For the Love of Another: Roasted Cauliflower

A good pal and restaurant owner has recently become obsessed with Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table. Danny, for those who don't live in New York, and have not visited for the last decade and a half, is a St. Louis boy who came to the big bad City, complete with an endearing aw-shucks attitude, and proceeded to turn our restaurant world on it's ear. As of the 2007 Zagats guide, he owns two of Manhattan's top two most popular restaurants. That means both of 'em. If we're more generous with our statistics, and increase the popularity list to twenty, you'll find five of his restaurants on that list. Shucks, indeed.

There is no antidote for the magnet that is the Union Square Hospitality Group. I interviewed with the team a couple of years ago (USHG is to aspiring restaurateurs AS Martha is to aspiring mavens), and fell in love with the clarity of the message, "hospitality first". The team is aligned, clear, and focused on the goal of providing the very best hospitality to all guests.

Phrases like "no problem" are never used, as even mentioning a negative in the negative is too negative. Positive spin is used in place, but never in a pollyanna way; it's always sincere, earnest (midwestern, if you will), and completely tai-chis the chill right off the average New Yorker. And as you know, that leaden coat of New York negativity gets to a point where Manhattanites don't even realize they're wearing it. USHG staff checks that frock at hostess stand, and makes sure you've forgotten it by the time you leave. And poof! New Yorkers are human once again.

So I see the book in a bookstore, pick it up, and read the jacket like a good consumer. I'm struck by a declaration: "Hospitality is something that's done FOR you, not TO you."

Think about that for a second. It's a powerful little preposition.

Just last weekend, I visited a friend in DC. I drove down and back in less than a day, but in the meantime, I was lunched, dinnered, and brunched in the most hospitable way. Mid-afternoon my host insisted that I'd probably like to take a nap. (A nap??), and so I indulged by gracefully disappearing for a bit. I didn't even know I needed a nap, but it was kind of him to remind me that I did.

Everything was thought out: the pillows, the blow drier, the delightful products in the bathroom. The bathrobe and the slippers. The flowers and the goldfish swimming happily on my nightstand. In the morning I came down to delightful smells of baking while coffee was brewing and generous smiles were abundant. "Oh gosh, did we wake you?" was their main concern.

This was all done for me, with grace and ease. No resentment, no get-backs, no snarky comments as I walked away. Just generous, kind, hospitality. For me.

So while driving home, I called this Danny Meyer-obsessed friend and invited him over for dinner. I was all aglow with having been done for, and wanted to try it out.

In this era of 15-minute-quick-fast meal prep, I thought I'd linger on this one instead. Spend a few hours pouring through cookbooks, organizing the shopping, then coming home and spending a few more hours preparing the meal. Lighting the house, pulling the linens, selecting the most perfect wines and beers to accompany.

By the time my guest arrived, I was brimming with excitement (not resentment, which all too often accompanies entertaining). I was having fun! I had taken the afternoon to flex my culinary muscles and had prepare a feast straight out of Bombay. My guest was thrilled, I completed the meal, and we ate. Though the meal was ostensibly for him, it's quite possible that we both finished the night equally elated and taken care of. Sometimes taking the time to take care of others, with grace and kindness, is the very best way to take care of yourself.


Roasted Cauliflower
Serves 4

I served an Indian lamb curry, cumin-ginger green beans, rice, and all kinds of sauces, but unbelieveably the dish that was loved most was the simplest of all: roasted cauliflower. Although it was the hit of my three-hour cooking extravaganza, it's a simple side dish for the fastest of Tuesday dinners.

1 large head cauliflower, core trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400F. On a cutting board, stand the cauliflower on it's root end, and cut lengthwise in 1/2 inch-thick slices. The slices should hold together relatively well, like little cross sections of a tree.

2. Place these slices down on a large sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place in oven and cook, about 12 minutes, until the underside is golden brown. Remove from oven, flip cauliflower pieces, and continue cooking until the second side is golded, about 7 minutes more. Serve warm or room temperature; will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days (though it probably won't last that long).

Spring Detox: Robin's Master Cleanse Maple Lemonade

I need a hard-core detox. All this traveling, too many liquid dinners, late nights and no sleep has caught up with me. Not only am I feeling weak and tired, I ain't looking so good. I'm tempted to hole up and stay inside, which means something must be done.

I've looked into detox approaches (the home kind, not the Betty Ford kind), and found that there are two basic ways of doing it. Take some sort of herbal regimine, which will have you laxing yourself to the latrine for a few weeks, or change your intake. This can be a cleansing diet, or even as dramatic as a fast for as few as one or as many as ten days.

Outside of Yom Kippur, I've never fasted. I used to work with a man from India who would do a juice fast the first day of each month. This impressed me, but then again, I've always been impressed with restraint. I'd ask him about it (usually while chomping on a burrito), and he explained that sometimes the stomach needed to rest. Sometimes the body needs to take a break from managing all the stuff we throw into it, and just be.

This always struck me as generous, and kind. Taking care of the body. Polishing the temple. Giving the old gal the night off. My body has been working over time and would appreciate the generosity.

So I called a hippie pal who I can always depend on to try these things, and she recommended books by a man called Elson Haas. I immediately purchased and tore through his two books, Staying Healthy with the Seasons and The New Detox Diet.

There is a plan for fasting, which includes drinking the "Master Cleanser" 8 to 12 times per day. This homemade remedy helps to push out the toxins in your body (recipe below). There was also a plan for basic detox, which I'd do for 3 to 10 days, which basically starts each day with a bowl of gluten-free complex carb (quinoa, amaranth, brown rice), and includes a lunch and dinner of steamed vegetables. This also helps push out the toxins, and eliminates any foods you might be allergic to. Since I've had a skin allergy for over a year now, I was eager to eliminate whatever was causing the problem.

So I started immediately, yesterday in fact, after I had a rather mediocre meatball parmesan sub. You see, I had to start fast, because I've got a big Home Made Simple party this weekend in DC. So I need to cleanse it all up so that I can enjoy Saturday (tomorrow) night.

And then of course there's next Sunday (my birthday). I can't be cleansing on my 35th birthday; I need to get all that junk out of there so that I can have a big fancy multiple-course tasting dinner.

Then there's Passover, Easter...how can I deny myself a transfatty corn-syrupy macaroon and a chocolate bunny? Plus I'm teaching classes, where I must be tasting food constantly; I might go to Mexico in April...if I am going to go no booze, no caffeine, no bread, no meat...and try to do this for a week, well then, it's quite hard to find a time that works.

Look folks, I'd sooner shut of my cell phone and toss my laptop out the window for a week then I could just say no to a wonderful dinner. Do I not have the self control? No, I just love food. Running a marathon seems simpler to me than a vegan week. The thought of denying this basic pleasure makes me sad and frustrated, and as I'm learning, there's nothing quite so toxic as a really bad mood.

But I will do this, and I will do this before spring is over, because that passion, that near-obsession needs a break to recharge itself. That said, today's Master Cleanse fast was interrupted (thank god) because I found some small print that said one should never fast during the winter. When today's snow became sleet, and I treated myself to a big bowl of quinoa. This is about health, after all, not monastic insanity. Tomorrow is another day.

Robin's Master Cleanse Maple Lemonade

From The New Diet Detox, by Elson Haas

If you're a Howard Stern fan, you'll remember when Robin lost a ton of weight a few years ago, and Howard was constantly making fun of this weird drink she'd have every morning with maple syrup and cayenne pepper. I was always intrigued (as I'm always intrigued when people are able to lose a lot of weight, keep it off, and do so seemingly effortlessly). You can imagine my surprise and delight when I found that the globally-lauded Master Cleanse is one and the same!

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1/10 teaspoon cayenne pepper
8 ounces spring water

Mix and drink 8 - 12 glasses throughout the day. Eat or drink nothing else except water, laxative herb tea, and peppermint or chamomile tea. Deep the mixture in a glass container or make it fresh each time. Rinse your mouth with water after each glass to prevent the lemon juice from hurting the enamel of your teeth.

Summer Stewing: Frogmore

It was 1997, and I was wearing allegedly comfortable, definitely unstylish Northern California office attire. I was sharing a cube with two of the better looking, single men in the Internet Consulting firm I was working for. It was about this time of year, which makes it a decade ago, and we were discussing summer plans. One was going to spend time with the girlfriend’s family in Tahoe, the other was going back east to the Cape. What was I doing?

I was working! Summers were for children. I was given a total of 2 weeks, that’s ten days vacation, and I doled the days out with the same miserly skimp I typically reserved for Halloween candy. I wasn’t going on vacation. I was going to save my time up, and maybe in a few years, I could get two or three consecutive weeks. And then I could really go somewhere, like speed backpacking through Europe or something. Vacation smation; I’m a working girl.

Surfing the traffic back from Foster City that evening, something hit me. Sure, I could give up this summer, but what about the next summer? When did I get to stop saving and start spending?

If I was to live to a ripe old 85…and at this time I was 25, well then that would give me 60 summers. Okay, 40 summers when I’m still running around (those last twenty might be more of the sit-on-the-porch variety). And I guess another 20 summers where I’m chasing after kids, so now we’re down to twenty.

That’s twenty times I get to go to the beach and splash. Twenty tans. Twenty Forth-of-July barbeques. And the scary part? That’s a conversation I had with myself ten years ago. So now I’m down to ten.

Ten? If they were minutes, I could spend them all waiting for the R train to arrive. Only ten summers left?

Dig deep, girl. If I were to be honest, and hopefully the blog-faithful will hold me to this, I've always had the suburban girl dream of living on a farm, having some fab boots, a short skirt and a tailored plaid short-sleeve button down. Oh right; and what would I be doing on the farm? I'd be milking Bessie, churning butter, harvesting berries. On the weekends, I'd channel Annie Oakley, and keep the folks entertained with my mad shootin' skills at the Country Fair. The talent would emerge quickly; though I was raised in Roosevelt Field Mall, you can't keep an inner farmgirl down.

So this may sound like a cross of Gilligan's island, Little House on the Prairie, and soft porn, all dreamed up by a naive city slicker, summers are for making dreams a reality. Let's see if I can't get myself closer to experiencing this dream this summer. One more down; nine to go. What are your plans?

Frogmore Stew
Serves 6 to 8

A classic low-country dish, thankfully made frog-free, I learned about this stew while working with a lovely Charleston family on Home Made Simple. It’s tasty, fun, and you can eat it with your hands. Plus, if you’ve got kids, the whole mess can be cooked in 30 minutes, but trust me, this ain’t your Everyday Thirty Minute Meal.

In fact, the Frogmore Stew episode is airing this weekend. Please tune in to the show on Sunday at 1PM EST on TLC. For more information about the show, please visit http://www.homemadesimple.com/.

1 cup Old Bay seasoning, shrimp or crab boil, plus more for serving
3 pounds small red potatoes, scrubbed
1 1/2 pounds kielbasa, cut into 3-inch pieces
8 ears corn, cracked in half
4 pounds jumbo shrimp, shell-on or off
Mustard, for serving
Cocktail sauce, for serving
Lemon wedges, for serving

1. Bring 10 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot fitted with a strainer insert. Add Old Bay seasoning and potatoes. Return to a simmer, and cook for 15 minutes, or until potatoes are almost cooked through.

2. Add kielbasa and corn and return to a boil. Simmer 3 to 5 minutes, or until corn is bright yellow. Add shrimp and cook until shrimp are bright pink and beginning to curl, about 3 minutes.

3. Carefully remove strainer insert from pot, and remove to a large tray (to catch any liquid). Spill the whole pot of stew onto a newspaper-lined table (preferably outside), and serve hot with mustard, cocktail sauce, lemon wedges, and lots of paper towels.

TIP: Frogmore stew is traditionally made with shell-on shrimp. This gives the stew more flavor, and is more fun to play with as you sit at the table and play with your dinner. Feel free to use whatever you prefer; shell-on or off, though shell-on is typically less expensive (and tastier!)

TIP: If your potatoes are larger than 1 1/2-inches in diameter, chop them to a smaller size, or simply extend the potato cooking time.

TIP: Have fun with this stew, and add whatever ingredients sound good to you. Some favorites: Green beans (toward the end of cooking…they should take no more than 3 minutes to cook), or cooked crab (since they’re cooked, all you’re waiting for is the liquid to return to a boil, indicating the crab has been heated through.)

TIP: If you don’t have a strainer insert for your pot, not to worry. Simply pour the cooked stew into a colander, and serve that way.

Butternut Blogapologies

I realize it has been way too long; I'm backblogged two weeks at this point. I was in Savannah, where the days were long and the nights were short but really that's no excuse.

Here's a recipe. Enjoy the end of winter and I'll try to make it up to you with this Friday's post.

Lots of love,
Allison

Roast Butternut Squash Soup with Chive Oil
Everyone keeps asking for a great Butternut Squash Soup. My students love this one, with or without the oil (if you don't have the time, use a vivid green olive oil instead, loaded with fresh ground black pepper).

1 medium (about 2 pounds) butternut squash, halved and seeds removed but not peeled
1 large Vidalia or Maui onion, cut into large chunks
2 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic, peeled smashed
1 apple, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 fresh sage leaves
4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Pepitas, roasted (for garnish, as desired)
Chive Oil (see recipe below)

1. Heat the oven to 400F. Toss the onions and squash with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Reserve bowl with oil and place squash and onions on a sheet tray, cut side down, and roast until caramelized; about 45 minutes. If the onions soften before the squash, remove and reserve in a medium-large saucepan.
2. Toss the garlic and apple chunks with the remaining oil, and place on the roasting pan with the squash for the last 15 minutes of cooking.
3. Peel squash, and add it to the saucepan with onions (if you haven't already), apple and garlic. Cover with chicken stock and add sage leaves. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes, or until all the vegetables have completely softened.
4. Working in batches, puree in batches in a blender or using an immersion blender. Return the soup to the pot and reheat. Stir in the vinegar. Garnish with pepitas and chive oil, if desired.


Chive Oil
1 small bunch chives
½ - ¾ cup olive oil
Fine mesh or cheesecloth-lined strainer

Bring a small pot of water to a boil and blanch chives in water for 1 minute; immediately cool in ice water. Ring out every last bit of moisture from the chives. Place chives in a blender or mini chop and cover with olive oil. Puree for 15 to 20 seconds. Let chive mixture sit for 30 minutes. Gently pour oil through a strainer; oil should be a vivid bright green. Discard pureed chives and cheesecloth. Will keep for 1 week. (Keeps best in the fridge; oil will get cloudy, let come to room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.)