Roast Beast

Even A Prison Cell Can Use A Little Martha Flair 

Every year for the last ten or so we have hosted our adopted, "chosen" Dallas family to a swell Christmas dinner.  By swell I don't mean your traditional Roasted Turkey and Giblet Gravy or Honey Baked Ham, but something more along the lines of menus you'd see in a Martha Stewart publication (at least before she was thrown in the slammer.) Depending on whose in-laws' turn it is to have "their" kids at home, our Christmas gathering is usually between 12 and 16 guests.

Whereas I despise coming home from work and throwing something together for dinner, I really love planning and creating challenging menus for special occasions.  Most of it is like food as therapy or a really aromatic hobby, but I must admit there is a small part of me that thirsts for the awed expressions and audible moans emanating from the table when I unveil the year's holiday feast.  Ducking my head, I shrug off the praise I so secretly covet, gloating inwardly.

This year I planned a marvelous, old-fashioned menu that I was going to modernize with my prodigious culinary skills and vivid imagination:  Standing Rib Roast with Horseradish Cream, Cranberry Waldorf Salad, Bacon Scalloped Potatoes, Trusty Green Bean Casserole, and a Fresh Fruit, Vanilla Pudding, and Yellow Pound Cake Christmas Trifle.  As is my custom I prepped most of it a day in advance, and to insure my timing was perfect, wrote out a detailed railroad schedule that went something like this:

12:30 Remove roast from fridge
1:15 Preheat oven to 375
1:25 Season roast with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and garlic powder
1:30 Place roast in oven
1:31 Drink a glass of water
1:32 Remove yeasty dinner rolls from freezer to thaw and rise in a sunny window
1:36 You get the idea

Our guests arrived promptly at 4:30 which was perfect, because according to my OCD timetable I had exactly one hour of free time to socialize, pour wine, and open gifts before entering the critical last 45 minute home stretch of cooking dinner.

All was sailing along swimmingly, and right on cue, at 6:10 everything was done at the same time, announced by the simultaneous pings of three separate timers.  The potatoes were steaming cheesy goodness, the green beans crispy under home made onion strings.  The fruit salad provided a sweet and  crunchy contrast to the richness of the other dishes and the rolls were so light we had to fetch them from the air with butterfly nets.

Moooooooooo

The prime rib roast, however, was raw.  Not rare.  Raw.  $265 of gushing blood with a heartbeat.  If you picked it up and put it to your ear you could hear the distant lowing of grass-fed cattle in a newly mown field. My face turned about as red as the slab of meat in the roasting pan as I hurriedly covered everything else in foil to keep warm in the oven.  I could feel the crestfallen faces watching my back as I shoved the rib roast back in for another hour (or twelve.)

I had used a "fool proof" recipe which called for roasting the meat in the oven at a high temperature for an hour and then turning it off for three hours, with strict, even Draconian instructions:  LEAVE THE OVEN DOOR CLOSED.  DO NOT PEEK.  DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT CHECKING THE THERMOMETER OR YOU WILL BE SHOT ON SITE.  WE MEAN IT SO DON'T COP AN ATTITUDE JUST OBEY YOUR ORDERS.

During the social hour preceding the disaster, I remember remarking to someone that I had qualms about this particular approach to cooking because I rely so much on sight and smell and fork testing and this method was more like preparing a pig in a poke. "Oh don't worry," they said, "your food always comes out fantastic."

And, hours later when we finally ate it, it was.  Our guests were so hungry they thought it was the best thing they'd ever put in their mouths.  They ate every last bite of the roast, the potatoes, beans, rolls, fruit salad, and trifle.  (They also ate a box of Cheerios, some gummy bears, twenty-eight Milky Ways and half a pepperoni pizza that had been in the back of my SUV for two days.)  Thanking me profusely as they backed out the front door, they scurried out to their cars to try and make it the ten miles home before sun up.

Next Christmas I know exactly what I am going to make for our annual holiday dinner--

Reservations.

Entree Envy

I am working this week at our fabulous performing arts venue NJPAC.  It is located in the most beautiful area of downtown Newark (yes, there really is one) and boasts world class performances from the globe's most gifted performers.  I love coming here because the venue is awesome, our clients are fun and the food service team we have here is like a box of Crackerjacks--there's always a surprise or two inside.

It is also fun to travel here because of its proximity to New York City, about 22 minutes and 4 panhandlers away by PATH train.  As a matter of fact, after work today and I am heading to the Big Apple for a pre Christmas holiday weekend of theater, Fifth Avenue window shopping, and of course, surrendering to the siren call beckoning me to the foodie capital of America.

Speaking of food (yep, going there once again, Dining Dave) I had dinner with friends last night in Jersey City at a "Manhattan style" eatery called the Light Horse Tavern.  At 8:30 on a Thursday, the place was buzzy with alcohol-fueled merriment, small (and New Jersey loud) holiday gatherings, and waitpersons scurrying around the handsomely appointed room with cheerful attentiveness and snappy sass.

In our group of five, I was seated next to my friend Kathleen, a lifelong Manhattanite who recently moved to Jersey City after living the last ten years in about 25 square feet on the Upper West Side.  (It was actually less an apartment than an oversized dollhouse.) After downing some excellent Fisher Island oysters from Block Island Sound, our main courses arrived.  A couple orders of Fish and Chips, some French Onion Soup, Kathleen's Raw Bacon wrapped Individual Meatloaf, and Spaghettini with Scallops and Peas for me.  As our group surveyed the dishes in front of us, it was clear I had won the prize for ordering correctly, which I refer to as my innate menu-ography.

Imagine a generous pasta bowl of perfectly cooked spaghetti dotted with two dozen sauteed bay scallops and a large handful of freshly steamed sweet peas swimming in sinfully rich brown butter sauce.  The aroma rising off the plate was intoxicating, so at first I didn't notice how intently Kathleen was staring at my plate as she forked into her overcooked lump of meat.  I had a couple of bites of my dish--super rich and approaching utter bliss--and Kathleen asked if she could have a taste.  I like sharing food at table, so of course I assented, although I wasn't very interested in trying anyone else's selections. 

I got involved in a conversation at the other end of the table for a minute or two, and then returned my attention to my delicious dinner.  It. Was. Gone.

While my back was turned, that sneaky, aggressive northeastern gal had "tasted" every remaining morsel and was greedily sopping up what was left of the sauce with a slice of freshly baked Italian bread. Stunned, I wasn't exactly sure what to say.  As I was groping for the most polite way of calling her a food thief and a guttersnipe, she batted her beautifully made up, lying eyes and said, "I'm sorry.  Weren't you finished?"

Being the polite, Southern gentleman that I am, I resisted my initial impulse to haul off and backhand her.  I woefully stared at my empty plate (which by now she had thoughtfully returned to its place in front of me) and murmured something about already being full.  Meanwhile, the Evil One was asking the waitress to wrap up her meatloaf to take home since she "didn't have room for it."  Really.  How startling.

I did survive the night without starving due to a couple of Tic Tacs I had in my pocket and downing several glasses of water (which made the cab ride back to Newark quite uncomfortable.)  In the grand scheme of things there was no real harm done, and Kathleen probably did my waistline and my cardiac health a world of good by Hoovering what probably amounted to two cups of melted butter.

But tomorrow night at dinner after a matinee performance of the Book of Mormon, I know what my plan will be.  Wait until Kathleen and my other friends are seated, and then quietly slip out to the restaurant next door.

Cooking for Dummies

I'm a pretty darned good cook if I do say so myself.  Although I'm never going to give this guy a run for his money, I know my way around a Viking stovetop and I own not one but two micro-planers, which certainly imparts some degree of street cred.  (Kitchen cred?)

My dear departed mother was not particularly good at it. She was a fantastic mom, a really good singer, had a wicked sense of humor, and rocked superhuman parenting skills, but a cook?  Not so much.  After 25 years of throwing together meals for my family she abruptly declared she hated it and was done when I, the runt of the litter, was the only one left at home at the age of 15.  She still went to the store and made sure we had plenty of groceries, but if I wanted something to eat I had to make it myself.  This was actually a blessing because it was only then that I realized that vegetables actually tasted good when not boiled for twenty-four hours in unsalted water.

You Started It

I didn't become a good cook overnight; it  probably took more like fifteen years. In high school I was adept at triple decker tuna salad sandwiches and I could fry a mean egg without breaking its yolk.  My early twenties saw a growing mastery of meatloaf, tacos, and the occasional marinated, grilled chicken.  Then someone game me the Silver Palate cookbook, where I read that even shopping for ingredients could be part of the overall fun in creating delicious meals.  This idea intrigued me.  I started sensually caressing boxes of cereal and uninhibitedly fondling fresh produce until I was chased  out of Kroger's accompanied by some fairly nasty name calling.  I learned to be more discreet at Safeway, and the foodie inside me started to blossom.

A lot of cooking is trial and error until you start using senses other than your eyes for reading recipes.  A refined sense of smell, an inquisitive tongue, sensitive fingers, and even your ears can help you master the wonders of the culinary process.  If you listen closely you can hear it when the roasting pan is too hot and burning your garlic studded pork tenderloin with julienned root vegetables.  Honestly. You really don't have to wait for the smoke alarm.

Now that I'm accomplished at cooking fairly difficult recipes and can dutifully turn out a holiday meal when everything comes out at the same time, my friends ask me how I learned to do it.  I really don't know.  That's kind of like asking Taylor Swift how can she write such terrible songs, or why swimming pool water looks blue. Partly it's practice, it's definitely a respect for quality ingredients, but mostly it's an instinct for flavors and textures that will trippingly tap dance on one's tongue.  Unlike my mother, I truly love chopping and peeling, simmering and tasting, roasting and basting while eagerly drinking in all the intoxicating aromas (as well as a glass or two of cabernet.)  It's really fun for me, and provides another outlet for expressing my creativity besides just writing about food all the time.

I'd love to find someone who feels exactly the same way about doing the dishes.