Monthly Archives: March 2011

I took a medium red onion and split it, peeled it and cut it about 1/4″ thick. Then marinated it in buttermilk for 1/2 hour. I made my own self-rising flour and dredged the onions, in three batches, in it and fried it at over 300 degrees.

The spider was used to take out the batches and place them on a sheet pan lined with paper towels, and I added a little salt to each batch then threw them into a 250 degree oven to keep warm while the burgers and buns were cooking.

Jim loved the fried onions! They were so light and tasty! I strained the remaining oil through a sieve lined with unprinted paper towels (wondered if a coffee filter would be better) and froze it for another use. Frying isn’t my thing but it was cool to use my new glass bulb thermometer and make a small part of the meal special. Cheers! Dee

"Our" Cranes?

I’ve spent the past few days trying to get their sounds down on tape, using my iPhone. When they first arrive from New Mexico for the spring/summer nesting phase they call out for each other a lot. After the courting and mating is done, the eggs need 30 days before hatching so one has to guard the egg while the other goes out hunting.

After the baby or “colt” is born, one always has to be with it or a fox or coyote or stoat/ermine could get it. Oh, there may be two, there were last year but one died. Then after the colt gets its legs sturdy enough to accompany the parents, they go out together, the colt following the mother and the dad as the lookout.

Right now they’re in the dancing stage and no-one’s really settled in yet. The snowmelt is happening as it was nearly 60 degrees today.

Huge Snowmelt

We’ve probably had a record amount of snow this year but in the past two weeks much of it has melted into these mountain valleys; we live at 6,400 feet above sea level. Luckily for the ski resorts we’re still getting snow and they have huge bases this year, well over 100″.

The best news is that I got my car cleaned today! It took four months but it’s clean and in our garage. Here you pay extra for a “bottom blast” that is supposed to get all the salt off the undercarriage (no, not mine!) and it looks decent for a three-minute car wash. I’m a happy gal and now have to finish dinner for my love. Cheers, Dee

I find it interesting that the CIA (Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY) spends such time on and requires its students to learn the front of house. It makes perfect sense. There’s usually a rivalry and hostility between the two. Waiters make tips and dishwashers and cooks start at minimum wage and often have to purchase and launder their uniforms, plus learn Spanish right quick.

When I apprenticed for a month at Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino I made no money, the waiters gave $1 per plate in a fund for the kitchen staff to divvy up every night but I wasn’t allowed to have any of that either. After I spent my life savings on cooking school, which used to be Peter Kump’s New York Cooking school and is now ICE, the Institute for Culinary Education, I had two choices. One was to microwave hot dogs for four year-old brats at a Long Island yacht club, the second to intern for the legendary Margaret Fox. I chose the latter, thank goodness.

But all my money went into cooking school and I had to get to northern California so had to rent a car for a month, then find a place to live. A motel was OK for two days but I wasn’t finding anything so one of the waiters set me up in his place, as he and his girlfriend had just moved to a larger cabin on the property. They left me a bed, sheets, blankets, a few kitchen items and a ton of wood to split. Trying to split one log almost cut off a leg so I reverted to the supermarket bundles that kept me warm until 2-3 in the morning, then I froze.

It was wonderful to work all the stations in the kitchen except the stove. Chef wouldn’t let me. But I also worked making breads and pizzas in the Brickery. It was also great to teach them how to bind a chicken for roasting. I was the chicken bondage Queen! My first chore Wedsneday prep nights (dinner was served Thursday through Sunday) was to prep the chickens, which meant cutting off the necks and feet. My version was to take 2/3 of the wing off to be properly trussed. Once done, I had to rush the pans to the chef for roasting and eventual stock.

A lot of time was spent dealing with apples and pears, as it was harvest season. Also, I pressed a lot of pate sucre (sweet short pastry) into molds. I was poor as a church mouse but did get to eat before or after my shift. If I made staff meal, I stayed for staff meal so that helped with costs.

No, I did not get to do service in this restaurant but I do know how important it is. Consider the following story:

My father and I were at the Algonquin Hotel in NYC for lunch one day in the mid-1980′s. He recognized the maitre d’hotel and acknowledged such. He was told he was mistaken. There was a line to get in and while we waited my father knew he recognized this man from The Palm, at The Plaza Hotel. He mentioned it again and the man demurred, then said it was his brother. Finally as we were seated he told us that yes, he used to be at the Plaza. It was a step down, to him, and he didn’t want to be found out. But he was a great maitre d’ and I’ve never forgotten the Algonquin’s goulash that day.

Service, cheers, Dee

I just answered a questionnaire about bereavement for a study. I answered essay questions honestly and it brought things back from 2 1/2 years ago when my mother died. I never thought of it as bereavement. Studying the word it means bereft. I am not bereft of a mother any more than when she lived. So I’ve always been bereft, it’s a constant.

Seeing it is differrent. The morphine, the nurses, the doctor (yea! she rated a doctor), the volunteers, people who bathed her and clothed her while we conducted the vigil yet while she was bathed and dressed we got to go out to lunch.

Many years ago I organized a chorus in college to go to the hospitals over the holidays and sing for the patients. Seeing these patients I cried so much I could barely sing. And that was when people had health insurance and longer stays. Now patients are really sick if they stay overnight and I flew there multiple times to see my mother in the hospital or help her transition to home care.

Our best time together was when I helped her transition in the early years, when I went out to get her tomato juice and a NY Times in the morning and made and froze tons of chicken stock. I cooked good meals that put some meat on those bones and even froze chicken stock in ice cube trays. After my week’s stay, she’d tell my sisters that “Dee used to make it from scratch.” That’s probably the nicest thing she ever said about me.

After she died I volunteered to comply with her request for the eye tissue bank, which meant her body had to go to a facility before being cremated. It was a long questionnaire I had to do by phone a few hours after my mother’s death, then transport arranged and one sibling denied Mom’s request and wouldn’t release the body. It worked out, just a mis-communication on their part. All I can say is have things arranged. Make sure you have a will, a living will, a dnr or whatever you want. My mother did not do so and her children argued over nothing and probably because we were grieving.

I like to think I’m OK but I still think of her often, luckily I try to remember the good times as a kid, when she watched us out at the pool or honked the horn three times to get us out of the creek and home to wash our hands before dinner. Cheers, Dee