Dear readers,
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written anything, so first an apology and second, my three excuses:
1. I’ve been in the midst of California bliss, feasting with friends and family for that yearly November meal.
2. It is quite possible that I contracted swine flu and couldn’t bring myself to ingest anything but Tea and Toast.
3. Having lost sight of all possible job prospects, and as my morale declined, I spent less time cooking and more time feeling sorry for myself (see previous post)
But now I’m healthy and Turkey-stuffed and I’m ready to put my kitchen back to good use, and so, without further ado…
How to Be a Food Blogger
1. Spend a few hours looking through old issues of Gourmet magazine (RIP), Bon Appétit, and La Cucina Italiana. Other magazines (cooks illustrated) are great, but not when you’re trying to fight the too-broke-to-travel blues. At the bottom of an old pile you find a special PARIS issue of Gourmet, published when you were fresh out of college, a spring chicken, and probably bought it because you were thinking of running away to that city again.
2. As you look through the photos and stories you turn on George Brassen and, without realizing, brew yourself a pot of strong coffee and spread some Apricot Marmelade on the leftover farmers market bread. Then you seat yourself at the counter in the middle of your kitchen and, as you read, remember your own trip to Paris…
Like Gourmet’s writers, you too were in love in Paris and walked arm-in-arm down the Rue du Bac. So there exist those delicious photos of you in that blue dress. You identify with their fear of the ‘first time’ – that is, their first meal in an authentic French restaurant and the inevitable anxieties that young Americans face ordering, reversing knife and fork, and maintaining composure while eating their first Parisian meal.
Suddenly you’re writing in your journal about the different meals you’ve had abroad, and then its well into the evening and time to make dinner. You’ve never made a Frittata before, but you ate them all the time in Spain. It’s a success and you so you bring a piece for your flatmate.
This inspires you to open up some of those cookbooks dad sent that you’ve barely touched. One of them features specialties from every region of Italy. Then you remember that time you ordered coffee in Rome…
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3. So months go by and you’ve been blogging your way through some of dad’s famous recipes and your own cupboard clean-out. Then you start reading other food bloggers on the web and you’re totally intimidated. While looking through SmittenKitchen’s beautiful photos, you realize all you’ve been cooking are sweets and starches, and nary a meat nor vegetable has graced a plate in your kitchen for months.
Construct a list of all the simple foods you will make for the first time, this month. Promise yourself. Start with a roast chicken. Chicks, impressed with your able domesticity, will come over with wine and commend you and your masterful womanly skills and then whine about boys. Still, its December, its cold, and if you’re not gettin’ any lovin’ you may as well employ your oven.
THE BEST roast chicken
adapted from Cooks Illustrated and my dad
INGREDIENTS: a roast chicken (approx. 4 lbs); one tablespoon kosher salt; one teaspoon baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper; one medium onion (quartered); six smashed cloves of garlic; five drops Thai fish sauce; Spike seasoning to taste
1. Place chicken breast-side down on the countertop. With a sharp knife, make four inch-long incisions along the back. Using the long handle of wooden spoon, carefully separate the skin from the chicken’s thighs and breast. Don’t be afraid to touch that bird with your bare hands! With a metal skewer, poke 15 to 20 holes in the fat deposits on top of the breast halves and thighs. Tuck wing tips underneath the chicken.
2. Combine kosher salt, baking powder, and pepper in small bowl. Rinse the chicken and then pat it dry with paper towels and sprinkle the salt mixture evenly over the bird. Set chicken, breast-side up, in a V-rack set on rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered, for 12 to 24 hours.
3. Adjust your oven rack to the lowest position and heat your oven to 450º. Using a small knife, poke 20 holes in a 16- by 12-inch piece of foil. Place foil loosely in large a roasting pan. Stuff the chicken with the quartered onion and smashed garlic halves and flip it so the breast side faces down, and set the V-rack in a roasting pan on top of the foil. Roast chicken 25 minutes.
4. Remove roasting pan from the oven. Using 2 large wads of paper towels, rotate chicken breast-side up. Sprinkle, evenly, some Spike to taste, and five drops of Thai fish sauce across the surface. Continue to roast another 15 to 25 minutes. (if you have a thermometer, temp should read about 135º)
5. Increase the oven temperature to 500º. Continue to roast until the skin is golden brown and crisp for about 15 minutes. (thermometer should read 175º.
6. Let the cooked bird rest on a wooden cutting board for twenty minutes before carving. You’ll serve it surrounded by all the vegetables you roasted (squash, carrots, garlic, brussel sprouts) and a purple potato mash. God, you’re a good woman. A damn good woman.
4. You never thought about journalism before, and the idea of professional food writing seems as impossible as a wedding cake to make happen. Now you’re obsessively reading dining columns from major American newspapers, ordering collections of published food writing, and practicing on your own time in every cafe in New York City. “Will I ever be good at this?” you wonder, “Could I write for a magazine someday?”
