What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [61]
Spy Girls
always get their fiancés killed
in the very first scene.
a femme fatale can’t also be
a loving wife and mother.
So she becomes a workaholic
to get over Steve, Jeff, or Lance,
sliding down elevator chutes
cutting through plate glass windows
carefully cracking the codes of illegal governments
dressed in formfitting rubber suits and blue wigs.
Temporarily blinded with acid spray
and shot through a shoulder and thigh,
she still manages to somersault over the wall
to grab the bars of the helicopter
just as it lifts off
secrets of nuclear fission in a disk
tucked in her lace-up boots,
keeping the world safe
from people just like her.
At night, she dreams of rescue,
of blending in with the crowd
of being one more girl
who eats ice cream for dinner
whose purse is not full of explosives.
—Jeannine Hall Gailey
What Every Boy and Girl Should Learn to Cook Before They’re Men and Women
“It is amazing to be able to customize what I’m making. I can decide that I like corn, so I’m going to add a lot, or I like my sausage cut differently than in rounds. Ah, freedom!”
Tom Anderson, young cook and medical student
Garrett Berdan is a busy young man. “When I cook for myself,” he says, “I want something fast, easy, and with very few ingredients. It’s all about what I can do stovetop, under the broiler, whirled in a blender, or not cooked at all.”
A desire for food that’s fast and easy sounds typically American. You might be thinking chili out of a can, a tuna melt, that sort of thing. But here are some of Garrett’s top choices.
Rotisserie chicken from his progressive grocer’s deli with sautéed kale and soft polenta with Parmesan. (He makes a stock with the carcass.) Cinnamon-scented quinoa with almonds and pine nuts, chili-and-garlic sautéed chard, all topped with eggs cooked over easy. Huevos rancheros with corn tortillas, (canned) black beans, avocado, chèvre, and chipotle tomato sauce. Frittata with caramelized onions, spinach, and black pepper. A bag-o-salad (he prefers mache) for a grapefruit avocado salad with bacon-wrapped prawns. And finally, a smoothie with hemp seed protein powder, frozen wild blueberries, almond milk, and a banana.
After looking over his list, Garrett adds, “Geez, I think I need to slow down and cook more. I’ve gone all winter without anything braised. Darn!”
One conclusion we’ve reached while talking, writing, and cooking our way through this book is that it’s good to know how to cook for oneself, and essential for anyone who wants to have some self-reliance in the kitchen and who wants to eat well. Think of Betty Fussell and how effortlessly she throws together her Mexican soup out of bits and pieces she finds in her fridge and what joy it gives her. Or Maureen, who looks forward to the adventure of cooking with new ingredients. And Peggy, who casually roasts a chicken for herself or makes spicy little Moroccan meatballs for her friends. Then there are the food maniacs, like Cliff, who get a wild hair to make complicated little crepinettes on a Sunday afternoon, or Daniel Halpern, who thinks nothing of roasting a leg of lamb for his solitary dinner—and why should he? These pages are filled with people who have something they can cook, like to cook, and for whom the kitchen is not a daunting place to be at the end of the day. Rather, it’s a place of relaxation and adventure.
Another reason that it’s good to have a modicum of skill in the kitchen is that you might want to share a meal with someone else someday—a friend, a colleague, a potential lover, even your parents. It’s fun to impress those who reared you with your newfound