Shamed by Anthony Bourdain

Oh, dear. I have fallen down on the job.

I am reading Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw right now and last night I got to the chapter titled “Virtue.” It is, essentially, a list of everything he believes the average person should be able to cook for themselves. I pass every test (almost, see “soup” below), but I think about what I’ve taught Noah thus far. Could he survive in a world without the 24-hour IHOP and the offerings at his local Shell station in Knoxville?

Noah does cook. Here’s proof positive. Here he is making quesadillas. Yes, there was a little too much oil involved and the quesadillas relied heavily on red peppers. But nothing came out of a box and they tasted reasonably good. Unfortunately, his “clean as you go” skills are not at the optimum performance level. We’ll be working on that.

So here’s the list of what Anthony Bourdain thinks Noah should be able to cook for himself.

Cooking vegetables to a desired doneness: As noted, Noah has perfected red peppers and he has an understanding of how to make my world famous Brussels sprouts. So, by a slim margin, I will give Noah the nod on vegetables.

A standard vinaigrette: While Noah has watched me make a vinaigrette many times, I don’t think he would even be able to define the term if you asked him. Fail.

The ability to shop for fresh produce and know what’s in season: Yes and no. Noah can shop for produce. He does not know what’s in season. That’s the shame of growing up in an era when you can buy strawberries in August and tomatoes in February.

How to recognize a fish that’s fresh and how to clean and filet it: Definitely no. Noah is not much of a fish eater, unless it’s raw in sushi. The fish in our house comes cleaned, filleted and on a Styrofoam tray. My bad. Noah fails.

Steaming a lobster or crab: No, but this is my fault. When we do crab, it’s crab legs. They’re already cooked and I just warm them up in the oven before dousing them with melted butter. Noah knows how to do this. We have not done lobster in any form. I am too cheap. However, in the cold hard world of Anthony Bourdain, Noah fails.

Roasting meat without a thermometer: No. Truth be told, we don’t roast a lot of meat. The occasional chicken is about as complicated as it gets. And I will say this about thermometers. Although I don’t need one when I grill a steak or pork tenderloin, I cannot live without my digital thermometer for gauging the doneness of chicken. Twenty-five dollars extremely well spent. So take a smack to the head on that one, Anthony.

Roasting and mashing potatoes: Yes! Here’s one he knows. I am happy to say that despite the occasional box of Betty Crocker Au Gratin Potatoes that I will admit has found its way into the pantry, the vast majority of the time we are homemade roasted and mashed potato people. And Noah has done both himself.

Braising: Unequivocally, no. I am now regretting all those times I braised a chuck roast or short ribs and didn’t clue Noah in on the process. It’s so easy. However, Noah fails again.

Making stock with bones and making soup: No and no. This, again, is my bad. I’ve made plenty of stock in my day but I never taught Noah. And soup? Here’s a little secret for you. I hate soup. I will eat it once in a blue moon in a restaurant if the soup involves lots of cream. But to me, eating soup is like taking nourishment intravenously. Through no fault of his own, Noah fails.

So, as you can see, by Anthony Bourdain’s standards, Noah is woefully ill prepared to feed himself. However, here’s what Noah can do. He can make scrambled eggs. He can make pasta with pesto. He is extremely good at making sandwiches and not just your garden variety ham and cheese. Quesadillas? He can make them all day long. Salad. He may not have the vinaigrette down, but he can make a salad. He knows how to fry things and that, in a Southern world, is a valuable skill.

But I can see I have some remedial training to do when he’s home for summer break. Except for the soup. We won’t be doing soup.

No manners

“Damn, that was good. You’ve still got butter on your lips.” This from Mark who just walked into the office after polishing off a cluster of King Crab legs.

Mark and I were at the Publix today and they had King Crab legs on sale. So I brought them home. Ya’ll, this is the easiest thing to do. When you see crab in the seafood case at the grocery store, it’s already cooked. All you have to do is heat it up and eat it.  We just stuck the crab legs on a cookie sheet, put them in the oven (350 for about 15 minutes), melted some butter and got out the kitchen shears.

Now here’s something worth remembering. Those crab claw cracker things? Forget about them. You just need a good pair of kitchen shears. Cut through the shell, pull out the meat and dip it in the butter (obviously, no substitutions). One of the great things about being married to your best friend is that manners can go out the window at any second. We ate them off the cookie sheet like mongrel dogs. We didn’t even use napkins. We just kept rinsing our hands off in the kitchen sink.

I spent $20 for more than two pounds of crab legs. We’d have paid twice that much in a restaurant. And we didn’t have to contend with an annoying waiter named Dwayne who kept asking us if we wanted dessert. No, we did not. Not in the least.

I Feel Like An Exoskeleton For Supper

The other night Mark out of the blue said: “I feel like an exoskeleton for supper.” It’s not every day you hear something like that. And it brought to mind the absolute best “thing you’d never want to have happen to you involving your future mother-in-law” story ever. My mother and father were courting back in the late 1940s when my grandfather on my dad’s side suggested a road trip from Jacksonville, Illinois, to Maine. Think about that. Hours and hours in the car with your future in-laws. On your best behavior 24/7 for at least two weeks. So, off go my mom and dad and his mom and dad to Maine. Bad enough. But it gets worse. They finally get to Maine and stop at a lobster dock. My dad and granddaddy decide to walk down to the boats to chat up the lobstermen for a minute, leaving my mother and Mrs. Chapin in the car. FOR FOUR HOURS. No cellphone to call, no texting, “Where the hell are you?”

I asked my mom once why she didn’t get out of the car, stomp down to the docks and bring those boys back to the car. She was a very assertive woman in the best possible way but she just didn’t want to cross Mrs. Chapin, not an assertive woman, so early in the game. My mother had quite an aversion to lobsters for most of her life. She said eating one was like “fighting for your food.”

Which brings me to exoskeleton dinner night. We went over to the Publix (the world’s best grocery store) in Cool Springs to scope out the exoskeletons. They had some live lobsters, but I’d just seen Julie and Julia and I just couldn’t go there. I remember cooking a lobster once and I really did hear it scratching at the top of the pot. From the inside. So, instead, we opted for some king crab legs that were already cooked and detached from anything that might stare at you mournfully. If any of you are intimidated by crab legs, just stop it right now. They couldn’t be easier. As I said, they are already cooked (they always are) and all you need to do is put them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes to warm them up. I sometimes stick them on the grill. Then the fun begins. Get some kitchen scissors (I hate Williams Sonoma because everything is ridiculously expensive but the best kitchen scissors I ever got came from there).

Use the scissors to cut through the exoskeleton. You might be tempted to use the kind of cracker you use for lobster claws, but they don’t work. The shell is too soft.

And then the good part! You melt a stick of butter in a small saucepan. Now, don’t attempt to serve this all fancy, with china and a tablecloth. No, no, no. You put the crab legs on the counter in the pan you heated them up in. You put the pot of melted butter on the counter. You count out about 10 paper towels each and go to town.  Do “the hunch” so you don’t drip butter all over your shirt.

We don’t do this very often. It’s a cholesterol fiesta. But it’s sooooo good. A few hours later, I was sitting in bed watching Giada or Paula or somebody and I could still faintly feel the film of butter around my mouth. I savored it. What more could you want from a meal?