Food

Nancy Leson was so excited!  "I just came back from Goodwill with the definitive Chinese Cookbook!"   I recognized the title immediately.  I've been using that one since it hit the shelves in the '70s.

Recently, DeGroot and I shared a root beer float made with Tacoma's Ice Cream Social vanilla at the Crown Bar, right down the street.  We reflected on how simple and perfect a concoction that is. It got me thinking that some of the very best food preparations are the simplest.

When I mentioned this to Nancy Leson, she was quick to weigh in with some of her favorite simple preparations.

Kitchen queen Nancy Leson claims that size does matter.  She thinks my tried and true sheetpan, pictured above, is (sob)...  inadequate.  Sheetpan snobbery, I calls it.  She'd never even have known had it not been for...

It's kind of a grab bag on this week's Food for Thought. 

Among other things, Nancy Leson and I chat about leek scapes.  She loved the store-bought ones she grilled the other day.  I (cough, cough) grow my own, but intend to follow her example very soon.  We also discuss a time-saving tweak to that homemade pastrami recipe seen here a while back. 

And we do some general grousing about how all the used-to-be cheap cuts of meat are now pricier than a slushy in hell. 

Call me quotidian, but one my favorite sandwiches is just a plain old ham and cheese.  I used to prefer thinly sliced ham, but now I want it thick.  That's because my H&C is both hot and cold at the same time.

Though its population, at a mere three million or so is relatively small, the language of Wales uses up as much as 80 percent of the world's supply of consonants. The Welsh national symbol is the leek.  Fortunately they’ve left plenty of those for the rest of us.

On this week’s Food for Thought learn how to grow new leeks from old.

According to Kim Severson's New York Times story, it's a booming business: meal kits, delivered to your door — everything you need to make, say, heirloom potato and kale hash — or blood orange roasted salmon. 

Blue Apron is one of more than 100 companies delivering DIY dinners to the doors of thousands of Americans – neither Nancy Leson nor I among them.

Not only do we not subscribe to Blue Apron or its culinary compatriots, we don't even like the idea.

Editor's note: This segment originally aired April 28, 2010.

Spring has finally arrived here in the Pacific Northwest and the signs are everywhere — flowers are blooming, birds are singing and lawnmowers are buzzing.

But for Dick Stein, it’s the arrival of Yakima asparagus at the local grocery store that proves to be the surest sign that winter is behind us.

Those in the know say that in another ten years tipping in restaurants will be a thing of the past.  Many eateries in the Seattle area have already abolished the practice. 

My Food for Thought co-conspirator, Nancy Leson, tells us that "Tom Douglas' restaurants, Renee Erikson's restaurants, El Gaucho, some of the Daniel's Broiler restaurants" have all gone no-tipping.  "Here in Seattle, Ivar's was one of the first restaurants to go no-tipping," she said.

Abolishing restaurant tipping may seem an extreme idea, but it's just biz as usual in at least 20 other countries.

Nancy Leson brought me a bag of Nash's Organic triticale flour, "grown and milled on their farm," she told me "on the Olympic Peninsula."

Triticale was a word from the past, I told her.  As far as I knew, it was just 25th Century alien chow as in Star Trek's "The Trouble With Tribbles" episode.   Non-Trekkie Nancy drew a blank on that one.

Editor's note: This segment originally aired April 8, 2015.

I never liked fruit.  Wouldn't even eat fruit baby food.  Nancy Leson always hated calves liver.  We both reviled asparagus.  That was because we'd only had the canned kind, never fresh.  Paraphrasing Mark Twain I told Nancy the difference between fresh and canned asparagus was the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

"Food for Thought" has been pretty carnivorous lately, so I suggested to Nancy Leson that we talk tubers in this week's installment.  Turns out that the queen of spuds had just acquired a recipe for a baked potato dense enough to produce its own event horizon.

She got it from designer and fine artist David Owens Hastings, a student at the Chicken Pot Pie cooking class she taught recently at PCC.  Here's the roast chicken and bacon twice baked potatoes dinner he designed.  And yes, there is a vegetarian version.

Just a few Food for Thoughts ago in our Restaurant Round-up, Nancy Leson mentioned the cumin-chili ribs at Seattle's Stateside Restaurant.  They sounded so good that for a brief, madcap moment, I actually considered making the schlep north from the City of Destiny. 

But then, in a flash of ribbitty serendipity, I didn't have to.

I first heard the term "condimentia" from Nancy Leson in this week's  "Food for Thought."   Nancy meant it as having to do with condiments.  Just for fun, I checked and it turns out it has a few other meanings. 

Condimentia is defined by the Urban Dictionary as "A medical condition in which the elderly lose their sense of taste and overstock their condiments to enhance every food item they prepare."  Condimentia is also the title of the comedy short about "... a sane and loving husband and father until his craving for condiments got out of control, and eventually landed him in prison."

Leson here, holding the quill for Stein. Like me – and unlike the millions of Americans who celebrate Valentine's Day (or as Stein calls it, “National Emotional Extortion Day” ) by making reservations – we prefer to stay at home and cook.

When Nancy Leson told me the kind of seeds she'd sprinkled on the challah she baked, I immediately dropped a dime on her to the Bread Police.  Wounded she asked, "Was that really necessary, Stein?" But the simple fact is she left me no choice. 

Fennel seeds on challah, indeed!  Everyone knows the only legit topping is poppy seeds.  But fennel? And orange juice?  And orange zest.  Hmmm...actually sounds kind of good...

This week's "Food for Thought" opens with audio from a vintage Kitchen of the Future short ("Plastics in all their colorful, functional, and beautiful versatility!").  When I asked Nancy Leson if her microwave oven "rises from the counter" a la the clip she told me "No, it sits right on the counter as a shelf for clutter."

Nance says she mainly uses her microwave for pre-heating her coffee cup, popping popcorn, and as a place to hide pies.  But when she thought a little more about it she came up with several other ways to employ the magic of the magnetron.

In this week's "Food for Thought," Nancy Leson and I share a couple of recipes we love for shatteringly crisp chicken skin and neither calls for a deep fry.

Gluttonous minds must think alike.  I just discovered that independently and on the same day Nancy Leson and I had both jonse'd for Eggplant Parmigiana – or as she describes it "a big fat, fabulous layer cake of  eggplant, cheese, and homemade tomato sauce."  

Nancy Leson says it's "My new favorite cookbook.  I just got my hands on it a couple of weeks ago and I can't stop cooking out of it."  Nance adds that she'll be making some of its recipes for the rest of her life. 

That's such a strong recommendation that I'm considering actually shelling out my own money for a copy of  "Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking."   The Pink Lentil Soup with Lamb Meatballs alone looks  worth the price of admission.

Pastrami topped the list of our favorite recipes for 2015.  Who knew a regular person could make great pastrami at home?  And who would ever have expected a recipe for that iconic Jewish deli favorite to come by way of a Taiwanese=Canadian living in Beijing?  Well, it can — and it did.