CULINARY ADVENTURES

Michael's making dinner. I am apprehensive.

Saturday nights are our nights for kitchen adventures. We hunt down some new ingredient or challenging recipe and then we wreck the kitchen in our efforts to create a culinary master piece. Many of you have read here about the time we murdered live lobsters in our quest to recreate Boston lobster rolls. This is what we do for fun on a Saturday night. The idea for our most recent Saturday culinary adventure started brewing earlier in the week when Michael sent me an email he gets from one of our Asian food markets. Geoducks were on sale. I tentatively replied with “I don’t know.” He then sent me video of some guy preparing one and I quickly responded with a hard NO. He sent me a second video that I did not watch because the image on the screen was too much. I was at work and it was inappropriate.

What is a geoduck?

It’s pronounced ‘gooey duck’ and it is a clam that is too big for its shell. This native West coast clam by all accounts and descriptions is the sweetest, most delicious thing in the ocean. It also looks like a giant porn penis. The soft part of its body cannot retract back into the shell and just hangs out looking inappropriate. If the clam is boiled, the soft part hardens and you get the idea. Eat a dick is the phrase that comes to mind. So I was all ‘nope’ to Michael’s plans for geoduck. We had a long conversation about it and I finally agreed on one condition. I was to have no part in the preparation of Saturday’s meal. My contribution to this particular culinary adventure was to sit on the couch drinking gin. A total win for me and he was making French fries. I would at least have French fries.

Michael prepared the geoduck two ways. The first way he served it was raw, sliced thin and placed on sushi rice. This was okay. It has a weird but not off putting crunch to it and it was kind of chewy. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t my favorite. For the rest of the geoduck, he battered it in panko and fried them. The first time I had whole belly fried clams was when Talaura and I went to Maine. I ate one and thought “MY WHOLE LIFE IS SHAM!” because up until then, the only thing I knew of fried clams were the fried clam strips you get at Long John Silver’s. Those are fried rubber bands. A fried clam, a real fried clam, is similar to a fried oyster. It is rich and meaty and sweet. It is delicious. The geoduck, fried in a panko batter, was very very similar to those Maine fried clams. They were delicious and the French fries were stellar.

The geoduck is totally worth eating. The key is to have someone else make it for you. Just sit back, drink some gin and have no part in the preparation.

LOVE THURSDAY

Roasting season

"Roasting season"

It's usually September when I head to the Farmers' Market to buy ugly tomatoes. I buy a box of them. I pick the ugly tomatoes because they're cheaper and looks are not as important as what's on the inside. I buy a big box of the ugliest heirloom tomatoes and then, with a full bag of fresh produce already balanced on one shoulder, I finagle my way back to my car while mumbling to myself that I can make it with out dropping this box. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Once I'm home, I repeat the process because why make more than one trip from car to house? Then I spend all day Sunday roasting tomatoes. I wash and cut the tomatoes in half, slather them with olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, throw in some smashed garlic and rosemary and basil and then roast them at 350 for two hours. Then I package them up in quart sized freezer bags and freeze for tomato soup and spaghetti sauce. 

It is October now and I realized that I never made it to the Farmers' Market to buy tomatoes. I thought I would just skip it this year. We didn't end up using all the tomatoes I roasted last year. Michael is not as keen on tomato soup as I am. When I mention it, he makes a face, but when I make it he eats it right up and asks for more. So I didn't really feel like making up batches of roasted tomatoes this year. Then sometime last week, Michael came in from the garden with a bounty of green tomatoes. I placed them in the window to ripen and Tuesday night Michael noticed that all of them had turned red. He said something about it and I told him that I was going to roast them. It was then decided that the tomatoes wouldn't last until the weekend to be roasted. So I washed them. I sliced off the tops and cut them half. I slathered them with olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. I tossed in some smashed garlic, rosemary and basil and I roasted two trays of tomatoes. 

And I realized that the real reason for roasting the tomatoes is not for the soup that they will become. It is the ritual of the roasting. The action of putting the tomatoes together to be roasted is like walking a meditation labyrinth. The oils from the herbs, cling to my hands and I smell of rosemary and basil. It doesn't take long for these scents to fill the house. In fact, it doesn't take long for the whole house to smell like it belongs to an Italian grandmother preparing Sunday dinner for her family. The oven heats up the house, making it feel warm and cozy inside. Homey. Roasting tomatoes makes everything feel homey. I had not planned on roasting those tomatoes until the weekend. It seemed like too much work for a week night. I think all of us can relate. Weeknights are for quickly slapping together a meal to be eaten while watching TV and just sitting after a long day. Weeknights make it easy to forget that the true heart of a home is the kitchen.

I found my heart. Happy Love Thursday!