My mother's cooking

I sometimes wonder how I ended up in a professional kitchen. So many chefs and cooks trace their love of food back to their grandparents' vegetable gardens or their aunt's spectacular apple kuchen, or their mother's elaborate and tasty Sunday night dinners complete with homemade scratch biscuits. 

My mother's domain was the can. She was - and still is - an Olympic-caliber opener of cans. She did it with dedication and commitment, but also with a certain youthful panache, which I attribute to her swingy Vidal Sassoon hairdo. She also excelled at reading the directions on packages and boiling cryovac'd bags. She and Stouffer's were the closest of friends.  

But that's not to say my mother never cooked. Every now and then, she would turn on the stove, which was an exciting and unpredictable event because there was always the threat of breaking a nail, which would then require an emergency follow-up trip to the manicurist. 

Her signature dish was Creamed Tuna Fish on Toast. It was my favorite thing in the whole world (for a very brief period in 1972) and it involved a can of tuna, a can of peas, and a white sauce made with Wondra flour, milk and no seasoning whatsoever. If the Bland and Mushy Food Gods were in especially good spirits that day, mashed potatoes would replace the toast.  Not to brag or anything but she used real potatoes. 

My mother had a second signature dish, this one more boldly avant garde than the first. The open-faced construction demonstrated her skill with color and architectural proportion. She started with a slice of white bread. On top of that was a slice of American cheese, then a raw hot dog, sliced lengthwise and placed face down on the cheese-topped bread. Then, in a style that can only be described as I-don't-belong-in-the-kitchen post-modern, she scattered pieces of green pepper and tomato on top of the dog. Add another slice of American cheese, torn into irregular strips and strewn haphazardly across the top, a quick trip to the broiler, and you've got a simultaneously hot and cold, cooked and uncooked, burnt and barely melted open-faced sandwich. You also have some pretty potent indigestion. 

My mother was also pretty good at driving us to White Castle. But I'll save that for another post. 

The few, the proud....

As of today, I'm officially in recruitment mode. I was inspired by my fellow burger eaters in New York who have plenty of good reasons to pursue the lofty dream of a monthly burger tasting. I'm hoping we in Chicago can live up to those tough Gotham standards with the newly minted Burger of the Month Club - the Chicago chapter. 

I've pulled in some pretty heavy hitters to accompany me on this monthly foray into the sometimes seedy but always sensorially rewarding world of burgers. So far, two Jews, an Italian, and maybe a German/Irish/Dutch guy have signed on. A little lady in Austin, Texas is so moved by the pursuit, she wants to start her own chapter there. We will help her find the way. 

Unlike the Army, I won't recruit just any guy who walks in off the street. Though I love those who love vegetables, there are no vegetarians allowed. I can just see it now: an insidious underground counter-blog, dissing us in all of our red meat glory. Likewise, no vegans, raw foodists, those with extreme food allergies (I'm having visions of requests for soy cheese), PETA members (I foresee another counter-blog, this one well-funded and written by supermodels), or those who ask for sauce on the side. As for those who keep kosher, you'll have to square it with your God. I'm not getting in the middle of that one. 

We will meet once a month on a day convenient for everyone. Each month, a different member will choose the venue. Our brothers in arms in New York are so prideful, they pre-test their burger of choice, lest they suffer humiliation should it not be up to snuff. In Chicago, we don't blame the taster for a lousy burger; we blame the cook.  

The scoring will be an uncomplicated point system. A burger can achieve a high score of 100. There's no need to define what makes a great burger here. Experienced burger eaters know it when they see it, smell it, taste it, and get it on their clothes.    

I will try to cobble together some sort of official Burger of the Month - Chicago chapter scorecard, complete with a section for personal comments. Writing implements will not be furnished, so please bring your own. 

Fries will not affect the scoring. Great fries do not a great burger make. And vice versa. 

Each month, a post will be dedicated to the outing. The reportage will be honest but fair, and uncompromising. Burgers are serious business. I will treat them as such. 

With that, I happily inaugurate the Burger of the Month Club - the Chicago chapter! Inquiries are welcome in the comment section. Current members, I'll be in touch....

 

The mystery of the black sandwich

Today I was on KP duty for my daughter's kindergarten class. It was the Teacher Appreciation Day luncheon, so I volunteered, along with two other mothers, to supervise lunch and recess while the teachers got a break from our lunatic kids. I want to confess here that the only reason I did it was to be able to write about it (I know; I'm a bad mom). I thought there might be some important sociological or anthropological learning to be gleaned from the experience. OK, fine. I was hoping for a funny story, like a kindergarten food fight or a dropped bologna sandwich that resulted in a bologna slip-and-fall. 

But there was nothing. No exploding ketchup packets or cheez doodles inserted in noses or even bad behavior. And let me tell you, I looked. I stared down those kids as they ate, looking for tics or nose-picking or anything that I could turn into a blog post. Nothing!   

Then I discovered "Esteban." Esteban is a dark, quiet Spanish boy who looks like a future soccer player, although right now he is the size of a thimble. He was holding what appeared to be a normal sandwich. But upon further examination, I realized that between the two slices of white bread was something black. Not dark purple, like grape jelly. Not brown like....well, I don't know what would be brown. It was black. 

I remembered a conversation I had with my friend, Michelle, who is currently living in Spain, about morcilla. Blood sausage. Its color ranges from dark brown to black.  Given that Esteban is Spanish, I was starting to feel relatively certain he was eating a blood sandwich. 

I personally don't eat blood. I once saw Pierre Franey, a French food personality, eat an omelette in which congealed chicken's blood had been chopped up and folded in, much like one might fold in chopped mushrooms or spinach. The chicken had been decapitated and hung upside down over a plate. The resulting substance looked like dark burgundy jello. No, thanks. 

To be fair, the sandwich filling could have been Marmite, which is a nasty, very dark brown British yeast spread. It's like the crotchety old crone version of deviled ham, with old man breath. Either way - blood sausage or Marmite - the mystery of the black sandwich and Esteban the blood eater lives on. 

All this for a burrito

It's impossible for me to embark on a road trip in search of food without some kind of chaos ensuing. Today, on my way to the only Del Taco in the entire state of Illinois, I found myself on S. Cicero Ave. with a flat tire. I felt it first. Then I heard it. Then a cabbie with a turban pulled up next to me and started pointing at my rear wheel with a disapproving look and a shake of the head, like it was my fault instead of the junkyard they call the Stevenson Expressway. 

Fortunately, S. Cicero has a gas station every 100 feet. But have you noticed that gas stations aren't gas stations anymore? They're convenience stores with gas pumps. So the woman in the sari behind the bullet-proof plexiglas was about as interested in changing my tire as I was. But she did point me to the auto repair shop next door where, according to the sign on the wall, customer service is their number one goal. Lucky for me. I talked to a guy who looked like Jon Favreau in the pudgy years. Thankfully, I didn't have to talk to the other two guys who looked like the banjo players in "Deliverance." 

Half an hour later, and $20 poorer, I was on the road again, with the offending shard of tire-piercing scrap metal on the dashboard. For those of you who don't live in Chicago, this part of town is not picturesque. It's a dirty, 7 mile long strip mall with a disproportionate number of Just Tires and White Castles.  The Motel D-Lux has free movies and mirrored water beds, and hopefully a hose down service. I will not be staying there any time soon. 

All this for a burrito. And it's not as if it's the best burrito in the world, if there even is such a thing. It's just that the Del Beef Burrito encapsulates my entire high school experience. I ate one at least three times a week during my junior and senior years. And while friends of mine used Del Taco as a late night, post-drinking food emporium, I actually ate there for dinner, and always in my car, which was a 1978 white Camaro Z-28 with light blue vinyl interior. It was the coolest fashion accessory I owned, and made me infinitely cooler than I really was. Which is why I never wanted to get out of it. 

As for the burrito, it hasn't changed a bit. It's the exact same flour tortilla wrapped around the exact same seasoned ground beef and shredded cheese. No lettuce, no tomato, no beans. It's neat and tidy and definitely not as big as my head, or anyone else's. Which is just how I like it. The Del Beef comes with little packets of hot sauce. The original Del hot sauce is now considered the mildest version of the expanded line of three. Inferno is the hottest, but definitely manageable. 

The drive-thru is open 24 hours a day, so if I ever find myself drivin' around in my station wagon at 2 AM, jonesin' for a Del Beef Burrito, I now know where to find one.  

Come on baby light my fire

Whenever I encounter sterno, I'm reminded of the time my brother set fire to the curtains at Geja's. He was 11 at the time, and prone to such things. You'd think my parents would know better than to bring two kids to the restaurant voted "Most Romantic" ten years in a row by Chicago Magazine. It was a dark fondue lair, and some of the tables were surrounded by billowy curtains that concealed any fondue-induced groping. 

We were sitting at such a table when my brother held a candle up to the diaphanous fabric and whoosh! Flames. Fortunately, my parents were lightning fast and the damage didn't interrupt the couple making out in the next enclave. We were never taken there again. Which is a shame because I love cheese fondue. 

But there's a lesson to be learned here. Interactive dining - anything that involves sterno or cooking at the table -  is enthralling for kids. Maybe it's the inherent sense of danger, the idea that the table might ignite at any moment. Consider Benihana. The food's good but the highlight is definitely the onion ring volcano. The kids are just waiting for someone to scream, "Look out! She's gonna blow!" so that they can hit the deck. 

Last night, we went to Hai Yen, a Vietnamese place on Argyle, which I highly recommend. They have the best Pho in town which, incidentally, is pronounced "Fuh" -  like "duh" -  which is what I said to myself after the waiter corrected me the first time I ordered it.  They also have volcano-shaped griddles fueled by sterno for cooking thin slices of meat marinated in garlic and lime zest. And who doesn't love softening rice paper in bowls of warm water and then making roll-ups with them? It's like arts and crafts, eating, and fire play all rolled up into one exciting evening. Cirque du Soleil's got nothing on this. 

We also learned another valuable lesson: when the menu is in Vietnamese (or any foreign language for that matter), it's virtually impossible for the kids to complain that there's nothing here they can eat. 

God bless the short order cooks

Apparently, the Virgin Mary made an appearance on the griddle of a California restaurant this week. Of all the places that have claimed a heavenly sighting, this one I actually believe. If she's going to grace us with her presence, do you really think it's going to be on an underpass wall beneath the Kennedy Expressway?  

No, it's going to be where bacon sizzles and eggs scramble. Since it's in a border town, I'm guessing Las Palmas restaurant also has a breakfast burrito or two, and some frijoles. Even more reason to pop in and grab a bottle of hot sauce for the table while you wait for a sign from the man upstairs. 

I had my own run-in with the griddle today. We were having lunch at Pita Pete's in Evanston. I ordered a chicken gyros, which is sort of like a SteakUmmm (see previous post), but with chicken instead. At least I think it was chicken.

As I moved down the pita assembly line, from condiments to the cooking of the meat, I came face-to-face with a Latino version of "Moe" from The Three Stooges. He was griddling my chicken-like sandwich meat. His outfit was standard prison issue, his hair, the Moe Howard special. You have to admire a grown man with the cojones to wear bangs. 

As for the Virgin Mary, I'm looking for her to show up in a deep fryer some day soon. That's another place where miraculous things can happen. 

Bringing back the dead

It pains me in a small way to write about a place you'll never be able to visit. But maybe, just maybe, you can recreate what made the now-defunct Killer Shrimp so great in the first place. God knows, it wasn't the ambience or the room. Killer Shrimp was on the second floor of a strip mall in Venice, California. You sat on the "patio" inhaling exhaust fumes from cars passing by and wisps of gassy smoke from the tiki torches. 

The shrimp, however, was devastating. It was the peel-and-eat kind and it came in broth. Broth is such an inadequate word here because what we're really talking about is a seductive, hypnotic potion that flirted ever-so-slightly with evil. I'm losing focus just thinking about it. It was buttery with a hint of rosemary, garlic, and tomato, and had a bad boy heat that was more like a push and a shove than a gimpy kick. They also gave you a big bowl of sliced baguette to use as you saw fit. 

I won't even discuss the other two versions - rice and pasta - because the shrimp came peeled. The whole point of the seductive, hypnotic potion was to envelope you and osmose into your pores and affect the way you think and feel about the world as you peeled. At least that's what happened to me. 

I found this recipe among several others claiming to be the genuine article. I had a karmic Killer Shrimp connection to this one, so I will be making it this weekend. If you don't like shrimp, make the seductive, hypnotic potion anyway. Pour it into a couple of glasses, and drink it. You won't be sorry. 

Killer Shrimp

2 Tbs. rosemary

5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp celery seed

1/2 tsp fennel seed

1 cup white wine

2 quarts chicken broth

8 oz. clam juice

3 oz. tomato paste

1/2 pound butter

2 lbs. shrimp, shells and tails on

Roughly chop the rosemary and fennel seed. Place all the ingredients except the wine and the shrimp in a large pot. Simmer for about an hour. Add wine and continue to simmer for about an hour more. Just before serving, add raw shrimp and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.  Serve a big ladleful of broth and a bunch of shrimp in each bowl, with sliced baguette (nothing too fancy here) on the side. 

This is enough for 4 or 5 or even 6 people, but I could eat the whole thing myself, with a large bowl of sliced Gonnella bread and a cold beer.