What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [42]
Writer Fran McCullough, who has no end of menu options up her sleeve having worked with many cookbook writers, knows just what she’ll eat when she’s alone at last. “I’ll have my favorite Paris lunch—smoked salmon on a slice of buttered sourdough bread with sliced onion, capers, and a squeeze of lemon.” And what could be easier to make for oneself? A Paris lunch sounds far more respectable than takeout, and yet it’s certainly quicker than other shortcut foods, like mac and cheese. And when you arrange your Paris lunch on your favorite plate and sit down to enjoy it, you know that you are treating yourself well.
Amanda Archibald, who is French and English, which might explain why she is so civilized, expresses what I think of as the feminine ideal of solo eating. “Being alone or among people does not change what I eat,” Amanda says. And this is unusual. “I may stand at the counter in my kitchen, especially during aperitif time or while preparing dinner, but then, I sit down to eat. Always. And I have no food secrets like chocolate hoarding.”
Amanda will have cooked her dinner using vegetables from her CSA box, delivered from a nearby farm; it will probably include a special cheese; and she will have opened a bottle of wine to enjoy with her meal. Many women enjoy having something to drink with their solitary dinners.
“I’ll open a nice bottle when he’s gone,” says Melissa, a magazine editor, “but I won’t spend much time cooking since I do that when he’s here.”
“I have a kir while I’m preparing dinner,” says writer Sylvia Thompson, “then a glass of wine with my meal.”
“I’ll have wine if some is open,” adds Maureen Stein.
In defense of chocolate hoarding, I have to refer to Joanne Neft, who admits with no shame whatsoever that she hides a box of See’s caramels with walnuts in a secret place. She says, “I can make a one-pound box last three months or longer. There’s something about the safety of knowing where I squirreled it away and that it’s there to satisfy my sweet tooth when I need it.”
But when it comes to solitary meals, chocolate isn’t necessarily on Joanne’s menu. Thrilled to find herself home alone, she says, “I love it when he’s gone. It’s quiet and the house tends to be less messy. I can go to bed at 6:30 or wait until 11:00. I can sit in a bubble bath and read for two hours. I play my opera music very loud. I get on the phone with a friend or two and we talk for many minutes. And, I tend to get in a bread-making mood. Funny, isn’t it?”
And this is when she takes the opportunity to cook some of her favorite foods, like pickled herring and caramelized onions over mashed potatoes.
“So the truth will be out,” Joanne confesses, “when no one is looking (and no one is around to complain), I buy a large jar of pickled herring (not the kind rolling around in sour cream), boil enough potatoes for mashing with either cream or good butter, and while the potatoes are cooking, I caramelize some sweet onions, then top the potatoes with them and a good portion of herring. It’s a silly German thing.”
Just when I have decided I want to give this dish a try, Joanne adds, “Now that I think about it, it doesn’t sound too appetizing, does it? But it works for the 100 percent German in me.”
The dish is good. And it’s pretty, too, with the blue-skinned slices of herring snuggling among the golden onions, a spoonful of sour cream melting down the potatoes.
A young writer named Rae Paris says Tater Tots were once her secret eat-alone food. “But they’re not necessarily an eat-alone