Bad Home Cooking

FOOD!

Yeah yeah yeah. I'm working up a post for you. Be patient.

In the meantime, here's a little snack:

Crap crepes

I have no idea how she learned about crepes. It could only have come from her father. She says it the English way. "Creps."  "Mummy? Can we make creps tonight?"

"Creps?" I put down my beer and stared at her. "Creps? Do you mean Crepes?" Crapes.

"Yeah, you know, those pancake thingies. But they're thinner. And you put Nutella in them."

Now she was sounding normal, like my side of the family. Those pancake thingies.

Why not, I said. With no other dinner plans in mind, it was looking like breakfast cereal or canned soup anyway. Why not crepes?

As it happened, I had a recipe for them sitting in the yellowing pile of newspaper recipe clippings I keep on a serving plate in my cookbook shelf. I'd always intended to study it and try my hand, and as always I'd never get around to it unless I got a little nudge.

Crepes and me go way back. Back to my first days in San Francisco, anyway, when the dot.com boom was kicking into overdrive, the rents were high and the apartments scarce. We stumbled onto a little creperie in sunny Parnassus Heights that sustained us for several weeks as we got settled. Growing up as I had, on TV dinners and frozen Eggo waffles, my first roasted red pepper and feta crepe was a revelation. And that was before I had the Nutella crepe.

At the time, a restaurant called Ti-Couz did bang-up business serving rude buckwheat crepes to an adoring Mission-district crowd. More worldly friends shrugged. Crepes are sold out of street carts in France and elsewhere. But to a naif from the backwoods of suburban Los Angeles, discovering crepes felt much like discovering the wheel. Since then I've associated crepes with a European sophistication that I can never approach, only worship from afar.

But this recipe, and an entire page of exegesis, from the L.A. Times, promised otherwise: Making delicious, delicate crepes: It's easier than you think. That's probably why I cut it out a year ago.

It sounded easy enough. Flour, eggs, milk, sugar and butter. Chilled for an hour, then spread thinly into a hot crepe pan. I could even make the buckwheat galettes like they served at Ti-Couz.

So I used up the last of my eggs, wondering only in passing about what it would do to my cholesterol level.  I whipped the whole thing up by hand because my blender no longer works properly and I still haven't worked up the gumption to buy myself a food processor. I chilled the blend for one hour per the instructions. I do not have a crepe pan, but why do I need that fancy hi-falutin' crap? My Target-bought non-stick pan, the one that lovingly bears my tortillas, would do just fine.

And it did. How wrong can you go with eggs and flour and sugar? I mean if kids are going to eat it? I made, er, pancake-like crepes, and covered them with sugar and lemon juice (and several with only Nutella), and the kids were delirious with pleasure.

But I can see it's an art that needs a lot of fine tuning on my part. I need to practice the details so my crepes will be the sort of paper-thin wrappers I can then stuff with all manner of savory or sweet delights. (I'll worry about how exactly I plan on making those later). And one day, when I'm a competent home cook, I'll be able to whip up a mess 'o crepes any old time I feel like it.

And oh, how cool would it be if I could make crepes? My daughter would never go abroad and act the unsophisticated rube I did. At least she's already got the poncy pronunciation down. But if she calls them those pancake thingies again I'll have to take away her Nutella.

Top ten crap dinners to make your kids

All the women's magazines say I should sit down every Sunday and plan a weekly menu. That's the best way to have a meal planned for every weekday dinner and be assured that I have all the necessary ingredients on hand. I would save time; no more running out to the store for the third time to buy one spice. No more staring into the pantry at 6 p.m. Tuesday with starving children clawing at my pants and realizing there was nothing to make (nothing they'd eat, anyway). I would save money as well, which is important these days. Anyone else notice that milk has gone up an entire dollar?

I can stand behind this idea. I support it full bore. It makes perfect sense to me. But it's never going to happen. I am simply too disorganized to sit down on a Sunday and write out a weekly menu. Such a task would cut too deeply into the time I spend staring into the middle distance, or checking my email, or painting my porch the wrong color. It smacks too much of June Cleaver. I can't bring myself to do it, even though I support it in theory.

It's in this spirit of resignation that I offer you my Top Ten Crap Dinners to Make Your Kids.

Great balls of rice

I lived in Japan for one summer in high school. This expanded my mind and ruined any hope I ever had of being a normal Southern California teenager whose only concerns in life were keeping her tan, driving her boyfriend's Camaro and scoring tickets to the next Journey concert.

The experience lit my passion for travel. And more. Since I went through the Youth For Understanding Toyota Scholarship, I had to write an essay on some aspect of Japanese life. I was assigned food, a topic I was only too happy to tuck into. Among the details I wrote about: In Japan, it's polite to slurp your noodles. Presentation of the food is at least (if not more) important than the taste of the food. And finally, one never eats rice by itself. Why not? It was never explained to me, as my host mother snatched my rice bowl out of my hand and rushed to cut up some fish to go on top of it. It's just not done.

I've revisited Japan several times since then. But I haven't been back since my brother got married to the wonderful Hiromi-chan about four years back. So who's gonna know that I break that cardinal rule with inappropriate regularity?

I found my O-nigiri mold, you see, and suddenly felt nostalgic. And O-nigiri is one thing my kids will eat. O-nigiri (pronounced, I always heard O-nigidi, with a "d.") is a ball of sticky white rice shaped into a triangle. Typically it has a bit of fish or pickled plum in the middle. It's usually wrapped in crispy seaweed. It's the Japanese equivalent of a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich -- casual home food, not something you normally find in restaurants. Moms stack them up for their kids' lunch or picnics in clever little square containers. I ate two almost every day when I was in Japan (and washed it down with a big glass of Calpis), which might explain the sudden weight gain. My host mother made me several to take with me on the plane home but I ate them all in the airport. Oishi desu-ne??! Years later I stumbled across an O-nigiri mold at a Japanese market and promptly went home to try my hand.

As you can see in the photo above; I got the bug to make O-nigiri but not the bug to drive to Marukai and buy any nori, seasoned, crispy seaweed you can wrap O-nigiri in or eat out of hand. As I wrote about for Kids' Cuisine, my kids are all over Japanese snacks. They eat nori like potato chips. A trip to Marukai, a huge Japanese supermarket not far from where I live, is always a treat. But not today. I had no fish to tuck into the middle, either. Nor did I dare stick in a pickled plum (which I did have, deep in the back of the fridge, fermenting freely), or sprinkle the top with sesame seeds or another seasoning. These authentic touches would have rendered the rice-ball inedible to my picky-ass progeny.

So I made them unadorned. And only screwed up the rice a little bit by putting in a bit too much water. I don't do fractions well, and measurements not specifically spelled out in the instructions on the back of the bag of rice will invariably be my undoing.  My fourth-grade daughter knows better than to consult me for her math homework.

These plain balls of rice, which would have so insulted my otosan, were enthusiastically consumed by my nits. They did wonder where the seaweed was, though. A Marukai run is in order, I suspect.

A little Peas and Quiet

I get a few cooking magazines sent to me every month. Three to be exact. Two of the three baffle me upon arrival in my mailbox. Every month I get my Bon Appetit and I ask myself what I was thinking when I ordered it. Its pages are filled with recipes for gracious outdoor parties and uber-cool dinner salons. The people in the photos are all beautiful and interesting-looking. The kitchens are showcases. The recipes presume a certain level of kitchen know-how and go from there. They also make assumptions about your gear. Naturally the kind of urban sophisticate who throws Tuscan dinner parties on her inlaid-brick patio have all the right equipment. Me? I have what could pass as a patio, but I don't have a George Foreman grill. I don't have a pasta maker. And while I think I may have a lemon zester, I have never actually used it for its intended purpose, which, come to think of it, I'm not really clear on anyway. It did nicely scrape residual tape off my landlord's wood floors recently, though. One day I may have the skill to attempt a recipe within the pages of Bon Appetit, but not this week. In fact, likely not this decade.

I get Gourmet also. I don't remember ever ordering it. Maybe I was sleepwalking? Maybe it's somebody's idea of a joke? Barbara Cleaver Tilsner nudging me from Beyond? Anyway. I flip through it and promptly toss it into the recycling bin. Why would somebody like me even attempt a recipe found in such a magazine? Even the weight of the paper stock intimidates me.

The one cooking title I subscribe to with delight, however, is Everyday Food, a clever, paperback sized magazine that features the kinds of recipes people like me might actually try, and even better, might actually have some success at. Yes, it is published by Martha Stewart Living, but obviously they've found a new, lower-caste niche audience and are exploiting it to great profit. Over the cover title a banner reads: Your Guide to Fast, Great Meals. I like fast. And I like great. Wouldn't it be great if I could actually make great, fast meals for my family?

The book excites me because it makes cooking well seem so accessible. The recipes are all broken down into simple steps. They even include a shopping list so you can actually have all the ingredients onhand before you start (a common misstep of mine). It has features aimed squarely at me and my ilk. "Food Facts" is one page all about a commonly-used foodstuff - honey, for example, or wine, or tomatoes. It has a page about spices, a page about basic kitchen items you might find helpful, like a chef's knife, or a cheese grater. There are recipes on basic sauces, so you never have to guess about how much garlic to use in your vinaigrette ever again.

I flip through the pages and feel my sap rising. Zucchini frittata. Asian chicken and chili soup. Potato leek soup. Gingered carrot salad. I dog ear many pages. I use Post-It notes without restraint. I almost paw the pages. The photos are simple, uncluttered. Inviting. I might be able to make some of this, I think.

I'm not normally prone to deluding myself. As of my most recent birthday, I'm afraid my dreams of being discovered to star in a Broadway musical are long behind me. I will never grow into my looks. My skin will never clear up. I accept all of that and more. And yet, when it comes to cooking, hope springs eternal. I feel that desire to cook well should supercede utter lack of ability and talent. And so I forget past embarrassements and forge ahead.

I forget about the meatball soup debacle, for example. That's a recipe from Everyday Food. And it's for the best that I've blocked out what I did when trying to create the white bean chili featured in the "Cooking for One" section. You just don't want to know. Some things can not be written about.

And so it was with this particular dementia that I flipped through my latest issue of Everyday Cooking and set my eyes upon a recipe my entire family would enjoy (switch on copywriting tone).

Tortellini with peas. My kids like tortellini. They like peas. They like garlic and they like Parmesan cheese (especially when they don't know it's there). If I could make this dish I might successfully add to my daily evening repetoire, which these days seems to consist mostly of plain pasta, breakfast cereal, Dino Nuggets and edamame beans.

Tonight I tried it. Although maybe I should have waited until a day that was not Friday, as well as a day that we didn't have a play-date over. Also, it's hard to concentrate when your kitchen iPod is competing with your six-year-old's Godzilla movie in the next room. But when have I ever let chaos stop me from cooking?

Well exactly.

OK. Here's what you need:

1 1/2 pound frozen tortellini (yeah right. Like I live in North Beach or something. Get a package of dried from Trader Joe's)

Some frozen peas

2 tablespoons of butter

1 garlic clove, smashed

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

course salt and ground pepper

Cook the pasta about two minutes less than it says to on the package, then throw in the peas. Cook on until the pasta is al dente and the peas are tender, two minutes more. Drain the pasta and peas, but reserve 1 cup of the pasta water.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pasta pot over a medium-low heat. Add the smashed garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Discard garlic (or eat it, because it's yummy and good for you.)

Dump your pasta and peas, the Parmesan cheese and most of the reserved pasta water, back into your pot with your butter sauce. Mix it all together. Add salt and pepper. Add more water if necessary. Top with additional Parmesan if desired.

Couldn't be simpler, right? Here's where I fouled up.

The timer dinged just as I was yelling at the kids to stop playing with their light sabers in the house and I drained the pasta even as I realized that A) I forgot to put the peas in and B) I forgot to reserve the 1 cup of water.

So I dumped the steaming, not-quite-drained pasta back into the pot, poured the butter sauce onto it, dumped the Parmesan in (I had grated, not shredded) WITH the frozen peas and mixed it all together really quickly, hoping the friction would help cook the peas.

I forgot all about the course salt and pepper.

It didn't look so bad, though. The cheese melted nicely. The peas cooked through. I put some in a bowl even as my children and their friend were rolling pillows and other objects down the stairs, and I gathered up my library book on the Alhambra in Spain, and I sat down at my Ingo table in the kitchen and I ate my tortellini and peas in relative peace and quiet, all the while reading about why things were always better in Andalucia, even 1,000 years ago.

And I had a small epiphany of my own. My kids would sit and eat this dish. When they got hungry enough.

Also this: I don't like peas.