Best Food Writing 2015 (29 page)

            
2. To prepare the chicharron dust: Put the chicharron in a large ziplock bag and roll over the bag with a bottle or rolling pin until the chicharron are crushed to a coarse dust. You will dust your carnitas with this glorious star powder. It has all the healing properties of unicorn horn.

            
3. Coarsely chop the rest of the cilantro, leaves, and stems, and place in a bowl for people to sprinkle upon their tacos.

            
4. Slice the avocado in impossibly thin slices.

            
5. Cut the limes into quarters.

A note on building tacos

            
Proper tortillas have two sides to them—one that is more resilient, and one that will peel away easily if you rub the tips of your fingers
against it. The latter is the inside of the tortilla—it will absorb the pork juices much better, granting your taco more structural integrity.

            
Lastly, you don't want to overstuff your taco. It's like trading in mortgage-backed securities: It sounds like a great idea at first, but your greed will result in catastrophic consequences.

The Family Table
The Family Table

The Imperfect Family Kitchen
The Imperfect Family Kitchen

B
Y
D
EBBIE
K
OENIG

From
ParentsNeedToEatToo.com

          
Author of the cookbook/new parent lifeline
Parents Need To Eat Too
, Brooklyn-based blogger-writer Debbie Koenig is all about down-to-earth fixes for modern families. Which is why she couldn't resist calling out food writers who blithely prescribe high standards for the family dinner.

Food writers are lying to you.

In our quest to inspire people to cook, we offer images of glorious plates of food, dramatically lit, propped with carefully-chosen cloth napkins and color-coordinated dishes, with the most adorable little trail of crumbs to suggest that someone's actually eating this slice of perfection.

My dinner plate never looks like that anywhere but the computer screen, on a really good day. In real life it's chipped, with maybe some sauce spilling over an edge onto the crumpled paper napkin.

Most people edit their lives, to show only the corners they like to the world—think about how you decide what to share on Facebook. Food writers leave out the grimy spot near the toaster, the overstuffed, disorganized fridge that's barely chugging along. I don't think we're ashamed of these parts of our lives, necessarily, just that in order to capture attention, we chase a notion of unrealistic beauty. That leads to cookbooks and food blogs as staged and Photoshopped as the models in Vogue.

The picture above is my kitchen, this morning. Those battered cabinets, in that weird mauvey shade, were painstakingly painted by my
husband and me before Harry was born. I couldn't stand the dingy, 1970s almond laminate, and somehow imagined that coating it in pink would fix things. It didn't, but the process of removing all the cabinet doors, priming, painting, and reattaching them, was so exhausting I just couldn't see doing it all again. Especially with a kid around. We've lived with them for almost a decade now, and I still don't like them.

My food processor dates to 1993, a wedding present from my first marriage. The non-functioning hood over the stove (an appliance my landlady replaced last year, after the 40-year-old predecessor finally kicked the bucket) has been scrubbed so many times the paint's worn off. A sheet of plastic tarp funneled into a bucket hangs in front of the window, since there's a mystery leak the handyman has never been able to locate, which floods the area during major rainstorms.

So yeah, my kitchen is imperfect. Just like my cooking.

That's where food writers really let down our readers: Too often, we gloss over mistakes or talk about how easy a recipe is, when in fact it failed miserably the first three times we tried it, and sometimes even now, when it's “perfect,” it just doesn't come out as good as we remember. We give time estimates based on how long it takes us to prepare something, neglecting the fact that many, if not most, people don't work as fast as we can, don't share our confidence in the kitchen. We urge people to cook for their families, and preach about how crucial it is to the well-being of our children and heck, the entire world. Whether we intend to or not, we suggest that if someone doesn't cook—or doesn't like to cook—that person isn't doing it right.

That person is usually a woman. And given the whole mantra of “family dinners are THE answer” to obesity, drug use, juvenile delinquency, and general shiftlessness, that woman is usually a mom. Case in point: Virginia Heffernan's essay in this week's
New York Times Magazine
, in which she confesses that she doesn't like cooking, and that family-oriented cookbooks only make her feel bad about herself.

Here's my confession: Lately, I hate cooking. The frustrations and challenges of coming up with creative, appealing, and easily reproduced meals that my insanely picky kid might deign to eat have sucked all the joy out of my kitchen. That's why things have been so quiet around here lately. I'm tired, and I don't have much to crow about. I don't want to admit that I've failed as a mother—and I know I haven't really, but that's
what many of my fellow family-food writers smugly imply if your child isn't omnivorous. (I'm looking at you, Mark Bittman.)

When I wrote my cookbook [
Parents Need to Eat Too
], my goal was simple: To reassure frazzled new parents that yes, they'd get their mojo back, and yes, they'd learn to make dinner again someday, and then to help them do it. From the feedback I've received since it came out, I think I succeeded. I think I managed to write a family cookbook that doesn't make parents feel bad about themselves. And you know what? Sales are meh. When it comes to laying down money, I suspect most people want pretty; they want promises of perfection, of problems solved. They don't want to be told that this period of your life is challenging, but you'll get through it.

So when people ask about my next cookbook, I shrug and mumble into my shoulder. The obvious subject would be feeding your picky eater, but since I struggle with that myself multiple times every day, with two giant leaps back for every baby step forward, it seems disingenuous to suggest I might have any answers. Or that my answers will work for any family other than my own. Lord knows nobody else's have worked for mine.

Maybe my next book should be about the Imperfect Family Kitchen. The one with a leaky window, chipped plates, and a kid who won't eat. The one where the UPS guy comes just when the timer's about to go off, where the whining of the eight-year-old as he sets the table makes you wish you'd just set the table yourself. The one with a mom who moans at least twice a week, “I have to make dinner again?”

But who wants to read that?

Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life with Pasta
Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life with Pasta

B
Y
S
ARAH
G
REY

From
SeriousEats.com

          
Despite a decidedly feminist-activist streak to her resume, Philadelphia-based writer-editor Sarah Grey didn't intend to start a movement when she and her husband launched their Friday Night Meatballs project. (Really, it was just a way to cook and eat with friends.) But the proof is in the pudding—or rather, the pasta. . . .

Friday, 7 p.m. I light the candles.

For the last two hours I have been rushing: cleaning up toys and clutter, vacuuming, dusting. Now the table is set with my great-grandmother's good china. My four-year-old daughter Lucia is busily folding paper napkins and placing them next to each of ten plates. Between the candlesticks are a plate of sliced bread, a dish of olive oil, a small bowl of grated fresh Parmesan. My husband Joe bends over a pot of simmering sauce. A pot of salted water rests on the stovetop, ready to be boiled when the guests arrive. I've changed into a clean T-shirt and cotton skirt. My feet are bare. After I light the candles I stop cleaning, dim the lights, put my phone away, and pour two glasses of wine.

It isn't long before our little rowhouse on the far northern edge of Philadelphia's Fishtown section is full. My friend Stephanie, a massage therapist and space designer, brings her husband Joe and their daughter, five-year-old Olivia, who shows Lucia her new toy pony. The girls
rush to the toy corner. Steph presents us with a salad loaded with goat cheese, walnuts, and fresh strawberries.

Brian and Carina arrive from down the street with two bottles of wine. Lily and Nico tease us about the unusually clean house. Peter, Catherine, and Catherine's mother Diane, visiting from Connecticut, arrive laden with diaper bags and car seats. We drink wine and take turns bouncing baby Rosie on our knees while Joe boils the big pot of pasta. The room feels changed somehow, smaller and brighter and warmer.

When the table is laden with platters of pasta and steaming bowls of meatballs, we sit and raise our glasses:

“To Friday Night Meatballs!”

Breaking Out of Busy

Joe and I have been doing this every Friday, give or take a few, for nine months. They have been extraordinary months.

We had a few simple problems to solve. Working from home (as a freelance writer and editor) can be incredibly isolating, and we'd spent most of the year so busy with work and other obligations that we had almost no time for a social life. People were always inviting us out, but by the time we factored in the cost of babysitting and the loss of what precious time we get, as working parents, with our daughter, we rarely said yes.

We had no idea how much the simple act of gathering for dinner would transform our family's life.

Joe grew up in a traditionally minded Italian-American family in Long Branch, New Jersey, where they call red sauce “gravy.” On Sundays, his father Alfonso got up early to start the sauce before Mass. Sunday dinner was spaghetti and meatballs. Joe hasn't been to Mass in thirty years, but he has always expressed love through cooking—and his meatballs are to die for. He's a talented home chef with an eye for R&D: he's worked hard on his father's recipe to achieve just the right tenderness, the perfect amount of sauce saturation. Lucia often stands on a stepstool to watch him roll the meat and bread in his hands: she is squeamish about meat (except for bacon) but asks question after question as he works.

My household in the suburbs of Pittsburgh was less traditional, but it
too was suffused with the sense-memory of meatballs and sauce. Once a week my father, who had joint custody, picked up me and took me out for spaghetti and meatballs at Hoffstot's in Oakmont. I was the world's pickiest eater and mealtimes were often battles, but at Hoffstot's I was always happy.

When we started hosting family dinners, then, meatballs were the obvious choice. We'd noticed that visiting friends often requested them; they seemed to us too pedestrian for guests, but our friends from other food cultures—Indian, Jewish, West African—adored them. So meatballs it was.

On my thirty-third birthday, I took to Facebook:

         
So here's what Joe and I have decided to do, in my 33rd year, to make our lives happier: we are instituting a new tradition we call Friday Night Meatballs. Starting next Friday, we're cooking up a pot of spaghetti and meatballs every Friday night and sitting down at the dining room table as a family—along with anyone else who'd like to join us. Friends, neighbors, relatives, clients, Facebook friends who'd like to hang out in real life, travelers passing through: you are welcome at our table. We'll just ask folks to let us know by Thursday night so we know how many meatballs to make. You can bring something, but you don't have to. Kids, vegetarians, gluten-free types, etc. will all be taken care of. The house will be messy. There might be card and/or board games. There might be good Scotch. You might be asked to read picture books. You might make new friends. We'll just have to find out. This is our little attempt to spend more time with our village. You're invited.

The response was immediate: I was inundated with “likes” and comments from down the street and across oceans. I showed Joe and he raised an eyebrow: “We're going to need more chairs.”

In the weeks that followed, we got used to hosting. It became less of an ordeal. We got more chairs. More wine glasses, too. We began making meatballs ahead of time and freezing them. We capped the guest list at ten adults and as many children as can play well together without too much supervision. And we stopped worrying about making everything
perfect. Our parents and grandparents, we realized, hadn't made a big deal about hosting family dinners; it was just something they did. It was normal. After a few weeks it started to feel normal for us, too. I jettisoned any visions I might have had about cloth napkins and Pinterest crafts and began to relax.

Those problems we'd set out to solve? It wasn't long before we realized our solution was working. Little Lucia began looking forward to Friday Night Meatballs as a weekly playdate. She was learning how to interact with adults, too: she took on the job of dishing the correct number of meatballs onto guests' plates. Joe and I saw more of our friends and strengthened our social networks as word began to spread. And my isolation? Well, this was the winter we learned the term “polar vortex.” Philadelphia had record-breaking snow, bitter cold, and no less than nine canceled school days. I spent the endless blizzards trying desperately to meet deadlines while entertaining my child. There were entire weeks when I barely left the house. For this hardcore extrovert, Friday Night Meatballs became a lifeline. And things started to happen.

Coming Together

Part of the fun of hosting a weekly dinner is the rotating cast of characters. We have our beloved regulars, but the mix is always different. Seinfeld's George Costanza famously flipped over his “worlds colliding”—friends from one sphere of life mixing with friends from another—but today, social media has our worlds colliding on a regular basis as coworkers, college friends, and conservative uncles argue politics on Facebook threads.

At Friday Night Meatballs, bringing together those disparate groups can yield all sorts of connections. One friend asked me to let her know any time I got an RSVP from a cute single guy. I did, and soon found myself following the dating drama via text message. Professional connections happen too: one recently laid-off guest found herself passing the bread to someone who was hiring in her field. Chef and food blogger Nancy found an agent for her cookbook over dessert. (I suspect the perfect crust on her blueberry-lemon pie was what won him over.) Filmmaker Matt Pillischer, who was promoting a screening of
his documentary about the criminal justice system, found a table full of activists eager to help spread the word.

There's something about the mix of candlelight and comfort food (okay, and wine) that encourages people to relax and share their stories. I've always found hosting parties to be stressful, but Friday Night Meatballs has become a relaxing escape at the end of the week. In his book
The Sabbath
, rabbi and civil rights activist Abraham Heschel observes that “there is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.” This, he says, is the point of taking a day off for rest and reflection and the company of loved ones: it's when we manage to stop worrying about making a living that we start actually
living
.

Perhaps that's why Friday Night Meatballs has struck such a chord. When we hosted a Friday Night Meatballs at my mother's house in Pittsburgh over the holidays, we lifted the limit on guests—and thirty people came out. All of them said the same things:
We love the idea. There's something perfect about it. Why don't we get together like this more often?

This isn't a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, of course; Shabbat dinners, Sunday suppers, Ramadan iftars, and the like are cherished all over the world. But in late-capitalist America, it can be
hard
to find community. The institutions that used to provide communal social life, like churches and unions, have long been in decline. People work long hours, often with long commutes or multiple jobs. An increasing number of us are freelancers, working from home without company. Social events aren't always hospitable for families with young children, and those who don't have kids can go years without even interacting with them. And with an economy that's really only recovered for a wealthy few, many Americans are more likely to down a burger in the drive-thru on the way to a second job than to sit down around a family table.

Friday Night Meatballs is intergenerational, kid-friendly, low-key, and cheap. You don't have to join anything: the biggest obligation it asks you to shoulder is showing up with a dessert or a bottle of wine. And it even has a hashtag.

If you'd like to give it a try, here are a few things I've learned along the way.

Hosting Without Stress

1. Use tech tools to take control of the guest list
.

The first rule we made for Friday Night Meatballs was that our table would be open. We would welcome old friends, new acquaintances, Internet friends, and friends of friends, with no set guest list. This has worked well, though we often have to explain to surprised new friends that, yes, we really are inviting you to a family dinner like you used to have at Grandma's house.

But since it caught on quickly, we discovered early on that we needed to limit our head count. Our narrow Philadelphia rowhouse can fit about ten people before things get a little too cozy. We also began enforcing a 24-hour RSVP rule, which helps us avoid running out of meatballs. Facebook and Twitter are great for getting the word out; if you like to know what to expect, a shared Google Drive spreadsheet with ten numbered slots lets you track RSVPs. You can also add a column for people to tell you what they're bringing, which is a nice way to avoid winding up with three salads and no wine. Sites like Perfect Potluck and Punchbowl also let you track guests and will even send out automatic reminder emails. Just remember not to overthink things too much!

2. Don't sweat the housework
.

Women are often taught from childhood that the state of one's home is a matter for pride or shame, but I've found that hours spent writing or spending time with my kid are far more valuable than hours spent scrubbing things that will be dirty again in two hours. I'm also just really not very good at organizing or decorating. Our house is more or less permanently disheveled. Cleaning seemed like it would be the most daunting part of hosting Friday Night Meatballs, but I've discovered two secrets.

The first: set aside one hour on Friday afternoon to do a speed-clean: whatever you can get done in an hour is what gets done. You'll be amazed at how much you accomplish.

The second secret is even simpler:
stop giving a shit
. Really. Your family and friends want to see you, relax, and eat meatballs. They do not care if your apartment is small or there is dust on the mantlepiece. They
might not even see the dust: that's what the candlelight's for! And if they do, screw 'em. (Or draft them to wash the dishes.) I'd rather spend my life eating with friends in a messy house than refusing to have anyone over because the place isn't nice enough for guests.

3. Specialize
.

When you host a traditional dinner party, there are usually multiple courses involved: hors d'oeuvres, entree, dessert, etc. You find recipes that are a little more special than usual. You pray that the souffle rises. It's stressful. You do not want to do that every week. That's why it's better to pick one relatively simple dish and stick to it. Let your guests bring the salads and side dishes. Not only will you save money and time, you'll also get
really, really good
at that one dish. Have you seen
Jiro Dreams of Sushi?
That's sort of what Joe is like with meatballs.