THE COOKBOOK TEST #0066: MY FIRST COOKBOOK
INSTALLMENT #0066 (FREE) A VERY SPECIAL INSTALLMENT WHEREIN THE AUTHOR OF THIS NEWSLETTER RECALLS HIS FIRST REAL COOKBOOK / BAGELS
Dear Readers,
Welcome to another Very Special Installment of THE COOKBOOK TEST. This week, we get around to an anecdote that I've been meaning to talk about since starting this newsletter, but have never quite managed to wedge into the text.
It's formative, it's crucial, it's a turning point of my life that I wasn't able to identify as such back at the time.
Yes, it also involves a cookbook.
I wasn't always confident in the kitchen. I've been writing a biographical email newsletter for family and friends for more than 30 years, and I am able to find exactly one reference to cooking before 2006.
Here it is, from Jan. 18, 1995:
My cooking skills are coming along hesitantly, but not disastrously. I've managed to cook some damn fine French toast, and my improvised garlic-pizza breadsticks were, well, edible anyway. Which is more than I expected.
Not exactly Jacques Pépin. And if memory serves, the French toast was at best "fine." The "damn" qualifier has no right to be there.
This is followed mere paragraphs later by my first ever product-specific food review, which is equally gourmet.
Product Review: Ramen-Brand "Cup Noodles" - 7 out of 10
How much would you pay for delicious hot noodly things, reconstituted vegetables, and salt, all in a steamy hot cup? Like 47 cents? Then you'll love "Cup Noodles," because they are just that. All you need to do is add hot water, and you've got yourself a delicious substitute for a real meal, as well as half of your day's sodium. Delicious! This is what the collegiate lifestyle is all about! I'm limiting myself to 2-3 of these things a week, a rare case of dietary concern overriding monetary frugalness.
Home cooking next comes up a decade later, when I celebrated finding a really good recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala that I've been making ever since.
So: What happened between me barely being able to make French toast and me confidently whipping up a (still delicious) chicken tikka masala at home?
It was just a little thing. You might have heard about it? It was called "9/11."
I was working as a news editor in Boston when the first plane hit.
It got some play on CNN right away, and I remember looking at the story and thinking, "Oh, weird, plane hit a skyscraper, hope it wasn't too serious." As I remember it, it wasn't immediately clear that we'd lost a whole jetliner full of people, and it sure as hell wasn't evident that we were halfway through a catastrophic attack on one of the most densely populated cities in America, plus the Pentagon.
Then the second plane hit, and literally everything changed. The Christian Science Monitor's newsroom was electrified with a nervously charged sense of purpose. Everybody jumped on the phone; phones that weren't already picked up began ringing until they were.
We started checking in with correspondents in Washington, in New York, in Jerusalem, in Cairo, in Beirut, in Moscow, and elsewhere to try to figure out what had happened, and why, and what was going to happen next.
More news unfolded in real time as we raced to keep up; outlandish rumors spread, which seemed redundant, as the truth was horrific enough.
That week was a blur - 12-14 hour workdays, piles of special projects, a new terrorism and extremism newsletter that I helped pitch and create, a lot of sadness over the loss of life and the new, dark, militaristic era that we were all preparing to enter.
My work weeks were Sunday through Thursday (in order to publish a paper Monday through Friday), so on Thursday night when I was finally home again, I figured I would watch the lightest, silliest, most relaxing movie I could think of: Ghostbusters.
Great film. Lots of fun. At the end, however, there is an extended sequence of New York City buildings being rocked and destroyed in a catastrophic event. When I got to that scene, I remember thinking: "Oh, shit, I picked the wrong movie."
I turned it off. Somehow, when I look back on my life at that point, this is when I turned to cooking and entertaining in a really serious, concerted way.
For my five plus years at the Monitor, I spent most of my time thinking and writing about terrorism (suicide bombings in Israel, 9/11), the invasion of Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq. The work was terrifically interesting and it felt important, but it was also draining. Sometimes I would see photos of suicide bombings and military actions that would never see publication - it's difficult to forget the details.
Violence blew people apart, literally (of course) and also figuratively, driving wedges between people, political factions, families, you name it.
Food was an antidote to the hate: it was warm, it was comforting, it was an excuse to bring together people who were kind and interesting and friendly and just hang out sharing an evening together.
At this point in my life, I found myself intensely craving dinner parties, and in order to have dinner parties, you need to have dinner.
I started cooking for real, and the first book I can remember really exploring was THE BEST RECIPE, a 700-recipe tome created by the editors of Cook's Illustrated. This was before Cook's Illustrated was so television-focused and before the (rather limited and specific) cult of Christopher Kimball.
THE BEST RECIPE
BY THE EDITORS OF COOK'S ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON COMMON PRESS | 1999 | $30
The allure of The Best Recipe was simple: smart people tested the recipes and all plausible variations within an inch of their lives in order to get really, really good versions that would work reliably.
And just like that, I had the confidence to cook. "These recipes," I thought, "won't let me down." And generally: they really didn't.
The beauty of The Best Recipe, and the reason I would still recommend it to any beginning home cook, is that the recipes are almost torturously over-documented. They appealed directly to my son-of-a-robotics-engineer logic-driven brain, a brain that craves procedure, order, and accurate documentation.
If you read the text of a Best Recipe from start to finish, not only will you understand what you're doing in terms of making your dish of choice, you'll understand the various techniques (sautéing, frying, dicing, whatever) that go into the recipe as well.
And if you cook from the book carefully enough and methodically enough, you can go from being a complete novice (as I was) to being reasonably comfortable in the kitchen (as I was when I finally left Boston for Minneapolis in 2006.)
What else do I remember from that era?
I remember my wonderful roommates (including a guy who I hope will be selected as the next head of the DNC) chipping in to get me an All Clad saucepan that I'm still using to this day.
I remember learning the hard way that if you have a dessert party and also feature dessert wine, you will have far, far more sugar on the table than anyone can reasonably handle.
I remember discovering that you can cannot put a glass pan - even one made by Pyrex - directly onto a high flame from gas burners, or it will explode like a roadside IED.
I remember constantly, and in contravention of the law, grilling out on our little wooden deck using a miniature Weber grill, entertaining groups ranging from a roommate or two to an entire throng of visitors.
I remember my roommate from Virginia spontaneously making and sharing drop biscuits for breakfast on a regular basis, and that he taught me how to make a perfect mint julep (a cocktail I make every summer to this day, with mint from the garden.)
This seems like an appropriate time to share a recipe from The Best Recipe. A few came to mind (roast turkey, chocolate chip cookies, a pretty good pan-seared scallop recipe that I trotted out when I had to impress people), but the one for bagels really feels formative.
I grew up eating bagels constantly, from Madison, Wisconsin's still-kickin' and still-quite good Bagels Forever. [1] When I got to Boston, I was somewhat stunned to find that good bagels were seemingly impossible to find.
As I remember it, you could get Finagle-a-Bagel (quite bad), Einstein's (extremely bad), or some local gourmet brand that I can't remember the name of (exterior tough as shoe leather, impossible to eat.) So if you wanted to have people over for brunch and eat bagels together, you could do what I did, and make bagels at home from The Best Recipe.
BAGELS
From The Best Recipe
4 cups high-gluten flour
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp barley malt syrup or powder
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water (80 degrees)
3 Tbsp cornmeal for dusting baking sheet
Mix flour, salt, and malt in bowl of standing mixer with dough hook. Add yeast and water, mix at lowest speed until dough looks scrappy, about 4 minutes. Increase speed to low and mix until dough is cohesive, smooth, and stiff, 8-10 minutes.
Turn dough onto work surface and divide into 8 portions. Roll pieces into smooth balls and cover with towel to rest for five minutes.
Form each dough ball into a 11-inch long rope by rolling it under your outstretched palms. Shape rope into circle, overlapping ends of rope by 1 1/2 inches. Pinch overlapped area firmly together, dampening slightly if it won't stick.
Place loop of dough around base of your fingers and with overlap under your palm, roll rope several times, applying firm pressure to seal seam.
Place bagels on cornmeal-dusted baking sheet, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
About 20 minutes from baking, remove dough rings from fridge. Heat oven to 450 F.
Fill large soup kettle with 3-inch depth of water and bring to rolling boil.
Working four at a time, drop dough rings into water, stir and submerge loops until slightly puffed, 30-40 seconds. Remove rings from water and drain on wire rack.
Transfer boil rings with rough side down to baking sheet lined with parchment paper, or baking stone. Bake until deep golden brown and crisp, 13-15 minutes.
Transfer to wire rack to cool.
THE BEST RECIPE
(***BUY IT*** / BORROW IT / SKIP IT / SCRAP IT)
Even today I'd recommend this book for a beginning home cook - it contains a multitude of reliable favorites, and it's guaranteed not to dash hopes by presenting fussy or downright faulty recipes. It's a library of contemporary American classics rendered professionally by experts for use by general home cooks.
[1] WRITER’S NOTE: To this day I order my bagels from Bagels Forever. You can get four dozen for about $40 (including shipping) and while they’re not hyper-gourmet, they’re absolutely solid, daily bread-style workmanlike bagels that will get you through the week. When I moved to New York City in 2004 I was worried that I would discover that my childhood bagels were a lie and a sham compared to the real deal, but no - they were decent. (My favorite bagels, though? Probably Terrace Bagels from Park Slope.)
I have this one!! Best banana bread, outstanding peanut butter cookies and all the basics when you need them
Look at that kid!