THE COOKBOOK TEST #0016: COOKING WITH COLUMBO: SUPPERS WITH THE SHAMBLING SLEUTH
INSTALLMENT #0016 (PAID) / COLUMBO’S DUAL APPEAL / A BOOK THAT BUMBLES / ROSS MARTIN'S BEEF IN ANCHOVY CREAM
Dear Subscribers,
Those who know me also know that I've picked up a serious affinity for Columbo in recent years, pinned to the character's reappearance via the Peacock streaming service and reinvention via Natasha Lyonne's brilliant show Poker Face and the equally good (and more subtly Columbo-influenced) Kyra Sedgwick vehicle The Closer.
There are two, probably equally important, things about Columbo that you need to understand in order to crack its appeal. The first is the appeal of Peter Falk, the actor. He's incredibly funny (see his stellar performance in far-too-obscure 1979 film The In-Laws), but he plays it quietly. He's sly, he's self-aware, he's always a move ahead while looking as though he's two or three moves behind. In terms of raw magnetism and charisma, Falk is one of the heaviest hitters we've ever seen, while simultaneously being a goofy looking little dude who is never too proud to look like a fool.
The second is the appeal of Columbo the character, inextricably linked with Falk the actor but distinct from it. (See also: Natasha Lyonne's interpretation of the same basic archetype in Poker Face.) He projects a man who is disorganized, bumbling, uncultured, naive, unobservant, and ignorant, while being a keen listener, meticulously thoughtful, relentlessly logical, and capable of Trickster God-level subterfuge. His prey are almost entirely upper crust murderers who have all the resources (and arrogance) in the world, and are therefore easily taken in by an investigator who is so self-evidently non-threatening and unworthy of their time.
There's a big class thing going on with Columbo - he evens the score for the little guy, holding the big-shots to account. It's a fantasy, of course (in the actual justice system, there is very little institutional support for detectives who regularly ruin the lives of law-breaking millionaires and billionaires), but it's an appealing one, and the show's storytelling logic of hubris and hamartia is as old as storytelling itself. The murderer-of-the-week in Columbo is actually the protagonist, and we see the world through their eyes - the style of the show has accurately been described as a horror movie, wherein Lt. Columbo is the monster.
And what a goddamn delightful monster he is! More than that, he's a great lover of food and drink (drinking his way through some of the early episodes and definitely cooking and eating his way throughout the series), leaning on his Italian heritage for a way into the kitchen whenever the opportunity arises.
Thus: COOKING WITH COLUMBO: SUPPERS WITH THE SHAMBLING SLEUTH.
at your service,
James
COOKING WITH COLUMBO: SUPPERS WITH THE SHAMBLING SLEUTH
BY JENNY HAMMERTON
SELF-PUBLISHED | 2018 | $20.49
Were the topic anything other than Columbo, I might be irritated that Cooking With Columbo was a fan-written, self-published mess of a book studded with recipes that often have little to no connection to the show, instead leaning on a grab bag of dishes that are sourced to specific guest stars without much regard for the program or its themes. What does a recipe for Hoppin' John via a minor guest star in an episode about a kidnapping at a wedding have to do with murder and misdirection? How does Billy Connolly's Stuffed Trout connect with, well, anything beyond itself? And why are roughly 60% of the recipes for chicken? (The answer is that the author's main gig is the Silver Screen Suppers blog, which has given her a library of 7,000 celebrity-linked recipes to draw from to populate Cooking With Columbo. You'd think that would make for a diverse selection of recipes, but this book features several takes on chili and both Lieutenant Columbo's Veal Scallopini and Peter Falk's Veal Scallopini, without otherwise differentiating them.)
That said: I appreciate that a book about a shambolic, disorganized, poorly groomed sleuth is itself shambolic, disorganized, and poorly groomed, devoid of photographs and laid out primarily as a big text block interrupted once in a while by season headers and boldfaced type. I should add that "appreciate" in this context is more of a cosmic, "hah, that's fitting" kind of "appreciate," not a "gosh, I should use and recommend this cookbook" kind of "appreciate."
The text is a 50:25:25 split between meandering and literal episode recaps that are mostly just blow-by-blow replays of the authors's favorite bits from those episodes, celebrity-linked recipes that typically have nothing to do with any given episode besides that celebrity's appearance in it, and "one more thing" recaps that are equal parts fixes for broken parts of the barebones recipes and the author's reminiscences about everything from cooking for a Vincent Price expert to random comments from other food bloggers.
There are lots of recipes in Cooking With Columbo that are basic or obsolete, but my favorite in the book is New York Steak Dabney Coleman, pegged to "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star" which features Coleman as a legitimately criminal attorney. The entire recipe goes like this:
For this episode why not get yourself the fanciest steak you can afford - a New York Strip steak (also known as a Kansas City Strip steak) or if you are in the UK or Australia, a sirloin or porterhouse steak respectively. A frequent vistor to Dan Tana's says that the steak is served "very basic, no potatoes or anything, just seared with some salt/pepper and oil with a little fresh parsley and a small order of pasta."
There's your recipe, folks! Just get the fanciest steak you can afford and sear it and serve it with pasta! Voila!
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