey but not overwhelmingly so, crunchy, gooey -- that you can not stop eating. You just want more, more, more. I have a problem with this kind of dessert as there's no built-in stopping point. Satisfaction is impossible. But I would be derelict in my blogging duty if I didn't tell you that the recipe is absolutely phenomenal. (I omitted the chipotle powder, as Thornton does on the show. Come to think of it, chipotle powder might make these easier to stop eating.)

From focus and momentum to mild confusion and indolence

Monday, I used 6 inches of red pencil in 5 hours. 

Wind me up, set me off in a direction and there I go. Put me on the sofa, and there I sit. Shifting course is what's hardest for me. Maybe everyone?

The last 10 days were intense. I would admire my own work ethic except it felt less like an ethic than brute momentum.  I did nothing but pore over the manuscript of my book to the point of neglecting to brush my hair, sort the mail, or attend zumba class, and I would have done so for the rest of my life had a deadline not forced a change of course.

Day before yesterday arrived that deadline. I reluctantly carried the proofs to the UPS store and overnighted them (old school!) back to the editor in New York and then, hair still uncombed, wearing jogging shoes and least attractive jeans I have ever owned, drove straight to the Century Regency on Smith Ranch Road to see Midnight in Paris.* The ship has been forcibly turned and I am back to my usual, semi-indolent ways.  It will take a new deadline to get me to change again.

By the way, if there is any place on the planet you can confidently go with uncombed hair and wearing unflattering jeans, it is the Regency midday on a Tuesday. As usual, it was just the field trippers from the retirement home and me. I was very happy to be back.

Last night, I was going to try one of Guy Fieri's chicken recipes -- the one with the brick, or the one with the beer can -- but I ended up driving a young trombonist and a young pianist/dancer all over Marin County from 1:50 p.m. until 7 p.m. Not an exaggeration, a time sheet, as mothers of children in their middle years need not be told. So we had sushi. I felt tired and sorry for myself. I went to bed. I read 40 pages of Janet Malcolm's Reading Chekhov, which is extremely enjoyable and comprehensible even if you have never read Chekhov, which I have not. But should. I studied Malcolm's inscrutable half-smile in the jacket photo. What will my jacket photo look like? I woke up and checked on Natalie, who is still pregnant. Am I balking at starting Guy Fieri's book because he is so irritating? Or because I really don't want to eat a dish called Guy-talian Nachos? Except, who am I kidding. Of course I want to eat Guy-talian Nachos. There is no time to cook one of Fieri's chickens tonight, as I am returning to zumba class, but maybe his linguine with clams.

But then I'll look puffy in my jacket photo!

Can't wait for Tree of Life.

*Should you see it? Rachel McAdams negates her prettiness with convincing portrayal of crass shrew. Owen Wilson makes a more appealing Woody Allen than Woody Allen. Michael Sheen is wasted behind that beard. Plot: mildly amusing. Actor who plays Hemingway very cute. Altogether, Bridesmaids was better. Albeit, of course, filthy.

The incredible, inedible egg

We feed our chickens well.

I'm an adventurous eater, but like most people I have a few intractable aversions. And they are pretty lame. I haven't drunk a glass of milk since I was 5 and I don't think I've ever eaten an entire egg. I like the yolk of a fried or soft-boiled egg, but the white makes me skin crawl. Hard-boiled eggs are out of the question as are deviled eggs and egg salad. But worst of all: scrambled eggs. I can barely stand to watch other people eat scrambled eggs. I would as soon eat a fetal duck egg as a scrambled egg.

Which is why I should never have attempted Heidi Swanson's seasonal vegetable frittata from Super Natural Every Day. I like frittata when there's so much cheese and vegetable that you can convince yourself the egg is just there to help the other ingredients coalesce This was not Swanson's seasonal vegetable frittata.

I'm not sure zucchinis are in season, but they were in our CSA box, so I used zucchini as our seasonal vegetable and sliced up some potatoes. Swanson calls for a mere ounce of goat or feta cheese for 10 eggs, so I doubled that, given my need to disguise the eggs. I thought it was a very handsome frittata.

But while I was hungry, I was apparently not hungry enough. It was too eggy for me. At the same time, it was too full of zucchini for household scrambled egg lovers. "Not the best, Mom," said Owen. "No offense."

 I don't fault Swanson's recipe. I just don't have a feel for egg cookery. We fed the leftovers to the chickens, who love eggs with a disturbing ardor. Which may have something to do, though I'm not sure exactly what, with why I'm turned off by eggs.

Our second favorite Heidi Swanson pasta salad.

Last night, I made Swanson's tortellini salad using CSA broccoli and supermarket asparagus. It was tasty, but compared unfavorably to the orzo salad I described in a previous post, the recipe for which you can find here. Try it!

As I've mentioned, I'm going to cook from Guy Fieri Food next. It appeared in the mail and Owen has been flipping through it and folding back pages of he-man dishes like spaghetti and meatballs and pork ribs. Every day he asks me when I'm going to stop cooking from "the vegetable book."

I know. But Owen has eaten a lot of tempeh and broccoli lately and I owe him. And for all the noisy graphics and dudespeak, the recipes in this book look delicious and solid.

Meanwhile, here's what's left on my Swanson to-cook list:

-baked oatmeal. Because Soule Mama loves it.
-dilled green beans with seitan. Because I've never eaten seitan. (Or, as Buddy Garritty calls it, "satan.")
-repeat of the cauliflower soup. Because there's a CSA cauliflower to use up
-mostly not potato salad. Because there are CSA potatoes to use up.
-carnival cookies. Because: popcorn, peanuts, bananas, chocolate chips, ground almonds.
-Tutti frutti crumble. Because the picture is so beautiful.
-Bran muffins. Because I have been searching for the perfect bran muffin recipe since I was 18.