Quid Pro Quo: So Little Time, So Much to Know

guess which one is me?  (from the yellow submarine: sea of holes)

I just spent a fun weekend with my fab-four, though we were not "all together now," since we're now grown-ups and can't all make it where and when we said we would or wish we could.  this time, for the first time, our casual group portrait required "photoshopping in" to get the four of us into it.  there are even "significant others."  like i said, we're now grown-ups.  so we look at the good, mostly.  we also forgot to take photos of all of us, in general -- maybe we are entering dementia?

We ate a lot, too.  We even managed to cook one of the meals.  A partial log of 4 days:

Scant Old Evidence

I think most people love birthdays -- it's an acknowledged and valid way to get attention and presents.  And others are nominally nice to you for the day, at least.  But perhaps most people don't want to acknowledge how many birthdays they've already had, if you know what I mean?  And some of us simply don't want to deal, because it means some effort needs to be made.  And yet others are celebrating but also hiding.

In my case, the photos we salvaged from my birthday brunch are sparse; result: I don't quite recall what we ate, nor who was actually there.  I know someone called in sick; others had to leave early.  And yet others showed up as a surprise.  I'm just old, maybe.

The photos we did manage to take consist of hunks of uncooked meat, and the remainders of what were once full bowls of things.  And one of Eric making as many buckwheat blini as he could, which was just as well -- none were left over!

All in all, a successful birthday brunch.  :)  Thank you, all!

they look less than toothsome at this point, but these are the briskets
straight out of the pickling solution,
sitting atop carrots, celery, cabbage, onions, and spices and herbs.
brian did the cutting and assembly while i hollered answers to
his questions.  i washed the big nesco, too.

eric was visiting, and you know what that means --
you get put to work! he's festively dressed, though
perhaps not necessarily for blini-making.  he made dozens upon
 dozens till the batter was finally depleted. when making
tiny pancakelets, the number of blini rises proportionally.

the last four vadai -- at one point, there were nearly 100
of them struggling to balance upon this platter.   then a late-leaving
guest dumped them all in their to-go baggie.  they were wanted and loved!

not sure if these last fried oysters are lonely or not.  you can see the
debris field left after the 60+ fried things were consumed
with alacrity.  i don't know where these final four went!

leftover broth from the cooking of the corned beef.  the meat disappeared
quickly, even by those who purport to "not care" for the viand.  we added
hotdogs for a day-after meal; it counts, right?

i don't eat cake.  i do eat lemon tart.  the crust is oil-based (rather than requiring butter)
and was remarkably crisp and tender.  the innards are a lemon custard,
made with the whole fruit.  i "managed" eric and he made it.  yeah, all gone now.

Sauce Espagnol and Beef Roast Worthy of It. Or Maybe the Other Way 'Round

the completed roast, looking burnished and smelling like juicy secrets

I made two mother sauces: brown sauce, and tomate.  Put together, they make Espagnol, the famous classic beef gravy.  It's a pain in the ass and totally worth it.

I found some in the back of the fridge, sealed tightly and preserved for a new moment of glory.  I heated it up before tasting ... and it was glorious.  I have a quart of the stuff.

Which requires the purchase of a $100 beef rib roast, which is dry aging in what in New Zealand used to be called a "safe" and what Gringa told me was referred to a "California Cooler" -- an aerated perforated cupboard in a non-insulated-to-the-outside-but-protected side of the house.  Food was put in there before the advent of refrigerators, and though many older bungalow owners don't use them, they do work nicely.  Especially for dry-aging expensive beef roasts.

I have towels just for wrapping the meat that are woven, so they don't stick to the meat and allow for aeration.  The meat gets put on a rack in a roasting pan and then is covered by another non-woven tea towel.  The whole is left out in the shady food safe (i.e. a mesh-enclosed balcony) where the air can circulate around it and take away moisture.  It doesn't rot if the temperature is cold enough and the humidity is lower; it desiccates, concentrating the minerally flavor of beef through loss of water, etc.  The roast is checked several times a day, moved, rewrapped, etc.  After about five days of this, the dried bits that look "freezer burned" are trimmed off, then the roast is baked simply.

And if ever the temperature drops or rises unkindly, or the humidity makes us nervous, the whole thing gets put in the bottom of the refrigerator to rest there quietly.  It's less effective than the food safe location, but better than not dry-aging the beef.

After the stint in the oven, the beef is finally worthy of its sauce!

one must to the honors ... even though one wishes to simply do
the flintstones move with beast on the bone

sliced thinly, it falls away and is tender, despite the fiberous appearance.
why a sauce?  partially to keep the meat slices warm.
this beef doesn't really need a sauce, but the blue
granitewear bowl full of espagnol is there, just in case.

the espagnol in the making.  off-set the burner so the foam accumulates
on one side, for easier removal, in process

bif doing the pre-roast trimming on the shell of beef -- if you cut
this into steaks, it's a rump steak (ny strip).  if the filet had remained
intact on this, then the steaks would be porterhouse

Kitchen Serendipity

I love leftovers.  I am disappointed when a meal does not yield them.  I love leftovers for the following reasons:

1. I want to eat them again
2. I suspect they will improve or otherwise change with time
3. I have an idea for how to use them in another dish -- i.e. use them as a shortcut to something otherwise too complex to cook.  I have long since suspected that many recipes with long lists and many steps are actually a compendium or amalgamation of leftovers.
4. Serendipity meals

The last option is the most risky, even more so than the second option.

Serendipity is not only a "pleasant or fortuitous surprise," but one that is found without being sought, nor without awareness of a need.  It's the "happy accident" which people may ascribe to luck or perhaps to talent.

My serendipity meals usually consist of items I have stashed in the fridge, and then forgot about, but through luck, they are as good to eat when they are found -- the result of a sort of treasure hunt.  I'm not an organized or tidy person, so this type of thing is not unusual, thankfully.

But more so, is when a leftover something becomes something else -- a surprise, and one which is or becomes better than expected.

Example: This morning, I was looking for breakfast.  I had congestion, so I thought maybe something I can have like a noodle bowl?  I had started a ramen broth; it was on the stove, but not finished.  Still, what could I have from the fridge?

I live with Bif, so things which I leave in the fridge (or anywhere, really), are not necessarily where I put them, and he might even have eaten them himself.  Serendipity is not limited in a household, after all.  And so, I discovered that he had eaten or disposed of items I thought might work: some leftover broth; ginger scallion oil; cooked onion; etc.

But I did find leftover mushroom cabbage dumpling filling -- I'd made these for Christine on her birthday -- and I had run out of dumpling skins, so I put these in a tight-fitting lid and stashed it in the coldest bottom of the fridge.  To my surprise (Christine's now a month into her most recent annual turnover), it was good and smelled of mushroom and soy.  I put it all into a bowl, added  hot water, and put it in the microwave.  It was a very nice soup, and now that it was heated, notes of spring onions and ginger came through, along with some garlic.  The cabbage retained its crunch.  I added the remainder of a rice serving from last night's Meen Moilee, and I suddenly had a serviceable, restorative, uncongestifying brew which I wouldn't have created from scratch, simply because I never would have thought to do so.

I did top it with some Indian fried snacks, because I had them from our trip to the Ganesh Temple.  It made the ugly brown and white soup prettier.  "Serendipity Soup" is too pretty a name for this delicious soup.

The Cabbage Bunch for Lunch

Bok Choy or Cauliflower, they're family, right?  So it's not evil to have both of them at the table at once, yes?

And so we had Mushroom and Bok Choy soup (no other ingredients other than water and salt, we swear!).  Bif is trying out many ideas from his life of kitchen bullying (he's the bullied here, never fear) for an even tastier soup.  We also roasted cauliflower steak, and stuff the slabs into sandwiches of Fayda pullman slices, mayo, coldcuts, cheese, and cauliflower slabs.  Lunch is incredible on days like today!

mushrooms braised repeatedly with water and salt, then finished with
chunks of bok choy and more water.  that's it.  we swear!

Ch'ing Ts'ai Ma Ku T'ang -- look it up if you don't believe us!

garnish bologna and mayo sandwich with slab of roasted cauliflower

over half a cauli per sandwich, so perhaps it's actually a
roasted cauliflower sandwich garnished with bologna?

two-fisted and more delicious and interesting that it belies.
yes,  lettuce was awesome!

For Facebookers, I'm still trying to figure out what goes here, and what goes there, so my apologies for duplication of photos.  You'll get over it.

"Powder Her Face" and BAM!

Thomas Ades's Powder Her Face is about the third wife, Margaret Whigham, of the 11th Duke of Argyll.  Margaret -- the "Mrs Sweeney" cited in Cole Porter's You're the Top -- was a gorgeous libidinous woman.  It was claimed that a head wound deprived her of her senses of taste and smell (and thus explaining her slim figure, I suppose) but made her a sexual monster, "bordering on nymphomania."  Coupled with a production by the City Opera in the lovely Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), what's to hate?

It was a fabulous production -- everything about it was great: singing, acting, design, lighting, costumes ... really, everything.  Especially the "aria without words," which comprised of sounds elicited when a woman could be described as a "chickenhead."  It was shocking and hilarious and entertaining.  We wanted to see the opera again, and it established Ades as a genius in our eyes, more so than the music of The Tempest could.

Photos of the production from the City Opera site:

The spectacularly beautiful Margaret Whigham:

The "Dirty Duchess" of Argyll

City Opera did founder for a few years, and have been selling off their assets, scaling back on staff and crew, and defaulted on their lease at the Koch Theatre in Lincoln Center, adjacent to the Metropolitan Opera House.  They've been renting theatres around town for one or two productions, then moving on -- and this may have been the best thing to happen to the company.  They are back to producing great alternative shows with younger and less-weighty casts.  Quality is top notch, all around.  And although the ticketing and exchange system is clunky, they are efficient and helpful.  Sigh.

And yet another subscription we're enjoying all to much and well ... if some of these sucked, we might be able to save more for retirement.

second floor eatery, 'loos, and entrance to the opera house

red lights and texting

the seats are very tight in this old-fashioned beaux arts theatre

not allowed to take photos of the stage, so we took pics of the ceiling