Lunchboxes

T. wakes us up at 5:30 or so each morning, and I take her to camp at her school at 9. Which leaves me approximately three and a half hours to have a cup of coffee, cook her an egg for breakfast, and pack her lunch and morning snack. Not for us the rushing-around-the-kitchen-guzzling-a-smoothie-and-dashing-out-the-door-with-a-cereal-bar we're told is the typical American-family morning. (Although most days I'd prefer the extra sleep, thank you.) I've been taking pictures of some of the lunches I've packed for her, if only to keep myself thinking of fun things to include. Up top are a few of them so far. You can check out the Flickr set here for details about what's in these lunches. Nothing fancy, for the most part, and she's liked pretty much everything I've sent with her (carrots tend to come back home).

The main box is an air-tight .9-quart clip-lid box from the Container Store, which has a convenient moveable divider. It's much better than the other, cheapo bento boxes I've used: the lid is easy to open and close, but it stays sealed and secure. The two little 4-ounce rectangular boxes are also from the Container Store. The lunch bag, seen in the bottom-right corner, is a bento carrier from Laptop Lunchbox; I found out after I ordered this that the cheaper but perfectly fine insulated lunch bags at the grocery store are kept in the cocktail mixers section. I think all of these elements work very well together, and just looking at them empty each morning is often enough inspiration to start coming up with ideas for filling them.

Stay tuned for a post about making piima cultured butter, which is, along with chat, my latest mini-obsession.

Chat

With apologies for the horrible picture above—I've found it very difficult to take a good picture of a chat. Anyway, continuing with the room-temperature theme . . .

This is a chat/chaat, an Indian snack, in this case probably what would be called something like sev puri/poori, although I have to admit I have a mind block when it comes to the names of different chats and what goes into and on top of each. I was trying to make a dish like the sev puri chat I had at Bombay Chaat House, the street cart in Portland, a couple months ago. It wasn't quite the same—that one was soupier—but I think what I came up with was pretty good. Here's what I did, and if anyone has any other good chat recipes lay 'em on me!

For the crunchy stuff on top I used "bikaneri sev" (so it was labeled), made with lentil and chickpea flours and spices. You can find this in Indian grocery stores (at Taj Mahal here in Athens it's in a green bag in the snack aisle), or you could use any similar crunchy puffy snack. I've even used lightly crushed corn Chex—the flavor is different, of course, but the crisp crunch is just right.

I can now report that this makes a fine breakfast, especially if you put a little more super-spicy mint chutney on it, though obviously the sev doesn't stay quite as fresh after a night in the fridge (or—oops—on the counter).

Random Chat
Serves 2 heartily.

These amounts are pretty approximate. I was tasting and adding stuff as I went along, and I encourage you to do the same! The whole thing should be tart, a tiny bit sweet (just from the dates and onion), spicy, a little creamy, and of course crunchy.

About 4 medium red potatoes, peeled and diced
Salt
1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas
About 14 pitted dates
2 tablespoons tamarind concentrate
2 teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
About 1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
Mint chutney (I used store-bought, but you could chop and puree a bunch of cilantro, mint, green chiles, ginger, maybe some lime juice and a bit of water)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 sweet onion, diced
About 1 cup bikaneri sev or similar crunchy stuff

Cook the potatoes in well-salted water to cover until just tender; drain in a colander, dump in the chickpeas, and rinse under cold running water until cool; set aside to drain.

While the potatoes are cooking, roughly chop the dates and put them in a small saucepan with the tamarind concentrate and enough water to cover them. Simmer until the dates are very soft (about as long as it takes the potatoes to cook), then puree the date mixture in a mini food processor or blender until very smooth, adding water if necessary to make a thick but pourable sauce. Season with a couple pinches of salt.

Put the potatoes and chickpeas in a medium bowl and drizzle in half of the tamarind sauce. Add most of the paprika and cumin, along with 1/2 cup of the yogurt. Toss to combine. Fold in a little water to loosen the mixture if it seems too thick. Put in a serving dish or spread on a shallow platter. Put big spoonfuls of yogurt on top, then drizzle the whole thing with the remaining tamarind sauce. Spoon some of the mint chutney over the top. Layer the onion and cilantro over the top, then sprinkle with the remaining paprika and cumin. Cover the whole thing with the sev and serve.

Thai Beef Salad and Raw Yu Choy

It's not even that hot here in Georgia yet, and I keep making salads. This week I made two variations on the theme of grape tomato + cucumber + protein (of sorts). One was a kind of larb, which is one of my favorite foods ever:

Thai Beef Salad
Serves 2 to 4.

We had this with a plate of raw Chinese greens (yu choy, I think it was called) covered with crushed ice, like D. and I had at Pok Pok, where they served them with the boar collar meat salad. Before that I'd never thought to eat this stuff raw, but it's delicious! Crisp, cold, and very refreshing alongside the spicy, super-tangy salad. T. liked putting a few pinches of ice in a leaf and eating it like an ice-and-greens taco.

This is the best way I can think of to use up leftover grilled steak, but it's well worth cooking the steak just for this purpose.

Juice of 3 limes
1/4 cup Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
1 teaspoon sambal oelek (chile paste), or lots more to taste
1 teaspoon brown sugar or palm sugar
About 3/4 pound flank steak, grilled or boiled, then thinly sliced across the grain (or any leftover steak)
2 small shallots, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon raw rice
1/2 cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and sliced 1/4 inch thick
Handfuls of fresh cilantro, Thai basil, and mint, torn
1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes, halved

In a large bowl, whisk together the lime juice, fish sauce, sambal oelek, and brown sugar. Add the steak and shallots and toss to coat. Set aside.

In a small skillet over medium heat, toast the rice until golden brown. Grind finely with a mortar and pestle and add the rice to the steak, along with all the remaining ingredients. Toss to combine, taste, and add more sambal if necessary. Serve or let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes to marinate before serving.

I also made a nice cold quinoa salad very loosely based on a recipe in Tal Ronnen's The Conscious Cook, a collection of pretty upscale vegan dishes. So loosely, in fact, that a description of it will have to do here: cooked and chilled quinoa, tossed with a quick red wine vinaigrette, a segmented orange (and its juice), tomatoes and cucumber, and thinly sliced shallot:

Turkey Picadillo Tacos and Black Beans

This is a pretty simplified version of a Rick Bayless recipe for smoky, slightly sweet picadillo I've made and loved many times. Among other adaptations, I use ground turkey instead of braised and shredded pork, canned tomatoes instead of fresh, and I don't precook the sauce. Also below is a stripped-down pot of basic black beans—no soaking, no pork, no epazote, so don't let the lack of time or extra ingredients stop you from making them!

Turkey Picadillo Tacos
Serves 4.

1 (14.5-ounce) can whole plum tomatoes
1 to 2 chipotle chiles in adobo (2 will make it pretty spicy)
1/4 cup raisins
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey
1/2 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt
1/4 cup pine nuts or slivered almonds, toasted
Corn tortillas
Lots of fresh cilantro, some crumbly cheese (this time I used feta), and lime wedges

In a mini food processor or similar, puree the tomatoes (with their juices) and chipotle(s). Transfer to a bowl and add the raisins and cinnamon. Set the sauce aside.

In a medium skillet or sauté pan, heat the oil over high heat. Add the turkey and cook, breaking it up with a spatula, until no longer pink. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until tender and the turkey is just starting to brown and become dry in the pan. Add the sauce, stirring to loosen any browned bits, and lower the heat to maintain a simmer. Simmer until thick, about 10 minutes. Season with salt to taste, then stir in the pine nuts.

Meanwhile, heat the tortillas one or two at a time in a heavy skillet and wrap them in a clean cloth to keep them soft and warm. Serve the picadillo with the tortillas, cilantro, cheese, and lime wedges.

Basic Black Beans
Serves 8.

1 pound dried black beans (the more recently bought the better; old beans will take much longer to cook)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 large onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt

Rinse the beans well and set aside to drain in a sieve or colander.

In a medium pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until translucent. Add the beans and cold water to cover them by at least 1 inch. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the beans are soft but still hold their shape (try not to let the pot boil, which I think can toughen the skins, and don't add salt yet), about 1 1/2 hours, adding more water if necessary to keep the beans covered. Season with plenty of salt, then, if you'd like, use an immersion blender to puree some of the beans in the pot. Serve.

Also, T. and I made some hula hoops. Yep, we're Athenians.

Dark and Rainy Day Salad

Despite D.'s ribbing about how long it was taking us to make this, T. and I enjoyed a lovely simple spring salad for lunch today. These are eggs from Clare's chickens (we left our hens with the old house's new owner in Carlton), and tender, sweet lettuce from her garden, all of it so generously delivered straight to our doorstep. So basically this is a salad from Clare. Thank you!

While the eggs were taking an eternity to medium-soft-cook, we made your basic vinaigrette: rubbed the bowl with cut garlic, then whisked minced shallot, Dijon mustard, sherry vinegar, and salt and pepper; drizzled in olive oil, whisking. Added some slivers of chewy sun-dried tomatoes (no lardons here, sorry to say, but these added a similar texture) to soak up a bit of dressing. Then at the last minute—at last!—we tossed in the lettuces, peeled and quartered the eggs, and flaked some canned tuna over the top (this was albacore in water, but you know what would've been much better is light in olive oil—salty and delicious, and not at all resembling cardboard). More black pepper, and an extra drizzle of tangy dressing.

Quick Huevos Rancheros

This is hardly worthy of the first post on this blog in months, but a friend and I were talking recently about how sometimes one just forgets how to make easy, quick meals that don't require any thought or effort. So in case I forget again, self: huevos rancheros is a perfectly delicious supper, even if you have to use canned beans and store-bought tortillas, and if you have no other plans for tonight you should make it. It'll take about ten minutes.

Huevos Rancheros

Put two skillets over high heat, and a small saucepan over medium heat. Open a can of black beans and dump them in the saucepan to heat up. Put a few tortillas in one skillet, and heat a little olive oil in the other. Flip the tortillas. Crack a few eggs into the oil and season them with salt and pepper; lower the heat to low and cook until they're as done as you want them (flip if desired—my daughter won't allow any flipping, as she insists they be runny sunny side up).

Chop up a tomato and a couple scallions and a handful of cilantro, put them in a bowl, and squeeze in some lime juice. Season with salt.

Stir the beans and put a tortilla on each serving plate. Season the beans, if necessary, then spoon them over the tortillas. Top each with an egg, then some of the salsa. Flick some of the onions and adobo sauce from a jar of chipotle chiles over the top of everything and serve with lime wedges.

In other news, we moved! A few weeks ago, we packed up and left our beautiful old nineteenth-century farmhouse half an hour outside town and brought ourselves to Athens proper. We couldn't be happier in the super-efficient, smartly designed 1958-built little ranch house we're renting in a shady old subdivision right smack in town. T. and I walk to and from her school most days, or, often, ride our bike (she has a little half-bike that hooks onto the back of mine). We bike to the grocery store. D.'s drive to work takes about five minutes. And our yard, though lacking in quirky double-seater outhouses, shotgun shells, and old broken bottles and such, has a mulberry tree as well as the perfect spot for a hammock, the hanging of which was of course the first thing I did when we arrived here. Town life is being very good to us.

Roasted Cauliflower Macaroni and Cheese with Caraway Havarti

The day after I confessed to a friend that I'd never myself made a good macaroni and cheese I got a request to develop a recipe for same for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board's new blog devoted to what has to be their biggest moneymaking dish. I tried to ignore it, but the challenge was too appealing. I love macaroni and cheese.

My M&C roots do not run deep. I can't remember my mom ever making it, though she says she did, and that she used to put green bell peppers in it—which might very well explain why I've blocked it out. My own efforts have all occurred in the last two or three years as I've tried to make it for my daughter, who had it somewhere outside the home and now asks for it every week (not that I make it for her that often).

I've never used a recipe, simply because I feel it should be such an easy dish to throw together, and as a result every pan of it I've made—I say "pan" because macaroni and cheese to my mind means baked—has suffered from (at least) two problems, both of which should have been a cinch to fix: not enough cheese, and not enough salt. Somehow I just never got it right. For this post I could, of course, have just gone with a classic no-white-sauce, extra-cheesy version similar to Julia Moskin's Creamy Macaroni and Cheese (1 pound cheese to 1/2 pound macaroni, plus pureed cottage cheese!), which actually looks similar to the surprisingly good stuff I very occasionally break down and get premade from the Ingles in Elberton (I know!). But that would satisfy only two of the people in my family.

You see, my husband despises macaroni and cheese (especially when it's referred to as "mac 'n [sic] cheese") Traditional macaroni and cheese is not comforting to him, it's bland. Its texture is not bouncy, it's soggy and unpleasant. So I set out to come up with a way to make a macaroni and cheese that would appeal to him as well as to my three-year-old and me. This is what I came up with. He loved it, and deemed it "award-winning." (No awards were involved; I did, however, receive a small "cheese stipend" for developing this recipe for the WMMB event—cheese stipend!) I hope you like it too.

Roasted Cauliflower Macaroni and Cheese with Caraway Havarti

Havarti with caraway seeds is one of my favorite basic snacking cheeses, but I'd never thought to actually cook with it before. Turns out it's a stellar melter, and its slight sharpness, along with the nutty caraway, are just wonderful in this context. The slabs of roasted cauliflower at the bottom of the casserole give the dish a welcome meaty texture: put this macaroni and cheese at the center of the plate, next to some sweet baby peas or a simple bitter greens and parsley salad, and pour plenty of red wine.

Serves 8

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 head cauliflower

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 pound elbow macaroni

6 tablespoons butter

1 small onion, finely diced

4 tablespoons flour

3 cups milk

Pinch of cayenne

1 pound Wisconsin Havarti Cheese with Caraway, or plain havarti plus 2 teaspoons caraway

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Drizzle half of the oil all over the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.

Trim the head of caulflower and use a big knife to slice it into 1/2-inch-thick slabs. Arrange the pieces in the baking pan to cover the bottom in a single layer. Drizzle with the remaining oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until tender and lightly browned. Remove from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 400 degrees F.

Meanwhile, cook the macaroni in a large pot of boiling salted water until just barely tender; drain and set aside in a large bowl.

In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter. Add the onion and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until pale golden, about 3 minutes.

Whisk in the milk and cayenne. Whisking and stirring frequently, bring to a simmer; simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, until the sauce has thickened slightly.

Remove from the heat and gently stir in the cheese, stirring until melted. Season generously with salt—you'll need at least 2 teaspoons. Pour the sauce over the macaroni and stir to coat well, then dump the whole mixture over the roasted cauliflower in the baking dish.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons butter and toss it with the bread crumbs. Sprinkle the crumbs over the macaroni and cheese, along with the Parmesan, if using.

Bake until very bubbly and browned on top, about 30 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes to firm up before scooping out servings.

Fresh Cranberry Relish

Never thought I would ever have any connection to so vaunted a site as Design*Sponge, but here it is, a recipe for fresh cranberry relish, posted as part of the lovely Beauty Everyday's guest appearance. I didn't know it was up until this morning (I thought it was going to be on BE)—sorry to be late getting you all a recipe appropriate to the day; it's a quick one, though, so if you have a few minutes to spare and an extra bag of cranberries . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today's Most Photographed House in Madison County

It was a tough thing to do, but yes, we've put our beloved house on the market. If you know anyone who wants to live the good life here in Carlton, please direct them to our Realtor extraordinaire, Michael Littleton, at Full Circle Real Estate Group.

I'll miss the windowseats most of all.

In other news, the photography for my book is well under way, and I'm just thrilled with how everything is looking. Luckily for me and STC, one of the most talented photographers in the world, Rinne Allen, happens to live right in Athens, and, even better, despite her recent fame she was available and willing to take on the job of shooting my crazy pickles and preserves. Early indications are that this is going to be an amazingly gorgeous book. So I'm happy about that.

Figs

Carrie has this crazy, giant fig tree growing into the side of her house, and it's loaded with fruit, so T. and I went over yesterday to say hi and pick as many as we could before the heat, yellow jackets, and crankiness had their way with us. The first thing I did when we got home, while D. cleaned up the kid and kept her happy by talking about parties with her, was set aside three pounds for preserves and sear the rest in a skillet:

Seared Figs with Mustard Seeds and Curry Leaves

This is via my friend Regan, although I'm not sure if this is exactly how she did it that one time, and she says it came from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. Now that I look at that page over on Amazon, though, I see that the dish has a squeeze of lemon juice and some cayenne—both of which would be nice, it's true. Also that recipe has quantities and everything. Fancy!

Vegetable oil or ghee (or a little oil and a little butter)
Ripe fresh figs, halved
Handful of fresh curry leaves
Yellow mustard seeds
Kosher salt

In a heavy skillet over medium-high heat, heat a bit of oil—just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the figs and arrange them cut side down in the pan, then sprinkle in the curry leaves, mustard seeds, and a pinch or two of salt. Cook, without disturbing, until the figs are nicely browned on the bottom, 4 to 5 minutes. Use a thin metal spatula to turn the figs over and cook just until they're soft and glazed-looking, about 1 more minute. Serve warm.

Then I made some fig preserves, the first of this season, kind of winging it based on Regan's description of another fig dish she loved once, roasted figs with ricotta. It worked very well, and even though a version of this recipe will be in my book about canning and preserving (almost finished now, and due to come out next year!) I thought I'd post it here anyway for loyal friends and family who still have old Pie and Beer in their readers, blogrolls, or whatever.

Thank you, Regan, for passing along your extensive fig knowledge, and thank you, Carrie, for passing along the figs!

Texas Barbecue

Over on Flickr, I've posted some pictures of a weekend the elder Chalmerses spent in and around Austin. Lots of brisket, tacos, and donuts.

Ten Kitchen Things I Like

A set of pictures over on Flickr, which I've been using lately as a sort of comfortable medium between blog (too hard) and Twitter (too easy).

So Lazy

I'm exhausted today after a hectic week of work, but I wanted to point you over to Flickr, where I wrote up a really basic tutorial for sewing an easy tiered toddler skirt.

Bagels

Clockwise from top left: Salt, everything, sesame, plain.

I've been itching to make bagels with my new KitchenAid Pro 600 mixer, and the imminent delivery today of something like twenty pounds of buttery, velvety Eastern nova and lox from Barney Greengrass—a gift to Mr. Chalmers from my parents—was more than enough to get me and the bug started last night. (Although, as it turns out, there were tons of bagels in the FedEx box too!) It's possible to make these without a good stand mixer, but it won't be all fun and games. The dough has to be super-stiff but also thoroughly combined (the barley malt syrup doesn't integrate itself easily), and you have to knead it for a good ten minutes. When I did this by hand last year I nearly broke my arms. The KA struggled a bit but powered through admirably.

This recipe is a keeper. Stick to it, and you'll have bagels that seriously taste just like the real thing—not just a decent New York bagel but a very, very good one. Crusty on the outside, chewy, and light on the inside. I don't remember where I got the recipe I based this on, someplace on the Internet, but my thanks go to whoever posted it years ago.

Bagels

Makes 16 bagels.

For the sponge:

2 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon instant yeast
4 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten (see Notes)

For the dough:

1 tablespoon barley malt syrup (see Notes)
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
3 1/2 to 4 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
2 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt

To boil and bake:

1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon barley malt syrup
Toppings: sesame seeds, poppyseeds, coarse sea salt, dehydrated chopped onion and garlic;

The night before you plan to boil and bake the bagels:

Make the sponge: Put the water in a large bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Stir in the flour and vital wheat gluten, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let rise for 2 hours.
Make the dough: Add the malt syrup, yeast, 3 cups flour, the vital wheat gluten, and salt. Stir, adding enough of the remaining flour to make a very, very stiff dough. Knead for 10 minutes. Cut the dough into 16 pieces and roll each into a ball. Cover with plastic and let rest for 20 minutes. Shape the balls by sticking your finger through the center and stretching them into circles (make the hole bigger than you think it should be, as it'll close up as it rises). Put the circles on two parchment-lined sheet pans, spaced at least 1 inch apart, cover completely with plastic, and let rise for 20 minutes. Transfer to the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, boil and bake: Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and stir in the baking soda and malt syrup.

Drop in a few bagels at a time and let them boil for about 1 minute, then turn them over (chopsticks work well for this) and cook on the other side for about 1 minute. As they boil, sprinkle some of the toppings, if desired, on the parchment. Return the boiled bagels to the parchment and immediately top them with . . . toppings. Repeat until all the bagels are boiled and topped.

Bake for 5 minutes. Rotate the pans, lower the oven temperature to 450 degrees, and bake for 10 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the bagels inside for 5 minutes. Crack the oven door and leave them in there for 5 minutes more. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Note: Vital wheat gluten can be found at health food stores (check the bulk bins) and in good supermarkets (among the specialty flours). You can use barley malt powder instead of syrup, if you like. Both powder and syrup are available at most health food stores.

Serving suggestion.

Lox, overcast daylight, and the hand of a happy Mr. Chalmers.

Eastern nova, and lots of it. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

Baker's Hours

The bug is not going back to sleep. She's been up since about 2:30. It's okay, though; I wasn't sleeping well either. And I had four loaves of bread in the pantry that I'd shaped yesterday evening and was too tired to stay up and bake. So this is what just came out of the oven.

Media Notes

1. I wish this reporter had called me back to confirm slash copyedit the quote he attributes to me, and also to confirm that I live in Athens, which I don't. I like Simply Meats, and I said some nice things about it, but I don't think I said them quite that stupidly.

2. You can find my mug on the beta version of the new recipe resource Cookstr, alongside some very smart authors indeed (and probably some thick ones like me).

3. I learned yesterday that my proposal for a kind of unusual cookbook has been accepted, and if all goes well and contracts get signed it'll be published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang. This will be the first book that's really my own (that is, it was my idea) and that I actually have a stake in (it's not a work-for-hire job). Apparently I'm going to have months upon months to write it, which means it's going to be awesome and I'm not going to go completely insane. Whew.

Election Day in Fictional Baltimore

Does anyone else have this montage running through their heads right now? I wish this clip contained the "Naw, man, I can't vote" line that just breaks my heart.

Our Polling Place 2

The Chalmerses voted a bit later in the morning than last year, all of us having had a difficult sleep last night for various reasons. The bug skipped ahead of us (until we got to the highway and the railroad tracks), and the Mr. and I walked with our arms around each other. Our best neighbors and friends June and Cecilia were there, having just voted themselves; we chatted awhile, and the atmosphere was cheerful and expectant. It was a beautiful morning, bright and clear and breezy.

Later, at the Southern States in Lexington, the mood among the middle-aged white men I overheard talking politics was not so cheerful. Though I hate to admit finding pleasure in the bitterness I hear in a feed store in rural Georgia, I think this is a sign of good things to come tonight.

As I did last year, I submitted my picture to the Polling Place Photo Project, even though the building itself is just a tiny dot here, at the vanishing point. As they ask in the questionnaire, if there's anything that would have made my voting experience better it would be knowing that all my neighbors, even those much less fortunate than I am, were able to register and to vote as easily as I was.

Outside Brown

The pork shoulder was excellent. We smoked it until about 2 p.m., so maybe nine hours for an eight-pound Boston butt? I think it registered almost 180 degrees when we took it off.

Here are some things I want to remember about what I did this time for the next time:

• Marinate overnight: apple juice, a little brown sugar, cumin, onion powder, salt, Goya adobo.
• Start out with hot charcoal fire in the firebox, let it burn down till the briquettes are mostly coals, then add soaked hickory chips.
• Do not trim off any of the fat. Put shoulder fat side down on the grate to start, then flip it after a couple hours.
• Keep the temperature at 200 to 225 degrees: When the coals are white all over, add a few more fresh coals and a handful of soaked wood chips. If it's cold outside, be sure to do this before the smoker temperature drops at all, and before the old coals are totally white; otherwise it'll be hard to maintain the heat evenly and the new coals won't light very easily and things will suck for a while.
• When the meat registers 170 degrees, keep going for another 1 or 2 hours. Those last 10 degrees, as Mr. Chalmers warned me, are the toughest, but they're worth it.
  
• Boil a few cups of the marinade for 10 or 15 minutes with some chile flakes, then strain. Add about three times as much cider vinegar, and some more chile flakes. This should be about right and all the sauce you'll need.

Mr. Chalmers chopped the meat into chunks, and I made a sauce (for the side). This morning I roughly chopped some in the food processor—I know, sue me, but it was the best tool for the job, and just look at the results!—and mixed in a bit of the sauce and made a sandwich with a toasted storebought bun for breakfast.

The coleslaw was good too, though I'm no connoisseur of the stuff. It was just green cabbage (no carrot or other useless crap) with a dressing of sour cream, mayonnaise, yogurt, Dijon mustard, cider vinegar, salt, and a little sugar. I like it with tons of cracked black pepper, so I put some in my own servings. Also made some cornbread muffins.

Our friend Regan came out to watch the Florida-Georgia game and hang out and drink beer and Argentinian wine and throw the football around out in the yard. Along with the wine, she brought pretty little turnips from Athens Locally Grown, for which she volunteers each Thursday, and made a delicious turnip salad: blanched cubed turnips tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, cumin, paprika, and parsley. It was amazing, and went so well with everything else you'd've thought we'd called each other beforehand.

Dessert was creamy cold jasmine rice pudding with caramelized bananas, a Martha Stewart recipe that I would say is too fussy except that the results are always so worth the trouble that I can never bring myself to skip any of the steps. It's here, and you should try it sometime. The bananas take on this strange texture, and somehow taste alcoholic, as if they really do have rum in them. Weirdly addictive.

It was a happy, fun day, and I'm glad it lasted as long as it did.

Must Be Feeling Better?

Got up this morning around 3 and made coleslaw. It's 4:40 now, and I have a fire going in the smoker, almost ready to put the whole Boston butt pork shoulder on. I just took a pain pill and I'm drinking coffee and wearing my deer-hunter-orange puffy coat over my pajamas. Everyone else, including the dogs, is asleep. The pork's been marinating overnight in my husband's favorite pork marinade/brine thing: apple juice, onion salt, a little brown sugar, a little cumin, and some other stuff. More later.