How to cook onions.

The hardest thing to do when you feel like you are panicking is to slow down.

It can feel antithetical, heretical, or even downright ludicrous to do so when your neurons are firing at unprecedented levels telling you, “There is something wrong, and you need to do something about it.”

And I am doing something about it: I’m turning off the radio, putting my phone on mute, and I am choosing to pay attention to something else, something that doesn’t require a rapid pace, something where I can control the outcome, or at least understand and learn from it. 

Like how long I need to cook these onions. 

In the same vein, I can control what I am going to write about. And save for the following nineteen words, I’m not going to say the words COVID-19, or discuss anything medical or economical. For the next 700 words or so, I’d rather focus on what’s happening in your kitchen, in your head and heart.

In my kitchen, I’ve written down every single item I had in my pantry, freezer and refrigerator: the dried Persian limes I’d forgotten about at the back of the top cupboard, the weighed portions of cooked rhubarb in the freezer, the jar of pickled quinces I made when I was faced with forty pounds of them. 

In my head, I want to weigh my options, figuratively and literally. I’ve combed through the stacks of cookbooks that line the shelves of my kitchen and living room.  Cookbooks with stains on the most popular recipes, as well as cookbooks with barely cracked spines. I want dishes that will ask me to stand in front of said stove, as well as dishes that ask so little of me. I’m looking at you, rice pudding cooked in the oven. (Thank you, Nigella Lawson).

Beans for soup, stew, dips, salads. All beans, all the time.

And in my heart, I want to eat dishes made with quantities and qualities that can be happily consumed on both the day they’re made, as well as the next day as lunch or supper. Especially if that is a day that I can’t find the wherewithal to make any decisions due to being panic-stricken, let alone stand in the front of the stove and make choices about how to feed myself. My heart will need foods that soothe, and rely on very little more than re-heating.

If I can figure out how long I needed to cook the onions, then I can do those things. I can figure out what I need to cook, to please myself, to distract myself, to hone my focus on one task at a time. 

Right now, these onions need a bit more salt to help them sweat. 

I want to make dishes that have been waiting for me, the ones I listed on bookmarks of paper, placed within their respective cookbooks I bought over the years. Last week, it was a Turkish dish, called Pazili Ekmek, a bread dough stuffed with a filling of vegetables. In my case, I made the filling the night before, a soft savoury compote of potatoes cooked with an amorous amount of onions, seasoned with a teaspoon of smoked Turkish pepper flakes and a tablespoon of tomato paste. 

I knew there was a reason I was cooking onions. 

It’s the dishes I’ve never attempted before that are the most satisfying to me right now: not in the eating, but in the process, the gentle focus of my senses. The words gentle, and focus, are words I need to remind myself of.

Congee for a good day, with roasted peanuts, egg, katuo-bsuhi, and black sesame seeds.

That list of ingredients and recipes that I had collated became a game plan. Make a sponge to ferment overnight for tomorrow’s bread. Take the rhubarb out of the freezer for the coffee cake that will satisfy your sweet tooth. The leftover rice in the fridge can be cooked into some sort of ersatz congee, with a light broth made from dried seaweeds and Chinese wood ear mushrooms. It’s perfect for lunch, as all it needs is a light reheat. Maybe an egg or two, poached or hard boiled (if boiled, make extra for tomorrow’s lunch).

Right now, the most sincere, and honest thing I can do for myself is to quietly listen, and semi-intently watch these onions cook down. To feel myself slow down. To listen to the steam condense on the lid and drop back onto the hot skillet. I know (or assume? Maybe I should look at my copy of Harold McGee) that if I do this, they won’t dry out or burn as easily. These onions will become one with the rice and lentils (thank you Melissa Clark) I am cooking. But I also know my own palate, and so I am adding black cardamom to the mix, an extra bay leaf, and a little cumin and coriander to the spice mix in my grinder. Oh, and a touch of feta on top of the whole bowl, because that’s what my belly/brain/body is telling me right now. Tomorrow may be different. No, it will be different, unknown. I don’t know what I will eat, wether I will have the drive to do so, but I do know this: when the meal is ready (made fresh or reheated), a gentle voice will pipe up to remind me, “You got this. You won’t feel like you always do, and you may have a hard time sometimes. But you got this.”

Lost in pages

I can’t decide if the first joy of a cookbook is in purchasing it, reading it, or in cooking the first recipe from it. 

When people ask me about my love for cookbooks, there is a familiar refrain that comes out: I read them like novels.

When I say this, it is to convey the engagement I have with cookbooks:  I read them from cover to cover, pore over the language, and the ideas found therein. I want to convey the love I have for these books: the work that goes into making them, and the work that comes out of from using them. 

People often have bookshelves stationed prominently in their homes. Those shelves can tell you what language they enjoy, what stories, what ideas. Do they prefer a clipped lexicon, direct and forthwith? Are they fans of flowery language, with sentences that run on to the point of droning verbiage? 

The most visible, accessible, and used bookshelves in my household are filled with cookbooks.  The shelves are organized by (loose) categories: a shelf for baking (this is the most rapidly expanding shelf), a shelf organized by regional cuisines, a shelf for books by cooks/restaurants, a shelf for single subjects, and a shelf for resource materials.  In my bedroom there are shelves for food writing, books to pick at before bed or books to sit in the sun and absorb their information at the same rate as the sun’s rays come down on me. Deliberately. 

The purpose of a cookbook is ostensibly to collate a series of recipes and present them in the best possible manner. Sometimes that manner is direct, with little artifice, and pure information.  Sometimes the manner meanders, wafting through your mind like aromas from warm kitchens. 

What makes a cookbook valuable is more than just the recipe. It is the perfect example of something being greater than the sum of its parts.

And that brings me to the most common argument I receive when I say that I love and collect cookbooks: I could just look it up online.

Of course you could.

First, let me applaud you. You want to cook, you have a desire to look up a recipe, to try and cook something that is perhaps new to you. Maybe you’ve decided that you want to ameliorate the dish you’ve been making by rote, and are looking for a new way to look at that dish you love. Maybe you are looking at recipes because you need to stretch your dollar as far as it can go. More than anything I applaud the desire to find agency and self reliance, and a respect for the foodstuffs that we have access to, and respect to those who brought them to our tables. 

Online resources abound for the curious cook. There are so many websites that can give you instant, practical, and well-tested recipes. I respect, admire, and even wish to perhaps one day contribute to some of them. (That was a hint, editors.)  But the manner in which we absorb that information - as immediately and as quickly as we plug in our search parameters - ignores the work that brought it to your screen. More importantly, by ignoring that kind of work, we often ignore the work we are about to undertake ourselves.  Or at the very least (or most?) we will view that work as drudgery, a means to an end. 

Search. Find recipe. Execute. Eat. 

Reading a recipe online is like reading an excerpt from a novel - it can be beautiful, it can lead to satisfaction, but it misses so much of the breadth that gives an excerpt heft and gravitas: the words that surround it on both sides of its cut.

It’s a little too utilitarian. It leans towards the gross rather than the subtle.

So allow me to flip the narrative , and give you a gross of subtleties. 

A glut of rhubarb, roasted with ginger and star anise. 

Think of how you read a novel. You start at the beginning, and allow yourself to follow the story. You will give yourself permission to pause at certain moments, re-read passages that have struck you.  You will follow the narrative flow: Character goes on journey. Character encounters tension. Character resolves issue, completing journey. It is engrossing. 

In a good cookbook, there will be a similar flow. Not all books follow a direct narrative approach, nor do they need to. But they follow a logical order: This is what you are here to learn. Here is the process you can follow. Journey complete. Let’s eat.

Like I said at the start of this piece: I can’t decide if the first joy of a cookbook is in purchasing it, reading it, or in cooking the first recipe from it.  I think the ambiguity and almost Venn Diagram-esque way of measuring this is part of the beauty. Each book is different, each first joy is different, and each brings about their own nuanced manner of introduction.  The recipes don’t stand alone: they stand next to each other, on the pages that precede and proceed. 

It could be the location where you sit and read said book. The book may act as a balm to a busy day, helping you leave the world behind, as deeply as you would fall into a novel.  It can be even more engrossing than fiction, because unlike fiction where you must imagine the reality, with a cookbook you can forge that reality: at your fingertips, at knifepoint, in the well of a spoon. 

There is something to be said for finding that book you’ve been looking for, an author whose name has been repeated to you. For you, it could be an old paperback copy of Elizabeth David, or an out of print tome that you already own, but wish to purchase so that you can give it to someone else.  These are two distinct pleasures on their own. Sometimes that book is one already sitting on your shelf, something you picked up because you feel you should own it, or something someone gave you, because they felt you should own it.

For me, the most recent that book was Nigel Slater’s Tender.* Reading it was like listening to that friend who you call when you’re stuck on what to cook next. The one who gives you all the good ideas, and then you actually feel like you can make them happen.  At the time of this writing,  it’s summer, and I find myself at the edge of a glut: the berries have just begun to appear, and I am at the edge of where I am almost tired of rhubarb.  But I don’t wish to be in the case of the latter, and I wish to be prepared for the former. 

 Yes, it would be easy to type in a few letters and find the most popular recipe for said ingredient.  But an algorithm will not tell me what is already in my home, nor will it be able to predict that I will find much more satisfaction in doing my own digging, than letting someone else do the work for me.  The satisfaction of looking for the book that holds the recipe for the dish you’ve always wanted to make, or the dish you never thought of making.  

This is how you end up with a rhubarb flavoured with amaro. Rhubarb roasted gently with fresh ginger and star anise. Rhubarb baked into various forms of coffee cakes, with various flours to see which works best.  I see possibilities, not culinary doldrums.

100% whole grain flour coffee cake with rhubarb roasted with ginger and star anise, and an oat and oat flour streusel.

This is how your fridge is emptied. This is how you become emboldened. Like a novel that leaves you with hopes and ideas, a cookbook that has been read from cover to cover can arm you with knowledge and inspiration.

Because you allowed yourself to once again get lost in pages.

* I could link to an online retailer here, but really, if you care about books as much as I think you do, you could ask your local retailer to order it for you, or at the very least, check it out of your local library.

Cookbook Love

It’s no secret that I have a bit of a cookbook addiction. Every time I travel, I find myself in a bookstore perusing the shelves, looking for something interesting  - a classic book I have been told I should own, a name or title that sounds familiar, a look at a region or culture I am interested in. 

Over the past few years, I don’t think I have travelled without coming home with at least a few  new books in my suitcase. I remember the first time I ever went to New York City’s Kitchen Arts and Letters. I packed my suitcase and my carry-on full of books. I got to the airport and was told that my suitcase was overweight. “That’ll be $100 please,” said the agent. I dutifully paid, having learned a valuable lesson. Know your problem, face it, and bring an extra suitcase just for cookbooks. This has become my semi-usual mode of travel.

But as much as I love digging around everywhere from bookstores dedicated to cookery (hello KAL and Toronto's The Good Egg), second hand bookstores with well selected beauties (Hi Bonnie Slotnick and Balfour Books), and even random junk shops, I do have to say that there are a few books in my collection that I keep pulling out when I am unsure as to what I want to cook.  *

(*A tip: Even though these are books I pull out often, I have an extra trick up my sleeve. Every time I read a new cookbook, I make sure to have a pen and paper with me. As I go through the recipes and notice one that interests me , I write down it’s name and page number.  That little note will serve as a shorthand/reminder of what there is in the book that I have wanted to make before, saving me time instead of perusing throughout the whole book. )

These are the books that have shaped my pantry, the way that I shop, and have led me to dig even deeper into their respective cuisines. Thankfully most of these books are all still in print, and easily available from your local bookseller or online. (But really, do yourself a favour, and order it from your local bookseller. They’ll love you for it, and tend to want to help you find even better books. I’ve known many a bookstore to take suggestions on titles that their customers have suggested to them). 

To be fair to each of them, I am listing them alphabetically by author.

Washoku, Elizabeth Andoh

When most people think of Japanese food, they immediately go and think of sushi, tempura, teriyaki, or perhaps a bento lunch box special of all three. Although all three of these items are wonderful and thankfully easy to find, this is only a fraction of what there is to offer when it comes to Japanese foodstuffs. The real beauty of Japanese food comes in the breadth of foods known as washoku, or homestyle foods. Washoku literally means “food harmony” but for me, it means comfort.  

One of my first jobs in the food industry was in working at a Japanese restaurant. The menu wasn’t just sushi rolls and tempura lunch specials, it also had an extensive menu of washoku dishes, though they weren’t named as such. It was here that I fell in love with these comforting flavours.  It wasn’t a cuisine that relied on bombast - it opened my palate to the importance of subtlety, and to the many uses of its base flavours (and techniques) found in dashi (arguably the base note flavour in so much of Japanese cookery), mild rice vinegars for acidity, and umami-laden shiitake mushrooms.

Andoh’s book looks at recipes and ingredients in detail without being bogged down by them.  There is an extensive introduction explaining everything from the importance of washoku (U.N. designation) to the hows and whys of ingredients and how they are used in traditional japanese kitchens.  The food is approachable, and deeply satisfying.  I can’t tell you how many times I have made the oyako donburi, or how much I appreciate learning about how to use dash, which is now a staple in my cooking. Don’t know what to make for dinner? Make a dashi, steam some rice. While you’re waiting for the rice to steam, you have enough time to look into your cupboard and fridge, decide what needs to go into a pot/skillet and off you go. 

Home Baking, Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford

Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

I’ve gone on record in saying that Hot Sour Salty Sweet was in many ways the beginning of my interest in cooking and food writing. In the interest of full disclosure, it’s important to say that Naomi Duguid was kind enough to write the introduction to my book, Pantry and Palate.  But before that, Duguid and her former writing partner Jeffrey Alford were, to me at least, two of the best cookbook authors out there.

My copy of Hot Sour is well-loved, with stains on the pages for pho, pad thai, and som tam with long beans.  I learned to appreciate the funk of fish sauce that for a while I cooked almost every meal with it. So much so that my former partner once asked me to make a meal without it for a change. I found myself making pho on a regular basis, and asking friends to drive me to the one store in town that would carry green papaya.  Tamarind became a regular part of my pantry. I’ve been in bookstores and seen people pick up the book, and made a point to go over to them and tell them that if they want to cook southeast asian food, then they have to own that book. 

As for Home Baking, I was a very novice baker who was mildly afraid of kneading dough when I picked it up.  I didn’t know what a biga and a poolish were (pre-ferments of small amounts of dough that bring flavour to a finished yeasted baked good) at first, but now find myself making them without thinking every time I bake bread. Home Baking tells you all you need to know in it’s title - these are recipes and foodstuffs found in homes, not professional bakeries. These are things that mothers and fathers and grandparents and children have been making for generations. Tested, used, baked, eaten, and repeated. Although I have a respect for other baking books - specific and exhaustive like Rose Levy Berenbaum’s The Pie and Pastry Bible or uber-trendy like Chad Robertson’s Tartine books - this is a perfect introduction for a beginner who wants to learn the basics or the professional who wants to look at baking through a familial lens. It’s unfortunately out of print, but ask your second hand bookseller. I’ve seen copies in stores in Halifax, Toronto, and New York City. It’s worth the search.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison

Although we now live in a time where vegan food is no longer something that needs to be explained, and vegetarian cookbooks are (rightly) no longer relegated or designated as ‘granola’ cooking, they can still occasionally be a tough sell for your Average Joe.  

Deborah Madison’s book is smart in that it eliminates any possible barriers to its sale or usage by stating on the cover, “If you don't attach a title to your eating style, you can cook everything in this book with meat, fish, or fowl. This is Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.”  Smart move Madison (and your editors). She invites readers and users to not only embrace vegetables, but defeats every excuse you may have to not cook/use a vegetable by giving you tips on buying, storing, and cooking, as well as what kind of flavours and textures to expect. Too much squash sitting at the back of the fridge and tired of making soup? There is something in this book. Your farmer’s market has a stand selling salsify? Not a problem, it will explain what it is, and how to use it. Bored with carrots? Madison will help you out. I pull this book out at least every few weeks.

Breath of a Wok, Grace Young

I knew I had to have this book when I read a review that explained it’s title. The “breath” of a wok is that flavour, that subtle smoky kiss that comes from a well-seasoned wok that is transferred to the food cooked in it.  I had always been a fan of that flavour, but was unable to replicate it at home.  Now I knew how. I emailed Grace,  thanking her for this book, and how much I had learned from it, and her other books. Young is a consummate teacher through and through, ensuring that you can and will understand how to cook with a wok. She will help you develop more than just your skills behind the stove, but also the patina on your wok, ensuring that your food will also know the beautiful breath of a wok. My own copy of this book was so well used that the binding fell apart on me.  Thankfully, I now have a signed copy.  (Pro tip: if you’re looking for a signed copy, I hear that Bonnie Slotnick often has copies for sale, as Young is a regular at the store.)

Neverending Cookbooks...

A few weeks ago, I did an episode of Assis Toi that featured author Lindsay Cameron Wilson talking about cookbooks. It appears that episode may have struck a chord with people, as Lindsay and I were invited to be on Maritime Noon, CBC Radio's noontime call-in show for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. The subject: your favorite cookbook. 

It was great to hear people tell their stories of their favourite cookbooks: how they came to be in their possession, what they have cooked from them, and so much more. What struck me the most was how many people brought up the Purity Cookbook, a simple, homey book that started out as a promotional item that - at least according to the callers - shaped their kitchens in more ways than one. Many thanks to Jonna Brewer and Polly Leger for inviting me to to come onto the show. 

You can stream the episode here, or download it here. The discussion starts at the 11:35 mark. 

Through the aisles and into the kitchen

I'm always fascinated by the books that line people's shelves. But the ones I find the most interesting are their cookbooks.  I keep my cookbooks in plain view in my kitchen, so if I am standing at the counter, or looking into the refrigerator, I only have to cast my eyes slightly to the left for a little inspiration.

I learned to cook through cookbooks. Correction: I learned to cook through cookbooks I borrowed from my local library.  For the latest episode of Assis Toi, I tracked down the person responsible for many of the current selections that line many a shelf in the various libraries of Halifax, Kristina Parlee from Halifax Public Libraries.  Kristina is a food lover, and she and I have often suggested places to eat - and books to read - to each other. I also met up with Lindsay Cameron Wilson, a Halifax-based cookbook author, TV show host, recipe developper, mother, and much more. Lindsay also used to live in London, and for a time worked at the famous Books For Cooks store in Notting Hill.

Although searching for recipes online can be easy and fun, the act of opening a cookbook, or perusing the cookbook section of a library is far more satisfying for a hungry reader. In the latest episode of "Assis Toi", I meet with three people who use the public library, and the cookbooks contained therein, as their own personal search engine. And they find more than just recipes and information. Assis Toi" is a radio series that airs on Information Morning and Island Morning on CBC Radio in the Maritimes. It tells stories about the kinds of relationships that people have with food. For more info on "Assis Toi" and its producer, Simon Thibault, check out: Http://simonthibault.com

In case you missed it when it was on the air this morning on your local CBC Radio station here in the Maritimes, you can stream it here, or download the podcast here. And don't forget to check out this week's episode of Have A Seat - where Kristina, Lindsay, and I continue our chat about all things culinary AND literary.

"Have A Seat" is a collection of previously unaired audio from interviews that air on CBC Radio's "Assis Toi". The series looks at people's relationships with food. In this episode, we go looking at the impact that cookbooks have had in the lives of food lovers. I speak with Lindsay Cameron Wilson - host of "Love Food", cookbook author, and recipe developper - on how books about food have changed her life. I also have a chat with Kristina Parlee, who is the person who selects all of the cookbooks which line the shelves of the various libraries throughout Halifax's public library system. To find out more about Lindsay Cameron Wilson, check out her website at: http://lindsaycameronwilson.ca For more on Simon Thibault, check out: http://simonthibault.com http://twitter.com/simonathibault

For those of you who were wondering about those titles mentioned in this week's episodes of Assis Toi and Have A Seat, here are some of the cookbooks - and their authors -  mentioned by Kristina, Lindsay, and myself. 

Hot Sour Salty Sweet, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. This is THE book that started it all for me as a writer, as a home cook, and as a lover of food writing. 

In Have A Seat, Kristina and I talked a little bit about japanese cookery, and she mentioned Japanese Farm Food, which looks wonderful. I mentioned that she should check out Kansha and Washoku, by Elizabeth Andoh. I even did a piece for Assis Toi last year about Washoku, with the help of Ami Goto. 

Kristina mentioned that she came to understand indian cooking techniques thanks to Madhur Jaffrey. Jeffrey is essentially THE person to talk to if you want to learn about the intricacies of indian cookery.  She also suggests checking out some of the titles put out by America's Test Kitchen, and is also a big fan of The Flavour Bible. As for restaurant cookbooks, she was also instrumental in making sure that there are copies of Andy Ricker's Pok Pok cookbook. And for those of you who can't afford to buy a copy, you can always borrow the Noma cookbook. 

As for Lindsay Cameron Wilson, you can check out her cookbooks on her website. Wilson is also a fan of Skye Gingell's A Year In My Kitchen (a book that I also enjoy), but most importantly, she talks about Family Life by Elisabeth Luard.

Happy listening, reading, and cooking.