We’re spending a few days with my dad in Saint Joseph, Michigan while we wait for our summer sublet to start on June 1; my mother is away on a trip with her siblings. My dad called the day we were supposed to go there and asked if there was anything he could pick up at the grocery store. I wanted to make something for dinner that would be no hassle, need no hard to find ingredients and no recipe. Pork chops were the thing, especially since we’ve committed to writing about pork once a month during the year of the pig. I asked him to get the kind with the t-bone down the middle. This is called the center cut or pork loin chop. You get loin on one side and tenderloin on the other. The trick is to cook it in a skillet with the tenderloin side facing out and the loin side towards the center, so the tenderloin doesn’t get overcooked.

I really like the combination of these pork chops with onions and red peppers. We usually skip a starch like rice or potatoes and just eat it with good bread. We’ll have a simple Spanish-style salad to start; just lettuce, tomato and salt doused with a little vinegar and oil and a sprinkle of salt.

The spices we use for this are what we call our house spices. Some red pepper flakes and oregano, a little salt and black pepper, chopped garlic. This is the combination that goes into anything we cook when there’s no other recipe. We use it with chicken, vegetables, pork, pasta sauce, lentils, beans, anything at all. Do you have a combination like this that you always turn to when cooking without a recipe?

Pork chops with peppers and onions

For pork chops

• 2 bone-in pork chops, 1″ thick
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 t oregano
• 1/4 t red pepper flakes (more if you like it spicy)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For peppers and onions

• 2 red peppers, stem removed and discarded, seeded and sliced into strips
• 1 large sweet onion, peeled, cut in half and sliced into half moons
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed and chopped
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 t oregano
• 1/4 t red pepper flakes (more if you like it spicy)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat oil for pork chops on high heat in a large enough skillet that the chops won’t touch each other. Heat oil for peppers and onions on high heat in a skillet large enough that they all fit in a single layer. Place pork chops in their skillet and sprinkle oregano, red pepper flakes and a little salt and pepper. Place onions and peppers in their skillet all in a single layer; lay the onions on the cut side and the peppers skin side down, don’t move them very much. Sprinkle oregano, red pepper flakes and a little salt and pepper. After 2-3 minutes, turn heat down to medium high. After 5 minutes, turn pork chops. Then stir peppers and onions and add the garlic and turn heat to low under both skillets. Stir the peppers and onions from time to time and turn heat off if they start to get too dark. Cook for another 6-8 minutes or until pork chops are cooked just so that there’s a little pink still near the bone. Turn heat off and let pork chops sit for about ten minutes before serving.

Serves 2 or 3 people

We’re on the way out of the house we’ve just sold. For those of you who’ve expressed some concern, I might have a short hiatus here, but I’ll probably be posting again by next week. I hope you stick around. No recipes today, just a couple of pictures. First, the shrimp cocktail and Pommery champagne we had after we signed the contract for the house and a few from the move.

We’re just about finished packing up the rented truck. We had to get the largest one possible to hold all of our stuff. What is in all of those boxes? Why do we have dishware for 48? Do we really need all of those books? At this point, we’re hoping we won’t fill the truck over the weight limit.

Our friend Heather claims that it’s a tradition to leave limoncello in your freezer and that just about every place she’s ever lived has had some in it when she arrived. She’s spent quite a bit of time in Louisiana and other southern parts, so maybe this is a tradition we don’t know about in the north? We’re leaving the limoncello anyway.

It’s hard to go, but I’ll look forward and not back once we get out of town. Remember Lot’s wife?

If you’ve been here in the last couple of weeks, you know that my girlfriend Christine gave me the best walnut oil I’ve ever tasted and we had a couple of delicious meals with it before our bread box got jealous and smashed the bottle onto the floor. Once I was over the initial distress, I had several thoughts. First, such a generous thing for her to have shared this oil with me; drat that I spoiled it. Next, pleasure is necessarily ephemeral, happy making because it does not last. Then, all of those carpe diem poems I read with my students this semester, those guys were on to something. When Christine called me and offered to have us over for dinner, my first thought was oh no, we don’t have time for this. The semester is wrapping up, we are finishing selling our house and packing. I talked it over with Erik, we really weren’t sure we had the time. I think it took me longer to answer the invitation than it should have. Finally, we said to each other, what the heck.

When we arrived at their house, I was instantly so happy we had decided to go. We had a simple relaxed dinner with Christine and her husband Rob and their two smart and charming children, Adam and Roxanne. We had a simple ap?ritif of sparkling ros? with nuts, cheese and shiny black and green olives. Then we had a salad of sliced tomatoes and another of sliced cucumber made with vinegar and hazelnut oil from the same oil producer as the walnut oil (every bit as good and if you’re a hazelnut lover, you’d swoon) and a couple of kinds of quiche. We washed all of this down with a nice little red wine. To end it, there was a light, cool fruit salad with whipped cream on the side and some prosecco. All of this al fresco on their terrace overlooking the Catskills. At the end of the night, Christine took out a plastic bottle and poured in some of the lovely walnut oil for us to take home. I couldn’t believe such generosity. Thanks Christine!

When I started writing about our experiences with food and cooking, I wanted to share recipes, techniques, tools and sources. I wasn’t at all expecting anything in return. Other than the walnut oil, I’ve won several contests and received lovely packages from Mimi (I especially loved the cherry and blueberry butters), Luisa (I was the recipient of the goodie bag of freebies that she had picked up at the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference), Ariela (she sent me this book) and the people at Serious Eats (they sent me this book). I’ve also made some wonderful, sometimes surprising connections. Clotilde’s dad wrote me after I left a long comment at Chocolate & Zucchini in which I translated a short story Clotilde had written in French. That’s right, Clotilde’s dad wrote to thank me. By the way, Clotilde is on her book tour right now and her book, Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen, is now available. Last week, Chip, over at cookthink noticed my walnut oil woes and added his own pie in the sky story here. Just yesterday, my sister wrote and asked if I’d put a recipe up for her, because she’s tried a few versions and wants my take on it. I’ll get to it soon, I promise babe. I’ve always believed in the power of food to connect people, but never imagined these connections could be formed in this venue.

In between packing, cleaning and final errands, we’re trying to enjoy the last few meals we’ll have in this house and use up the last of the food in our refrigerator and freezer. For lunch today, we had another salad using the walnut oil. For this, it’s best if you use cold mustard, it helps to get the vinaigrette well emulsified. You’ll see that I recommend using less vinegar than is normal for a vinaigrette, that’s because I want the flavor of the oil to stand out. It’s also better if you use the small French green beans, haricots verts, but I find them to be far too expensive and not always easy to find. Instead of shelling out big money, I buy the petite green beans in the freezer section at the grocery store. Once you defrost them, they are ready to use. If you want to eat this as a light lunch or dinner, you can serve it with cold roast chicken or add goat cheese or foie gras. We had it with homemade bread and a little more walnut oil poured onto a little plate and flecked with flor de sal, the Portuguese version of fleur de sel.

I’ll be packing up our kitchen today. I’ll not be doing much cooking after that and even less writing about it. Next week, we’ll be in a new place, just for the summer, cooking and eating with friends and family. In the Fall, we’ll move into more permanent digs; a good kitchen space will be high on the list of must haves.
This is a much needed change for us and I look forward to it, but I’m going to miss the friends we’re leaving here. I’ll try to keep you all updated. Au revoir.

Green bean salad with walnut oil: salade de haricots verts ? l’huile de noix

• 1 T French mustard
• 1 T red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3-4 T walnut oil
• 1 lb. petite green beans, defrosted or fresh haricots verts, stemmed, blanched and plunged in ice water
• 1 small shallot, minced

In a large bowl, whisk together mustard and vinegar. Add a pinch of salt and a little pepper. Slowly pour in oil little by little and whisk vigorously until thickened and lighter in color. Mix in shallot. Add green beans to the bowl and toss to coat them in vinaigrette. Serve on a platter or individual plates as a first course with some crusty bread.

Wine suggestion: a light red wine, slightly chilled; a Saumur or Chinon would be perfect.

I tasted the tortilla made by my friend Ana, who is from Madrid, and blurted out, “Can you teach me how you make this?” That’s when the trouble started. You see, Erik makes tortilla. It’s one of the things he is always willing to throw together when there’s nothing else to eat. Erik’s tortilla is really good. But there was something about Ana’s version, it had that added something in flavor and texture that made me want to reach for more and more. I could’ve eaten the whole thing. What subtle differences make something go from good to great? How can eggs, potatoes, onion, salt and olive oil be this addictive? I knew going into this that I would be risking marital strife, but the culinary curiosity got the better of me. I needed to figure out how Ana’s method differed from Erik’s.

If you’ve ever been to Spain, you were undoubtedly hooked on the ubiquitous tortilla de patata, or tortilla espa?ola. It’s not at all the same thing as the soft flour and corn tortillas of Central America. This is like an omelet or what they call in Italian a frittata, though Erik hates it when I say that and he’s right, because it’s the subtle differences in preparation that make for completely different dishes, and that’s exactly where I’m going with this one. For the record, a frittata can have cheese and can go in the oven for part of its cooking, not the tortilla. Tortilla is one of the simplest dishes; it’s cheap and filling and has endless variations. You know what they call it when it’s made with just egg and nothing else, nada mas? A tortilla made with only egg is called a tortilla franc?s. The crappy version is labeled “French.” This is true of other expressions in Spanish, I’ll leave them to your imagination.

I haven’t been to a lot of people’s homes in Spain, but I’ve tasted this enough in restaurants and bars to have noticed a few things. Some are over-cooked and some are under-cooked. We’d rather have the latter. Some are too greasy and some are too bland. Differences in personal preference and quality aside, there are two major categories. First, the kind you get in a bar when you order a beer and they bring you a couple of squares of it in a little stainless steel dish with a couple of toothpicks sticking up. It’s solid, but soft. It’s about an inch to an inch and a half thick. The potato feels sticky in your mouth and you might see large pieces of onion. The color is more brown than yellow and the potatoes are sometimes tinged with a little gray, but you forgive them. Sometimes you pick up your piece with the toothpick and the top half comes apart from the bottom, but that’s ok, because you wanted two bites anyway. The other kind is a bright sunny yellow, it’s thinner, the potatoes are sliced more thinly. It’s usually cooked a little more. The onion is there, but it’s more shy, you don’t see it. This is the tortilla they make when you order it as a bocadillo, a sandwich, and it comes on thick pieces of sliced rustic white bread or baguette. I realized that Erik makes the second version, while Ana’s is more like the first. How exactly do you use the same ingredients and come up with two different things?

Finally, the other night, when we were invited to Ana and Hamilton’s house for the best take-out ever, we were also treated to a tortilla demonstration. Ana cut the potatoes and onions up just like Erik. She fried them in bubbling oil, just like Erik. She poured the fried potatoes and onions into a colander to drain the oil. Whoa, wait a second, she just poured all that olive oil right down the drain? Erik does the straining thing, but he does it over a bowl and saves the oil for another batch or for cooking something else - onion flavored olive oil is great for a spaghetti sauce and the tomatoes don’t care that they’re getting not so extra virgin anymore olive oil. So, we saw the first difference, but this wasn’t going to affect flavor at all. Next, she put a little olive oil in the skillet. Check. A non-stick eight inch skillet with high sides. She mixed five eggs with about 1 and 1/2 cups potato and onion mixture and poured it into the hot pan and turned down the heat. Bingo. Three things different. Erik uses a much bigger pan and a slightly lower ratio of potato to egg and he might cook it at a slightly higher temperature. Wow, that was it? The only thing we need to do is buy a smaller pan, use fewer eggs and turn the heat down a little? An added bonus? This will likely lead to less spilled egg. And no more strife?

Tortilla de patata or tortilla espa?ola

• 2 small Yukon gold potatoes, peeled, cut in half and sliced about 1/8″ thick into half moons
• 1 small onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 5 eggs, cracked into a bowl and stirred with a fork or whisked to combine
• 1 pinch salt

Heat oil in a large skillet and put in potatoes and onion once the oil is hot. Let potatoes and onion fry over medium high heat for about 7-9 minutes, turning and moving them about so that they get some brown spots, but don’t burn. Turn heat down if they get dark too quickly. Strain potatoes and onions in a colander set over a bowl to catch the oil. Heat an 8 inch non-stick skillet over high heat and add one tablespoon of the oil from frying to the pan. Place about 1 and 1/2 cups potatoes and onions (a little more or less won’t hurt) and a pinch of salt into the bowl with the eggs, stir them around to coat them with egg and pour the mixture into the skillet. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to move the eggs about a little and make sure none of the potatoes are sticking to the bottom. After one minute, turn heat down to medium low and cook for about 7-8 minutes, or until the eggs are set around the edges and the whole thing slips around easily in the pan. If they aren’t unstuck from the bottom at this point, nudge a spatula or knife underneath it. Place a plate larger than the pan over top and invert the skillet so the tortilla slides onto the plate. Slip the tortilla back into the skillet upside down, so the cooked part is on top and the uncooked part is on the bottom. Use your knife or spatula to neaten up the sides and push any uncooked egg underneath towards the middle. Cook for another 5 minutes or so, just until the eggs are mostly set but still soft in the middle. Don’t overcook it. Sprinkle with a little salt. Slice into wedges and serve with salad as a meal, or cut into squares and serve with toothpicks and cocktails.

A tip from Ana: If you undercook your tortilla, you can put the whole thing in the microwave for just a few seconds to firm up the middle. This works because the microwave cooks from the inside out. Also you can undercook the tortilla a little if you want to serve it later and then use the microwave to reheat and finish cooking at the same time. I won’t tell if you won’t tell.

Yesterday, we had a last minute dinner invitation. We have a friend who is a corporate pilot. She had to fly to New Orleans and while she was there waiting for Mr. Big Wig to finish his meeting or engagement or whatever, she got food from a local place.

Gumbo, rice and beans, andouille sausage.

A very large number of what my mother calls crawdads. Otherwise known as crayfish, crawfish, yabbies, mudbugs.

This is no local food, but man, we were happy to do our part to contribute to the New Orleans recovery effort.

I received a message a week or so ago from our French club president, Katie, who is graduating this year and moving to France. She wanted to organize a party and invite all the students and faculty in the French program to celebrate the end of the year and the end of this phase of life for her and her classmates. She decided on a potluck. In her message she asked if we would make something French inspired and then she wrote:

“If you are planning on coming, just e-mail me and tell me what you are bringing.”

I replied:

“I’m bringing the other professor E. with me, I hope that’s alright. I’m also bringing pissaladi?re. I’ve been telling you in our literature class all semester to look at a word and figure out what verb it is related to. This one is an exception ;). Pissaladi?re is made in the south of France. It’s like pizza but without the cheese; I thought that it would be good for the non-animal eating people. I’m going to try and make some sort of dessert as well, but I’m not sure what yet. Clafoutis, g?teau au yaourt, tarte aux pommes, tarte au citron?”

Like I said, pissaladi?re is like pizza without the cheese. The word comes from pissalat or pissala - originally peis salat or peis sala - meaning salted fish in proven?al. Traditionally, the dough was spread with a pur?e of anchovies or a combination of anchovies and sardines. If you buy it in Nice nowadays, it doesn’t have the pissalat layer, but instead will most often have a layer of caramelized onions and a harlequin pattern of anchovies dotted at intervals with black olives. There is sometimes a little cheese, but only a sprinkling. Some versions are cooked more like a pie and can even be made with pie dough or puff pastry, but these are sacrilege. The toppings and variations are endless. Because some of my students are vegan, I made one with caramelized onions and swapped the anchovies for roasted red pepper strips and I used the wrinkly oil cured olives. For the other, I used thinly sliced tomato, chopped garlic, the same olives and bits of anchovy. I finished them both with a generous dusting of herbes de Provence and a slather of olive oil.

The other professor E. (aka the husband) had decided to stay home, too much work to do he said, but as he saw me packing up the food I was bringing, he hopped in the car and came along. So predictable.

Pissaladi?re

For dough

• 1 t active dry yeast
• 1 t sugar
• 1 cup warm water
• 3 cups flour
• 2 t olive oil, divided
• 1 t salt

For toppings

• 2 lbs onions
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 red peppers, roasted, seeded, skin removed
• OR
• 2 cans anchovies
• 16 oil cured olives, pitted and halved
• 1 T herbes de Provence
• Olive oil

One day ahead of time, put yeast, sugar and water in a bowl large enough to hold all of the dough ingredients (or in the bowl of a stand mixer). Let sit for about ten minutes until the mixture is foamy. Add in flour, 1 teaspoon oil and salt and stir until dough forms a ball (if using stand mixer, mix with dough hook). Turn dough out onto a clean dry surface dusted with flour and knead for about 5 minutes. Place dough in a bowl with remaining teaspoon olive oil and turn dough to coat. Cover bowl with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Wait for an hour or until dough is about doubled in size. Punch down the dough, reform it into a ball and place it in the towel or plastic covered bowl in the refrigerator overnight. The dough may be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days or frozen and defrosted before proceeding to the next steps.

Peel and thinly slice onions into half rounds. Cook them with 1 teaspoon olive oil over medium low heat for about two hours. Stir occasionally and add water if they start to stick or get too brown. Add the garlic during the last 20 minutes or so. Let cool before using (may be done 1-3 days ahead and can also be frozen). Preheat oven to highest temperature possible (mine claims to go to 550 degrees). Put about 1 tablespoon olive oil in a rimmed baking sheet and stretch pizza dough to fit (if it’s fighting with you, cover it, let it rest and try a second time). Spread a thin layer of caramelized onion over dough, decorate with pepper strips or anchovies and dot with halved olives. Sprinkle on herbes de Provence and drizzle a little olive oil over everything, brushing some on the exposed edges. Cover with a towel and let rise about 20 minutes. Cook in pre-heated oven for about 10 minutes, or just until the edges start to brown. Let rest at least 10 minutes before cutting. May be served hot or at room temperature.

There is at least one person reading this site on a regular basis who I actually know in the flesh. Christine, a former colleague, is a fellow food and word obsessed bilingual smartass. Une ?me soeur, a sister soul, as they say in French. She recently came for dinner and instead of the obligatory bottle of wine, she brought us a size huge bottle of walnut oil, a liter of the stuff. This is not just any walnut oil; it’s the oil she brings back from visits home in France. Huile de noix from L’huilerie L?pine in Availles en Ch?tellerault, in the Poitou-Charentes region. She must lug back bottles and bottles of the stuff, otherwise I can’t imagine her so generously parting with even an ounce of it.

This oil is a little cloudy and darker than most walnut oils I’ve seen. I’m at a loss to describe how superior it is. It’s richer. It’s bigger. It’s utterly addictive. Olive oil, watch out, I know we’ve been seeing each other for a long time, but I think this fling with the walnut oil might turn into something more serious. We’ve been using it for vinaigrettes, drizzling it on green beans and asparagus and simply pouring it onto a plate, sprinkling on some salt and sopping it up with bread. It’s crazy good. So happy making, I almost forgot to tell you all about it. Until I made a very good thing and then something happened and I just can’t keep it in.

Yesterday, I made some brown rice and some lentils and let them cool. I made a simple vinaigrette with this oil, sherry vinegar and French mustard. The lentils and rice mixed with the vinaigrette needed some tang, some crunch and some color. I really like the combination of walnuts and blue cheese, so I doubled the walnut factor by toasting some walnuts and I crumbled up some blue cheese. For color and a little flavor, I used some scallions. I think shallot would have been good, too, but without the green the salad would have looked boring. A little chopped apple might also be good.

I was feeling all happy and far too pleased with myself about making such splendor to show you all and wanting to tell you how great this is and how you can take it to picnics this summer and everyone will love you for feeding them gorgeous, luscious, healthy food. Then came the plans for all the other things I could make with this king of oils: walnut bread, pasta with walnut oil and ricotta, walnut oil ice cream, walnut cookies. Then, the lid from my bread box wasn’t properly latched. It fell open and knocked that bottle of walnut oil from the kitchen counter and smashed it to smithereens. A deluge of glass flecked walnut oil surged across the tiles of the kitchen floor. Oh. My. God. Christine, I’m sorry. Sorry that you brought me the perfect thing, hauled all the way back from France and shared so generously and gone in an instant. I have no more words for this awfulness. This is what went through my head during clean-up:

Jean de la Fontaine, Fables, livre VII, 10 [see here for a version in English]

Lentils and brown rice with walnut oil vinaigrette

• 2 cups lentils, cooked in 4 cups salted water for 30 minutes or until tender; drained and chilled
• 1 cup brown rice, cooked in 2 1/4 cups salted water for 45 minutes or until done; chilled
• 1 T strong French mustard
• 2 T sherry vinegar
• 1/3 cup walnut oil
• 4 scallions, sliced
• 4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
• 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mix lentils and brown rice in a large salad bowl using a fork to fluff the rice and break up any clumps. In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar and mustard and add a pinch of salt and some pepper. Slowly add the oil in a stream, whisking to emulsify. Pour the vinaigrette over the lentil mixture and stir. Add in half of the scallions, blue cheese and walnuts and stir gently to combine. Taste and add more salt and pepper if desired. Top with the remaining scallions, blue cheese and walnuts in a line down the center of the salad. Flavor may be improved when salted at the last minute with fresh tears.