FOOD ON THE FOOD

Reason #12 Not To Read My Blog: Vomit

I’ve vomited in half the restaurants in Boston.

Actually, that’s an overstatement.  I’ve vomited AFTER eating in half the restaurants in Boston.  I’ve vomited inside of only a few.  So far.  This also applies to the restaurants on Cape Cod, where I got married, as well as our honeymoon destination, Hawaii.  This was not the sort of action my husband was expecting.

To be clear, it’s not that the food stinks in fully half of our area restaurants.  Nor does it indicate an alarming fixation on my waistline.  It just happens.  Sometimes there’s warning and sometimes there isn’t. 

I’ve never found a correlation between what I eat and whether or not I get sick.  However, the ratio of deliciousness multiplied by how much I enjoyed myself is always directly proportional to the force and magnitude of my post-indulgent hurl fest.  That I might find myself doubled over the porcelain express fighting for consciousness actually says a thing or two about just how good the meal was. 

In fact, it’s an honor.

As you might imagine, this has made reviewing restaurants a bit of a challenge.  Thanks for holding out your ice bucket as I vomit in your general direction, as well as wiping up the errant splatters on your six-top, but your duck may have been a smidgeon on the greasy side.  On the upside, they take my criticism very seriously.

As it turns out, this situation has a medical name: acquired angioedema.  Translation: an unexplained explosion of the intestines.  Like I hadn’t figured that out.  Luckily, medication keeps it somewhat under control. 

I bring this up not just for a possibly lucrative outpouring of sympathy, but also because the more I’ve discussed this out loud, the more I’ve discovered just how common gastrointestinal issues really are.  Not a sexy topic.  But the more we can talk about it like mature adults, the sooner we can erupt into freestyle oral ejection and projectile diarrhea with dignity and maybe even a little bit of pride.

Reason #11 Not To Read My Blog: The Food Network

I don’t watch the Food Network.

Or food shows on any other network, for that matter.  Rachael Ray?  Who’s that?  I didn’t even watch America’s Test Kitchen even though I worked behind the scenes and got to carry a bowl of potatoes robotically across the set on camera once. 

Part of it is that I don’t watch very much TV period.  We don’t have HDTV.  We don’t have TiVO.  We’re lame.

Another part is that, although some of the shows may be interesting, I find the personalities too annoying.  Emeril is annoying.  Giada sexing up the camera makes me a little uncomfortable.  Bobby Flay makes me want to take the only cookbook of his that I own and, with my crème brûlée torch, ignite it one page at a time.  It’s a fine line between entertaining and annoying.  If you’re reading this blog, you probably know what I mean.

But the real reason I don’t like to watch food shows is that you find yourself getting very invested in the process of cooking, but you don’t get to participate in the rewards.  And the rewards are key.  Instead, you get to watch them eat, and then struggle to come up with new and surprising ways to say “delicious.” 

What about me?  Now, I’m really hungry and I just wasted an hour during which I could have been cooking up something just as good.  Okay, maybe half as good and definitely only an eighth as pretty, but the point is I’d be eating by now.  And I wouldn’t be mad.

Reason #10 Not To Read My Blog: Fry-o-laters

I love fry-o-laters.  And I feel no shame.

During my stint in culinary school (or, as my husband likes to call it, “Wife School”), I discovered the joys of frying.  My instructors, who were hoping more to instill in us the virtues of poaching, braising, and pan-searing, were understandably disappointed. 

While I like a good braise as much as the next person, you can’t beat the fry-o-later for efficiency of yumminess.  Insert imperfect food into hot oil bath, wait mere moments, and…voilà.  Perfect food. 

I always considered the deep-fryer to be the most prestigious station in the school’s stainless steel teaching kitchen, so I wondered why I never had any competition in my favorite corner.  I didn’t care.  More for me.

But as soon as I lifted up the fry basket and christened those gilded little morsels with a bit of salt, a light shone down on all the class, a choir of voices sang out, and the exodus began.  Mixers were left running.  Pans smoking.  Dishwashing nozzles spraying.  The balance of power had suddenly shifted, and I, the one who scrambled the eggs in her gougère on her first day, had become the unlikely hero. 

At least for the 30 seconds it took for everyone to devour the booty and return, just a little bit disheveled, to their precious aspic. 

Some sources will tell you that peanut oil is the best for frying because it has the highest smoke point of the more common cooking oils.  Which means that if you hit the restroom while the oil is heating up, as recommended in the instructions, you have a good six minutes before peanut oil becomes engulfed in flames and dark plumes of smoke.  Compare that to the scant four minutes preceding a canola oil-induced conflagration.

My advice: just use canola oil.  It tastes better, it’s cheaper, healthier, and you don’t have to worry about the allergy thing.  Just go Number 2 before you start frying.

Reason #9 Not To Read My Blog: Perfection

The other day, I was reading one of the more respectable food blogs and the blogger mentioned that she very rarely ever has to throw away anything that she cooks.  You read that right, she has a near-perfect record of kitchen successes.

After giving my computer monitor a rousing standing ovation, I started to reflect on my own record in the kitchen.  Somehow, my numbers weren’t looking quite as good, by comparison.  And I came to the conclusion that she is the inverse of me.  Or I am the inverse of her.  Whatever.  The point is that for every success she enjoys, I endure a miserable failure.  And if she should happen to fail, well, isn’t it about time that I finally succeeded? 

Such is my relationship with INVERSE ME.

Not that it’s a competition or anything, but let’s face it, it really is.  And so upon hearing of her latest particularly good cookie batch that she just whipped up without a recipe, I had to remember the last time I made cookies.  Actually, it was the time before last because those ginger cookies I made over the weekend were awesome, and I hope whatever she was making came out like crap. 

Anyway, I was trying to duplicate an old family recipe for lemon cookies that had the amounts of lemon oil and baker’s ammonia in U.S. cents circa 1940 instead of the usual spoon or cup measurements.  It also didn’t include the amount of flour.  And while I made a pretty good estimate of the first two ingredients utilizing my trusty slide rule, my heavy-handed approach to adding the flour resulted in something more like elastic pizza dough, only disturbingly more lemony.

My flops are legendary in my household, each with a shelf life far longer than all of my triumphs combined.  Like the time I poured coffee grounds into my ganache instead of instant coffee crystals (why aren’t they dissolving?).  My recipe for upside-down chicken (self-explanatory).  And my personal favorite, when I shucked a whole bucket full of oysters with a brand new paring knife, bending the blade and almost severing my arm, and it wasn’t nearly as funny as I thought it would be.

I’m sure INVERSE ME has all kinds of coffee– and crepe–related tricks up her sleeve.  I’m sure all of her limbs are firmly attached.  Which is good because I need a role model.  But I can’t offer that kind of perfection.  What I can provide is a kind of comradery of failure with the occasional bright glimmer of hope.  A lesson in character-building that you can walk away from and think, “Hey, I can do better than that!”

In other words, if a moron like me can cook, so can you.

Reason #8 Not To Read My Blog: Guinness

Guinness doesn’t rock my world.

And here, I fear, is where the lynching begins. 

When I first started writing about food in Boston five years ago, I had to take an oath stating I would never admit my lukewarm feelings toward Guinness.  The same went for Jasper White’s Summer Shack. 

During that time, I’ve had to make many excuses for my beverage choices.

Why isn’t there a Guinness in your hand?  Because I’m pregnant.  What about now? Now, I’m nursing.  You can still hold the Guinness?  But, my arthritis.  At least gaze lovingly at the Guinness? The sun, the blinding sun.

Now that I have my own blog, I can write whatever the hell I want.  And the truth of the matter is that, to me, Guinness tastes like a Slim Jim milkshake.  A really good Slim Jim milkshake, perhaps, but I’m not a big fan of Slim Jims.  Or, really, any meat in my milk.

Although I’m quite fond of the Irish, I can’t let a little thing like marriage cloud my judgment.  Now, Boddingtons is a beer I can stand behind.  I like a quality ale.  And I wouldn’t turn down anything from Belgium, either.  But, unless you plan on cooking that Guinness into a shepherd’s pie, à la O’Connors in Worcester, don’t waste it on me.  Drink up, and then report back and tell me if you didn’t find it just a little bit Slim Jimish.

Reason #7 Not To Read My Blog: Meat

In case there was any doubt after my previous post:

7.    I’m not giving up meat, either.

Why?  Three reasons. 

1. Most obviously, it’s delicious.  2. Because I suspect that’s what these pointy teeth I found in my mouth are for.  At least, that’s what I’ve taken away from the 600 dinosaur books I’ve read to my kids that distinguish between the gentle and magnificent plant-eaters and the fearsome, wretched meat-eaters.  (Still not convinced of the category to which we belong?  I refer you to CNN.) 3. Most importantly, see Reason 1.

I have the utmost respect for vegetarians, both for their principles and the sheer amount of will power they possess (they also REALLY know how to cook vegetables).  At the same time, I hold the animal kingdom in high regard.  Conservation and sustainable living are important, to be sure.  Nevertheless, a day is not a day in the Donroe household unless an animal product has been consumed. 

I have concocted many ways to deal with this hypocrisy:

First, I have learned how to fish.  In this way, I am responsible for the capture, killing, and cookery of said fish, and the full range of consequences that go with it.  My sister, the vegetarian, championed this idea.  How does it feel to kill your own food?  Not great.  But the tears of guilt I may shed while filleting said fish are soon replaced by tears of joy at the realization of just how sweet and delicious hour-old striped bass can be if properly grilled and topped with a delicate tomato and basil salsa.  It’s a trade-off.  Like life.  That said, I’m a pretty terrible fisherman.

Second, though I’m not sure I have the stomach for hunting, I do try to make my meat as mouth-wateringly scrumptious as possible.  For the animal's sake. 

Third, I do my best to keep waste to a minimum.  Leftover meat scraps go into sandwiches.  Bones go into soups and stock.  Hot dogs and sausages are consumed with glee because, really, what else were they going to do with those kidneys.  Plus, they’re delicious. 

Especially DePasquale’s hot Italian sausages in Newton.  Mmmmm. 

Reason #6 Not To Read My Blog: Carbs

Still here?  Don't worry, I've got a million of them...

6.    I’m not giving up carbs for anything, no way, no how.

I’d rather keep the extra ten pounds and be happy about it.  After all, when global warming causes the entire balance of the earth to shift, drastic climate change forces mass migration, and we’re left to forage for dandelion greens and pate of possum to survive, won’t you wish you had filled up on bread?  I know I’ll be pleasantly full of “ I-told-you-so.”

I love starch.  I love pasta, potatoes, rice, bread, cookies, cakes, churros, blinis, the spray-on stuff that makes your collar nice and stiff.  Mmmmm. 

Short of a grain blight, the only way I might be forced to forgo my beloved pancakes is the dreaded celiac sprue.  And bless my mother’s heart, if she gave me that gene, I’ll never forgive her.  Pass the syrup.

Reason #5 Not To Read My Blog: Puree

Yet, another reason...

5.    I’ve been known to pronounce “puree” phonetically.  In public.

Meaning hard “e” instead of hard “a.”  I can’t help it.  I’ve been doing this wrong for so long, it’s now hardwired into my brain and nothing short of shock therapy is going to stop it.  Actually, I do the verb form correctly most of the time, as in “now that we’ve removed the seeds, we can ‘pyur-AY’ the tomatoes.”  It’s the noun form that confounds me every time.  As in “I can still see seeds.  Please don’t make me eat that disgusting tomato pyur-EEEEEEEEE.” 

Curse the French and their fancy word for soupy ground up stuff.

Reason #4 Not To Read My Blog: Quinoa

Yet, another reason...

4.    I’m not too fond of quinoa

Pronounced “KEEN-wah.”  You know, that South American grain that’s all the rage with the hip and healthy.  I mean, it’s okay.  I’ve eaten it.  I even cooked it once.  Then the bag sat in the cabinet for a year until we got pantry moths.  I was sad to throw away the cumin.  I was not sad to throw away the quinoa. 

If I had to pick an alternative grain (meaning, not rice, not cous cous, not wheat, oats, barley, cornmeal, or hominy), and anyone who’s anyone is picking an alternative grain, it just might be farro.  Maybe.  But you know what’s better than farro and quinoa? 

Cheesecake.

Reason #3 Not To Read My Blog: Photography

3.  I'm no photographer

If pretty pictures are what you want, you’ve come to the wrong place.  My sister is the photographer in the family.  She takes photos like this. 

These are tomatoes from the organic garden she tends on a picturesque crater in Maui.  With a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean.  Bitch.  Notice how delicious they look.  Makes you want to bite right into them, seeds and all, right? 

My pictures don’t look like this.  They are worth negative 1000 words.

Photos posted to my site will be poorly lit and pathetically composed.  That is, if you get a picture at all.  Use your imagination.  Other more artistic and articulate food blogs will be referenced early and often.  Until they block me, in which case I may be forced to snap a photo or two so it doesn’t look like I’m totally phoning it in.  When I do, take comfort in the fact that for every one of my original photos on display, there are about 45 more just as bad or worse that I didn’t post.  And we can all be thankful for that.

Reason #2 Not To Read My Blog: Salad

Yet another reason why filling up on this blog might be a mistake.

2.    I don’t like vegetables in my salad

What???  I know, I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. 

It’s not the leafy part that bothers me (as long as it’s not iceberg lettuce -- blek).  Alliums, or anything in the onion, garlic, shallot category, are okay, too.  Tomatoes, technically a fruit, can be tolerated under certain circumstances (see Reason #1).  But carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, zucchini, peppers, or any other vegetable of the raw variety placed into a salad turns me off.  Immediately.  I don’t know why. 

Actually, yes, I do.  Because there are other much better things to include in a salad, like pears, strawberries, blueberries, dried cranberries, grapefruit.  Or nuts.  Or cheese.  Or salty, fatty meats.  Heavy doses of bacon and blue cheese are the only way I can eat iceberg lettuce, since they balance out its watery blandness.  These kinds of salad fixin’s really sing.  Carrots in a salad are a little bit tone deaf.  Cucumbers are just plain mute. 

Maybe, it’s a factor of where I live.  We don’t have cauliflower in six different colors and flavors.  Our vegetables don’t look like this.  Still, we do have farms.  Sometimes, the farms even come to us.  And the vegetables seem pretty good.  Maybe not California good, but pretty darned good.  As long as they’re cooked.  And off my salad.

Reason #1 Not To Read My Blog: Tomatoes

Before you commit to reading this blog with any sort of consistency, there are a few things you should know about me, in the interest of full disclosure.  Little food biases that may cause you to reconsider.  Let’s just get it all out on the table.  Here is one reason why getting your food news from this blog might be a mistake:

1.  I have issues with tomatoes

Big issues.  This is surprising to some because not only am I fully half Italian-American, but apparently I used to LOVE tomatoes as a small child, stripping the cherry-sized fruits from my mother’s garden plants.  But somewhere around age five, I distinctly remember being disgusted by them.  Raw, they were completely inedible.  Cooked into tomato sauce, passable depending on the cook, but in soup, definitely not.  Stewed, forget it.

I planned to stubbornly carry this bias throughout adulthood, but I shocked even myself when I fell in love with gazpacho in Spain.  What’s to love about raw tomatoes pureed into a cold soup? 

The answer: no seeds. 

Thus, I have reconciled with this shady nightshade – as long as I’ve scooped out the jellied putrescence contained therein, we coexist quite happily.  Many of the heirloom varieties have few, if any, seeds and are undeniably delicious.  In fact, I’m still seeing local heirlooms at Russo’s market in Watertown even as we’re almost into December. 

Thank you Indian summer.  Bring on the bruschetta.