Tasty Chicago

I grew up working in my dad’s supermarket. I started sorting 16 ounce returnable bottles at age 12 and worked at the store for the next decade. I was there all through my formative years - after school, on weekends, and during summer and holiday breaks. Today, the thought of going into a Jewel or Dominick’s is repulsive. It’s not that I have a bunch of bad memories, I’m just sick of being inside supermarkets. Just sick of it.

Let me contrast this experience with that of a buddy of mine. He owned his own pizza shop at age 13 and worked in the business during his formative years. I’m talking pizza overload during all of his teenage years. So shouldn’t he be sick of pizza? Shouldn’t he be repulsed every time someone wants order a bunch of pizzas and watch some football? No! And no! In fact, he’s a pizza aficionado. A veritable pizza guru. A pizza Yoda who can actually make a pie levitate.

What do you do when you have this sort of love for pizza? Well, you have all your friends over once a year and make pizzas to order. I was lucky enough to get invited to this private event and I snuck a camera in, hoping that I could learn something. Watch and learn grasshopper.

Use your fingers, don’t use a rolling pin. It’s all about making it round and keeping the air bubbles out.

In fact, do a fork-tap all over the pie to keep those pesky air bubbles out. That’s caring.

Since your home oven probably can’t get to 800 degrees, pre-cook the dough for a little just to make sure it’s crispy. Use a pizza peel to move it in and out. Oh yeah, you can just stick your bare hands in the oven (below) if you’re tough enough. If you’re afraid of burning your fingers, well, maybe you should just have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or something.

Lay out the ingredients and give your friends free reign in choosing the toppings. Hey, it’s your party and their party. It’s everybody’s party. I’ve obscured the faces in the previous and next picture to protect the innocent, of course.

Here’s what mine and my wife’s looked like. I’m a straight sausage guy, but my wife tosses in a little mushroom and black olive. It’s all good, we’re all happy. No need to fight about what toppings to use because we got plenty to go around.

Thanks man, the pizza rocked.

Please click here for larger view.

Did you ever pose a question like this to your spouse or significant other, “Honey, can you paint me a masterpiece today?”

Well, hopefully you were greeted ten hours later with something as beautiful as this. This is my wife’s culinary pièce de résistance. This is her Sistine Chapel…her 1988 National Championship.

You laugh? You think I’m kidding? Not so fast, my friends!

This is just another foray by Gail into the world of bouillabaise-like dishes. This is clearly her best effort yet.

First she debeards the mussels, which is somewhat stomach churning. The fact that I ate and enjoyed something that had to have its “black fibrous beard” pulled off is a testament to my complete trust in her culinary expertise.

I would tell you how she makes this, but it’s too complicated for me. My eyes glaze over when she talks about it. Besides “debearding,” she uses terms like “vegetable reduction” and says that “just the right amount of Pernod has to burn off.” I don’t get it, I just eat it. Write me an e-mail if you want the recipe and I’ll have her recite it.

I’m an idiot when it comes to complicated food like this. I look at it and say “wow, black and yellow, kind of like the Pittsburgh Steelers.”

But I don’t need to understand each step or know each ingredient to actually enjoy it. I don’t know what fennel looks like, but I know I like it. I couldn’t pick out saffron in a blind taste test, but I’ve had a lot of yellow stuff that tastes damn good so I know I like it also. And anise flavor is good in many things; you’ll never see me tossing out the black Jelly Belly Beans. C’mon, all that plus a sauce with garlic and onions, man, how can it not be good?

Note the slices of French bread in the background. That’s a perfect medium for soaking up the sauce and providing a platform for the mussel as it makes its way to my mouth. It’s pretty much perfect folks.

Please click for larger view.

The homemade meal of the month is back, and Gail has outdone herself this time.

I don’t recall it happening, but Gail developed a love for bouillabaisse. She just started liking it right under my nose, before I even figured out what the heck it was. She didn’t even make a big deal out of it, thereby highlighting a fundamental difference between us. I get excited about meaningless things, but Gail takes them in stride. When I discover a new food item that I love, I talk about it all the time. I beat it to death by telling people about it; ranting and raving like some lunatic who just discovered air. I use it as a conversation starter. I call friends and family and talk about it (eventually they just quit answering the phone). I have issues, I know this.

On the other hand, Gail acts like she discovers exotic new dishes all the time. She’s like the football player who scores a touchdown and hands the ball to the ref without any celebration, because he’s been there, done that. She tries something new, likes how it tastes, and starts ordering it whenever she gets a chance. She never talks much about it, her actions speak louder than words. Then, she starts making it. Then, she starts making derivations of it, like this dish. It’s a bouillabaisse type of stew poured over a baked snapper filet with brown rice.

Like I said, Gail has outdone herself on this dish. She takes vegetable stock and tosses in some onions, leeks, tomatoes, fennel, saffron, other spices, and lots of Pernod. It’s simple, but special. She usually serves bouillabaisse with some crusty bread for dipping, but that’s not necessary here because she has thrown in the brown rice as the starch. The anise flavored Pernod and the saffron make this a distinctive combination. It’s so complicated, I can’t even explain it.

Although I’m not a big fan of black liquorice, I do love anise flavored stuff. I get my anise from two places, from Gail’s bouillabaisse-type dishes and from my mom’s Christmas cookies. Yeah, my mom adds anise to her Christmas cutout cookies. Wow, those are good. Don’t worry mom, I’ve already reserved the December 2007 homemade meal feature for your Christmas cookies.

My wife wips up a lot of nice pasta dishes. She is all about mise en place. Hah, you didn’t know that I speak the language of the kitchen, did you? Well, that means basically that she sets all of her ingredients and flatware on the counter in a nice organized fashion before she starts the creation.

Pictured above are the makings of her pasta with chicken, veggies, and Mizithra cheese sauce. It’s a think of beauty, her mise en place. Notice the organized placement of everything. Let’s start with the broccoli in the upper left and go clockwise. After the broccoli you have some olive oil, mushrooms, milk, pasta, Mizithra cheese, flower and butter, roasted red peppers, shredded chicken, and leeks. She makes the pasta, makes the sauce, then combines it all in a large skillet. Great stuff.

I have some Greek blood so I appreciate the efforts to use ingredients, like Mizithra cheese, that bring me in touch with my roots. Heck, my grandfather Sfaelos’ nickname was “The Greek.” That could explain why I love baklava and Zorba the Greek. But then again, maybe baklava is more Turkish than Greek. Kinda kills my view of my ethnicity, or lack thereof.

As I said, my wife outsourced dessert to one of our guests, my cousin Amy. What a great call, it’s not often that one of the top pasty chefs on the North Shore decides to whip up a gem like this.

Let me tell you, if someone asks me to bring dessert, I stop at Dominick’s and grab some Chunky Chips Ahoy!, some Duncan Hines vanilla frosting, and cross my fingers that the hosts have a clean butter knife in the house.

The last thing I expected, in the dead of winter nonetheless, was homemade chocolate covered strawberries, homemade chocolate-topped mini cream puffs, and homemade chocolate peanut covered bananas. To top it off, it was all served in a heart-shaped dish just to show some love. We partook in this third sitting in the family room again, where it all started. It was a great finish to a splendid meal.

Let’s review. This Formula 1 meal took slightly over three hours, had two chefs, three separate seatings in two rooms, and nobody fought. How great is that?

So, this is where Gail really shines. Let’s call it the second sitting, which takes place at an actual table. The main dish was a chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese, prosciutto, and roasted red pepper topped with a marsala wine sauce with mushrooms. The sides were green beans and a fennel risotto cake. The muffin was a store bought job from Trader Joe’s but she popped it in the oven just the right amount of time so it tasted homemade.

I had a glass of red wine with it and things were all good, if you know what I mean. The crack staff here at Tasty Chicago really likes goat cheese and fennel, so this went over well.

Usually, when things get complicated like this, her time is monopolized with cooking. This wasn’t a 30 minute meal Rachael, trust me. But she was able to prepare it enough ahead of time so that she could actually interact with us common folk. I’m not sure how she did it because we are talking delicate sauces, a complicated risotto side dish, and a vegetable. Whatever, I bow to you honey.

It could have been that she felt no dessert anxiety. She actually suggested to our guests that they could “bring dessert if they wanted to,” so she did not have that hanging over head. It turned out to be a great decision so come back soon to hear about it.

My wife, well, she has a split food personality. In order to explain the multiple cooking personalities that my wife often displays, I’ll need to break out some sports metaphors - auto racing, in fact. I hope she doesn’t think I mean that she has a disorder, like a multiple personality disorder. And why use sports metaphors? Who cares…an artist uses the best tool available to explain the world! Sorry about that digression into self doubt. When I italicize stuff that means I’m talking to myself.

Let me state clearly that she is a good cook and by invoking references to auto racing I’m only trying to explain differences in a few cooking styles that my wife appears to have mastered. I’m not evaluating whether a certain style of cooking is better or worse, because it’s all good.

So let’s put it this way. Gail loves cooking up a NASCAR meal, like the ribs and mac and cheese last month. The NASCAR meal usually involves red meat and a side with a creamy starch, but I swear, it never involves a fat guy named Jimmy. Veggies and fruits are not very prevalent and the meal is usually served on one plate and consumed rather quickly. That is not to say it doesn’t take time to prepare, it’s just that the actual consuming of the meal is often done in front of the TV or from the back of a truck, making a one-plater a smart idea. God she’s smart, if I had half her brain I would probably be president, or at least an alderman.

But the meal pictured above is the start of something that is all Formula 1 baby. The F1 meal takes hours and is an event in and of itself. That’s why it’s going to take three posts to get through this meal because it’s as diverse as the countries and courses that F1 races on. It will include three distinct sittings and a guest pastry chef. The meal is more of the focus when in F1 mode and I think Gail enjoys it a little more.

So that tasty platter pictured above is the appetizer…or do you say hors d’oeuvres…or maybe antipasti platter? Let’s call it the first sitting. Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, we have Wolfie’s traditional coated nuts, homemade roasted red pepper in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, red grapes, shelled pistachio nuts, triple cream brie, and prosciutto ham.

She serves it up on this slate platter with a basket full of crusty bread. It was shared by four people and we knocked the whole thing off in about an hour. This first sitting is usually in the family room and it just kind of eases you into the meal. Nobody gets that full and its very casual and relaxed. I rarely attack this food with the same vigor that I attack the main dish with because it’s a community plate and I don’t want anyone to feel like they might lose a limb if we are competing for the last pistachio or something.

My favorite food combination in this situation is to take a piece of bread, spread a generous portion of brie on it, layer on a roasted red pepper, and then top it with a slice of prosciutto. It makes a very, tasty, mini, open-faced sandwich. I will toss down a few nuts, grapes, and pistachios separately just to get primed for the main dish. I love putting my feet up on the coffee table, having a beer or a glass of wine, grabbing a little chow, and talking about the topics of the day. Damn, I wish we could just talk about golf or college football…maybe even toss in a little discussion on Britney’s latest adventures.

Stick around, we are only about one third done. Come back soon.

This is a brand new feature on Tasty Chicago. Each month, I will highlight a homemade meal by one of the top cooks in this country, my wife. She makes a darn good rib (I don’t prepare food by the way, even manly stuff like barbecued ribs, more on that later).

Check out that bone on the lower left, that just fell off this half slab as I transferred it from tray to plate. You can probably tell that I am not one to pass up the charred flesh of an omnivorous domesticated hoofed mammal, especially with a spicy red sauce of some sort. Throw in fall-off-the-bone friendliness as exhibited above, and I’m in hog heaven, suuuuwwwweeeeeeee.

I had this plate of ribs (that’s her mac and cheese on the side also) during the Bears/Saints playoff game last weekend. It actually takes my wife about 48 hours to make the ribs. This session started on Friday night when she tore the thin membrane from the underside of the ribs, put a dry rub on, wrapped them in cellophane, and put them in the ‘fridge overnight. On Saturday afternoon, she took them out of the cellophane and popped them in a cooking bag with about a cup or so of water and spices. She sealed the bag, put a few slits in it, then cooked it for around 2.5 to 3 hours at maybe 300 degrees. Then she sauced them and wrapped them again for another night in the ‘fridge. On Sunday, at about the end of the first quarter, she sauced them up again, then put them in the oven for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees, and they were ready by halftime.

The sauce is different every time. She combines a few different store-bought sauces with various spices. I don’t know, they’re just always good. I’m talkin’ really good.

This recipe was actually inspired by my brother, so there you go Jim, here’s to giving you some credit. And to D-man, you inspired the “charred flesh” comment in para 2, thanks for that.

Kind of inspires me to cook…well…maybe not. I mean, I’m a writer, not a cooker.