Bozeman, Montana, United States
What a year this has been so far! My spring foreign travel
plans to Greece were nixed by Covid-19 and I couldn’t go to the gym for a few
months. What’s there to do besides keep
busy online and cook food? Well, things got better through the summer. By May
it was possible to travel again, so I headed out on road trips and wasn’t at
home much through the summer months after being more or less cooped up through
the spring.
Thus, my cooking went through two phases in this rough
mid-April through August edition of Cooking With Warren. The first month involved a good amount of traditional
cooking that included filling up the freezer with leftovers in case I got sick
and had to do full quarantine sometime in the future. Once it warmed up, though, the limited time I
was around home involved drawing down those provisions with use of the microwave
and making lots of salads and some easy cooked dishes.
One theme of my summer months was salads. To some degree, my
feeling about salad is sort of “Meh!” But that’s because of what we usually
think of as salad in America – a big mound of nearly nutrition-free lettuce
with various toppings, mostly vegetable but others as well, smothered in a
dressing that’s probably mostly soybean oil or a vinaigrette.
To me those aren’t very interesting. I tried out a number of traditional salads
from Mediterranean countries this season, most of which included no lettuce at
all, other recipes requiring a specific green or another for authenticity.
These included Turkish Piyaz, Tuscan and Sicilian versions of Pantesca (Bread
Salad), and various Greek salads with cucumber or watermelon.
I think a lockdown theme for me was the idea of comfort
food. I made many dishes I wouldn’t have at other times when I was working out
consistently and concerned about my diet. For a while I let it all got to pot
and ate what seemed satisfying. That included dishes like Tuscan Sausage Soup,
Seattle-style Smoked Salmon Chowder, Chicken Waldorf Salad, King-Ranch Chicken
Casserole, and Zuricher Geschnetzeltes, mostly creamier and cheesier dishes
than I would otherwise indulge in.
Similarly, I tried out a bunch of pasta dishes that had long
been “on my list”, but I avoided because of all the carbs. These included Pasta
con Le Sarde (Sicilian Pasta with Sardines), Gnocchi with Gorgonzola and Walnut
Sauce, Pasta Cacio e Pepe (Roman style spaghetti with cheese and cracked
pepper), and Pasta a Aeoliana (style of the Aeolian Islands).
When I was in high school I sometimes used to watch cooking
shows on TV after school. There was a series called Master Chefs of New York
that featured dishes by top chefs from some of New York’s favorite restaurants. I ordered to book. One of those chefs was
Lidia Bastianich, who started out with Felidia and opened more restaurants over
the years. She’s still sometimes on the Food
Channel. Anyway, she is from Istria, the peninsula in the Adriatic south of
Trieste that’s now part of Croatia. Her
cooking is quite different from other Italian cooking, and I quite like her
style, maybe because of the fusion of some Slavic influences. I made numerous dishes from her website this
winter and spring, including Ham in Marsala Sauce, Chicken with Orange and
Gaeta Olives, Turkey Breast with Brandied Apricot Sauce, and Peperonata.
I guess I’m not really a big fan of eggs. I consider them an
ingredient rather than a stand-alone food.
“How would you like your eggs?” they ask. “Ummm, Frittata, Quiche, Revuelto, maybe an
Omelette, certainly not plain,” is my feeling.
In North America, the British Isles, and many places in Latin America,
eggs are very much a breakfast food. Not
so much in many other countries like Spain or France where egg dishes are eaten
as a main midday or evening meal. Maybe
that’s why put more flavorful things into them than Americans do. Anyway, I made two such dishes this cooking
cycle, an Italian Frittata with vegetables and North Africa Chakchouka – eggs poached
in a spicy tomato-vegetable sauce.
As far as seafood goes, I tried out a couple of shrimp, salmon,
and cod dishes but really got into clams.
One week I discovered a special on clams at the grocery store for
$.99/pound. They’re usually about $4.99/pound, and most of that weight is of
course shell and some liquid. They assured me there was no mistake when I was
skeptical about it. “I’ll take five
pounds of them. No, make it ten!” I went home to figure out recipes and them
returned to buy the rest of the ingredients for Stuffed Clams Oreganata,
Almejas a la Marinera (Galician Style Mariners Clams) and a Spicy Spanish Clam,
Chorizo, and White Bean Soup.
One cuisine I quite like is that of what I call Greater
Mexico, which to me includes Southwestern and Tex-Mex styles, as well as the
regional cuisines in Mexico. I guess I just love spicy food, especially all the
variations in flavor chile peppers provide.
Some of those spicy dishes included Pork Tenderloin with Jalapeno Jam
Glaze, Cinnamon-Cumin Pork Loin, Arizona Hatch Pork Chili, Stuffed Poblano
Peppers, Meatball with Tinga (Chorizo & Chipotle Tomato Sauce), Charred
Corn with Green Chiles, and Frijoles a la Charra (beans with chilis). The most decadent dish was King Ranch
Chicken, a creamy-cheesy Tex-Mex style casserole with layers of chicken, corn,
peppers, and toasted tortillas, almost like a southwestern lasagna.
2025-05-22