good meatball: the key to seducing your editor

it’s saturday and i decide i’m going to make a run at my editor. now seducing the person who washes your underwear, the person with whom you share a bathroom isn’t as easy as Dylan would have you think, “lay lady, lay / lay with your man a while”. the editor is beginning a fitness "boot camp" on the morrow and for the next six weeks our amour conjugal windows will be a scant half hour after getting the kids in bed at 8:35pm and her falling asleep on the couch at 9:02pm.

if the home fires are to remain burning, they will have to be stoked tonight, so how to lay the groundwork? i don’t have any money to buy flowers (a sure fire first step) nor am i all that accomplished of a romantic poet (Bukowski is of no use in the married home). i suppose i could just soberly point out that i’ll keep nagging her with sad, wanting sighs until she takes pity on me. but i dismiss the thought as less than masculine.

just when i’m running empty strategicallywise(1), a dark, manipulative plan hatches somewhere in the cold recesses of my mind. it so happens that during boot camp most of the food i make (that she loves) will be restricted. also on the restricted list, alcohol. it occurs to me suddenly, this will be my last chance for six weeks to get her drunk.

now my editor seldom over-imbibes, a certain company christmas party or anywhere there’s good tequila(2) notwithstanding. so i will need to create a menu that demands glassfuls of red wine (an approved household beverage for the next 24 hours). this will mean pasta, cheesy bread, and some kind of chocolate.

i decide on making some homemade meatballs. toss them with a simple tomato sauce and some mostacolli (recipe below). as a grand gesture i make the most fattening garlic bread ever to see the nether side of a broiler; conspiring with 4oz of parmesan cheese and an entire stick of butter the bread would be grounds for dishonorable discharge from boot camp. and for the coup de grace...undercooked brownies. the wine will surely flow.

however, as we eat (and i pour) my aim of bedding my editor falls into jeopardy as my true feelings about boot camp begin to stick up uncomfortably in our conversation like flakes of skin behind one's eyelid....

Am PoMo: i never said boot camp was lame. i just think it’s pretty silly that someone would be motivated just because they’re paying someone to yell at them.

Editor: it’s not like that. they’re supportive.
Am PoMo: what i mean is that you’re all adults who can choose to participate or not. so the “boot camp” is just a marketing ploy.
Editor: so what? i think it’s a great idea. why do you have to break everything down?
Am PoMo: i’m not breaking it down; i just want to separate what's happening. all i’m saying is if you don’t write in your food journal or you don’t show up one day what are they going to do?
Editor: they make the whole group do extra push ups. so you don’t want to let the team down.
Am PoMo: what i mean is everyone there is trying to get in shape. it still comes down to an individual choice to do the work or not.
Editor: why would it be important to point that out? why can’t you just support me?
Am PoMo: i do, you know i do. i just like to keep things pure. so you know what the truth is versus what is marketing.
Editor: you think i don’t know the difference?

ugh. inevitably my cursed postmodernist/deconstructionist tendencies have sabotaged my plan and now i’m in the kitchen looking for that bottle of tequila (read to mean Plan "B").

but the dinner was spectacular. and it just might have worked if it wasn’t for those meddling, faux military metanarratives....


music pairing: jackie maclean “nature boy”, the new pornographers "challengers".
brownie mix: betty crocker fudge brownie mix
wine pairing: any good chianti will do, even the $7 bottle in the basket in from your grocery store; columbia crest merlot(3) "grand estates"


meatballs

½ lb lean ground beef
½ lb lean ground pork
3 oz grated parmesan
2 cloves finely minced garlic
2 TB chopped italian parsley
½ cup fresh bread crumbs
2 TB whole milk
1 egg
lots of salt and grand black pepper




quick tomato sauce

1 28oz can of whole, peeled tomatoes
1 14oz can tomato sauce
½ medium white or brown onion
1 tsp crushed, dry oregano
¼ cup mozzarella and ½ tsp finely chopped italian parsley to finish

garlic bread

1 large loaf of italian bread (the squishier the better)
1 stick softened butter
4 oz shredded parmesan cheese
1 TB garlic power (or garlic salt if the butter is unsalted)
1 tsp finely chopped italian parsley
½ tsp paprika

although i grind/grate most of the meatball ingredients in a food processor, i always combine the separate ingredients by hand so the actual meatball is not "over processed". also, take some liberties with the salt and pepper......there's nothing worse than a dry, bland meatball.

1. combine the meatball ingredients by hand; roll 2 - 3 TB of meat between your hands, gently applying pressure to make sure the meatball is solid all the way through.

2. dredge meatballs in flour and chill in the fridge for about a half hour while you prep the garlic bread and pasta.

3. heat 2 TB olive oil in a heavy bottomed dutch oven; brown meatballs in batches until all sides are browned; when frying the last batch begin making the quick tomato sauce...add onions first and let them cook with the meatballs; add all remaining ingredients for quick tomato sauce.

4. simmer meatballs in tomato sauce for about 20 minutes. meanwhile cook mostacolli (per box instructions), strain. dump the past into a pasta server and add some of the tomato sauce so the mostacolli doesn't stick.

5. fire up the broiler. assemble the garlic bread by splitting the stick of butter between the halved loaf; sprinkle bread with garlic salt, parmesan cheese, parsley, and paprika; broil quickly, checking for browned edges every minute or so.

6. keep that broiler going.....arrange the meatballs on top of the sauced pasta and spoon remaining sauce over the top. now sprinkle a few ounces of shredded mozzarella, any remaining parmesan and some parsley over the top; broil quickly just to brown the cheese topping.

after the meatball extravaganza is over make sure you have some merlot left over. the under cooked brownies will benefit from some grape. just as there is an order with salt, tequila, lime i suggest the following....strawberry, brownie, merlot. trust me, it work(ed)s.

(1) kadigan #34.....for some reason my boss finds it perfectly acceptable to add the suffix "-wise" to any word whereby exacerbating it's already obvious meaning.

(2) the editor is a legend in tequila consumption. on a recent girl's boondoggle she emasculated several grown men consuming grande quantities of tres generations.

(3) i don't care what you picked up from the movie "sideways", merlot is good wine. the right bank of bordeaux will comply, canon-la-gaffeliere 1998 surely. on the value tip, washington's columbia crest "grand estates" has been making some of the most affordable and perfectly drinkable merlot for at least a decade. it scores in the 90's with the wine spectator and is almost always on the shelf in your local pedestrian grocery store for $8 or less. it is quite simply the best value you'll ever find in mass production.

demob happy: start w/good soundtrack, quiche and shut up about it

it's a much belated shot in the ass to get some new music from my artistic director, b. yotchslaap salamander. i said i wanted to do a blog on food and i needed a spring soundtrack to get the ball rolling (note: i will be blaming all unfavorable aspects of the blog on my staff for the duration). i returned home from chicago last week to find a few cd’s pushed through the front door mail slot. so i now have KoL, kate nash, hanne hukkleberg (some plaintive german? singer), herb ohta jr (hawai'i's finest ukulele virtuosos), and the new U2 downloaded to my bb curve. was this antecedent soundtrack obtained through the music industry's legal retail avenues? let's not be naive.

i guess the raison d’être for this blog is that i have to write something or i’ll lose my goddamned mind. i am bored to death. i've been driving myself crazy with guilt over my debilitating time serving propensities. realizing last night that i was lulling her into a coma with turgid ranting over trivial office politics(1) my wife/editor insisted i start writing again and shut up about it. so, i've started....blogging. demob happy(2), i hope.

right now i'm calling it the amateur postmodernist food blog. i'm thinking i'll write some bits about food i like to cook. i’m no slouch in the kitchen but i'm terrible at staying on point so...hey! do they have donuts over there? my editor assures me she can keep me topical, but she's on the wrong side of seven loads of laundry and hasn't yet managed to glue the bird on the junie b. doll for the open cereal box book report, so... i think you should just read it and shut up about it.

credentials? i'm passionate about cooking, and i have a solid vein of objective critical theory from my private protestant pentecostal education (K - college)(3). i’m looking for more out my native English language than what i overhear in the office(4). i’ve written about 14.7 poems and two short stories (mostly in my car at lunch and none of them published), and i adore eating. but truthfully i really just have an abundance of time on my hands when i’m not mouth breathing in my cube.

but why postmodernist? because i took one of those illuminating facebook quizzes "What kind of philosopher are you"(5) and apparently i'm a postmodernist, meaning i'm incredulous to metanarratives. i don't know what metanarratives are either (not really sure it's a word) but i like it because it made me sound so super smart and i am often accused of and certainly enjoy being incredulous towards things; a little something my editor refers to as "snarkiness". not sure this is a word either.

the description also pointed out the self-contradictory problems inherent in post modernism. i don’t see this as a problem.....you can't imagine what an albatross down it is to finally be vetted by the sage fb quiz authors, their various grammatical errors notwithstanding, to know once and for all why i find it uncomfortable to follow any established convention.

concerning cooking, i’m specifically interested in the creative process. for my methodology i borrow from the chilean poet huidobro who said a poem should always be a new object “...like nature creates a tree.” i think this can be applied to cooking. well, my cooking at any rate. even when i follow a recipe the result is never the same. there are a myriad of explanations for this.....maybe i didn’t write down the method correctly, or got heavy-handed with an ingredient. maybe i paired the dish with a different starch or a clashing wine. but now i think it’s my postmodernist tendencies overpowering my ability to follow any set of rules....thanks facebook!

what i have found out in over 10 years of serious amateur cooking is that 80% of cooking is shopping. i think method, oven temp, and cooking time all come second to ingredients. don’t get me wrong.....i love eating good food and pleasing people with something i’ve made is a great feeling. but what really gets me going is planning a menu because at this point there are no limitations and what i end up making could be anything. (this is also why i’m frequently banned from doing the weekly grocery shopping....i end up spending our whole budget on impossibly perfect nectarines or a bagful of baby bok choy that only i will eat.) if i had a mission statement for am/po-mo it would be something akin to an Edward Behr quote i read a couple years ago, “...cooking so straight-forward, that assembles outstanding materials separately and perfectly cooked, that demands, through much labor to humbly exalt nature.”(6)

so diving right into my amateur recipe book i will now include one of the first things i ever wrote down. quiche. penned almost 11 years ago i remember foolishly thinking it would be the one and only way i would ever make quiche. no idea where the original recipe came from but the quiche i made for my daughter’s school function this past thursday bore no resemblance to the original from what i can tell. however, it still disappeared faster than it took me to break six eggs; the secret was a high quality gruyere and a homemade pie pastry that uses an entire stick of butter. so below is the recipe i used last week.

music pairing: calexico (feast of wire) or horace silver (song for my father)
wine pairing: pinto gris from oregon, off-dry sparkling wine (blanc de noirs), or a mimosa since it’s breakfast and your kids will think you’re drinking orange juice.

quiche filling

6 eggs
1½ cups evaporated milk
¾ cup heavy cream
1 10oz. package of frozen, chopped spinach (defrosted)
1 cup diced ham
2 tbl finely chopped onions
¼ cup small diced red bell pepper
2 tbl butter
½ cup shredded irish white cheddar cheese
½ cup shredded gruyere (or high quality swiss cheese)
1½ cups shredded parmesan cheese
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp salt
½ tsp garlic salt

pie pastry

1½ cups flour
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
8 tbl butter
¼ cup vegetable shortening
¼ cup plus 2 tbl ice water
extra flour for rolling the pastry

make the pastry first. this is the hardest and possibly most frustrating part. it took me years to get pastry right. just remember you want to keep the butter in the pastry solid/cold. you will have time to prep the filling while you let the ball of dough rest for 30 minutes.

whisk to combine flour, sugar, and salt.
using a pastry cutter or two butter knives cut flour with a very cold stick of butter until you have pea sized nuggets of butter.
quickly cut in the vegetable shortening.
add ¼ ice water to form a ball, adding additional water if dough won’t stick together.
wrap pastry ball in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes while prepping the filling.

preheat your oven to 425 degrees. you’ll want to use a towel or something to squeeze all of the water out of your defrosted spinach unless you want your quiche to be green.

thoroughly dry spinach.
lightly sauté ham, onion, and bell pepper in butter for about 3 minutes, and let cool.
whisk eggs with evaporated milk and cream.
add veggies to egg mix along with cheeses and seasonings.

lightly flour your pastry ball and roll it out to a 10’ round, keeping the thickness of the pastry to at least ¼ inch. the easiest way i’ve found to get the pastry to the pie dish is to fold it. fold the pastry round in half and then fold again into a quarter circle. place the point of the quarter folded pastry in the center of the pie dish and unfold. pinch up the edge of the pastry around the pie dish and pour in the filling.

positioning the pie dish in the center of the oven bake the quiche at 425 for 15 minutes then reduce the oven temp to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 25 minutes.


(1) yes, i’m aware that more people than a few people are out of work right now and that i could join them at any time per my “at will” employment status. i usually refrain from talking about my horrible failure of a career, however when i do uncork about my job i usually don’t stop until my wife’s eyelids are struggling to stay open and she’s sorry she asked.

(2) demobilization; broadly applied as a british idiom – a feeling of relief at imminent release from a time-serving burden, such as a career.

(3) at no point was i ever taught evolution or sex education (at least not in the classroom, if you know what i mean) at the schools i attended; math and science were taken less seriously than home economics and ceramics respectively; at least half of my 9th grade biology class was a deep immersion in the tenants of biblical creation. in 7th grade we were taught that there were certain musical notes, specifically in rock and blues songs, that the devil used to speak to young people (see Winkie Pratney, Doorways to Discipleship, Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, 1977. ISBN 871231069).

(4) non-words, kadigans, and horribly butchered idioms used in everyday speech at work (but mostly by my boss), e.g. "really nail the head on the coffin" or "make a mountain out of an anthill".

(5) "What School of Philosophy Best Describes You" with the result Postmodern.....“You are incredulous to metanarratives. Truth is relative to all the elements of history and social location. You seek diversity and fragmentation as well as the dissolution of power structures that oppress people. You are probably a feminist and you probably critique social mores through the use of deconstruction. Unfortunately many don't consider you a philosopher: logical self-contradictions abound in postmodern theory, but you certainly have a lot to offer in the way of social critique. You are a postmodern.”

(6) Art of Eating #69, Edward Behr critiquing the food from Normand Laprise’s Quebecois restaurant Toqué!