Ina Mixes Homemade With Store-Bought Plus How To Cut Hydrangea Stems AND I Can Read Her Mind

Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten

Rehearsal Dinner

Tarragon Potato Salad

Chunky Blue Cheese and Yogurt Dip

Vegetable Coleslaw

Guacamole

Ooh, goodie, the Contessa is throwing a wedding in her barn!!! What fun! Oh, wait, it’s just a rehearsal dinner, but that’s okay too. What a wonderful spot for either one and with Ina as the host, you know it will be good (and the cocktails will be really strong).

I like that Ina UNAPOLOGETICALLY serves store-bought stuff along with homemade things. She schuzzes things up and make them LOOK homemade. Plus let’s not forget where she’s getting her store-bought items. She’s not exactly buying an Entenmann's coffee cake and pouring a powdered sugar glaze over it, (although that WOULD be good). She’s getting things from Barefoot Contessa-like shops, with chefs that anyone would be happy with.

The dinner is for her friend Barbara Libath’s son, Jason. (Certainly any groom would be more alluring if you knew that mom’s best friend was the Contessa.) Think how fun she would be at the wedding. Oh, Barbara is her assistant, but still.

Barbara was freaking out and Ina said,” Deep breath. We’re going to do this together. You’re going to go out and buy some wonderful things in town and you and I will make some delicious things to go with it.”

Ina’s making tarragon potato salad to serve at the buffet. She’s cooked her potatoes and she’s using a cake tester to see if they’re done. I use a skewer. (Remember when Anne said to ONLY use a fork? I have to admit I tried it and I didn’t see a difference, so I’m back to my (Parisian-acquired) skewers. I also love Ina’s way of steaming the potatoes for a bit. You drain them and then cover then with a dishtowel (or I use the actual pot).

The potatoes sit for a few minutes in the steam and “they end up perfectly cooked”. I never DON’T do that now.

For the dressing, Ina mixes 1 cup of Hellmann’s with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. ("It gives it an edge.”) She adds tarragon vinegar (or any white wine vinegar, thank goodness – I detest tarragon), 2 teaspoons of salt (I always halve or quarter the salt to start with) and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Later, she’ll add fresh tarragon (does she have to?), dill, red onions and scallions. Ina says they have to do a tasting to make sure everything’s good and goes together.

Meanwhile Barbara looks like she’ll be spending her retirement savings at The Seafood Shop. Oh, she’s not ordering that much. She’s only getting 3 lbs. of cooked shrimp. Wait, that’s not all! She’s also ordered a dozen tuna skewers and 2 quarts of clam chowder. Do you think it’s possible that all of that is for just the TWO of them – Barbara and Ina - to taste? It’s not enough for the actual rehearsal dinner, but it’s way too much for a tasting for TWO people. I’m confused. Oh my! There’s also lobster salad (2 lbs.), which is definitely not enough for the actual dinner.

Barbara confirms (to Colin, the fish guy) that this is for a “taste testing” and that the actual dinner is for 70 people. I’m concerned about 2 people eating that much at one seating. Maybe it’s the day before and she’ll be using the leftovers at the party. But that’s not really a good plan either. Very odd.

Ina is peeling the Yukon gold potatoes and says she likes to dress the potatoes when they’re warm. Why oh why doesn’t she peel and cut up the potatoes BEFORE cooking then? I suppose they hold their shape better this way.

Ina says she and Barbara looked at all the good things they could buy locally and that she likes to pair high-end things with simpler dishes, like lobster salad with coleslaw. Everything is going to be served at room temperature, except maybe soup, which makes thing easier. 

Ina likes having buffet parties, because they keep people engaged and they’re more fun, she thinks. (Not sure if I agree, but for 70 people at home, I think that’s the ONLY choice.)

Ina cuts the cooked potatoes in thick slices. She adds enough dressing to moisten them and says not to make the slices too small to start with, because they break up a bit. She adds chopped scallions with herbs and chopped red onions. She likes the different ingredients to give the dish more depth of flavor. At the end, Ina adds the second half of the dressing. She lets the potato salad sit for 30 minutes. I really do think that all the food Barbara bought is just for the two of them to taste.

Before they get to the tasting, Ina is making a bleu cheese dip with Gorgonzola, shallots and garlic, lemon juice and Greek yogurt. And some mayo. She adds it all to the food processor with some Tabasco. (I would have processed the shallots and the garlic first and then the bleu cheese and then stirred THAT into the yogurt and mayo. Sometimes yogurt and mayo can get too runny in the processor.) She’s also adding some chives. Luckily, it doesn’t look too thin. It goes into the fridge.

Barbara’s picking up some barbecue from Townline BBQ. I’m not kidding that this is TONS of food. Barbara arrives and Ina says it’s time to taste. (I wanna see this.)

They start the tasting:

First up is the shrimp with cocktail sauce (bought)

Homemade bleu cheese dip with chips

Ina really likes those two together. (WHAT is going to happen to all that food?) She also wants to add guacamole to the mix. I think she’s making that.

Next they taste the soup from a HUGE pot on the stove. It’s possible I saw them double dip their spoons. Why is it so hard to just get another spoon?

They like the brisket and beans and Ina says Barbara should have a big platter of brisket with rolls nearby, so if folks want a sandwich they can have one.

Next up are tuna skewers with wasabi sauce. I would never have thought to have that. It’s a good idea. But isn’t BUYING all this going to be SO expensive? The barbecued brisket is so easy to make, but, I guess NOTHING is easy to make for 70 people…although Ina’s kitchen is certainly equipped to handle to the cooking.

Last they taste the lobster rolls. If I were at this party, I would make straight for the lobster rolls, while people were wasting their time with cocktail sauce and shrimp. Not that shrimp is bad, but lobsters rolls are AWESOME!!! Ina says they’re a classic East Hampton thing. I think they’re a Northeast thing and I love them.

So they didn't taste anywhere near ALL the food that Barbara bought for the tasting. It's a mystery of what happened to it all. 

Ina wants to add one more salad – a vegetable coleslaw. She likes to shred the vegetables in the food processor, placing the vegetables sideways in the larger feed tube to get the longest shreds. (A mandolin would work great here too, as long as you have sometime standing by to take you to the emergency room.)

Ina uses white and red cabbage and then shreds carrots with the grating blade. She’s making a mayo dressing. But she’s already using mayo with the potatoes. I might think about a vinaigrette option for one of them.

The coleslaw dressing is mayo, Dijon (WAIT, LET ME GUESS – she’s going to say apple cider vinegar…let’s see…). She continues with sugar AND 2 tablespoons “CIDER VINEGAR”!

GO ME!!! I must be psychotic psychic. Celery seed and celery salt also go in with some salt and pepper.

Is it just me, but why couldn’t you add actual celery, which would add a great crunch? You’d get the fresh taste of celery, instead of the slightly stale taste of the celery seed and celery salt. (I admit that could be because I’ve had the same jars of both of those things in my cupboard for over 2 decades!!!) Actually, CARAWAY seeds would be really good, too. Also, I need a raisin or two in my coleslaw.

Next Ina and Barbara are doing the table settings. I still want to know what’s happening to all that tasting food. Ina is using a “wheat colored” cloth and she puts a long line of hydrangeas down the middle.

How come Ina hasn’t come up with a signature cocktail for the couple? Champagne is fine, of course, but a specialty martini always adds a fun touch. Barbara could be snipping off the stems of the flowers, while she gets busy with that. Ina shows Barbara how to snip the hydrangeas (at an angle and then make one tiny cut up the middle of the stem to encourage it to drink more water). Ina also likes to leave on as many leaves as possible so it looks as if you’re looking at a garden. Cool.

Ina also says to sit at the table and make sure the flowers are low enough so you can see the person across the table. Smart.  Next she adds two candles between each vase of flowers. Another table will be done with blue hydrangeas and I suppose a blue cloth.

Ina asks Barbara to get “someone” (i.e an entire Food Network crew) to do a video of the dinner for her, so she’ll be able to see how it went. I think this means she’s missing the wedding too. :-(  

We get to see the video of the dinner at the same time as Ina watches it. We see Barbara setting the blue table outside. Beautiful. She’s got friends and family arranging all the food in the kitchen. Ina likes that it’s all laid out family style. She says it breaks the ice and that “life’s too short to spend a lot of time circulating with party trays.” How about hiring some high school kids to (keep their hands out of the food and) walk around with trays?

Ina tells us how they made the guacamole. She puts four ripe Haas avocados, lime juice, garlic, red onion, salt and pepper in a large bowl and slices through it with a knife to break up the avocado. She adds a seeded and chopped tomato. How easy is that?

The food looks really good all set up in the kitchen. The party goes on till after dark. Then we see some wedding pictures. Ina toasts Jason and Ashley and their happy life together.  If even a tiny bit of Jeffrey and Ina’s long-lasting union* rubs off on them, the young couple should be fine.

*Ina and Jeffrey Sitting In A Tree 

Ina And Jeffrey - To Have And To Hold... 

Ina And Jeffrey - 40 Years Together And Counting...

Pioneer Woman Is Annoying, But Maybe It's Just Me

Pioneer Woman with Ree Drummond

Little School House on the Prairie

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Strawberry Jam

Strawberry Oatmeal Bars

I had no idea how particular I was about so many things until I watched the latest Pioneer Woman. I’m not even talking about the kids fake-sleeping in their beds or Cowboy Husband closing up the barn for the night. (WHAT’S his name – Lance? Lanier? Lassie? No idea…) I’m talking about how just about everything Ree does in the kitchen rubs me the wrong way.

Ree is having a home schooling co-op day, which means one day a week her kids join with her sister-in-law’s kids and their friend’s kids and they “learn” together. They’re planning a lesson about pond water. Whether or not all that is real (there seems to be some question if you search around online), I’m just talking about her COOKING and there’s plenty to comment on.

She’s making some dumb oatmeal bars. Why do I say “dumb”? Because, after all this Paula stuff and just looking around the universe, I’m beginning to feel that we should save our empty calories for cocktails or things that are of a higher quality than a cup and a half of oats slathered with almost two sticks of butter. Plus I’ve never cared for strawberry jam. Notwithstanding what I’m about to tell you, my father was one of the original foodies. Even so, he used to eat strawberry jam with sardines on toast. You can see why I have bad strawberry jam associations. (Surprisingly, it’s not half horrible, if only it hadn’t been STRAWBERRY jam.)

Anyway, almost every step of her oatmeal bars nagged at me in some way. To start with, Ree butters the dish in a disturbing way. She takes a stick of butter, rips the paper off one end and rubs the end of the ENTIRE STICK on the dish.

In other words, she doesn’t cut off an exact tablespoon amount, ensuring the measurement integrity of the rest of the stick. She just applies the end of it willynilly to the pan. What exactly is going to happen to the rest of that stick of butter and its uneven lopsided end? I mostly skip the butter these days to grease pans and I use Pam. (I would still use butter if I were using it to make crumbs, cheese or nuts stick to the pan.)

THEN Ree measures her flour and oatmeal without even using a knife to level off the measuring cup. Are we in a BARN here or something? (Oops, I guess we are.) Also, I hate the way she mixes in the butter. She’s using a pastry blender which is fine, but she has so much mixture that it’s going to take ages. Why doesn’t she just throw it in the food processor? If she wants the oats to stay whole, she could process the flour and the butter first and then stir that into the oats in a bowl.

There’s more. Ree presses her oatmeal mixture really messily into the pan. Just because something is simple doesn’t mean it can’t be attractively put together. The edges are uneven and much thinner than the middle. Why does that matter, aside from aesthetics? Because the thinner edges are going to cook faster and burn.

If anything, make the center THINNER because it cooks slower. What’s that old saying? ANYTHING worth doing is worth doing well – even some crummy old oatmeal bars with no intrinsic value.

As she applies “the last” of her strawberry jam to the middle of these bars, she thinks “suddenly” that making jam would be a good lesson for the kids the next day. Unless the next segment of the show takes place in Strawberry Fields, those strawberries will have to come from somewhere. Ree will need BUSHELS of strawberries for that horde of kids to make jam. Let’s see where they come from.

We come back to a fast-forwarded scene of jam-making and SOMEHOW the strawberries just appeared. (Thought so.) Ree is using strawberries, sugar, lemon juice and pectin.

The big science lesson is turning on and off the stopwatch at a minute and 25 second mark while the pectin is boiling in the pot with the strawberries, lemon juice and masses of sugar. The kids watch Ree and the other two moms actually bottle the jam. I think all of this is great and is a wonderful lesson for kids, but it seems to be a lot of demonstrating and not hands–on. 

We come back to the kids doing “memory work” with state capitals. Isn’t that a bit juvenile for the older ones? They go down to the pond to put mucky water in jars to look at while Ree makes a rather bad-for-you soup. There’s not one good thing in it. Oh wait, there’s a handful of broccoli to go with the whole milk, half and half, flour and butter, which will be served in a huge sourdough bread bowl. She’s not even using the stalks of the broccoli in the soup. She could just peel them and use the tender insides. She’s made a base of butter, onions, half and half and whole milk and adds the broccoli. Her kids get a lot of fresh air and exercise, at least (if we believe what we see), but THIS is not a good choice for a kid (or grownup) who’s been sitting around all day.

Ree uses an immersion blender to purée the soup before adding ham and cheese. I didn’t think the fat/vitamin ratio was quite high enough. She throws in diced ham. HERE? Why not add it at the beginning while you’re cooking the onions so it can infuse its flavor throughout the soup. That way you need a lot less. The ham isn’t even in the recipe, but I get why she’s adding it. It makes it more like a meal. (That doesn’t make it right, though. KIDS consider hot dogs a meal, but we really shouldn’t be feeding them those…outside the confines of a ballpark.)

Ree is proud of herself that she grated the cheddar cheese HERSELF. Whoop-dee-doo.

Here’s something bad. The kids come in with their pond water. Ree takes one of the jars in her hands to examine it. She tells the kids to wash THEIR hands, but we don’t see her wash HERS. Then, using her pond-infested hands, Ree takes the bread (that she’s made into a bowl) and ladles soup into it. Ew. Double ew. I watched it twice. Yup, she goes from holding the dirty jar right to touching all the bread bowls. That is deeply disturbing. Then the kids stick their hands right in the cheese. I admit it’s been a while since I’ve had little kids’ grimy hands in my kitchen, but I always tried to minimize germiness from being spread around. Maybe when you’re home on the range, you don’t care so much about that.

One More Super Bowl Snack And The Provenance Of The Cauliflower Crusted Pizza

I’ve been reading about a Cauliflower Crust Pizza for a while now and I decided to try it last night. I thought it would be a great addition to my plant-based Super Bowl snacks if it came out well.

As far as I can tell, the original recipe for this cauliflower pizza crust comes from Jamie on Your Lighter Side blog. Here's her recipe, but these gluten-free folks have been doing wacky things with cauliflower for a while now, so I’m not sure if this is the first mention ever. BTW, Jamie takes her property rights really seriously and I’m with her. She doesn’t want any stealing of her recipes. Mention her, link back to her, but don’t be posting HER recipe! No problem, I couldn’t agree more. (I know no court in the country that would convict anyone for posting someone else’s recipe, but it’s smarmy, so I don’t do it.)

The cauliflower pizza crust has also gotten a lot of play (with the proper credit) from Eat. Drink. Smile., when Beth made a gorgeous looking pizza from the crust.  

Another popular rendition is from Recipe Girl, where Lori came up with a spectacular Hawaiian Pizza with the cauliflower crust. She also gave props to Beth and the original recipe.

The reason I looked around so much was that there were a few things that bothered me about all of these recipes. The WAY of cooking of the cauliflower seemed strange and so did the term “riced cauliflower”.

About that second thing, what they meant (I think) is cauliflower made into the size of rice. But when I see the word “riced”, I think it means I have to drag out my ricer and somehow get the hard cauliflower through it.




Some recipes for this crust have you “ricing” the cauliflower before cooking (which would be completely impossible in a real ricer), and some have you doing it after.

I think the best plan was what Eat. Drink. Smile. gal came up with. Throw the florets in the food processer to make rice-like pieces BEFORE cooking. 

You do need to cut the cauliflower into medium pieces before pulsing it. Also remember that working with cauliflower is a messy enterprise. It seems to fly up and gravitate to every corner of the kitchen as you’re cutting it up.

I also changed the cooking method of the cauliflower. Jamie used frozen cauliflower. I didn’t want to go that way and Beth microwaved hers for 8 minutes. If I’m going to cook something for 8 minutes, I’m probably not going to microwave it. (Electricity is expensive!) ALSO I knew I was making more than 1 pizza with 1 cup of so of cauliflower. And that increases the microwaving time even more.

So I steamed it. I do have a nifty steamer-thingie that fits in a sauce pan,

  

but you could just set a colander or even a large strainer above boiling water.

I steamed the “riced” cauliflower for 8 minutes. (I actually forgot about it and left it cooking for almost 10 minutes, but it wasn’t supersoft. There was still a bite to it.)

I thought the original recipe used too much cheese to cauliflower. The point was to make it vaguely healthy, so I used 1½ cups of cauliflower to 1 cup of cheese. Recipe girl uses even more cauliflower, so next time I may too. Also one cauliflower made almost 7 cups of the finely chopped cauliflower, so, of course, I was going to use more than a cup.

I baked the untopped crust for the 15 minutes that every recipe suggested. Then I tasted a bit of it. Not bad, but kind of bland. It definitely needed the ½ teaspoon of salt that I added (for a recipe double the size of the original). I think next time I would season up the mixture a lot more - maybe with chili powder and bit of cayenne.

Whatever you top the pizza with has to be cooked first. That’s no problem, because I always grill my crust before I bake it, so the top stuff is always sautéed and ready to go.

After you bake the crust, you top it with your (cooked) stuff and then put it under the broiler. Warning: 4, even 3, minutes is WAY TOO LONG. Unfortunately, H’s pizza got burned. I told him it was charred in an artisan-like way. But watch it carefully.

Aside from that, how did H like it? (I really liked it by the way.) I told him it was a “vegetable” crust, which I knew wouldn’t scare him away, But he is not fond of my cauliflower “mashed potatoes”, so I avoided the use of that word. This is what he said, “It’s ACTUALLY good.” Not completely what I was looking for, but still okay and he managed to eat most of one pizza by himself.

The final verdict? I liked it…a lot. Actually, H made a very telling remark. He said the crust tasted like an omelet, which was exactly right. I got absolutely no taste of cauliflower, which is probably a good thing when trying to sell the idea of this pizza.

Is it fit for company? It’s not that easy to eat (you need a fork) and some people may object to a gassy vegetable in place of a crusty layer of crisp dough to sink their teeth into. But what the hey? I’m all for lying to fooling people about what’s in something. Obviously, I would never deceive a vegetarian about a meat or fish product ingredient, but to run-of-the-mill dead flesh eaters, I would have no problem NOT mentioning the cauliflower.

I will definitely make this again and rotate it into our Friday night pizzas. But for the Super Bowl? I do have all that extra “riced” cauliflower in the fridge…so maybe.

Enjoy the game. I hope your team wins. The only team I'm rooting for is the commercials-better-be-good team. I don’t have anywhere near enough time to start learning about what it is exactly they’re doing on that field.

  

My Version Of Many Folks’ Cauliflower Crusted Pizza (Makes two pizzas)

Adapted from Your Lighter Side, Eat.Drink.Smile. and Recipe Girl 

Printable recipe here

Crust:

1 cauliflower

2 eggs

2 cups of shredded mozzarella (a bit less than 8 oz.)

½ tsp. Kosher salt

1 tsp. oregano

1 tbl. chili powder

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

My Toppings (Use any others you want):

2 chicken sausages, halved lengthwise and sliced

¾ cup tomato sauce

¾ cup fig jam

1 tbl. olive oil

1 red onion

10 oz. mushrooms slices

½ red pepper

1/2 tsp. Kosher salt

About 8 oz. mozzarella, shredded

Optional:

Chopped anchovies, sliced olives…go wild

Cover two large baking sheets with foil. Coat them with nonstick spray. Set aside. Preheat oven to 450° F.

For crust, cut the core out of the cauliflower and discard. Cut the remaining cauliflower into even-sized 2 inch pieces. In batches, pulse in food processor fitted with metal blade until chopped finely. (The pieces ARE bigger than rice grains, but still fairly fine.) Measure out 3 cups. Cover and refrigerate the extra for another time.

Place the 3 cups of “riced” cauliflower over boiling water. Steam, uncovered, for 8 minutes.Spread cauliflower out onto dinner plate to cool.   

Meanwhile in a large bowl, beat the eggs with a fork until mixed. Stir in remaining crust ingredients. Place half the crust mixture on each baking sheet. 

Pat out crust as thinly as you can in any shape you like. I usually make oval pizzas. Make sure the edges are nicely done and even. Don’t fan them out too thinly. Bake in preheated 450° F oven for 15 minutes. Remove. (I left mine for an hour before topping them.)

For the topping:

In a small sauté pan, cook the chicken sausage until browned and crispy on one side. 

Stir well and cook for another 3 minutes on medium heat. Heat olive oil in large sauté pan. Add onion and cook for 4 minutes. It doesn’t have to be completely softened. Add red pepper slices and cook for another 2 minutes. Push those to the side and add the mushrooms. Cook on medium high heat, without stirring, until the mushrooms begin to brown on the bottom. Then mix all the vegetable AND the sautéed chicken sausage together; add a ½ teaspoon of Kosher salt and sauté for another 2 to 3 minutes or until things are looking the way you want them to.

Spread the tomato sauce on one pizza and the fig jam on the other. Top each pizza with half the vegetable mixture. Sprinkle over half the cheese on each one and any other toppings you like.

One at a time, broil each pizza on the top rack for one minute. THEN WATCH CAREFULLY until the cheese is just starting to brown (not char.) 

 

    

Cut with a pizza cutter and eat with a fork. 

Plant-Based SuperBowl Sunday

That sounds really dreary, but it doesn’t have to be. No matter what your food habits are at the moment - omnivore, pesca or vege-tarian, adding more things from the vegetable kingdom is never a bad idea. Whether you have chicken wings or not, these dishes will be good additions and you'll feel good about serving AND eating them. 

Here’s what I’m thinking about:

Anne Burrell’s Kale Chips Just remember to serve them straight out of the oven. Maybe have another batch ready to go in when the first comes out, so they can be enjoyed hot and crispy.

    

Giada’s (or anyone’s) Sweet Potato Fries The garlic mayonnaise is a good substitute for the ranch or blue cheese dressing that you may be craving.

      

Black Bean Hummus

1 can black beans (drained, save the liquid)

4 tbls. tahini

1 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. cumin

4½ tbls. lemon juice

1 clove garlic, center stalk removed and pressed

¼ tsp. Kosher salt

Drain black beans, pouring liquid into small bowl. Rinse black beans well and add to food processor fitted with metal blade. Add 4 tablespoons of reserved liquid from can along with the remaining ingredients. Serve with homemade baked pita chips.

Optional: Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, but it really doesn’t need it.

Baked Pita Chips

1 pita (I prefer wholewheat) makes 16 chips

Cut each pita into 8 wedges. Separate each one in half. Lay them on a baking sheet in a single layer (they can be jammed next to each other.) Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 7 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool and store in a ziplock bag. You can reheat them in a big jumbled pile in the toaster oven for a minute or two before serving.

      

I don’t love bruschetta, because I find it hard to eat. But if you use a skinny loaf of French bread, you'll get smaller pieces and toasting only one side of the bread also makes them easier to bite in a genteel fashion.

Little Toasts With Roasted Red Pepper Spread And Goat Cheese

Use this fabulous Bon Appétit recipe, forgetting the roast beef. For the toasts, slice French bread into thin slices. (Don’t cut bread on the diagonal. It makes the pieces too big.) Place in pan in toaster oven and toast. Or place on large baking sheet and cook under the broiler just until lightly browned, watching very carefully.

    

This is a foolproof, always good, not particularly good for you, nachos recipe. It’s especially good for inexperienced cooks.

Nuked Nachos

      

Black Bean And Yam Stew
Great recipe. I only use one can of black beans and I serve this over brown rice with corn muffins.

   

I do have one more idea, but it deserves its own post. Look for it tomorrow. 

Paula Keeps Coming Up

The entire Fat Chef concept would have been a far better path for Paula to take than the one she did. If she had carried us along on her journey to health and wellness, her countless fans would have cheered and encouraged her. 

Wouldn't everyone have watched a reality show about Paula NOT using a stick of butter on a slice of toast or training to enter a 3K race? (Is there such a thing?) But she’s been made so defensive by the reaction to her news, and especially her Big Pharma contract, that who knows what her next steps will be. Should she just keep on keeping on? That’s probably not the greatest option. She couldn’t even eat a hamburger on her recent fan cruise without being pilloried. It IS hard to watch the “old” Paula knowing that the inevitable shoe has dropped.

Bravo’s Andy Cohen, now that he has a nightly “Watch What Happens Live” show to fill up every night, is found of asking the food pros (often from Top Chef) what they think of the whole Paula issue. Gail Simmons had this to say. Last night, Tom Colicchio said he was far more disturbed by her connection to Smithfield Ham than he was by the drug company contract. He suggested we all read a 2006 article from Rolling Stone, “Bosshog”, about the questionable practices of the Smithfield company. The article is only available to subscribers of Rolling Stone in their archives, but here’s a wrapup.

The Smithfield company was also featured in a Pulitzer prize-winning article in 2000 for National Reporting as part of the New York Times series, How Race Is Lived In America. The article, “At a Slaughterhouse, Some Things Never Die” is pretty heavy stuff and one would hope that a decade has brought changes to the way both the workers AND the animals are treated.

BTW, this was the Smithfield company’s response to the Rolling Stone article. AND I suppose Paula could criticize Tom for selling Diet Coke. Here are some other surprising endorsements by famous chefs. (I had no idea about the Rick Bayless one.) 

“Fat Chef” Presumes That Chefs Have It Harder When Trying To Lose Weight

I’m not so sure….

The new show Fat Chef, on the Food Network, begins with the premise that overweight chefs are cursed. Apparently being around food all day is just too much. I’ve got news for them. EVERYONE is around food too much and it has nothing to do with being a chef. They are probably the same food addicts that the rest of us are. (Hold on...lemme get another handful of nuts.)

Office workers or window washers have the same problem. I was among my skinniest EVER in cooking school, because I was so sick of eating a full-on three course meal (that I had cooked) every single day. I totally learned the difference between TASTING and EATING. I’m not mitigating the problems that are caused by being in a professional kitchen, but I’m just saying there could be a show called Fat Water Heater Mechanics or Fat Lighting Specialists, but I’m guessing the Food Network wouldn’t be the one airing it.

Anyway back to the fat chefs…there are some really unattractive shots of this large chef - shirtless, eating and stirring something really fatty – gravy? chocolate? I guess it’s a bad sign when you can’t tell which is which.

I already know the end of the story though, because I saw Chef Mignano on Nightline last week. He is such a nice lovely guy and he revealed that after strenuously dieting and exercising, he had lost 100 pounds. (He still has a hundred or two to go.) BUT he is no longer diabetic AND he has eliminated his need for medication - just through diet and exercise. Way to go! I was happy that I had seen this story before I watched Fat Chef. I love to know endings in advance. Then I don’t worry the whole time that he’s going to drop dead of a heart attack.

Back to the actual show…They’re going to follow 2 people each week “who work in the food industry” and watch as they attempt to lose 25% of their body weight.

Am I completely off base here? I really feel professional chefs have an advantage over other people in preparing food in a healthy way. THEY KNOW HOW TO COOK! They know how to make food taste good - WITH or WITHOUT fat, sugar and tons of extra calories. 

Where’s the first place that “experts” go when they’re making over a family’s bad eating habits? The kitchen! They try to teach people how to cook real food and get away from junk. Well…the chef already knows that. I’m sorry, I don’t feel extra sorry for people surrounded by food who are trying to lose weight. EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE in this country is surrounded by food. (Why are my pretzel chips so stale?!!)

The chef I saw on Nightline, Long Island pastry chef Michael Mignano, is the first victim…subject.

Mignano says he snacks on what he bakes all day long and he doesn’t have time to sit down and eat a proper meal and he has a long drive home. Boo hoo. Then he stops at McDonald’s after work and stuffs his face. Does this really take a rocket scientist? Just stop eating junk and eat 3 meals a day??? IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BEING A PASTRY CHEF! (Hold on, my pizza and wings are here.) Accountants (and bloggers) do the same thing. Stop blaming your profession. Oy, this is annoying. He lists all the things that are wrong with him at 36 - diabetes, sleep apnea, asthma.

At the same time we also visit with Melba Wilson, famous Harlem chef. (Sylvia Woods is her aunt.) WOW, that’s cool.

Both these chefs work so hard. They certainly don’t lack for energy and get-up-and-go. Melba’s problem, she says, is not tasting all day but packing in tons of food when she gets home at midnight each night. 

We learn that Michael is 509 pounds. (I’ll be right back after I’ve gone out for a run.) Some trainer guy, Robert Brace, is his savior. He makes a plan for him. He wants him to lose 127 lbs. in 16 weeks. This is what he has to do:

Diet: 2500 calories/day

Prep meals in advance

Every four hours eat a balanced meal of leafy greens, lean protein, eggs or fruit.

Okay, that’s basically what everyone should be doing...with a reduction in calories, perhaps. Oh, and he has to exercise 6 days a week. AND he’ll have his assistant taste his desserts.

Maybe I was wrong about this show. Maybe a picture Michael on MY fridge is just what I need to get serious. Poor guy, he seems so sweet and nice.

Melba learns from HER trainer, Christine Avanti, that she should:

Eat 1500 calories/day

Eat, small, frequent meals to stabilize blood sugar

Exercise 6 days week

Keep tastings at work to a minimum.

Michael has been on his plan for 2 weeks. The biggest change is that he’s not as bloated anymore and his shoes are really loose. He uses 25 pound bags of flour to exercise with. I’m not getting the feeling that this is all that hard for him. He just needed a reality television show to come knocking to give him a reason to lose weight. He lost THIRTY pounds in a week and a half.

Oh wait, this is getting weird. Michael’s wife Destiny tattles on him when he cheats a couple of times. (I’m REALLY not trying to be mean, but Destiny could be on a plan too. Instead, she seems to be super judge-y of Michael when he lapses.) Oh gosh, a commercial for $2 mini parfaits from Baskin-Robbins. I wonder if they’re still open. I’ll be right back.

I’m still not getting what being a chef has to do with this. I’ve never seen Biggest Loser, but I’m supposing that this is what it is.

Michael’s mom (also in need of some intervention) comes into his bakery and says she wants to see for herself how much weight he’s lost. That seems so controlling. He steps on a scale that just happens to be there. He’s lost almost 50 pounds. Then she cries at how happy she is for his success. I’m sorry, but these women in his life bug me. They certainly don’t have 300 plus pounds to lose, but they should not be casting the first stone…if you get my drift.

Melba, meanwhile, is not doing well. At week 6, she’s lost less than 7 pounds, instead of the 25 she should have if she’d followed the plan. (At least she didn't GAIN weight.) Melba is not that interested in losing weight because it’s so hard. Does she NOT notice the television cameras in her FACE (and worse)? For that reason alone, one would think she should step up. AND, when asked, she says she hasn’t done one iota of exercise in the last week. I guess we’re seeing the one step forward and two steps back kind of thing that often happens on the path to any hard-fought goal. We learn she’s “self-sabotaging”. Thank goodness we have a scientific word to explain her behavior.

The next commercial features a kind of beefy guy talking about The Food Network’s South Beach Food And Wine Festival. Who is Jeff Mauro? Oh, he was a finalist on the Next Food Network Star.

Michael goes to see his doctors and even THEY buy the whole excuse of his profession. He’s lost 65 pounds, his blood pressure is down and, as I gave away already, he is diabetes-free. Awesome. I like him.

Meanwhile, Melba is still not doing well. (This is taking place over Thanksgiving, which is her busiest time.) Christine doesn’t get her and her monster work schedule and Melba is fed up.

Michael is mad because he throws out his back as he’s increasing his workouts. He gains a few pounds, but he stays on track. 

Melba says she wants to beat this on her own and she wants to get rid of Christine. She’s being so difficult. It doesn’t take a genius to see where that’s going to go.  Nowhere good. 

Melba is actually arguing with US about how little weight she’s lost. And now she’s surprised that she hasn’t lost weight without Christine. REALLY? She calls Christine back to help her. She says she was wrong. Christine says she MUST work out 2 hours a day. She does and she finally starts eating sensibly. (I’ll see you in a sec. I gotta get on my exercise bike...but my Totino’s are ready…)

Michael beats his kids in a race. Good for him. Then THEY (the kids) make him weigh himself. I’m uncomfortable with that. Leave him alone. But I guess whatever he’s doing is the right thing.

Melba say 16 weeks ago she was 300 pounds and now she’s…darn they’re not saying, she plays with her son more…and, SO, how much did she lose????? Another commercial for more Baskin and Robbin’s stuff. (I’m glad I bought the six-pack for the freezer.)

Final weigh-in. Melba comes out and thanks a bunch of people and Christine too. Truth be told, Christine is kind of a witch. Melba finally gets on the scale and she’s lost…33 pounds. They cheer because she weighs 267. She says, “I don’t want to say I’m there yet.” Ya think? Now I’m just being mean.

Michael started at 509 pounds. At his final weigh-in, we hear about all his problems at the start and everything he did to lose weight and get healthier. Yada, yada, yada, hurry up. There’s his wife and mother (neither one thinner, by the way), kids and employees and he gives a really long speech and HOW MUCH DID HE LOSE??? He thanks Robert, whom I like. He now weighs 409.8. He lost 100 pounds. Wow, that’s impressive.

COULD Michael have lost weight without Fat Chef? Maybe, but why should he? This way, he got professional support and his business got tons of exposure. I’m not sure I need to watch this show again, because I believe everyone has food issues, not just chefs.

What I learned specifically about chefs from this show isn’t how difficult their environment makes it for them to lose weight, but how incredibly hard they work. So many people are sitting all day which is a huge hindrance to losing weight. These chefs are standing, running, DOING all day long, which has to be a great complement to cutting calories and formalizing exercise sessions.  

Anne Had Me At Kale Chips, But A Different Recipe Stood Out Plus Other Things To Consider Including One-Sided Fish Cooking

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

Israeli Couscous with Celery, Scallions and Cranberries

Crispy Tuscan Kale

Seared Cod with Blood Orange Glaze

Blood Orange and Red Onion Salad

No excuses for being away, just enjoying things and I wanted to get these pictures right…Weren’t we talking about kale recently? I was so sure that this kale recipe of Anne’s was going to be the star of this show, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Seared cod does not sound that exciting, but Anne added a blood orange glaze, which completely livened it up.

Anne cuts the cod into 6 oz. portions and puts it on a baking tray. She says you can use haddock too, which is also “mild and delightful”. She covers the fish loosely and puts it back in the fridge to dry out. (That’s also a good idea for a whole chicken or chicken pieces with the skin. Season them, put them in whatever dish you’re cooking them in and then back in the fridge, uncovered, for about 4 hours. The skin will dry out and come out crisper after roasting. Folks do that with turkeys too. I don't want my raw turkey butting up against other stuff in the fridge, but a chicken is easier to control.)

Anne takes Tuscan kale out of the fridge and says it seems to be all the rage and she’s noticing it everywhere she goes. Me too! She cuts off the tough stems at the bottom and preheats the oven to 250°F. She coats the kale with olive oil, salt and chili peppers and places it in one layer on a baking tray. The kale gets baked for 30 to 35 minutes.

For the couscous salad, Anne cooks the couscous in super salty water and flavors it with a garlic clove and big slices of blood orange zest. One secret she gives us from the restaurant is to use everything around the kitchen to flavor things. A bay leaf goes in too with the smashed garlic clove. Anne cooks the couscous in a big pot of salted water and then she’ll drain it. That makes sense because couscous is actually a type of pasta, but I don't cook mine that way.

I just think that if I don't have to waste the time and energy bringing a big pot of water to the boil, why should I? Plus the directions on the container say to cook it in a smaller amount of water and not drain it, so I go with that. The only benefit I can think of for using more water is that the couscous comes out as more separate grains and is perhaps more suitable for a salad. But  Israeli (or pearled) couscous can be cooked either way.

Anne supremes blood oranges and grapefruits for the Blood Orange and Red Onion Salad during a break, which is simply to cut the sections of citrus fruits away from the pith and membranes.

She chops one really hot bird’s eye chili to add to the citrus with some red onions. She says the kale chips smell delicious.

Dried cranberries, sliced scallions, celery and garlic get marinated in white wine vinegar for the couscous dish.

Earlier, Anne talks about the celery almost being like a ceviche and getting “cooked” in vinegar. That’s so interesting. I’m totally in love with shallots in white wine vinegar, which become “pickled shallots”, so I guess this might be similar. I’m not as big a fan of celery as Anne is, though. I like the crunch, but I don’t love it when it’s bitter.

Now it’s “cod time”. Anne gets her oil smoking hot and she seasons the cod with Kosher salt. Incidentally, Anne lists her three favorite pieces of kitchen equipment. Guess what they are. I’ll give you a moment…

• Fish spatula
• Wooden spoon
• Food Mill

I love all those things, but they’re not my top three. Mine are:

• A Microplaner
• A Chef’s Knife
• Every single one of my Strainers and Colanders. (I have ten and I use each one for something different. It’s funny that a friend was recently talking about downsizing and I was thinking about how thrilled I was to be able to have a different strainer for each and every job. And I’m not even including my slotted and strainer spoons!)

Anne adds the cod to the oil and does not move it. She says it will unstick itself when it’s cooked.

Anne drains the couscous and takes out the bay leaves and orange zest and adds it to the celery mixture. She adds her “big fat finishing oil” to the couscous and to the citrus salad too.

Anne is moving a mile a minute now to get everything done. She takes out the kale chips and crunches down on one piece. Loverly.

I like that Anne kept the kale in big pieces, so they come out of the oven as these big bouquets of crispy greens on stems that you eat like cotton candy. The hard part is getting the flavoring (vinegar, salt) on. She makes a valiant attempt to season it before cooking by tossing them in a big bowl.

The problem with fresh kale is that the leaves are virtually waterproof. It’s like trying to season something wrapped in plastic. Dry stuff just bounces off and wet things run off. So Anne does the best she can, and presumably the kale holds on to enough of the ingredients to actually flavor it.

Anne puts the cod on a rack over a baking pan and finishes the cooking in a low and slow oven. Here's something noteworthy - Anne only cooks one side of the fish in the sauté pan. She gets the bottom nice and browned and then places it, cooked side up (the side you'll see), on the rack.

When you're broiling or sautéing fish, you really only have to do one side. You're only cooking the fish to get it warm, perhaps brown it for its looks and change the texture. It doesn't really matter if both sides hit the heat. (Even with chicken, I concentrate on getting really good color on one side and then I may let things slide a bit on the second, as long as it's cooked through.)

She gets rid of the oil in the fish pan and adds some blood orange juice and chopped blood orange supremes.



She adds parsley to the couscous salad. I’m getting a little lost about which dish is which.

But, wait, I have a problem with her cutting up the blood orange supremes. Why would you go to all the trouble of cutting away their pith and peel to reveal their singular segmented shape only to chop them up and boil them away? No, add the juice to the sauce, but use the supremes as a garnish, where you can see AND taste their beauty.

Anne adds vinegar and sugar to the blood orange reduction. Oh, that’s in the wiped-out fish pan and that will go over the fish at the end. The fish comes out of the oven and Anne plates it with the couscous salad. The dried cranberries are “a lovely punctuation”. She likes the champagne vinegar in the salad. As Anne tastes everything, she says it’s all ”happy stuff”. I love the blood orange glaze. It makes her taste buds “want to dance”. Mine too.

This was an absolutely delightful fish dish and you can lighten it up even more by poaching the fish in some water and wine, instead of sautéing it. It’s all about the blood orange glaze. Don’t have any blood oranges? Use navels and ruby red grapefruit, either together or singly. Or use divine clementines, which make delicious juice and an even more delicious sauce.

I also liked the couscous salad - as a base for the fish...AND on its own.