How a Good Family Food Culture Goes Bad. Very, Very Bad

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posted by Lisa

Of course, it was bound to come to an end.

On the plane ride home, a red-eye, I got sick.  It’s generally been a great way for us to travel, but not this year for me.  Later, I would be diagnosed with severe migraines, but at the time, I didn’t know this and, by the time we arrived in California, in the very early morning I felt like I had an ice pick in my head, a sledge hammer pounding my sinuses.  I was exhausted and sick to my stomach.

To make matters even more pleasant, our house had been fumigated while we had been away, so while we it was spotless, it was also completely evacuated of comestibles.  Everything edible had been donated, disposed, or doubled wrapped in large “nylofume” bags.  We had one very sorry bag of baking goods-mostly decorating sugars, baking sodas and powders and vanilla, that kind of thing–at the back of our pantry:

Plus several liters of my homemade limoncello, also doublebagged in my freezer, which wasn’t helping the situation much.

But there was another circle of hell designed just for us: no hot water.

PG & E had arrived the day before for the post-fumigation return-to-service call.  I called the number on the frightening yellow sheet immediately.  I was told: no appointment for 3 days.

I explained the situation.  I begged.  We had a fancy wedding to attend the next day in Sonoma, for our best friend The Sommelier at a very fancy winery. I really did have to wash.  I groveled, very, very calmly.  I explained that it was entirely my fault, having noted in my calendar our return date accurately but had overlooked the fact that our flight was an overnight flight, meaning our arrival home was actually not coeval with said departure date, etc. etc.   I was exceedingly polite and completely desperate.  I explained that I had 2 young children.  I was more desperate.  How does one function without hot water? The dispatcher was very, very kind.   Within the hour, someone came out. We had hot water.

Then, we all slept until noon, and when the kids were awake starving, of course, Kory rallied and took them to our local market for provisions. On his own, he managed to buy enough supplies to last a couple of days. These included:

1 gallon milk

orange juice

1 loaf white bread

peanut butter

strawberry jelly

hamburger buns

romaine lettuce

tomatoes

ground beef

chicken soup (for me)

macaroni and cheese (for lunches)

rice krispies

granola

bananas

strawberries

eggs (good for dinner & breakfast)

cheddar cheese

tortillas

pasta

carrots

green beans

I had some canned tomatoes and black and cannelini beans, so he had actually purchased enough to get through several days of breakfast lunch and dinner: hamburgers (which Kory made that first night home); cereal, PB & J, scrambled eggs; cereal, mac & Cheese, simple pasta; cereal, quesadillas, more pasta; etc.  I was pretty pleased. Our meals were pretty bland and boring, but this wasn’t exactly Kory’s fault.  Being sick, it was hard to get food on the table, and there was little in the house to choose from.  It took several days to get to the market, and a full week before the farmer’s market came round again and our home was fully stocked.

Until then, well, we didn’t starve.  But it did prove once again that all things start with The List.

What We Found at Home

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posted by Caroline

I didn’t know what to expect when we got home from France. Usually we leave the house empty for a week or so, and a friend often thoughtfully stocks our fridge with milk and bread and eggs, maybe some fresh fruit, for our return. But this time, we were gone much longer and it worked out to have a housesitter stay with her two children. What would we find at home, we all wondered. The boys thought maybe the other kids would have set up a new and exciting train track. I just hoped the house was sort of clean. In fact, it was very clean, and better, I found a note saying “Everything in the fridge is recent, and edible.” Well, we’ll give the turkey breast to friends who eat turkey, and some of the rest is food I wouldn’t have thought to buy myself, but frozen pizza when we’re all so jetlagged? Looks good to me.

a bottle of Sprite

a box of Rice Dream

a box of organic salad greens

a Kashi frozen pizza

Trader Joe’s frozen quesadillas

a jar of orange marmalade

half a carrot cake (yum!)

a jar of Skippy peanut butter

4 steamed artichokes (possibly from the plant in our backyard)

1/2 can of black beans

frozen black bean and cheese taquitos

frozen green beans

frozen pesto tortellini

a jar of Smuckers strawberry jam

a quart of hazelnut flavor Coffee Mate

a box of Stoned Wheat Thins

The Salad Trio

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posted by Caroline

Years ago, the “sorbet trio” became such a ubiquitous feature on San Francisco menus that it was the subject of a piece in the local paper. The enterprising reporter called dozens of restaurants, from Gary Danko and Postrio to more modest locales, asking what the night’s sorbet trio was. Everyone had one, whether it was a fancy lemon-tarragon, creme fraiche, and espresso, or a more humble choc-van-straw. And then just as quickly as it took over, it faded, replaced by the unexciting line at the bottom of the dessert menu: “Selection of House made Sorbets.” OK, fine. But I kinda miss the trio; I didn’t have to choose.

On the boat, we experienced the daily salad trio. Sometimes it looked like this:



And sometimes it looked like this:

And while the boys wouldn’t touch les trois salades, we learned to eat them all quite happily, making small (or not-so-small) mounds on our plates each day, admiring Charlie’s ability to balance flavor, texture, and color.

“Who will make us our three salads when we get home?” we asked each other sadly. I’ve never been the kind of person who cooks a week’s worth of dinners on a weekend afternoon, not much of a freezer or a prep-in-advance kind of cook, really, but the three salads have inspired me to spend an extra hour or so shredding carrots, boiling potatoes, and chopping veggies to keep ready in the fridge. I’m eyeing leftover rice and pasta with new interest, considering the possibilities of toasted nuts and diced fruits. I may not manage the salad trio at home, not right away, but I have aspirations, which is a start. I may even, if I keep it really simple, bring the boys along with me. Stay tuned…

One Way to Cook a Pig

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posted by Lisa

There’s no way to soft peddle this one:  We like the luaus.

Last year, we attended a really terrific one at the Grand Hyatt Kauai: great food, fun entertainment, and an unparalleled site in the garden at the edge of the beach.    The appeal was doubled by the fact we could walk there, so there was no limit on the mai tais for me and Kory. Which meant no limit on the juice for the kids. Which was much fun for all, even though we didn’t know that our children were capable of using the bathroom 47 times in 3 hours.  This year, Ella and Finn knew a little about what they were getting in to: the music, the dancing, a big feast. They dressed up.

This year, we opted for Smith’s Tropical Paradise, regularly voted “best on the island”, which we had to drive to, but we hoped the spectacle and setting would balance out the restricted liquid consumption.

And Smith’s gardens are gorgeous, well worth a visit even if you’re not there to eat and see the show.

Abundant native fauna, roving peacocks and other fowl, and a short tram ride that can take those with more limited walking capabilities (like those with young children) to the farther corners of the property.  We bought bird food, and lobster boy and luau girl had much diversion feeding them.

The center of any luau is the imu pig.  An imu is an underground Hawaiian oven, in which one can steam a whole pig, sweet potato, breadfruit, rice puddings, etc. It’s filled with porous rocks, and wood, then lit on fire, the fire heats the rocks, and after the food is lowered, covered with banana leaves, and sealed with dirt, the rocks’ residual heat cooks the food over several hours.

Smith’s has several ovens on their property which at the end of cooking look like this.

The exhuming ceremony begins with a blessing, and a resonant blowing on conch shells to the four points of the compass, after which the earth is dug out.

And yes, it is sort of sexy. Ella and Finn were spellbound.

The banana leaves are lifted, out, then the pig.

And the pig is a wonder to behold.

After the ceremony we proceeded into the open air dining area to eat.  There were long tables, and we sat with some other nice tourists, and as Kory & I helped ourselves to the mai tais, Finn & Ella helped themselves to the hawaiian punch, which may well have been the very thing we drank in the 1970s.  It was red and sweet and probably full of corn syrup, and they thought it was just great. Finn, especially, drank it in enormous gulps, like a fish, or a boy who had been deprived of liquid sustenance for many hours.

We had to wait for our turn at the food, which was served buffet style, but there was some great live music, to enjoy with the drinks.  And a hula lesson which lobster boy and hula girl had been looking forward to.

The food was good, if not excellent, and it was pretty standard luau fare. The centerpiece was the pig, about which the kids were very excited. And even though it was delicious, I had my doubts about whether they would eat it. It’s very brown, and shredded.  But when we set the plates in front of Ella and Finn, the imu pig got 4 big thumbs up.

In spite of the juice jag, they ate pretty well, and so once more, it seemed to be the case that the more they know about where their food comes from, the more likely they are to try something new.  It was certainly not just about the taste of the pig, which was excellent–tender, highly seasoned–and by far the best part of the meal, but about the whole culture of the meal:  the grounds, the train ride, the peacock, the imu, the unearthing ceremony, the fact of the entire enormous pig cooked to perfection right in front of them, the music, the dancing, and even the company of the other guests at our table. They knew that it was special, and that the new food was part of the general excitement.   It didn’t matter to me so much that the food was not as good as it had been at the Hyatt, or that they drank more juice in one night than they had in the previous year, but that they had a night where the food was really different, and they began to understand it was part of a larger and different culture, even though, of course, it was a big tourist event.

And, yes, after dinner, there was a show, in an open air theater, with a live volcano, and a lagoon separating the dancers from the audience. It seemed to be the case that this celebration of Pacific Rim cultures has likley not changed since the 1950s, but parts of it were pretty great.  The kids, of course, loved it.

And as we left, the tiki torches were lit, which are always magical.  And a good photo opportunity for our little warrior.

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