A Pinch Of Science, A Dash of Art

There is a certain duality to my personality which I’m sure drives everyone who knows me crazy. 

Now, every endeavor or facet of life has art to it, and science.  We have many words for this duality.  Left brain/right brain.  Art/Science.  Mars/Venus .  In Christianity we call it Spirit / Truth . 

Most of us have an engineer and an artist inside us, with one of them being the boss.  Not me.  My scientific and artistic sides are almost totally equal - at this point in my life, they have reached an uneasy cease-fire, and have even learned to cooperate somewhat.

(As an aside, I think this is where nm and I don’t see eye to eye about music.  I equally appreciate the artistry AND craft of songwriting and recording.  This is why I consider Dylan (artistry) and Phil Collins (craft) to both be masters)

Let me tell you a secret that successful people follow (in any undertaking): master the science, and allow the art to master you.  Know everything there is to know about whatever it is you are doing, but use that knowledge as a sail, not an anchor.  Create, but do so only after you understand the foundations on which you create.

I swear, if I didn’t claim Jesus Christ as Lord, I’d probably gravitate to Buddhism.

I’m digressing from where i wanted to go with this, but I think my two sides are having an argument right now.

What I wanted to tell you is that I’ve ordered a book I wish I had ordered years ago.  It’s called On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee.  I think it will bring balance back into my “cooking” life.

Up till now, my time in the kitchen has been by the seat of my pants, fearlessly trying this ingredient or that method, many times with good results, many times causing my family to pay the price.  The Artist has had full control, with the Engineer only being an onlooker.  I think that reading this book will correct that.  The synopsis at Amazon:

A classic tome of gastronomic science and lore, On Food and Cooking delivers an erudite discussion of table ingredients and their interactions with our bodies. Following the historical, literary, scientific and practical treatment of foodstuffs from dairy to meat to vegetables, McGee explains the nature of digestion and hunger before tackling basic ingredient components, cooking methods and utensils. He explains what happens when food spoils, why eggs are so nutritious and how alcohol makes us drunk. As fascinating as it is comprehensive, this is as practical, interesting and necessary for the cook as for the scholar.

I’ve learned from young Jedi Alton Brown, now I need to learn from Yoda himself.  It’s my understanding that On Food and Cooking may be the single most in-depth study of food science ever assembled.  If I can learn the “whys” of ingredients and techniques, then, just like in music, improvisation will be (pardon the pun) a piece of cake.

This may take a while to get through, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

This Tickles Me

Arguably the biggest star in America, the person who outsells all others in pop music, with a hit TV show and an upcoming major film…

 …prefers Nashville restaurants to those in Los Angeles.

Miley Cyrus is looking forward to returning to her Middle Tennessee home on April 12 to co-host the April 14 CMT Music Awards and film her first Hannah Montana feature film…

…Believe it or not, she loves Nashville’s food over the West Coast’s. “I swear, I’ll gain 20 pounds by the time I leave there,” she said. “There are so many more better restaurants than here. There’s more variety there.

“I love Cracker Barrel, of course. J. Alexander’s is my all-time favorite.”

Gasp!  A chain!

OK, I know she’s only 15, what does she know?  She probably even likes Pizza Hut.

If she shops at WalMart, heads will explode all over Green Hills.

Kiss My Grits

When I was growing up, on those wonderful “big breakfast Sundays”, we’d have bacon and sausage and white gravy, and eggs over-medium, and my mom’s world famous biscuits.  The biscuits where there for three reasons:

1. They were incredible on their own.

2. They were necessary for sopping up the yolks of the eggs.

3.  “Dessert” was a biscuit topped with gravy.

 Did I tell you we had three teenage boys at one time?

Anyway, another thing we had on big breakfast Sundays was grits.  Mom would give us our individual servings, then each of us would proceed to sprinkle sugar over it.

I didn’t know this was weird for around here till I grew up.  Most Nashvillians, it would seem, go for the pat of butter with salt & pepper treatment for grits.  But, try as I may to fit in, I cannot have grits without sugar.

How did a family growing up in Nashville develop such a regionally uncharacteristic food habit?  I think it’s due to the fact that my grandparents were from other states (Alabama and Missouri).  I THINK sugar on grits is an Alabama thing, but I’m not sure.

Perhaps some enterprising food anthropologist can do some research on grits preparation and how it varies in the different sub-regions of the south.

So, how do you like to have your grits?

Random Thoughts On Food

Paula Deen is right: butter makes it better.  More on this in a minute.

My love affair with food began almost 30 years ago.  I was your typical latchkey kid, with a twist.  The whole time I was growing up, my dad had real cool cars.  Camaros, Mustangs, a souped-up Ford Fairlane.  When I was a teen, he had an Olds 442.  It had the awesome paint job with the “442″ on the sides, racing strips and mag wheels.  In 1981, due to the almost decade-long energy crisis, there just weren’t many sporty options in vehicles, so it was definitely the coolest car in my part of town at the time.

What the heck does that have to do with food?  Hang on, I’m getting there.  My parents were hard-working people; when they got home in the evening, they were too tired for cooking and cleaning.  For me, school let out at 2 in the afternoon.  So, Dad made me an offer: help out around the house, get to use the “cool” car on weekends.  I started with simple cleaning.  Then I graduated to cooking simple dinners.  On weekends, my mom would show me tricks, and have me help with her monster-sized southern dinners.  I learned just enough to be dangerous, then I got better.

After school, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time as a bachelor, so when I ended up marrying a woman who never learned the first thing about cooking,  I just naturally slipped into that role.  I’ve been honing my skills ever since.

I realized tonight that I am not really a good cook.  Not in the “foodie” sense of the word.  Oh, what I cook, I’m pretty good at.  But, my menu is limited to the southern, po-folks food I grew up with.  I make very little that could be called fancy.  I don’t use fresh ingredients very often.  Sometimes, I even make stuff with parts out of a box.

I make things like pork chop pie, chicken over eggbread, a mean chilli.  I make really good homemade Philly cheesesteak sandwiches.  After 30 years, I finally, finally mastered southern pan-fried chicken.  It’s probably the hardest thing to get exactly right.  My mother tried to teach me when I was young, and it’s taken years and years of frustrations to get right.  Don’t ask me the secret, because it’s not a science, it’s an art.  It’s something you feel your way through.

I spent 5 years in the pizza business.  I learned enough that my homemade pizza pleases even my kids.  I make my spaghetti sauce from scratch (it isn’t that hard), as well as my Swedish meatballs (ALWAYS served over egg noodles, thank you).

Tonight, we had pork chops and rice, the simplest of dishes.  You just brown boneless pork chops in an electric skillet, set them to the side, make Rice-A-Roni per the directions, and put the chops into the rice mixture as it is cooking.  It makes the most wonderfully flavored, juicy chops, and the kids can’t get enough of it.

I had lima beans with it. Limas are the one food I like that no one else in my family likes.  I guess everybody’s got one of those.

My mother’s lasagna is the best you will EVER taste.  Mine comes in second.  Yeah,I’m bragging.  Come on over, I’ll feed you some. 

Here’s an easy meal:  Place a filet of your favorite fish (I like flounder) in a small sheet of aluminum foil.  Brush it with butter.  Cover it with mixed veggies: broccoli, a little squash, peppers, that kind of thing.  Sprinkle lemon pepper seasoning over the whole thing, and close the foil  over it all, making your own little roasting pan.  Bake the recommended time for the size fish you have, and you’re done!

Breakfast is the hardest meal to get just right.  Everything has to be done at exactly the same time.  I grew up with a love for eggs over-medium, perfect for sopping with a biscuit.  I’ve passed this love down to my daughter.

I’ve already told you about my chicken and dumplins.

I’m realizing as I read over some of the things I like to cook, that food is the essence of who we are.  I’ve always felt the tug of war between my wish to be more sophisticated, and my common folk upbringing.  Deep down, I’m not very fancy, though I’d like to be.  When I was younger, I purposely lost my southern accent; it’s one of the few regrets I have in life.  I am glad, though, that I have that connection with my mother and her mother through the food I cook.  The fact that my kids like my cooking is a plus.

Oh yeah,one more thing.  For at least 20 years, I’ve been on the low fat kick.  I’ve pretty much always used margarine.  Recently, I decided to try real butter for cooking instead.  Folks, I had no idea what I was missing.  It’s like putting on glasses for the very first time.  It’s like sex.  It may even be better.  I am absoutely in love with butter.  Where has it been all my life?

Please Put The Item In The Bag

The new Harris Teeter in Belle Meade will have a device to take your cart to your car. It’s like a parking lot conveyor belt. Damn.

What I want to know: does this mean my wife will no longer circle the parking lot like a vulture for 30 minutes to ensure a spot closer to the store?

I doubt it. She enjoys it too much. It’s not about being closer or saving effort, it’s about winning some imaginary parking game she has implanted in her head.

The absolute most important thing, however, is that the Belle Meade Kroger will soon have some real competition. I drive home on West End/Harding, so I’ll have my choice of the tiny Kroger, an overpriced Harris Teeter, where I don’t even have to push my cart to my car, or an equally overpriced Publix.

It will all boil down to who has the best produce, because when I stop at the grocery on the way home, it’s to get an ingredient for a side dish; I invariably forget the sides on my weekly grocery run.

Here’s A Tip: I’m Easily Amused

I’m all excited because I just discovered that my cell phone has a tip calculator.

Not that I would normally need it. When restaurant tipping, our default 20% is easily calculated in the head: take two 10 percents (which most third graders can calculate), and add them together.  Even I can do it.

But there are (rare) times when less than stellar service means will merit a 15% tip.  Although I THINK I can figure it out on the fly (one ten percent + half again), it’s nice to have a little electronic help.  Plus the thing helps you calculate how to split the tip if you have more than one person in your party.  What a neat toy.

IF the waiter slapped my dog and called my momma a Nazi cow, I’d have to lower the tip to 10 percent.  I do not tip below ten percent, ever.  I will not have a person who brought me food, no matter how bad or rude they are, be paid $2 wages for the entire time I am requiring their services.  Your mileage may vary, I just won’t do it.

Which of course, brings us to those everlasting controversies about tipping.  There are always questions:

1. Would you ever NOT leave a tip?
2. What are your tipping rules for buffets (assuming the wait staff still bring your drinks)? 
3. Do you tip the girls at Sonic - and how much? 
4. Is 10% a decent pizza delivery tip? Or do you just make it a flat 2 or three bucks?
5. Do you tip more if the waiter/waitress flirts with you? (think Hooters).  Men, if the Hooters waitress takes forever bringing your food, but regularly brushes up against you and leans over the table strategically, do you still tip big?  Be honest.  BTW, women, I was once a waiter.  If you think we men don’t play these games with you (albeit more subtly), you are mistaken.  And you do tip more when we flirt with you.

Anyway, I am so happy to know I have a tip calculator in my cell phone.

Just in case, you know, I ever, like,  go back to Hooters.

Aerogarden Update

We are almost ready for the first harvest!  Here is what things look like:

But all is not well in herb-land. You can see here, one of the seed pods was a dud:

It was the cilantro. No Tex Mex for me! Lintilla hates cilantro, so she thinks it’s no big loss.

My experience with herbs is limited to the spice aisle at Kroger, so I’m a little confused as to what I can do once we harvest.  How long do fresh herbs keep?  Do I have to immediately make dishes with basil, mint, chives, purple basil and dill?  Can I put them in the fridge and keep them a while?

Anyway, Trillian and I are excited: in just a day or two, we can have baked potatoes with butter and fresh chives. 

Sweet Tea

Since about Thanksgiving, we have been drinking a lot of soft drinks.  That would be “cokes” for you folks from around here, and “pop” for some of you.  I have no idea what they call it in New York.  Whatever you call it, we, the Bartfasts, need to stop. 

We had been stocking up because I’ve been easing up on the kids during these last few crazy months, and the darn things are just so cheap, if you buy 2-liter bottles at WalMart or Kroger.  Even though we’ve been drinking diet sodas, there is no denying that sodas are bad for your teeth, and just generally not good for you.

We drink plenty of milk (I’m going to have to figure out one day how I ended up with TWO Asian children who aren’t lactose intolerant).  And water’s always good.  Juices generally are not, because my kids just don’t need the sugar.  But, I’ve found that my kids enjoy dinner more if they have that “restaurant experience”, and if they can’t have sodas, the next best thing is sweet tea.

I did not know until a few years ago that sweet tea was a regional thing.  (For that matter, so are “chicken biscuits”, I’ve found).  But when I started traveling more, I discovered that outside of the southeast, it’s hard to find pre-sweetened iced tea.  Even at Disney World.  There are only two restaurants at DW that feature sweet tea, one is Trail’s End in the campground, and I don’t know the other one.  I’m sure Kat Coble knows.

I can tell you that restaurant wise, the two places I’ve been that have the best sweet tea are the Rendezvous in Memphis and Monell’s in Nashville.  Cracker Barrel is OK, but the Rendezvous and Monell’s understand how to make it: that see-through orangey-brown color, enough sweetener so it’s sweet, but not too much.

Anyway, I just  finished making a couple of gallons of sweet tea (It’s been so long since I’ve made it, I had forgotten that you have to dilute the final product, so I ended up with 2 gallons).

Let’s hear it for the official drink of the south!

The Chicken N’ Dumplins Recipe

For nm, and the others I promised this to.  Y’all are going to get to know what I’ve felt like all my life.   I learned this from my mother, whose favorite saying when teaching me a recipe is “Just add ‘x’ till it looks right…”  I really don’t have many measurements to give you.  But, I’ll try.

OK, this couldn’t be simpler.  This is one of those dishes that isn’t completely from scratch.  I’d be interested in how other folks from around here do it.

For my family of four:

You need some kind of chicken (either boneless breasts or some kind of boned chicken).  I use boneles skinless, because it’s easier and has less fat.  You also need Bisquick, or a Bisquick-like product, and milk.  There is the possibility you might need about a cup of chicken broth.

Fill a 4.5 qt dutch oven about 2/3 of the way with water, and boil about a lb of thawed boneless, skinless chicken breasts in it.  If you want real authenticity (and better flavor) , boil a whole chicken, or a couple of quarters,  but that’s a lot more work.

For the boneless/skinless type, boil about 15 minutes.  For the boned type, boil it till the meat starts falling off the bone easily.

While this is going on, make the dumplins.  I usually use the biscuit recipe on the box, which is 2 /14 cups of baking mix, and 2/3 cup of milk.  The important thing is that you have that thick biscuit-y consistency.

Continue like you are making biscuits.  Heavily flour a surface on your counter, and turn your dough onto it.  Flour the top of the dough and pat it down to about a half inch thick.  Fold and pat about 5 times, always adding more flour so the “sticky” goes away.

Then, roll the flour out like you are making a pie crust.  What is that, about an 8th of an inch thick?  Anyway, it should be darn thin.

Take a pizza cutter, and slice the dough into strips that are about an inch wide, and maybe three inches long.  You’ll have some long ones and some smaller ones.

Hopefully, by now the chicken’s done.

When it is, take the chicken out and set aside.  DO NOT drain. Turn the heat down to low.  I usually throw in about a teaspoon of pepper and a tablespoon of salt.  IF you are using the super-healthy kind of chicken, you might not have much chicken fat in your water - not good.  This is where you add the cup of chicken broth. 

Shred the chicken (no matter how I cool it, I usually mildly burn my fingers), and place the shredded chicken back in the stock. 

Now, drop each dumplin strip into the stock. Don’t dilly-dally, because you’ll end up creating a dumplin wall and your later dumplings won’t make it into the stock, and you’ll be forced to stir.  You can force them under the water once, if need be.

Cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes.  By now, you’ll definitely have a dumplin wall.  Pull back a little, and if the broth still seems too soupy for you (some people like it that way), add in a roux:

Mix two tablespoons of flour with enough water to make it into a liquidy paste, mix well, and slowly stir into the broth.  Continue cooking for another 5 minutes.  The thicker you want it, the more roux you would add.

Remove from heat, allow to cool for AT LEAST 10 minutes to get a thicker consistency.

Enjoy.

I know this is a mess.  I wish I had a recipe recipe, but that’s not how I learned to do it.

Chicken & Dumplin(g)s

I made my chicken and dumplins tonight (really, pronouncing the ‘g’ is just wrong).  They are usually tasty, but my beautiful strips of dough usually lose their form and dissolve into the broth, making a tasty gravy.  It might taste good, but that ain’t proper chicken & dumplins. 

Well, I was watching Paula Deen the other day, and she was making the same dish.  She said that the key is to NOT stir the dumplings.  Not one bit.  Just let them cook.

Doh!

Worked like a charm.  They are settin’ right now (I don’t like them soupy.  I even added a roux - I prever the gravy texture).

Anybody hungry?  You’ve got ten minutes to get to West Meade.