Jambalaya

Crawfish pie, file gumbo.




File powder. Creole-style is my brother's signature. I get it because it mixes traditional French and European techniques with low-country down-home goodness. It's like the difference between chunky and smooth peanut butter. I like chunky. I like handmade things, I like hunks of vegetables. Billy talks about origins, and knife skills and flavor all the way through a dish. I'm more like "Oooh, this is a pretty ceramic pot to cook in," and Billy's taking me to the restaurant supply, chiding me that Williams Sonoma is overrated. It is, but you didn't hear that from me :-D

http://www.zatarains.com/  Zatarains' products are good!

There's a jar of file powder sitting in my pantry. Billy made a fabulous non-seafood gumbo. We have shellfish allergies that didn't hit us until our late 30s -- his probably because of overexposure in the kitchen, mine probably because there's some sort of genetic predisposition. But we live in the South and grew up with all the tender goodness the sea has to offer -- smoked mullet, shrimp, lobster, scallops, flounder and grouper, crawfish, Stone crabs. You name it. So, it always makes me cranky to consider taking the Epi-kit to dinner. Just kidding.

Back to the file. There was frozen okra in a bag. Some frozen corn, some forlorn green beans, carrots and celery approaching the age of Methuselah. A few chicken thighs. Some leftover andouille. Enough softball-size onions to outfit a Little League team. "We're doin' a cooler cleanin', Ton. Go to the store, get me some heavy cream, and some file powder." Yes, Chef. My freaking younger brother is telling me what to do in my own house and, yep, I'm going. I didn't know what I was supposed to find at Sweetbay. But that's where he said to go. And 15 minutes later I came home with a small glass tube, filled with a yellow powder. I didn't even know if I got the right stuff. Because we lived in the Islands, I knew File is serious juju. I didn't want to hold it for too long. He laughed.

"Good job on your chicken stock." He pulled Zip-Loc bags of chicken stock out of my freezer, each measured in 2-, 4- and 8-cup increments, labeled and dated. My brother lived with me while he was being treated for a broken leg, and diagnosed with bone cancer. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen and said nothing to one another outside of "behind you," "I need your onions now", "Ton, what the hell are you doing" -- to which I'd shrug and laugh, just to watch him smile. He is meticulous. There's a science to onion cutting. Knives have a soul. Respect your pans. Chicken bones and old vegetables are salvaged for stock. It's all used. Nothing is wasted. So, the chicken stock was a labor of love. It simmers for two days. It's skimmed. It's measured carefully into bags. He lays the bags carefully into the freezer so they become flat slabs. The bags are cut open, and the rectangle goes frozen into the pot. Ingenious, really. He fried off the chicken thighs in the bacon hissing in the pan, reserved the grease in the little metal pot he made me buy at Wal-Mart, started the mirepoix. He made the roux. He added the big chicken ice cube. Vegetables, a little red bell pepper for color, shredded chicken, sausage, the clump of ice-encrusted peas.

"Isn't it supposed to be red? Isn't gumbo red?" I always get points for asking the stupid questions. Which usually get answered with another question. "Ton, do you want it red? We can make it red. But this is white. You'll like it." He finished it with a lot less cream than I thought it would need to be creamy and delicious. "When you make large amounts of cream sauce, you need chicken stock for the base. It's not all cream. Try this when you make Alfredo next time." Of course he was right. And it turns out file gumbo, is a thickening agent, made from sassafras, and often used when okra is not available as a thickener. "It's the same stuff in root beer." Okay, not the same stuff, but I got the lesson. File has a distinctive flavor and like all roots, serves a purpose in cooking.

The cancer was worse than either one of us wanted to admit. We argued about treatment options. He was ready to die in my living room, and I was pushing for Moffitt Cancer Center. I didn't pay attention enough during the gumbo lesson. The file calls to me in the pantry from time to time, I pull it out and think. When I think of my brother, I make Jambalaya. It's a happy dish. I'll master the gumbo one day.

Jambalaya

3 pounds chicken thighs (bone is okay if you have them, just roast them, or find boneless chicken breasts, or boneless thighs)

2 t salt
2 t vegetable oil
1/2 t pepper (I add cayenne too, but it depends upon who is eating)
1 pound pork sausage (I use andouille, cut in 1/4 inch pieces after it's cooked)
2 c yellow onions

1 c green peppper

1 c celery
4 Bay leaves
1 T minced garlic
1/3 t thyme
1 cup chopped tomatoes (I buy a can of DelMonte diced tomatoes, onions and peppers)
3 cups long grain rice
3 1/2 cups of water (I use the liquid from the tomatoes, and water, or all chicken stock)
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

I use a tall pot with a lid instead of a saute pan. Brown chicken, cook sausage in oil. Add vegetables and seasonings. Let cook. Add tomatoes. Stir in rice. Add water and stock. Simmer 30 minutes, covered. Let stand 10 minutes.

Kicked-Up Paprika

This makes Billy crazy when I mix seasonings ahead of time, or when I buy those containers of What-Ever-Chef-Is-On-Food-TV. "Ton, you can do this yourself. You can season it yourself. You know how. Stop buying this crap." He's right. So, there are things I won't live without -- Good Seasons Italian Dressing dry mix, for one. He agrees. That stuff is good. And I make a killer balsamic marinade for steaks and a great salad dressing out of it. He agrees.

Anyway, this is great for grilled hamburgers, sprinkling over Jambalaya, dusting deviled-eggs, putting on parsley-and-butter soaked red potatoes.

3 T paprika
2 T salt
2 T dried parsley (If you have fresh parsley on its way out, dry it in the oven)
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried basil
1 t dried thyme
1/2 t celery salt (optional)
2 t onion powder
2 t garlic powder
1 t black pepper (sometimes I use cayenne too, it just depends upon who is eating)

Mix it up. Put it in a mason jar, or an old salt shaker. Yep.

Avocado and Tomatoes with Balsamic

Avocado (peeled and diced)
Grape or Campari tomatoes, cut in half or in quarters (depending upon size)

Pour the dressing on, and mix with your hands.

Same thing for the Greek cucumber, pepper, tomatoes, onion and feta cheese salad. I use the same dressing. Although, Mom says I am the only person in the family who can do grandma's olive oil and lemon dressing -- that's really just pouring the oil and squeezing the lemons, but I don't tell Mom that, salt and pepper. Vinaigrette is a 1:1/2 ratio.

Rice Pudding

On his Food Network show, Alton Brown says single-use appliances are evil. That's "EEEE-vil", if you need a pronunciation guide. Evil.

Among Alton's cardinal sins is the ricemaker. He barely tolerates waffle irons. A trowel from Home Depot makes a better pie server. You get the idea. Now, I'm not entirely convinced Alton is an engineer, or a scientist, or a chef. He has a strong group of writers and food folks behind him. But he does have this Bill Nye-meets-MacGyver sort of wackiness that I find appealing. A geek. I like it.

It seems to me that the Japanese-engineered simplicity that is the ricemaker would appeal to Alton too. It's a great gadget. An electrified metal sleeve, surrounding a metal liner with a lid. Measure the rice, pour in the rice, measure the water, pour in the water, plug it in, cover it, push the on-button. The Ron-Popeil Fix-It-And-Forget-It school of cooking. It even turns itself off. My ricemaker is small. It's older than Naomi, and I bought it for less than $20 at the PX. It's done yeoman's service. And it's never seemed to fail. Sushi rice is perfect, Basmati rice is perfect, Uncle Ben's is perfect.

The Greek recipe for Rizogalo -- Rice Pudding -- is straightforward. Rice, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, eggs. Bring the rice and the milk to a boil in a three-quart saucepan.

Oh, the ricemaker. Perfect.

Add the rice, add the milk. The little Devil on my shoulder whispered into my ear: Put the sugar in.

Okay, how easy is this? Cool!

Plug it in, push the button. Oh, hell, yes. The lid was slowly shifting, the liquid was softly simmering. Normal. Before long, the ricemaker started to sound like the washing machine with an unbalanced load. Hmm. If my ricemaker had robot arms and a voice, it would have flailed its limbs and shouted "Danger, Will Robinson!". But I stood there, and watched. It didn't hit me until it started spitting caramel at me. Dulce de leche. Cooking Napalm.

Hot milk + sugar + butter = caramel. Every insurance agent's nightmare. So, I did what any self-respecting cook would do. I lifted the lid to stir the rice. Okay, hot milk and sugar under pressure. The caramel bubbled over the sides of the cooker and onto the counter, onto the floor, onto my shirt, onto my arms. Holy Mother, I have angered the cooking gods. The rice was glued to the bottom of the pan and it was burning.

My family circled the kitchen like buzzards. "Whatcha makin', Ton?"

Oh crap. This is like Ricky asking Lucy what scheme is cooking. They knew something was dying in the kitchen, and it was me. "Uh."

At this point, caramel-coated, all I could do was laugh. Spoons flew out of the drawer. I figured they were going for the eyes. The rice was not cooked. At all. The glop in the pan was sweet, sticky, smoky and crunchy. Good maybe for peanut butter. Not so good for rice pudding. They ate it. And laughed. It's become the family legend. The thing was, they ate it right out of the pan, and blocked my run for the garbage can. Said it was terrible and, like a car wreck you can't stop watching, they kept eating. I suppose it was so they could tell the story at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the next 40 years of my life. Because it's trotted out for the telling any time rice pudding is mentioned: "Ma, remember ... heh!" Like the time I made Flan. Didn't have enough caramel, so I made more. Had too much. I made more Flan. Didn't have enough caramel ... before long, every dish, cup, bowl in my small Panamanian kitchen was filled with Flan. Yeah. I should have learned to make this stuff when no one was home, and no one would be the wiser. Because even my mom tells the story, third-hand.

Eventually the floor was cleaned. The washer took care of my T-shirt. They snickered about my burns. Rightly so. Tiny little blisters and red marks, sticky with caramelized milk and sugar. Someone dialed my brother.

"Ton, did you cook the rice?"

"Well ... yeah, sorta." I told him the story. I didn't need a video phone to see his face.

"Ton, cook the rice first."

"You mean leftover rice?"

"Yeah. Don't cook it in the milk. Use the rice you have, or make it fresh."

"Oh."

"Ton?"

"Yeah."

"That's damn funny."

Rizogalo -- Greek Rice Pudding

1 quart milk
1/3 cup rice
1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
cinnamon
raisins -- optional

In a three-quart saucepan, bring the milk and rice slowly to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, stirring until rice is soft (cook the rice in the milk. Okay, I don't do this. I measure a cup of cooked rice and heat it in the milk. Heat the raisins with the milk, at this point.)

Beat eggs, add sugar and beat well. Slowly add the hot milk to the eggs (temper the eggs), stirring. Gradually return the heated eggs to rice mixture in the pot and continue cooking until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Pour into dessert dishes. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Serves 6.

Panettone Bread Pudding -- Williams Sonoma

1 lb Panettone, cut into 1-inch cubes
5 eggs
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups milk

2 cups heavy cream

6 tsp granulated sugar

Caramel sauce for serving

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.  Spread the cubes onto a large baking sheet and toast in the oven until golden, about 10 to 15 minutes.  In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, brown sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Slowly whisk in cream and milk. Stir in the bread cubes and let stand until they soak up most of the liquid, about 10 minutes. Bake until set (the knife comes out clean), about 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and let sit for 5 minutes.

Just before serving, sprinkle the granulated sugar evenly over the bread pudding. Use a kitchen torch to melt the sugar to a golden caramel color. Serve immediately with caramel sauce. Serves 8 to 10.

A caveat: Me and a blow torch, in the kitchen. Uh, no. I've ignited liquor in a pan. I've deep-fried stuff. That's about as much fire as I can handle. To caramelize sugar for Creme Brulee, I put it under the broiler. Much safer for me. ;-)

Everyone Needs a Little Space



     Kids can be mean.  Adults can be mean in more subtle ways. 

Baby Gap



     Big surprise.  When people are a little bit different, they get called out.  Some become withdrawn because of the relentless taunting.  And others become highly adaptable.  Often they'll turn what others perceive to be a weakness into a strength.  Growing up, for me, there was more than one obstacle to overcome.  The biggest was being a brainy girl with glasses.  Then came acne.  And curves.  Oh yeah, and the space between my two front teeth. 

     As an adult, I've embraced my inner geek.  I like the library, I like politics, I like esoteric concepts, I like museums, I like baseball.  I've wrestled with contacts and I accept glasses.  Acne -- yeah, a constant battle.  Curves?  I'm curvy.  I can lose weight, but I'm still curvy.  I accept it.  Gap in my teeth?  Get back to you on that one. 

     My folks are handsome people.  My brothers are gorgeous men.  My stepsister was a model at one point in her life.  Tall, lanky, Cher-haired.  With bucked teeth.  Karen sucked her thumb long into her teens and she needed braces.  She got the I-can't-drink-from-a-water-fountain headgear.  So did my brother.  Temporary and cosmetic.  I've often laughed that I got all the recessive genes in the family.  Tall, beautiful, naturally thin, athletic, graceful.  Nope.  I'm stumpy, busty, clumsy, asthmatic, myopic, and I like to read.   Pretty seemed to pass over me, and went right to my daughter.  But probably I am the funniest one in our family, and I'm often the listener / relationship fixer.  And I do have the trait that seems to bind us -- Good teeth and beautiful smiles seem to run in our family. 

     For me, my smile is my best asset.  Except, I have a gap in my front teeth the size of Texas.  Of course, this was a strength.  I was the water-spittin' champeen.  I could force water between the space in my teeth clear across the pool.  No one could beat me.  Not even on a bad day.  But, water-spittin' champs are not exactly date-night material.  I didn't wear my crown too long into high school.  One thing I figured I couldn't change was the gap in my front teeth. Yeah, it might make me look like a hick, and yeah, I'm the only one in the family who has it.  Like a lot of things we can't change, there comes a graceful acceptance.   Our family dentist never recommended braces for me. In fact, closing the gap was never discussed as an option.  Move on. 

     Brainy with glasses was a little harder to overcome.  Brainy with glasses and acne was harder still.  The year I turned age 13, I broke out.  Not the kind of acne one sees on ProActiv ads.  It was the kind that makes people go "Eww."  So bad it hurt to wear a T-shirt.  Neck, back, arms, face, groin, legs.  I called my mom that summer from Michigan.  My dad said he wouldn't date me if he were a boy.  To which I said: Gah!  Yeah, Dad.  Hullo.  My dad laughed.  My mom somehow knew it was worse than my dad was letting on by phone and she made a dermatology appointment before I flew back to Florida. 

    
     "Tonya, it's the worst case of acne I've ever seen," said the dermo.  Which wouldn't have been so bad if he were a shriveled up old prune, but he was a young doctor, tall and hunky.  Mom smiled, asked for the prescriptions and made the return appointments.  Over time, I've developed a love-hate relationship with my doctors.  If I have to go, I know it's going to be bad.  It's never been an immediate cure. 

     It took months to clear.  And he was the same doctor who suggested birth-control pills in my early 20s to keep it at bay.  He was right.  But our bodies change, and into my 40s the acne's returned.  That's another story.  Back to the brainy girl with glasses and gapped teeth. 

 As if there aren't enough changes at age 13, I had a butt and boobs.  And a tiny waist.   My Island and African-American friends say people with split teeth wear their clothes well. They always are attractive. And I learned early what well-fitting clothes can do.  I wasn't at all built like the stick-straight girls of my youth.  And I was teased.   My God-fearing Baptist boyfriend's mother couldn't wait to see me in a swimsuit when I was in high school.  She thought I cast a magical spell on her son and she wanted to see if I could work the same juju on her.  Could I possibly be the same girl who played tag football in her backyard?  Of course, I knew my assets by age 17 and showed up in a French-cut burgundy maillot with underwires.  The same boy talks this day about the fishnets and seamed stockings, and a pencil skirt, I wore in college.  All with glasses, a gap in my teeth, and enough brains to get into an honors program. 

     So, my gap-tooth smile never bothered me.  Until I decided to get one of those Glamour Shot photos.  I was in my 30s, thinner than I had ever been.  My daughter was nearing school age.  My hair was dark, glossy, stick straight and perfectly cut.  My skin was flawless.  The photographer retouched my teeth.  What the hell?

    Madonna, Lauren Hutton, David Letterman, Condoleezza Rice, Mike Strahan, Mike Tyson -- okay, maybe not Mike Tyson -- there are a lot of famous people who have space between their teeth.  And they do all right.  But here I was, insecure about the one thing I get complimented on daily: My smile. 

    Not long after, my dentist suggested braces to close the gap.  To be fair, I've had four oral surgeries because of the gap.  My senior year of high school, I entered the first day with my teeth wrapped in foil after a surgery a week or so beforehand.  I've had my lip cut and sewn twice.  But this was the family dentist of my childhood.  Could he not suggest braces when my dad had the Cadillac of insurance plans through General Motors?  Could he maybe have suggested it when I was a kid and everyone had braces?  Why now as an adult?  I've lived with what most people consider to be an ugly feature for 46 years. 

     "Tonya, we're gonna have to do surgery again.  We can close it so you don't have to deal with it, or you can come back for surgery," was my dentist's pitch in recommending his partner, the orthodontist.  The orthodontist was honest enough to say that he couldn't close it.  I'd need a bar inset behind the front teeth after the braces came off, and even that wasn't a guarantee that the gap would stay closed.  Given a choice between digging the equivalent of the Panama Canal behind my front teeth and inserting a piece of steel or a few weeks with a fat lip, I opted for surgery. 

http://www.northriverdental.com/gallery.asp
http://www.gap-toothed.com/

"Cool, Ton, I can teabag you.  It says so right here."  My then-husband held up the recovery instructions.  Apparently, there are enough tannins in a standard tea "sachet" to speed healing, and a steeped tea bag was recommended.  Sitting in the chair, juiced up on Novocain, cotton sticking out of my mouth, and the surgeon ready, all I could do was laugh.  "Right here?  I think the chair is too high."  The surgeon pulled down his mask and we spent the next 15 minutes composing ourselves. 

Fast forward six years.  During a routine cleaning, I asked the dentist about a small chip on my front tooth.  Hardly noticeable, but it catches on my lip.  So today when he asked if I considered closing the gap -- because of a chipped front tooth -- I rolled my eyes.  I told him the story, succinctly: Surgery, braces, a metal bar, not being able to floss.  He suggested resin composite veneers. 

"You mean Bondo." 


He laughed.  "Yes.  No.  Yes.  It's like this."  The tooth is chipped because my bite is changing, the front tooth hits the bottom tooth, and the gap is spreading.  It happens as we age.  Oy.  Braces would bring the teeth together and make the front teeth look too big.  By fixing the chip, at the same time the resin can be used to narrow the gap.  Treatment plan.  Done.  And it's covered by insurance.  The appointment is Oct. 19.