The sandwich is a many splendored thing, and one that is too rarely given the respect that it deserves. Its origin is shrouded in the myth of a gambling aristocrat; its family tree branches every which way from melts and burgers, submarines and crustless white-bread things, to tea sandwiches and open-faced concoctions and the Atkins-fueled excuse for a true sandwich, the low-carb wrap.
A long time ago, in a summer which is dogeared in my brain as one of culinary bliss, I ate sandwiches every day. It was a sandwich on a crusty roll or piece of baguette, made with a hard, peppery, all-beef salami (my partner at the time still aspired to keep kosher), with romaine lettuce and mayonnaise. (It evolved from a favorite snack of mine when I was in middle school, a sandwich of low-quality hard salami on Pepperidge Farm white bread.) This may be my favorite sandwich – it is certainly the sandwich that is most dear to my heart.
Other sandwiches reign supreme in different times of day or year. Although I eschew the traditional butter for more flavorful mayonnaise, cucumber sandwiches on white bread make me a happy girl with tea and gingerbread and friends-of-the-female-persuasion on a Sunday afternoon. In the summer when it is bright and hot, a tomato grown by somebody I love, sliced thin on a flavorful bread, again with mayo (or else the tomato will make the bread soggy). After a night of debauchery, at about 1:00 in the afternoon having woken not before 11:00 am, a burger with mayo (always, always with the mayo) ketchup, pickles, tomato and lettuce, extra-crispy french-fries and coffee are just the thing for me. I love veggie subs and cheese steaks and interesting combinations of cheeses and cold cuts and vegetables. I love grilled cheese with tomato soup. Or with out it, really. The BLT is a masterpiece, and the addition of avocado simply dreamy.
But the sandwich that fills my thoughts today, that blocks me from other lunch choices and that, through being just-a-bit-too-pricey, has completely undone my grocery shopping plans, forcing me to curtail those ventures till I wind up eating nothing for dinner but handfuls of almonds and grapes (delicious! nutritious! remarkably filling!) That sandwich is one sold at the Seven Stars Bakery here in Providence, and it is divine. It is made with fresh mozzarella from a local creamery, arugula, roasted red pepper and olive tapenade on a section of baguette. With a mug of sweet iced-coffee with coffee ice cubes, it is a little bit of heaven, to be slowly enjoyed over an Agatha Christie mystery in the middle of my day – every day.
Look at her being sexy, even in that big 'ole sweater ...
I have trouble with dichotomies. I really do. For instance, there’s this dichotomy between being smart and being sexy. As though if you value the one, you can’t value the other.
And it’s bullshit.
My entire life, I’ve known I was smart. I’ve done a pretty good job of making sure everybody around me knows it, too. I read obsessively, I’m snobbish about food and literature, I’m completely out of the pop culture look, but will always catch a reference to “The Song of Roland” – I’m an overeducated geek, no doubt about it. And I base a lot of my self image and self esteem on that knowledge.
I have not known for my entire life – or even since I began caring about such things – that I was sexy. That I, in fact, am sexy. There are days, even now, when I don’t know it.
But I’m not blind, you see, and I am lucky. I look at myself and I see – firm, high breasts, small waist, flaring hips, round bottom. I see long legs and smooth skin, a good complexion, dark eye-lashes framing big brown eyes, a small, upturned nose, naturally shiny hair with just a little bit of wave to it. If you put together all the pieces you get sexy, right?
So what, I thought, was wrong with me?! I should be sexy, I should be physically desirable, but nobody seems to be desiring me – so somehow, something must be broken.
I’m too smart.
A woman can only be valued for her brains or her body. Never both.
And it’s better, apparently, to be desired for your brains. That’s what it is – you say, I love you for your brain. Your mind. You say it as a joke to your sexy girlfriend, like saying you only read Playboy for the articles, like it’s demeaning that her body turns you on.
I do put some effort into looking good, you know. And I don’t find it demeaning (nor should you find it threatening) to have that noticed. I don’t feel that my worth as a woman is threatened by men who find me attractive – I think it’s heightened. Because I am STILL SMART. Being sexy doesn’t take away from that, it adds to it. It gives me another thing to base my self esteem, my self image on. It gives me a reason to pick out my clothes with a bit of care, to think about what message my appearance sends, to make sure my hygiene is good.
Having grown up feeling smart but not sexy, I have never, ever felt threatened or lessened or maligned because of someones positive comments about my body. I have felt disbelieving. I have felt I was receiving charity. I have felt, even in the face of strong empirical evidence to the contrary, that my lovers were telling me I was beautiful just to placate me.
It took a man who was stunned by my intelligence first, but who nevertheless dropped his jaw when I removed my clothing, to make me believe, really, that I was sexy, in addition to, because of, but also separate from, being smart.
At KinkForAll Providence, I spoke about sensuality and joy, and I mentioned how I love baking gingerbread in part because of how it perfumes my apartment. And that’s true. That is part of why I love gingerbread. But it doesn’t begin to cover it.
Gingerbread – this gingerbread, made with this recipe*, with lemon drizzle icing – is probably my ideal desert. I love fancy deserts like creme brulee and seasonal treats like berries and cream, but I would eat gingerbread any time of day, any time of year. In fact, I’d eat it several times of day. It is the perfect teacake for an old fashioned tea party, with little watercress and cucumber sandwiches. It is delicious on a hot summer afternoon with a big glass of minted lemonade or iced tea, but I crave it most of all in the winter time, when that warm, deep spice strikes a cord of home and safety within me.
The truly brilliant thing about this gingerbread is that it is one of the few deserts I can make and eat all by myself. This is because its so moist that properly covered it will last as much as a week (if you can keep away from it that long), and as it sits, the flavors mellow and it gets denser and – if anything – even better. I find a slice of gingerbread a marvelous breakfast, afternoon snack, desert, and treat before dinner. Bit by bit it all disappears, and then I smoosh the crumbs together, gobble them up and check to see if I’ve got the ingredients to make gingerbread again this week.
Damp Gingerbread
You Will Need
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (plus a bit for greasing)
1 1/4 cups Lyle’s Golden Syrup**
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1¾ tsp baking soda
Ground Ginger To Taste***
½ tsp ground cloves
¼ ground cinnamon
1 egg, beaten with
1 cup whole milk
AND
Small pot or sauce pan
Large mixing bowl
9 inch round cake plate or spring form pan
Wooden spoon
Whisk
Measuring cups
Parchment paper
Preheat your oven to 340 degrees (f). Coat the inside of your cake pan with butter, making sure to get the corners and sides well covered. Line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment paper cut to fit.
Melt the butter, Lyle’s and molasses in your saucepan until combined. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon and cloves and whisk until entirely combined and free of any lumps – a little longer than you think you need to whisk it. Pour in the butter and syrup combination and mix with wooden spoon until smooth. Add the milk and egg and mix again, starting slowly, until smooth and combined.
Pour into prepared pan and bake for between 45 and 60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.
I think this is particularly delicious with lemon drizzle icing, for which you need:
The juice of 1 lemon
1 cup confectioners sugar
bowl to mix in
fork to mix with
Place the confectioners sugar in the bowl and add lemon juice, a little bit at a time, until it becomes a thick paste – you will only need a few teaspoons of juice.
When the cake is cool, remove from it’s pan and set on plate. Pour the icing over the top so that it will drip down the sides relatively evenly, let sit until the icing has set a bit, and enjoy – all day, every day, until it disappears.
* This recipe comes from Laurie Colwin’s “More Home Cooking” one of my favorite books by arguably my favorite food writer. She says that she got it from Delia Smith’s “Book of Cakes,” and made a few adjustments, and I have made a few adjustments of my own.
** Lyle’s Golden Syrup is a British light treacle. It has the consistency of molasses with a golden color a little darker and richer than honey. It’s available in most American grocery stores in the either in the International Aisle or with other syrups. If you can’t find it, you can replace it with light cane syrup (not corn syrup) or all molasses (this will make a much darker, more strongly flavored cake). I have used all of these options, and find that the combination of Lyle’s and molasses listed here is far and away the best – but they are all good.
*** I like my gingerbread pretty spicy, so I use about 2 tablespoons of ginger. You can use as little as a 2 teaspoons or as much as you like – make a batch, see what you think, and adjust it for next time.
On Valentine’s day, May and I went to the movies. May asked a question, we had a conversation. I had a realization, which May turned into an idea. We went to brunch, and we told our idea to some friends. They gave their opinions. We went home, wrote up a proposal, and submitted it to the International Women’s Health Coalition Young Visionaries competition. If we win, we will have $1000 USD of grant money to fund the idea that came from a question and a realization.
The question May asked was: Why can’t somebody do for sex education what the “truth” information campaign did for education about smoking and big tobacco?
The realization I had was: Most of what I learned about sex, I did not learn in a classroom. I learned from my sister in her room, from my friends on the school bus. I learned from men who were good to me or bad to me. I learned from stories online, and from conversations online, and from sex online.
And not all of what I learned was quite accurate. It took me a long time to figure out that “sex” didn’t to refer to any meeting of male and female genitalia. I had this idea that nudist colonies must involve quite a bit of accidental sex when coming around corners.
It took me a long time to learn about the penetration part of intercourse. I can’t actually recall anybody sitting me down and telling me I was wrong – and if anybody did, I’m sure it was my older sister, not my health class teacher.
While having a shaky grasp of the mechanics of sex is unfortunate, it’s pretty benign. But a lot of young people “learn” more dangerous inaccuracies about sex. Like that you can’t get pregnant your first time (or if you stand up or do jumping jacks afterwards), or that barrier methods are more effective if you double up on them, or that if someone takes advantage of you while you’re too intoxicated to do anything about it it’s your fault for being so intoxicated, or that it’s not ok to say no to sex with someone you’re dating.
Many of us learn the truth about these misconceptions eventually, but have few opportunities to pass what we’ve learned on to other people still suffering from confusion, ignorance, or fear. So many more of us never learn, or learn one of a thousand different Hard Ways.
The proposal we submitted was: SexEdEverywhere.com. An online sexual and reproductive health information campaign, based around an educational video competition and an opportunity for people, and especially young people, to share what they know about sex.
With the $1000 grant from the IWHC Young Visionaries contest we will fund a sexual health education and empowerment video campaign that highlights the reality that we learn about sex from disparate sources in many locations. The heart of this campaign, which we call SexEdEverywhere (“SEE”), will begin with a competition calling for submissions of 30 to 90 second videos that will be reviewed and featured on a network of 5 (or more) microsites over time. The campaign will be based at SexEdEverywhere.com, a website that will actively engage the people to whom it will speak: women and youth across the globe.
Each microsite will portray a scene in which real-life sexuality education happens, such as a doctor’s office, the back of a school bus, a mobile phone conversation, and many more recognizable places. We would subdivide the $1,000 grant into funding and prize money for the best 5 videos as based on creativity and educational impact, among other criteria. The winning videos would receive $100 and be posted on one of the first 5 microsites along with other vetted entries. There will also be a second phase, in which all entries are tracked over a set period of time. The video with the most views during that period will receive a $150 award for “going viral.”
I believe in frank and open discussion of sexual pleasure and sexual and reproductive health. I believe we should share information and talk to each other. We all have a lot to learn about our, and other people’s, bodies and as we navigate and explore there are a lot of decisions to be made. We need to be empowered, and to empower each other and our youth, to make these decisions wisely and based on sound information. We need to learn what is right, and good, and fun for ourselves and for others. I believe that Sex Ed Everywhere is an opportunity to share our information and spread truths, and I will do whatever it takes to help this project succeed.
And you can help. Please, vote for SexEdEverywhere, and spread the word to all of your supportive friends an acquaintances – help take control of sex education, and make something vital into something vibrant.
It is my firm belief that, with a few exceptions, everyone can learn to cook decent food, for not too much money, without going insane. This is not the same as believing that everyone can cook – in fact, I believe that many people who think they can cook, can’t, and maybe people who think they can’t cook, probably could, if they just relaxed and gave it a whirl, starting with something simple.*
Because really good food doesn’t have to take five hours, doesn’t have to drive you crazy, doesn’t have to dirty every dish in the kitchen and leave you too exhausted to eat. It takes a few pieces of equipment, a certain amount of forethought, and a willingness to get back in the saddle after you fuck it up. Because you’re going to fuck it up, throw it away, and order pizza (or eat ramen) at least once. No matter how disheartening this is (and it’s brought me to the verge of tears before), learn from your mistakes and try again, or you will never get anywhere. So, general tenants:
Recipes are your friend, not your enemy or your master. Find recipes you like and buy the ingredients listed if you want to cook them. READ THE WHOLE RECIPE BEFORE YOU START COOKING. Follow it, but switch things up a bit if you like – change out a vegetable, add some cheese or a different spice. You’ll get the hang of it later. But DON’T think that if you use a recipe you’re not really cooking, and don’t think that if you stray from the recipe a bit everything will go horribly awry. Have fun.
READ THE WHOLE RECIPE BEFORE YOU START COOKING. I’m putting this in twice, because while some recipes will work if you carry-out each instruction before you read the next one, a lot are not that well written. You must read the recipe to know what equipment you have to have ready, and all the things that need to be chopped before hand. If you want to have dinner ready in a hour, and you discover when everything’s already started that you need to marinate your steak over night, you’re S.O.L. It’s really good to have an idea of everything you’re going to need to do before you get started. So if you’re not cooking from a recipe, take a second to think the whole thing through. And if you are, read the whole recipe before you start cooking.
If you’re going to keep to a budget, you need to plan. This one could actually be re-written as “read the whole recipe before you go shopping.” I plan in two ways: I have some staples I always keep around, and I plan a few meals (or a week’s worth) before I do my shopping, so that I can be sure to get all the ingredients. If you do not have a plan, you will not be able to create meals, or you will go over budget, or both. And it’s fun! The internet is full of recipes; pick ones that look easy and appealing, get the stuff and try them out.
If you’re trying to learn to cook, stick around and look at what’s happening!** Observe what you do, how you do it, what happens to different ingredients under different conditions. If you walk away, not only will things burn or overcook or boil-over, but you won’t know why.
Anyone can cook. You can cook. You will make mistakes. You will burn things, or discover that food is underdone and in an attempt to fix it wind up with something that is either soggy (vegetables) or dry (meat) and definitely overcooked. When this happens, pay attention. That’s where you learn. What did you do? What can you do differently? Food is just chemistry. Was it the heat? Too high or too low? Too much liquid or too little? Too much spice/acid/sweet? If you pay attention to your mistakes, you’ll get better and better. But don’t give up on cooking because it hasn’t always gone well for you, and also don’t give up on the specific dish. Try again next time and it will be better. Messing up is how you learn, both generally and in specific.***
Pay attention to what you like. Do you love mint and lemon as a combination? Ginger and garlic? Cumin and cardamom? You have as much a right to eat what you like as anybody you’re cooking for, and it’s good to be able to develop a style and know what sorts of recipes will be not only within your taste preferences but within your abilities.
Here are some things that you might need to watch out for:
Pay attention to how high your flame/electric-burner heat is. This is MUCH harder on electric stoves than gas. If things look like they’re cooking too fast, don’t hesitate to turn down the heat a bit, and if you’re cooking with electric, just pick the pan right up and move it. You can always cook things longer without too many ill effects. It’s impossible to go back once things are burned or overcooked.
Taste-as-you-go. Once things are cooked to the point where they aren’t dangerous (do not, for instance, taste chicken before it’s cooked all the way through), taste as you go. Especially as you add spices and other strong flavorings. As usual, it’s always easier to add more than to take away.
Pay attention to measurements!Especially starting out, keep a close eye on those Big T’s (tablespoons), Little t’s (teaspoons) and the like. When you are just starting, measure everything. Once you know what a tablespoon of oil in the pan looks like, then you can forgo this step, but you need that mental guideline before you start guessing. Remember: there are THREE teaspoons in a tablespoon. If you get that one wrong on something intense, you will seriously change the flavor of a dish. That said, if you add your teaspoon of ginger and you find you just want more, go ahead and add some more. But slowly – careful not to overshoot the mark.
Onions will make you cry. Be careful with you knife.
Cook things of similar size and density. For stove top cooking (which is most of what I do, being a control-freak who likes to be able to keep fussing with things the whole way through) these are the two main factors in how quickly things cook. Garlic will cook MUCH more quickly than anything else, because it’s usually chopped very small and is also not very dense. Carrots are very dense, and so will cook slowly. Try to make sure you put things of about the same density in pieces about the same size into the pan at the same time, because they will have similar cooking times.
When you buy too much stuff, cook it anyway. If you are in danger of letting produce or meat go to waste, there are three answers: esoteric salad combinations, pantry pastas, and oddball stir fries. Cozy up to one or all of these, and you’ll throw out a lot less stuff.
* I MEAN IT. You will not succeed if you start out with creme brulee, or with hollaindaise sauce, or with guinea hens stuffed with skinned green grapes and sage leaves, wrapped in bacon and roasted in a slow oven. EASY FOOD IS GOOD FOOD. If you get ahead of yourself, you will be discouraged and miserable. I know this from exprience, and it sucks BALLS to look at a ruined amalgamation of incredibly expensive ingredients and know you’re gonna spend even more money on the take-out you’ll be eating instead.
** Unless you’re waiting for a big ole pot of water to boil, and don’t have anything else to prep. Then don’t watch. Really.
***A handy hint – especially with tricky stuff, try it out on yourself (or somebody you trust to keep loving you even if things go awry) before you try it out on a fancy dinner part of Very Important People you desperately want to impress.
This deserves to be the first recipe posted on this blog. I started cooking it in Freshman year of college. I did not have a kitchen, but my friend who was a year ahead of me did. I would get together with her and the boy who would become my partner, and we would try to put together something dinner. The trouble was, she was a vegetarian, and he was obsessed with making sure he was getting enough protein, and none of us had much money. This dish, which is like an absurdly simple, vegetarian variation on Pasta Carbonara, served us well then, and has served me well ever since. Like many things of equal simplicity, it gets better with better ingredients.
For 4
Ingredients:
1 lb long pasta (spaghetti, linguine, etc)
3 whole eggs
3 oz or so hard cheese (this will be grated, about 1.5 or 2 cups by volume of Asiago, Pecorino Romano, Parmigiano Reggiano, or the like)
Olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
Kosher Salt
Equipment:
1 large pot, preferably tall and narrow rather than short and wide – an 8 to 10 quart stock pot does well here
1 large bowl, big enough to fit a pound of cooked pasta, with room for stirring
A large sieve or colander
A box grater or microplane
Tongs
A ladle, or a mug, or other water-moving device
Fill your pot to about 3 inches from the top with water and bring to a rolling boil. Ladle about 2 cups of water into the bowl – this will warm it up, which will be useful later on. Add salt generously – I go with a small handful, maybe 1/4 cup. This will help to season the pasta, inside and out.
Add the pasta all at once, and stir it around with your tongs a bit to keep from sticking. Cook till al dente (the point when it no longer feels sticky in the back of your teeth). I take general guidance from the package instructions, but generally start checking the pasta pretty frequently after about 6 minutes. It’s done when it feels done.
While the pasta is cooking, grate the cheese (if you’ve not already done so).
When the pasta is almost done (but still sticks just a bit in the back of the teeth) dump the water out of the bowl and crack in the eggs. Whisk them around, together with the cheese, until they are combined and the eggs show now large striations of yoke and white.
Place the colander in your sink (empty of dirty dishes, please!) and drain the pasta.
Place the drained pasta in the bowl with the eggs and stir vigorously and immediately with your tongs – the heat of the pasta will cook the eggs into a sauce, but if you don’t move quickly they will be less sauce and more “clumps of cooked eggs in among the pasta.”
Add olive oil – a good glug (about a tablespoon and a half to begin with, perhaps 2 tablespoons) and grind on LOTS of pepper. This is to taste, but I’ve seldom felt there was too much. Stir vigorously once more, and serve immediately.
This goes nicely with a simple salad. For the simplest of all, place some pre-washed baby spinach or spring-mix salad leaves into a bowl. Season with a pinch of kosher salt and a grind or two of pepper. Take a lemon and roll it on the table to get the juice flowing, slice it in half and juice 1/2 of it into a funnel placed over a small jar (a jam jar, perhaps, or a leftover caper or anchovy jar). Pick out any seeds with a fork, and add olive oil till there is just under twice as much olive oil as there is lemon juice. Screw the cap on tightly and shake vigorously to combine. Dress your salad and enjoy your meal with a glass of wine if you like that sort of thing, beer if you like that sort of thing, or water if you’ve got neither around or happen to be a teetotaler.
It is probably possible to cook with no utensils at all. Really good vegetables, for instance, are often stupefyingly delicious with nothing but a quick wash in cold water. The rest of the time, however, you’re going to need some tools.
So, to start out, your Batterie de Cuisine*- the stuff you need to cook. Lots of people many gadgettes to improve their food. There are breadmakers and pasta machines and standing mixers, and they are all very well, but they’re not needed for every day cooking, nor are egg poachers or even rolling pins – use a wine bottle. I have had limited pocket money as long as I’ve been cooking, so I use a few things, over and over again. With the exception of a few suggestions (the 10×17 inch rack and the springform pan) I own everything listed below, and use it all with relative frequency. I have a few other things, but if it’s not listed here than I probably hardly ever lay a hand on it. And there are some common and useful items that are not listed at all: an electric mixer, for instance. I haven’t had the cash, recently, and besides, I feel kind of good and earth-mother-y when I’m beating eggs or whipping cream by hand.
Most of the stuff I use is of pretty good quality. Some things, especially baking things and big pots, can and should be bought used, at yard sales. Most of this stuff I have because I’ve been asking for a pot or a pan or a knife every birthday and Christmas for years – I could never have afforded it all myself. You don’t need all these things to cook every dish. Get started with what you have, and if you want to make something but don’t have the equipment (or anything that can reasonably be put to use) then get it, just like you’d get any other ingredient. Don’t look at the list and panic. The things accumulate. Start with what you have, and as you slowly accrue more kitchen implements, keep some very useful items in mind. They are**:
The Bare Essentials
A big chef’s knife. Mine is a 10 inch Forschner. It costs about 30 dollars, and I use it every time I cook, without exception. It slices, it dices, it smashes cloves of garlic. I feel lonely without it. It’s a European style knife, unlike the now famous Shun knives, which are Japanese. I don’t know that one style is better, but I do know they require slightly different usage.
a 12 inch skillet, with a heavy bottom and a tight fitting cover. This can be nonstick (which helps immensely with eggs) but does not need to be.
Mixing bowls. A few will do, but this is a more-the-merrier item. Some of them should be glass or metal, the rest can be plastic. I like deeper bowls with narrower mouths, but this is a matter of preference.
A cutting board or boards – I use color coded ones to prevent cross-contamination from chicken to beef to veggies, and although I have a wooden butcher board I always use a platic board on top. I have no use for a small cutting board – you can cut a small thing on a big board, but you can’t cut a big thing on a small one.
Scallop-edged tongs. After one summer cooking in a restaurant in Brooklyn, I relied on these so heavily I thought I was turning into a lobster. They turn food, they pick it up, they move it around. If you pay more than 10 dollars for a pair you are a fool.
Measuring cups and spoons – I use liquid and dry measure interchangeably, so you could get by with one set of spoons and a single graduated measuring cup. But more are handy.
Extra Stuff To Make Things Easier
One or two small, sharp knives. I like victorinox utility knives. They are very sharp – use then till they aren’t and toss ’em. They cost around 5 dollars a pop.
A sharpening steel. So far as I know, any type will do. Steels, unlike whetstones, don’t actually sharpen your kife – they keep it from getting dull. As you use your knife, the fine edge of the blade will bend over. Running a steel along it at a 20 degree angle before every use undoes this, and keeps your knife sharper, longer. It will still get dull, and must then be sharpened by grinding some metal off the blade. Have somebody who knows how to do this teach you, carefully, or leave it to the pros.
2 more pots – a 10 quart stockpot (mostly for long pasta, sometimes stocks) and little sauce pan (for a bit of pasta, peas, rice, ramen), say, 2 quarts. These are very good things to pick up at a garage sale – with the exception of the stockpot, which will only ever be used for things that involve a lot of liquid, you’ll want to look for heavy bottoms.
Another pan or two – a 6 quart saute pan, for instance, and perhaps something smaller (again, heavy bottom and tight fitting lid), or a cast iron skillet. These will add to the variety of omelets, stir fries, sauces, and braises you can make.
Wooden spoons and a flat edged wooden spatula, some plastic spatulas, slotted spoons, whisks – this stuff will accumlate. It is the Stuff You Like To Cook With. Buy ’em cheap, use ’em till they season. If they break, toss ’em out.
A half-sheet pan or two. These function as cookie sheets, but are used for a lot more than making cookies. If you can find a pan with a fitting rack (you’ll want an 11×17 inch rack), get it.
A box grater. For cheese, potatoes for the latkes, onion.
A Few Less-Common Things I Recommend (Optional Extras)
More or Less in Order by Frequency of Use
A Microplane grater. For downy clouds of parmesan or to neatly get the zest off a citrus fruit or add a bit of nutmeg, there’s nothing like these, which are adapted from wood shops prettied up and moved into the kitchen.
A small sieve. Very useful for getting the seeds out of lemon juice, the bits out of a reduction.
A set up for making coffee. It’s not necessary, but I wouldn’t go a day without it. Mine is a kettle, krups coffee grinder (I buy my beans whole), a #2 Mellita cone and filters. I recently got a French Press, but I like my single-brew cups better, so I’ll reserve it for friends. The grinder can also be used for spices.
A board scraper. I actually use a plastic putty knife from a hardware store for this purpose, but I would like to get a stainless steal one like this.
A salad spinner. Very for drying veggies and fruits.
An immersion blender: there is nothing like it for sauces, purees, and soups. With one of these and some deep bowls, I’ll doubt I’ll ever need a standing blender.
And the ultimate optional extra: a food processor. There are some jobs that take about 20 seconds with one of these and about 2 hours without, but I find they are few and far between. I decided to split the difference and got the model shown here, which does 3 cups at a time. I’ll almost certainly have to do several batches every time I use it, but it was cheapish, and easy to store, and is very portable.
* This is French. French is the Language of Cooking, except when it’s not, in which case Italian, Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish is. Very seldom is English the Language of Cooking, and when it is it’s almost always dialectical. Food is a regional delight – but how you talk about it is not as important as how it tastes, when you get right down to it. So relax.
**With the exception of the two knives and the items in the “Optional Extras” section, I do not specifically endorse any of the items linked too. I tried to look for equipment that would meet my specifications or tastes were of a reasonable price, and that was similar to the items with which I actually cook, but I have not product tested any of these. The links are just for reference.
I would hazard to guess that most people who read this blog think of me primarily in terms of sexuality. A nice young lady (or some days, a nice boy) who thinks and writes and talks about sexuality, in politics, in a podcast, on the internet and with her partner.
And I am that, I do that, that’s definitely a part of what I do and a big part of what shows up here. But when I put this blog together it was designed to contain all the parts of my life I wanted to put in it, which include not only sexuality, but also general musings on my life, personal experiences, and food.
Yep, food. I love food. I love to cook it, I love to eat it, I love to talk about it, and I have to admit that in my own strange way, I’m an unabashed snob about it: I will not eat packaged bread. I will not, if I can at all avoid it, purchase from a restaurant food I could cook better and more cheaply at home. I do not cook out of boxes or warm up packaged food.* I use decent olive oil and vinegars, and keep a pantry stocked with spices and bottled sauces and ingredients, and grow my own herbs in pots. Rather than eat bad food, I will refrain from eating or eat a meal that most people would not recognize as such – my lunch, most weekdays, is half of an olive-baguette from the local bakery, sliced lengthwise and eaten with butter. I am a pinch-penny who will keep wearing socks with holes and unravelling sweaters, but I will, once or twice a year, happily drop a hundred dollars on a REALLY good meal, and think my life deeply enriched for it.
When I lived with my ex-partner, or when May comes to stay with me, I will cook a real meal almost every night. I plan carefully and cook on the cheap – $50 per person per week is my target budget, and I am usually successful.** I accomplish this in part by keeping a house stocked with staples – having them ready-at-hand means that I know what I’ve already got, and don’t have to buy them specifically for a dish. It means that in any new apartment there are few expensive “setting up” shopping trips, but it gets much cheaper after that.*** Also, I cook largely vegetarian or mostly-vegetarian food (otherwise the budget would be completely impossible to work with), and, of course. I try to enjoy myself.
This means a few different things:
Avoid dirtying extra dishes whenever possible. Since I moved out of my parents house I have never had a dishwasher, nor, I must say, a partner who is truly of the mindset that “The Cook Does Not Clean.” Now, I live on my own, so I do all my own dishes. A meal that takes an hour to cook and leaves another half-hour’s worth of dishes just isn’t worth it.
Avoid unnecessary steps. I subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated Magazine, and as anybody who does so knows, in their scientific quest to make the perfect dish, their recipes tend to double or triple the number of niggling little procedural quirks. In my quest for simplicity, I like to cook their recipes and see how many of the steps I can then remove and still create a delicious meal.
Eat vegetables. I have to admit, I am not a big salad eater. May is, and when he comes to town my salad intake sky-rockets, but when he isn’t around, I find myself much more likely to get my greens if I put them in whatever I’m cooking (which is, being a girl who likes few dirty dishes and a relatively quick meal, often either pasta or stir-fry). My vegetable staples as of right now are escarole, broccoli, and frozen peas.
Think about nutrition, but don’t think too hard about nutrition. For me, it basically comes down to making sure I eat a variety of things. Being a dyed-in-the-wool carbovore, I try to make sure that I’m eating enough veggies and dairy (organic yogurt is my main snack food). Since protein is not as overwhelmingly important in the diet as most people think, I don’t worry about it much – rice and peas or peas and pasta will get me what I need, or cheese or yogurt. And frankly, being young and well, I don’t worry at ALL about fat or sugar. I neatly avoid transfats by cooking for myself, and almost always cook with olive or vegetable oil. Which means that when I do bake, I go for real butter. And when I roast a chicken, I happily dip my good bread in the seasoned chicken fat, and don’t feel an ounce of guilt.
Try things out and have no fear: the more I cook, the better I am at it. The less I cook, the more my skills get rusty. This year, living on my own, I knew I wasn’t going to be cooking as much as I’d like. I try to get up and cook myself at least two meals a week – having never gotten used to the idea of cooking for leftovers, these tend to be one-shot meals. The other days, I eat with friends, which could mean somebody else has cooked, or that I got food ready made (pizza, a restaurant, whatever) or I eat ramen or quesadillas. I try to get some veg and non-carb protein in there too, but it’s not such a grand thing. But I never look at a recipe and say, gee, I can’t make that. I have made pre-baked tart crusts filled with creme patisserie and blue berries, topped with red currant glaze. I have made pot roasts and duck breasts and venison. I cook what’s available to me, I apply principals I learned on one dish to other dishes, and if the result is not delicious, I make ramen or quesadillas or order pizza, and don’t make the same mistake again.
So those are the 5 biggest things on my manifesto of food and eating. There will be a few more posts coming in this series, on Starting Out in the Kitchen, on Equipment, and of course, some recipes. But this is a start, and it’s about time I got it out on “paper,” and shared it with the world. I wish you good eating, friends – sans fuss.
*Except Ramen Noodles, which are always on my shopping list. Ramen is my oldest comfort food and the biggest exception to my food snobbery. I eat between two and five packages a week. It is my dinner whenever I don’t have something to cook or don’t want to cook. And I love it, sodium and all. So there.
** This gets easier the more people you have: $100 a week for two people is easier than $50 for one, and $150 for three feels positively luxurious.
*** My staples are:
Wet: olive and vegetable oils, balsamic and rice-wine vinegars, soy sauce and oyster sauce
Dry: kosher salt, whole black pepper (for grinding), red pepper flake, flour, sugar, corn starch, baking soda and powder, some short pasta and some long pasta, rice, whole coffee beans
In the refrigerator:: Helman’s mayonnaise, capers, anchovies, scallions, unsalted butter, hard cheese (pecorino romano, asiago, parmesan – not grated. Do that yourself.), organic whole milk, local organic eggs (Rhode Island has cheap local organic milk and eggs from Rhody Fresh and Little Rhody, respectively… if they weren’t so cheap, I’d probably relax about the quality a bit, I admit)
Ready to eat (more or less): Wallaby organic yogurt cups, Maruchan ramen noodles, frozen sweet baby peas, flour tortillas and cheddar and/or colby-jack cheese (for quesadillas).
I do not always have every single one of these in my kitchen, but I am very likely to have most of them, and when I run out of one, it goes straight back onto the shopping list. In this way, there are several dishes that I am always ready to make – but that’s another post.
I suppose I should start with the sorrow – it comes. It goes. Right now, it’s gone. I feel brave and confident, comfortable and happy, secure and well. I will not be overwhelmingly surprised if the sadness comes back again with a vengeance, but it seems to be growing less and less. I am pleased.
But it was there, in and around the more important and worthwhile events of my life. KinkForAll Boston happened – the sadness kept me company right up to the day of the event, and the Little Hater paid a visit , too. But the event happened, and it was impressive. We lost our venue 8 days before the event, found a new one two days before it, and we still had about 70 people show up. For the first time ever, people who hadn’t planned to go walked in and participated – I think holding it in the Boston University Student Union helped that hugely.
There had been alot of discussion of diversity on the list, and that topic – how to make the event welcoming and comfortable to people of all ages, races, and backgrounds, was much discussed. It is my personal goal with KinkForAll unconferences to create a space where everybody can talk about everything involving sex.
This includes the BDSM community, but is not limited to it. This is a very hard concept to grasp, both for those within and those outside of the BDSM community. People within the community only ever expect to be able to talk openly about their sexuality in spaces where nobody outside their sexuality is present – so they gear their talk specifically for and to themselves, without the introduction and explanation that people outside of the community require. And people outside of the BDSM community largely do require that explanation, because outside of closed off spaces where BDSM practitioners talk amongst themselves, nobody talks in clear, educated way about that practice or community, at all.
It’s a difficult thing for all involved.
But each new event, I think, gets better. I can’t wait to see what the next one looks like.
In the meantime, in order to battle a few of the misconceptions I find most difficult, I went to KinkForAll Boston and I did a presentation. There is video:
1: a short tight twist or curl caused by a doubling or winding of something upon itself2 a: a mental or physical peculiarity :eccentricity, quirkb:whim3: a clever unusual way of doing something4: a cramp in some part of the body5: an imperfection likely to cause difficulties in the operation of something6:unconventional sexual taste or behavior
It’s not the OED, but it’s a perfectly acceptable academic reference.
Academic references don’t necessarily Move With The Times– paper dictionaries are almost always out of date.
Not that I don’t love dictionaries, nor do I think that even language not currently in common use is ever really out-of-date (Medieval Studies major, here) but that’s not what I came here to tell you about….
It’s academic suicide, but let’s check WikiPedia – it’s Up-to-Date, edited constantly, crowd-sourced and self-regulating. Just the thing for talking about language that is constantly being defined and changed, and used in different ways by different people.
And academic reputability aside, when want to find out about something we check Wikipedia first, and then start looking through it’s bibliography to figure out where to go next.
Allow me to demonstrate: Raise your hands, everybody. If you’ve used OED in the past 3 weeks, lower your hand. NOW, if you’ve used Wikipedia in the past 3 DAYS, lower your hand.
[A few people lower their hands for the OED. Almost no hands are left in the air after Wikipedia.]
Uh-huh.
Wikipedia says:
Kink (sexual)
In human sexuality, kinkiness or kinky (adjective), is a term used to refer to an intelligent and playful usage of sexual concepts in an accentuated, and unambiguously expressive form. Such expressions may represent a mature degree of social and sexual intelligence, wherein partners and prospective partners mutually communicate sexual understanding, interests, and tastes through outward and characteristic expressions such as gesture, dress, and conducive interaction.
Kink sexual practices go beyond what are considered conventional sexual practices as a means of heightening the intimacy between sexual partners. Some draw a distinction between “kink” and “fetishism”, defining the former as enhancing partner intimacy, and the latter as replacing it.[1] Because of its relation to “normal” sexual boundaries, which themselves vary by time and place, the definition of what is and is not kink varies widely as well. Practitioners are sometimes considered to be perverts by “outsiders.”
That’s a lot to take in. Let’s break it down:
Kink is “intelligent and playful usage of sexual concepts in an accentuated, and unambiguously expressive form” That’s good! And it indicates “ mature degree of social and sexual intelligence” That’s great! (go us!)But
Unfortunately “In current usage, the term “kink” has instead come to refer to a range of objective and objectifying sexualistic practices ranging in degree from the playful to the paraphilic. These include spanking, bondage, dominance and submission, sadomasochism (BDSM) and sexual fetishism.” So according to our up-to-date, crowd-sourced, techno-savvy reference here, “Kink” has come to be associated with just one group of people, which is not so good.
However: “Some draw a distinction between “kink” and “fetishism”, defining the former as enhancing partner intimacy, and the latter as replacing it.” So we have one good indication of what “Kink” might not be. But that’s not terribly clear, so let us make a brief digression to take a look at what “Fetish” and “Fetishism” are. Heading back to our hide-bound Merriam-Webster dictionary, we find
Main Entry: fe·tish
Variant(s): also fe·tichˈfe-tish alsoˈfē-
1 a: an object (as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner; broadly: a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence b: an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion :prepossessionc:an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression2: a rite or cult of fetish worshipers3:fixation
So, leaving WikiPedia alone for now, and go with the academically accepted sources. These definitions include the word “Psychological,” “Pathological,” and “Necessary,” all of which I think we can generally agree are not integral to our definition of the word “Kink.” As the “Kink (Sexual)” article in Wikipedia says, Kink should “enhance emotional intimacy” Which is, of course, a good thing, and something that a pathological fetish does not do. So, why is it that:
“Practitioners are sometimes considered to be perverts by “outsiders.” What’s an outsider? According to the first definition in the Wikipedia article, anybody who takes the time to think and talk about sex in an intelligent way either has some Kinks or is Kinky. How can there be insiders and outsiders in that? That presupposes that being Kinky puts you in some sort of closed community, which goes back to the idea that Kink can be associated only with people interested in BDSM and similar activities. But even so, why is that community necessarily closed? Because of fear – of the law, of social judgement, of the pain that can come from owning up to one’s interests. All completely legitimate, but reducing Kink to that and that alone takes away the “Playful” nature. The idea that “practitioner are … considered perverts by “outsiders” either conflates Kink with BDSM and nothing else, or conflates it with Fetishism, both of which we see cannot be our definition of Kink. If we hold Kink to it’s definition as “a term used to refer to an intelligent and playful usage of sexual concepts” how can it become a pejorative that turns people into “perverts”?
Maybe perverts are people who’s “sexual practices go beyond what are considered conventional sexual practices as a means of heightening the intimacy between sexual partners.” What’s conventional sex? Wikipedia tells us it’s the same as “Vanilla Sex” and “Among heterosexual couples in the Western world, vanilla sex often refers to the missionary position.” but the “Vanilla Sex” page (to which the search “Conventional Sex” redirects) also says “The British Medical Journal defines vanilla sex between homosexual couples as “Sex that does not extend beyond affection, mutual masturbation, and oral and anal sex.” That’s a much wider definition! AND
Looking back at the “Kink (Sexual)” page, we see “Because of its relation to “normal” sexual boundaries, which themselves vary by time and place, the definition of what is and is not kink varies widely as well.” Now isn’t that telling? It turns out that we can’t give a consistent definition for “Normal,” “Conventional,” “Vanilla” sex, because it’s changing all the time – any definition we put down will become as quickly outdated as the dictionary we put it down in.
So we’ve pulled apart the Wikipedia definition, and the Merriam-Webster definition.
We know a little bit about what Kink isn’t – Kink isn’t Fetishism. It’s not pathological, and it doesn’t act as a replacement for emotional connection and intimacy.
We know as well about what Kink shouldn’t be – exclusionary, prejudicing. Kink is not BDSM and BDSM alone. In fact, there’s no reason that Kink should necessarily be opposed to conventional sex – think of it as Sex 201. A little bit more in-depth, perhaps. Requiring intelligence and thought, explicitly open and honest communication, and with any luck, provides lots of fun. One can do Kink just by talking, one can have a Kink just by knowing enough to know what it is that really gets your motor going.
Listen to WikiPedia, since you’re looking at it anyway: Kink is “Intelligent and playful usage of sexual concepts in an accentuated, and unambiguously expressive form.” And if not everybody can, under that definition, currently be called Kinky, then that’s the reason why the people who can be called Kinky need to get out there, get talking, and change the world – So that Kink can be For All.
Upcoming posts:
Kink On Tap – Changing Sexuality Podcasts One Sunday Evening at a Time
Crowed-Sourcing Sorrow Management – Notes on Friendship
My Mother and Other Miracles (Or: Wandering Out of the Closet)
Almost certainly I will talk more about May. No big surprise, there, really…
