Chipotles for the Day

The recipe, itself, has always been a work in progress.  I no longer recall how it came about -- or how long ago -- but long ago we hit upon the idea of adding olives to burgers.  Not on them, but in them.  Minced fine and liberally stirred into the meat.  A few other things go in as well -- one kind of seasoning powder or another, Worcester sauce, perhaps a little barbecue sauce and/or liquid smoke.  Proportions have always been subjective, and from time to time the results have been as mixed as the ingredients. 

But more recently the "recipe" has plateaued.  We've gotten comfortable -- or satisfied, or perhaps just lazy.  So, when Merryl suggested earlier in the week that we find a date for olive burgers I looked forward to the usual fare.  Then, yesterday on the way to the store for the evening's grilling I felt a twitch toward innovation.  Perhaps it was just one of those occasional flashes of creativity, or perhaps a culinary push against the larger boredom I seem to be feeling of late; whatever, I began to brainstorm the possibilities.  Whatever it was, it would need to contribute rather than take over.  It wouldn't be another sprinkle.  Both onion and garlic sounded like roads too well-traveled. The answer, of course, was jalapeno.  Well, sort of.

Chipotles are smoked jalapenos that, canned, come basted in adobo sauce.  To the uninitiated, chipotles can be a deceptive experience, particularly in adobo.  Initially smoky with almost a hint of sweetness, there is a rather arresting surprise on the back side of each bite.  Arresting, and quite often quite literally breathtaking with a distinctively aromatic oral conflagration.  In the right proportion, it is wonderful.  Ah!  But how to know that "right" proportion?

After otherwise seasoning the meat with the usual and sundry, I minced the olives and then dumped the can of peppers and their sauce into the food processor to puree.  Beautifully smooth and thickly brown, I reached for a spoon...and hesitated.  How much?  A couple of anticipatory dollops and intercessory prayers later, the patties were smoking on the grill, and before long we were pushing our chairs back from the table with satisfied grins on our faces.  My private critique was that we could have used a spoon or two more.  A little fire, after all, is useful to light the way home.  All in all I would pronounce the experiment to be a success.

The lingering question for me is not a culinary one but rather a psychological one.  The burgers, themselves, were certainly good, but the best part of the experience was the curiosity, the imagination, and the consideration of all the possibilities and implications.  There was pulse in that planning; spark in that deliberation -- starting with what was already good and risking it for something potentially better.  Or, admittedly, incendiary.  Starting this day, then, in barely more than neutral, I've begun to wonder just what the chipotles might be for these hours at hand -- moments already fine, and even good; but gliding on plateau. 

Hmmm.  Good question.   And it's good to feel my pulse quicken in pursuit of an answer.

Tim and Julia and a few recipes for life

Caught up in the summer re-fascination with Julia Child via the movie Julie and Julia, I ordered two sets of DVD's containing collections of Child's old PBS television show, The French Chef. First airing during a period of my childhood when I was more interested in Batman than boeuf bourguignon, I have only a vague recollection of her show. I'm sure I must have happened upon the broadcast from time to time -- after all, there were only four networks on the air at that time -- but I am sure I never landed there. Cooking might have been something necessary to do, but who would want to learn about it, especially from an odd-sounding woman on TV?

Now, learning about food and its manifold preparations is most of what I love and want to do. It fascinates me as a delightful field of inquiry equally deep and wide that no one will ever completely explore. It is part science, many parts art. It lends itself to following the directions, and equally well to experimentation. It is universal, but simultaneously cultural and finally intimately personal. There is room for triumph in a way that can be communally enjoyed, and soft-landing failures that might leave the diners hungry but not injured.

And so Julia has been fun to rediscover. Last month I consumed her memoir, My Life in France; this month we are devouring her TV shows. And she is a delight. If I couldn't fathom it at the time, it's easy now to understand her enduring popularity. She is at once expert and klutzy. At the same time that she is perfectly at home in front of the stove, she is awkwardly childlike in front of the camera. And she makes mistakes. In her "potato show" she was cooking a large potato pancake that was ready to flip over; she began to talk about the action of doing so. Lifting the skillet, she gave it a quick and dipping jerk. About half of the potato mixture wound up back in the pan with the rest scattered in globs around the stove top. "Well," she matter-of-factly observed, "I made a mess out of that. But no problem. You can just put all this back in the pan." And then she reflected, "it takes practice -- and the courage of your convictions."

We are only beginning our journeys with The French Chef, having learned so far about stewing beef, roasting a chicken, making French Onion Soup, using potatoes, and both cooking and eating lobsters (most people need help with both, she kindly observed). Some of it has looked easy. Some of it has looked impossible. Most of it has looked delicious. All of it has made us wish we could spend endless hours with her in the kitchen -- learning about food and its preparation, to be sure, but also a few things about life.

Who, after all, couldn't use a reminder to be willing to make mistakes, to act with the courage of one's convictions, to be at home with both one's giftedness and one's awkwardness, all with an enlarging spirit of curiosity? That's all pretty powerful, even in black and white.

A Kitchen Debate and What Finally Matters

The greenscape of the valley floor sweeping below is just emerging from the last of the pre-dawn haze, and the sun peeking over the hilltop in the far ground silhouettes the points of the cypress trees in the forground. A rooster crows somewhere in the countryside, and the village church bell strikes the half-hour. The sheep, usually grazing beneath the trees in the afternoon sun, have apparently found bedding in another pasture through the night. Montepulciano crowns the hill across the way. It's early morning in Tuscany -- the opening of our last full day. I haven't been getting up this early, but this morning the balcony lured me.

I am grateful. This is a tiny area, but like all of Italy, it's size is in it's depth rather than it's width. Customs are generations practiced; the small family winery we visited yesterday just up the street was built in the 14th century and the family operating it goes back with it almost that far. What the soil here may lack in nutrients it more than makes up for in wisdom and experience and character and story.

Yesterday we were party to an animated debate. It had nothing to do with foreign policy or the economy, and its contenders were not candidates for political office. It was between two Italian women gesturing broadly and arguing above a stove-ful of simmering pots over whether the squash blossoms in their sauce were getting too dried out and needed more water. We asked the translator what they were saying, but she smiled and prudently demurred. Two women -- one in her 50's and the other in her 80's -- who have been cooking together for countless lifetimes -- at odds over something that matters: not so much the character of the sauce itself, but rather the integrity and reputation of the women. They knew full well that whatever else eventually came out of that kitchen, they would in reality be served on those plates, which meant that they had something precious at stake. It was undoubtedly the most beautiful argument I've ever seen -- and the most substantive debate.

I've witnessed and experienced and learned much else during these Tuscan days -- that some things can't be rushed, that some things need to be measured and some things don't, that some things finally are more important than others and wisdom and beautiful living are about spending time and energy and attention on what endures -- but I will ponder those lessons later. My last day in Tuscany is beginning and I want to pay attention

Abundance, To Say the Least

Abundance. That has to be the theme of the day. Not that every day hasn't spilled prodigal over the rim. We begin and end each day's adventures with a walk through a Villa garden. But today has been a waterfall into a thimble.

There was breakfast followed by a short ferry ride to Varenna, where we were met by Chef Moreno's wife who drove us, spiralling, above the village to the family home and restaurant. Three others were already asembled with coffee and biscotti. Shortly, the class that we only learned about yesterday by serendipity began -- making pasta for pizzocheri and tortelloni, and saffron risotto; folding, boiling, saute-ing, and ultimately eating. We laughed, we learned, we ate, and for three hours we pinched ourselves to convince ourselves that we weren't dreaming. And then the winding drive back down to the ferry, the short boat ride back to Bellagio, and the stroll through the garden home.

For anyone, that would have been enough. But Christian was waiting, and the boats and the nets and the fish. Quickly changing clothes, loading the trucks along with Silvio and Luigi, and donning the slickers, we headed for the "punta" where the boats are kept. There followed another hour of unspeakable abundance -- the two of us with Christian on the waves of Lake Como, up close and intimate with the spray, feeding meters and meters of net that during the night Christian will retrieve, this time laden with fish.

Dinner tonight was, among other things, fish -- still virtually dripping wet from this morning's catch. Tomorrow will be more -- the more that we helped to catch.

Amazing. Just another day in paradise -- with the life flowing over the rim.

Sustainable Cooking and Living

"You are fortunate that your chef has stayed with you," I commented to Innkeeper Dave as we finished coffee after breakfast. Jason, the chef, had come to this Vermont inn from Napa, having already cooked for royalty in the Colorado mountain resorts, according to Dave.

"He's doing what he loves to do," was Dave's simple response.

What he went on to describe was a network of relationships the chef has developed with local farmers, ranchers, distributors and customers. He has come to know the preferences of repeat guests -- no salt for this one; extra spicy for that one -- and visualizes the faces of those for whom he prepares each plate. Different from cooking for a series of tickets the machine spits out in the large restaurants, this is personalized cooking based on the people involved. He knows exactly where his food has come from and by whose efforts, and onto whose place-setting it will be handed, and assumes respectfully the sacred part he plays as creative culinary intermediary.

He could be in a "mega-restaurant," but life and satisfaction for him are apparently in the personalization made possible in this more intimate setting.

It reminds me of a comment I recently heard made by Sam Wells, Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. After introducing us to the story of a couple facing significant challenges, he concluded that "what they need is the church. And I pray they find one small enough to meet their needs."

Not one large enough, but one small enough.

Like the kitchen of a small inn in Vermont, where the chef knows the farmers, the food they produce, and the stories of those who will eat it. I'm thinking that Chef Jason could teach a few things to churches, businesses, civic leaders...
...and, of course, me.