What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [56]
Certainly cooking for oneself day in and day out is very different than the occasional night at home alone if for no other reason than it endures. And not every person likes her own company at the table on an ongoing basis. Still, sustained solo eating does have its enthusiasts.
“I eat alone about two hundred nights a year,” says Sylvia Thompson, who then goes on to list a far-reaching range of foods that she cooks, from elaborate pastas to all kinds of salads and vegetables, occasional soups, and frequent frittatas. “But,” she writes, “there are the nights when I just have bread and cheese, eaten out of hand standing in the kitchen.” Certainly there has to be a certain amount of pleasure present to be able and willing to deploy so many means of feeding oneself.
“I eat alone all the time in this my seventy-ninth year, and I love to eat alone!” says another writer, Betty Fussell. “Nobody to please but myself.”
Here’s how her solo cooking and dining goes.
“I open the door of the fridge and look inside. It’s always exciting, so many little things forgotten at the back of shelves. What can I put together for this improvised, unrepeatable, once-in-a-lifetime meal? Ah, there’s half a lemon, here’s a wrinkled poblano chile, there’s a barely used container of heavy cream. With any luck there’ll be a few sprigs of coriander in a plastic sandwich bag. Could use some tomatillos, but don’t see any. Drat. However, I know there’re some pumpkin seeds in a bag in the freezer. There’s always garlic and onion in a basket on the counter. Doesn’t take long to char the poblano, toast the seeds, sauté the garlic, and throw everything in the blender with some chicken bouillon if the stuff is too thick. Taste and taste again for seasoning. A little Mexican oregano? Okay. I’ve got a dried pack in the fridge. Balance salt with lemon and black pepper. Yeah, that’s coming along. Check the TV page. What’s on TCM? Time the heating of my cream of poblano soup with Showtime. Take soup on tray with a nice cold Sancerre. Prop up the pillows on the bed. Click on the remote. Any night can be the Saturday movie matinee of my childhood—except that I get to have Real Food at the same time instead of making a melting Mars bar last for an hour and a half.”
Three-Minute Tuna with Salsa Verde
It’s got to be rare, or tuna will be dry and unappealing. The sparkly green salsa verde brightens the tuna. Set your steak on a bed of interesting greens that drift toward the peppery end of the spectrum—small red mustard leaves, watercress, land cress, arugula—and repeat the oil and lemon theme in the dressing. They do what a dab of wasabi does, which is to wake up your nose and make the delicate tuna better by contrast.
SALSA VERDE WITH LEMON AND CAPERS
1 TUNA STEAK
OLIVE OIL
SALT AND PEPPER
2 HANDFULS SPICY SALAD GREENS
1 LEMON
1. Make the salsa verde first. Coat the tuna on both sides with olive oil, then season well with salt and freshly ground pepper. Wash and dry your greens and have them ready to dress with olive oil and lemon.
2. Heat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until it feels hot when you hold your hand over it. Add olive oil to coat, then the steak. Cook for 1-1⁄2 minutes, then turn and cook 1-1⁄2 minutes on the other side. This should be enough, but look at the tuna itself from the side. When done, you should see a thin white line where the fish met the pan and a large pink area in the middle bordered by another white line.
3. During that last minute, dress your salad, tossing it with a pinch of salt, olive oil to coat lightly, and a squeeze of lemon. Put the salad on your plate, lay the tuna steak on top, and spoon the salsa verde over it.
Leftover