A Good Woman

F has to work late tonight. While I will miss him, I am also excited to have the house to myself. I shall sit on the couch with a bottle of wine and watch a girlie movie with a kitty on each thigh. And I shall make myself something for dinner that F does not enjoy.

And then I will make something that F does enjoy, so he can come home from work to a nice snack. I shall make him cupcakes. From a box. With icing from a tub.

When F and I first started dating, Moist Deluxe Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake Cupcakes were the extent of my baking expertise. I wooed him with cupcakes. I seduced him with Betty Crocker Whipped Chocolate Frosting. He would leave my little Hyde Park apartment with a cupcake in each hand--and he always came back for more.

A Good Man

I haven't written in awhile because I've been in Scranton, PA, renowned for The Office and not much else. More to come on that. In short, I saw my best friend become an Elder of the church and spent a glorious few days at home with my parents. When I finally got back to Chicago on a chilly June night, homesick and smelling like airplane, F greeted me from the kitchen where he was making me dinner.
Salmon with White Wine Mustard Sauce and asparagus:I've got a good man, indeed.

A Disastrous Feast of Figs

Last night I made a disgusting dessert. It sounded good, it had good ingredients, but something went terribly wrong in the execution.

The figs at the grocery store had intrigued me for weeks. Although fresh figs are no longer in season, the dried figs resting side-by-side in a snug little wheel promised to impart the essence of a warm, spiced Middle-Eastern desert breeze to my cold Chicago apartment. So, in what might have been an ill-advised decision, I made an entirely fig-themed dinner.

The Chicken with Balsamic-Fig Sauce was fine. I tried to convince myself throughout the meal that I didn’t mind—and even appreciated—the gritty texture of the fig seeds in the sauce. But on the whole, I found this recipe a little strange and unappetizing.

And for dessert—Spiced Figs in Red Wine. I chopped three dried figs in half and dumped them in a saucepan with a cup of red wine, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, a dash of cinnamon, a sprig of rosemary, a spring of thyme, three peppercorns, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of honey, and 1/3 cup sugar and brought the mixture to a boil. I left it to simmer for 35 minutes, as directed. It smelled wonderful—much like I would imagine the inside of a desert caravan would smell as it trundled across the desert on a hot night.

I will pause here to say that Cooking Light should in no way be held responsible for the utter failure of this dessert. I assume all responsibility for the recipe’s disastrous consequences because I made two very silly mistakes: Cooking Light tells us to let the spiced fig syrup cool and then chill for an hour. I thought this dessert might be nice warm—and I didn’t want to wait for my dessert. So when the 35 minutes were up, I strained the solids and filled two ramekins with vanilla frozen yogurt. Then I poured the steaming wine mixture over the yogurt and placed three chunks of fig on top of each.

Upon further reflection, I should have let the syrup cool. And I should have followed the instructions to scoop the yogurt over the syrup, instead of pouring the syrup over the yogurt. Before I even reached the living room to present this dish to F, the frozen yogurt had melted into a lukewarm, pinkish soup garnished with half-submerged fig chunks. The figs, balancing between the hot liquid and the cold yogurt, had hardened. My glorious, Middle-Eastern desert dessert was overwhelmingly winy, spicy, and gritty—and barely edible.

F politely declared himself full after two bites. But I had made this elegant, delectable dessert and by God, I was going to finish it.

And I ate it all.

MIA

MIA image courtesy of grorg.org/blorg/mia/

I have to apologize for being MIA. F always teases that when I become interested in something (like food, for instance), I devote my every waking hour to it, to the exclusion of everything else.

This is true.

I have been writing a Big Project (BF) for the last few months, and I am committed to finishing it, no matter what else suffers. I may forget to eat, my marriage may fail, I may lose my job, and worst of all, I may forget to post on High Heels. But by God, I will finish BF!

BF has nothing to do with food, so I can't really share much about it here. But I can say that much of my time has been dominated by writing. I write at lunch. I write on the bus. I write while walking down the sidewalk. I write at the gym. I write while sauteeing chicken. I've taken a few workshops, I went to a conference, I've been reading related books and magazines, I've been applying to contests and requesting grants.

I think F is correct in saying that I commit to things.

But don't worry. I'm around.

"Fine" Dining

When you make a meal for your spouse, you expect him to savor it with gratitude and exclamations of delight.

Once I finish a dish and have arranged the parts on the plate in a pleasing display, I bring it steaming from the kitchen and place it gently on the cushion in F’s lap (yes, we eat on the couch). I expect him to begin eating immediately while his dinner is still hot and at its best. I join him on the couch and await his praise. He eats quickly. I wait, chewing very slowly to make my dinner last at least a quarter of the time it took to prepare.

Finally, I prompt him with practiced nonchalance,

“Is it ok?”

“It’s fine.” He says.

F is spoiled by home-cooked meals now. When we began dating, he dined every week on ramen noodles and frozen chicken patties. He grew up on meat and potatoes and had never had Chinese food or Mexican food or rice—or a bagel—until college. Until he met me, he had never tasted lamb, lobster, duck, pork tenderloin, tofu, salmon, quinoa, turnips, tiramisu, parsnips, cilantro, pesto, cumin, cucumbers, or a wealth of other culinary delights. Nor had I cooked them. My cooking had been limited to one or two chicken dishes and a failed French fry experiment. I’m still learning—which is why my recipes still sometimes fail miserably.

On our walk home the other night, O and I commiserated about the fact that men do not understand why we get upset when our cooking fails. “It’s just food,” F says when my sauce doesn’t thicken, while I hover over the pan, tears thinning already watery and smoking tomatoes. And they don’t understand why we get upset when, in response to the tentative question, “How’s your dinner?” they reply, “It’s fine.”

“Fine” is not the word we’re after. If we spend an hour chopping onions and peeling carrots, skinning fish and stirring sauce, we want our work to be considered “Fabulous,” or “Better than my steak at Morton’s” or “an exquisite blend of flavors and textures.” Not “fine.”

One recent rainy Sunday, I tried to make F a stack of divine pancakes. I always use the same recipe from my favorite cookbook, The Best of Cooking Light 1999. Apparently 1999 was a good year for Cooking Light, because absolutely every single recipe I’ve ever made from this cookbook has been perfect, and the recipe for Buttermilk Oatmeal Pancakes is no exception. But I get bored with perfection, so I cheated on Cooking Light with Gourmet, who recently highlighted this recipe:

Bridge Creek Heavenly Hots
(fifty to sixty dollar-size pancakes)

From The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

These are the lightest sour cream silver-dollar-size hotcakes I’ve ever had—they seem to hover over the plate. They are heavenly and certainly should be served hot.

4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup cake flour
2 cups sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar

1. Put the eggs in a mixing bowl and stir until well blended. Add the salt, baking soda, flour, sour cream, and sugar, and mix well. All of this can be done in a blender, if you prefer.

2. Heat a griddle or frying pan until it is good and hot, film with grease, and drop small spoonfuls of batter onto the griddle—just enough to spread to an approximately 2 1/2-inch round. When a few bubbles appear on top of the pancakes, turn them over and cook briefly.

In an effort to make these slightly healthier, and because I have a mistaken confidence in my ability to adapt recipes, I used fat-free sour cream and egg whites. I’m convinced this must have been the problem with my hotcakes, which were certainly not heavenly. Nor did they hover over the plate.

Instead, the batter leaked across the pan and burned immediately. I turned down the heat, added some flour to the mix, and tried again. The pancakes refused to bubble and the bottom scorched. I added a little more flour. By this time, my mix was lumpy and my pan was coated with burned batter.

I swore and dumped the rest of the mix into the garbage, startling F, who should be used to this by now.

“What’s wrong?” he cried, thinking I had burned myself, so uncharacteristic was my profanity.

“I burned your hotcakes!” I wailed in despair.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “It’s just food.” This was the wrong thing to say.

“It’s NOT just food!” I sobbed. “It’s your breakfast. I was trying to make you a nice breakfast from The Breakfast Book. It’s supposed to be simple and delicious. You were supposed to have a nice breakfast!”

“I’ll still have a nice breakfast,” he said. “Just make the other pancakes.” I was immediately filled with loathing for my beloved The Best of Cooking Light 1999.

“I can’t now.” I said, fully aware of how petulant I sounded, “I used up all the eggs.”

“Well let’s have oatmeal.” He suggested.

“Fine. That’s all I can really make right, anyway.” I huffed, and turned back to the stove.

Granted, I make a mean bowl of oatmeal, so my agony over the hotcakes soon abated. But the complete failure of my adapted recipe still rankles. I’m gathering the courage to try those hotcakes again—this time with full-fat sour cream and whole eggs.

And I’ll have F to comfort me if they burn again. Poor F still just doesn’t understand why I get so upset. It may sound silly, but cooking is more than just making food. It’s creating something. And after a long day in my cubicle, marketing things that other people create, I savor my hour in the kitchen when I get to make something for myself—and for F.

You can’t frame a pancake and hang it on the wall. You can’t put a loaf of bread on stage and expect an audience to applaud. And you can’t display a fish fillet on a pedestal for all of eternity. Food is fleeting. It only looks pretty for so long. You eat it, and it’s gone. And if you don’t eat it, it rots.

A meal is created just the once for a specific person to enjoy, whether that person is a customer in a restaurant, a son or daughter, or a husband. Cooking is an expression of creativity and of love. It’s more than food, and it should be more than “fine.”

Cubicle Lunch: Leftover Fish

Image courtesy of redfishemergingmarkets.com

Today, I'm the annoying girl who brings fish for lunch.
I hate that girl.

The fish is left over from last night's experimental dinner. To truly understand and appreciate this experiment, you must know that F loves Cheez-Its and barely tolerates fish.

I thought that by crusting a cod fillet in his favorite snack, I could trick F into changing his mind. I crushed a bunch of Cheez-Its, coated the fillet, and baked. Sounded like a flawless plan.

It didn't work too well, honestly—which is why there are leftovers for my lunch.

Fish and Flowers

This is my first time making whole fish. As advised by various fish-focused websites, I looked for trout with unclouded eyes and shiny scales. These two were bright and glistening, which I found mildly intimidating. I'm used to fillets without skin or eyes--or teeth.

Although these trout did have eyes and teeth, they came all clean and gutted so it wasn't nearly as traumatic as it could have been. When the fish man handed my trout packet over the counter, however, I admit that I did have to fight the urge to gag. I could feel the fish body through the butcher paper, and the packet flopped with a rubbery heft.

Worse than the flopping was the tingle under my fingertips as I massaged gritty rosemary mixture into its moist scales.
He watched me as I rubbed.
But after a mere eight minutes on the grill pan (on which you can see he got a little ragged), we had ourselves some flaky, tender trout with a side of roasted potatoes and asparagus. It tasted much better than it looks. F and I partook of our delectable dinner on the back patio, which we really ought to use more often.

A special thank you to S, who gave us the beautiful glass-blown wine glasses in celebration of our nuptials. We toasted S, each other, and our trout. Then F ate the eyeballs.
Since I can't end bear to end this post with a photo of trout eyes, I'll wrap this up instead with some lovely nature photos of our back patio:

Recipe for Grilled Trout with Rosemary and Garlic
From Cooking Light

This simple presentation is a go-to summer recipe that allows the flavor of the fish to shine. If you like, substitute thyme for rosemary.

Yield

4 servings (serving size: 1 trout)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 (8-ounce) dressed whole trout
• 4 (6-inch) rosemary sprigs
• Cooking spray

Preparation

1. Prepare grill to medium-high heat.

2. Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl.

3. Cut 3 diagonal slits on each side of fish; rub rosemary mixture evenly over fish. Place 1 rosemary sprig in cavity of each fish. Place the fish on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 4 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or until desired degree of doneness.

Ahead of the Curve

Image of asparagus with fried farm egg courtesy of The New York Times.

Mado was just reviewed in The New York Times! I'm officially ahead of the curve.

After enjoying one of the best meals of my life at Mado with my supper club in March, I took F for dinner last month, and he finally understood what I had been raving about. He has been talking about his hanger steak ever since, and chose to celebrate his 30th birthday there last night.

Our good friends and fellow Top Chef devotees joined us for dinner. A group of talented cooks and shrewd epicures, they were smitten with the buttery pate, somehow spicy and reminiscent of Christmas; the asparagus with fried farm egg; the crisp trout that tasted like camp fire; the Gorgonzola polenta; the wood-smoked chicken that fell off the bone—the list goes on and on. We each ordered a different dish, and tried them all.

Our friend J, especially, knows food. He sends me articles about how to make homemade pasta sauce and what to do with ramps. He bakes the best scones I've ever tasted and knows everything about kitchen knives. As our waiter cleared the last plate from our table, J asked, "Can I work here?" Our genial waiter (who, in answer to our questions about the menu, earnestly mapped the cuts of pork on his own body) took J's question in jest.

But J was absolutely serious about donning an apron and heading back to the kitchen. And in that moment, I knew the dinner was a success.

In her extremely positive review, Monica Davey of The New York Times captures the mood of Mado perfectly: "On a cold, rainy spring evening, Mado offered escape without effort, the smell of a wood grill... a momentary journey to some quiet farm while still sitting in the city’s chaos."

After my third visit to Mado, I can safely say it's my favorite restaurant. I can't wait to go back.

A Very Special Pig

Really big pig image courtesy of Jonny Hunter of UFC.

All across America the ding of the microwave has just sounded the completion of a Lean Cuisine. We scarf it right out of the plastic tray in front of our computers, barely tasting the flash-frozen peas and dry chicken. But that’s OK, because in this fast-paced, pre-packaged world, food is just fuel to keep the machine running.

Eating is a solitary, harried event; it is seldom the basis for a leisurely expanse of time with friends and loved ones. It’s the rare family that eats a home-cooked meal together every night at the kitchen table with the television turned off. And it’s even less common for a group of families and friends to cook and eat together, turning a meal into an evening-long event for which good food is integral to the enjoyment of good company.

The Underground Food Collective (UFC) does this every night. Composed of a group of friends and families (including little ones and babes-in-arms), the UFC cooks and eats every meal together on a farm in Madison, Wisconsin. This group—composed of professional chefs, experienced home cooks, and farmers—has started a catering company featuring Pre-Industrial Pig Dinners throughout the country, bringing people together under one roof to enjoy a full meal composed of one very special pig.

So on the very day the swine flu was announced F and I braved death and attended Chicago’s first Pre-Industrial Pig Dinner.

We drove through a torrential downpour to West Town and found the nondescript apartment building belonging to a certain James. As we sloshed up the steps bearing wine and umbrellas, I noted the drab hallway and the worn carpet, leery of what we would find beyond the battered front door. But I needn’t have worried. Upon entering, I beheld the most gorgeous apartment I have ever seen in Chicago—including some of the half-million-dollar brownstones that F and I have toured as “Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Smith, attorneys and prospective home-owners.”

We found ourselves in the midst of a bustling throng of chefs, farmers, and waiters, whirling through a professional kitchen with an island that stretched as far as the eye could see. The kitchen was every home-cook’s dream: stainless steel shelving, hanging pot racks, acres of cabinets, and gleaming pots and pans.

Awe-struck and awkward, F and I dodged chefs carrying chopping boards and pig parts, and shuffled to the side of the room. A waiter greeted us, “Two this evening?” and led us to the back of the spacious brick front room to a table set for six. We were among the first to arrive, and by the number of tables scattered through the room, James looked to be expecting around 60 people.

We took our seats against the far wall in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows lined with flower boxes and surveyed the room. Long pine tables were set with mismatched china and flickering candles. There was a stone fireplace to the left, and a canoe hung from the ceiling to the right. The bookcase behind me held Ulysses, a Spanish dictionary, and a smattering of philosophers. Carved wooden ducks perched on various ledges and rested on shelves that held more candles, pieces of driftwood and a set of antlers. A colonial iron chandelier with still more flickering candles hung above the next table. As the thunderstorm raged outside, F and I relaxed in James’s warm, rustic apartment, anticipating our pig.

The meal was very good. Not extraordinary, but definitely very good. I’m sure that you could find a gourmet porcine meal of finer quality at one of the many lauded restaurants throughout the Windy City, but F and I had not signed up for a restaurant experience. What made this evening special was the expectation of a long, leisurely meal among new friends. The family-style courses were paced throughout three and a half hours, so we had plenty of time to digest and get to know our dining companions.

Lisa and Chuck were a few years older than us and at first I found them aloof and a little intimidating. She wore a gray turtleneck sweater and pearl earrings and was well put-together with a sophisticated style that I have never quite been able to master. He was a little rumpled with square-framed glasses and wayward hair. But as the night progressed and we shared plate after plate of pig and glass after glass of wine, we found that Lisa was endearingly silly and Chuck was a rumpled intellect. The other places at our table were occupied in time by Kurt and Rory, both startlingly beautiful college students from Madison. He wore stonewashed jeans and a cowboy-chic button-down shirt; his blond hair fell to his shoulders over the starched collar. She dressed simply in a black tee-shirt, her only adornment a small silver cross. She had a perfect, tiny face with big, earnest eyes. They looked like they had just arrived from a JCrew photo shoot set in Wyoming. As with Chuck and Lisa, my first impressions faded as the evening progressed and Kurt and Rory stepped off the JCrew page. Kurt had a disarming, puppy-like tendency toward long-windedness unhampered by a lisp, and Rory was quick with a shy smile revealing petite, childlike teeth. Kurt was the beer distributor for the event and described in lengthy detail the process of brewing mead on his tiny stove top.

The six of us ate a lot of pig—the seven-course dinner included bacon, pork belly, pulled pork, pork fat, pork broth, pork sausages, and other bits and pieces of swine (plus dessert, which was not pig). Among our favorites: pulled pork with golden raisins and white radishes, pork sausage and micro-greens, white beans in pork broth, and my new weakness—fried pork fat with toasted black walnuts. This dish was crispy and strangely sweet, almost like candied orange peel. It was utterly surprising and delicious, and I could have eaten a heaping plate of fat, against my better judgment. Luckily, the family-style plate was small and I limited myself to a sensible portion. The dishes were augmented with products from local suppliers: Red Hen baguettes, fresh Wisconsin goat cheese, and Kurt's lemongrass beer. Unfortunately, the menu was taped to the far wall and written on brown paper, so without my glasses, I couldn’t decipher the finer points of what I was eating. I will be sure to print the menu below, if the UFC posts it online. In the meantime, here are some visual highlights:

Those are all of my photos. I’m getting braver, but I’m still a little shy about taking pictures—especially when it means making my dining companions wait while I snap photos of the food. But when the UFC posts their pictures online, I’ll add more below.

After three and a half hours of pig plates and scintillating conversation with our new friends, F and I were reluctant to leave James’s beautiful apartment. As we gathered our coats and opened our umbrellas, I wondered why we considered getting together with nice people to eat good food a “Special Event.” The concept is pretty simple, really, and it would be simple to put into practice in our every-day lives, if we were so inclined. But are we inclined?

When I posed these questions to F on the way home, he replied with a pithy flash of wisdom,

“Eating is private.”

And it’s true. In many European countries, mealtime is a celebration of togetherness, of letting go of the day’s frustrations, and of enjoying the company of friends and neighbors over food and wine. But here in America, creating and eating a meal is often just another task to cross off our busy schedules. We eat in private—at our desks, on the couch, at the counter—without real enjoyment. Without company.

I will admit that I am a private person. When reading about the UFC’s collective meals, my first thought was that you’d have to really love these people to eat your every meal with them. While I long for more dinners with my friends and family, I wouldn’t want to make them nightly events. I would miss my dinners alone on the couch with F. It’s difficult, but it must be possible to find a fulfilling balance between privacy and community.

The UFC has a good thing going here and, while I definitely think the evening was worth the price, I can recreate the same experience in my own apartment for free. I may not have access to a fresh hog, but I do have my own collective of friends and family to celebrate with from time to time.

Vegetarian for a Day

Green Zebra interior photo courtesy of Mariani's Virtual Gourmet.

F and I are not vegetarians. As is evident in this blog, we like our meat. Most of our dinners consist of 1/3 pork or chicken or fish, 1/3 vegetables, and 1/3 grain, and it’s all I can do to sneak those vegetables into the equation. If it were completely up to me, I would cook a few vegetarian dishes a week. But when I make a ragout or an eggplant lasagna, F eats in silence and when prodded admits, “It’s good. But it would be better with meat.”

As described in the previous post, my sister B is essentially a vegetarian. When ordering a “design your own” sandwich, she will circle the entire vegetable section without prejudice. So when B came to visit, I embraced the opportunity to finally try a restaurant where I knew F would never willingly eat: the vegetarian Green Zebra. We made our reservations and invited F to join us, if he was so inclined. “There’s no meat at all?” he asked. Assured that there would, in fact, be no meat on the menu, F stocked up on a pulled-pork sandwich a few hours before dinner and agreed to accompany us “if only for the dessert.”

We arrived at Green Zebra in the midst of a raging downpour, complete with sleet and howling winds. The hostess led us to a table near the window, with a lovely view of the gray sky and rain-streaked street. The room was painted in muted greens and browns and dotted with pots of towering bamboo. We were in a little rainforest all our own.

The waiter provided a quick lesson on the menu. The dishes were relatively small and meant to be shared; he recommended three to four plates per person. The menu started with light, leafy dishes and soups and worked its way down to heaver plates of mushrooms, lentils, and creams. There were four distinct sections, and we decided to order one dish from each, forgoing the suggested three to four plates per person. To start, we ordered Honey Crisp Apples, Fresh Horseradish, Tarragon, Hazelnuts and both soups because we couldn’t decide between them: Thai Spiced Carrot Soup, Crispy Rice Noodles and Sweet Onion and Garlic Soup, Truffle Cream.

The carrot soup was a vivid orange with electric green foam. At once spicy and tangy, this was B’s favorite dish of the evening, while I was reluctant to share the onion and garlic soup. Its presentation was imaginative—if a little pretentious. The truffle cream arrived first, at the bottom of a white dish. Then the waiter poured the soup into the bowl from a cast-iron tea kettle. The cream spread throughout the soup, while a daub rose to the top, so you could garnish a spoon of soup with a hint of truffle. It was just the soup I wanted on such a damp, cold evening.

And F loved the apple dish. The plate was painted with a light streak of green horseradish, topped with a crispy stack of julienned apples and hazelnuts that appeared to have been lightly fried.

For the next course, we chose Foraged Mushroom Dumplings, Tofu, Thai Basil, Baby Bok Choy, Star Anise Broth and Olive Oil Confit Fingerlings, Dijon Mustard, Parmesan, Truffle, and a side dish of Spiced Edamame.

The edamame was salty and zesty and went very quickly. I could have done without the fingerlings, which were good, but pretty much just fancy potato wedges. B and I both liked the mushroom dumplings, which arrived in a star anise broth with plenty of green vegetables. The dumpling dough was chewy and slightly peppery, and made the dish.

For dessert, we ordered Cream Cheese Beignets, Carrot Cake Ice Cream, Ginger Snaps, Sugared Mandarin Peels and Chocolate Cake, Creme Fraiche Ice Cream, Salted Caramels, as well as the Lemon Pound Cake, Vanilla Gelato, Mandarin Slices from the "sweet bites" section.

The lemon pound cake was very good, but again, it tasted like pound cake should, without being particularly interesting.

But the other two desserts! The chocolate cake was heavy and soft and warm and the ice cream was flaky and sweet. It was accompanied by wrapped caramels that melted as you opened the wrappers. And the beignets! I took one bite and nearly leapt from my seat with joy. The soft, delicate beignet disintegrated as soon as it touched the tongue, leaving sugar crystals in its wake. The subtle cream cheese filling added a hint of tang. The carrot cake ice cream was creamy and tasted of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. It was a little heady for me, but B professed to love it.

We drove home in the rain, full and happy. I thoroughly enjoyed being vegetarian for a day—everything was so green and leafy. B seemed to love the entire Green Zebra experience and even F the meat-and-potatoes man liked this meal. I was nearly convinced that F and I could be vegetarians, if we could eat like this every day. I slept soundly, dreaming of truffles and bamboo—and woke up Sunday morning hankering for bacon.

Valentine to a Schlub

“I sound like such a schlub!” F said, upon reading Sundays in the Kitchen. “All I do is sit around and eat Cheez-Its while you buzz around the kitchen making all these great dishes.” I assured F that I had intended only to make fun of my own inability to relax on Sundays and in no way meant to imply that he was schlub-like.

“Oh, I know,” he said. “I’m glad you’re doing this blog. I just know your parents are reading it, and I hope they don’t think I’m lazy and terrible.”

I acknowledge that this is a valid concern for a new husband. Looking back through my posts, I realize that while I have not intentionally misrepresented F, I have not given him the credit he deserves in his support of my recent passion for cooking—or what he calls my “new phase.” F often teases me about the fact that when I become interested in something, I devote most of my waking life to its practice instead of enjoying it as a hobby like a normal person. There have been many such “phases,” and I am certain that they cannot all be easy for F to endure.

F is my biggest champion. He reads my every blog post and even comments. He has always been entirely supportive of whatever new, life-changing obsession I have discovered. He was ready to drop everything and start a business with me when I decided to open a coffeeshop-bookstore in Hyde Park. (I later came to believe that since I have no money and we are in the midst of a recession, this plan is best shelved for now.) He bought a bike with me and even agreed to a 40-mile recreational ride with a group of middle-aged strangers when I became a bicycling enthusiast last summer. And he’s supportive now, as I’m becoming increasingly obsessed with cooking.

He encourages my venture into the culinary arts, but he does not share the interest. Which makes him all the more wonderful for reading my blog, trying new foods when he’d rather have pizza, listening to me babble about recipes, and holding the grocery basket when I take forever wandering down every aisle in the store. He even gave me Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas.

He recently visited three grocery stores in a single afternoon in search of cardamom because I needed 1/8 of a teaspoon for a spice cake and he wanted my recipe to come out just right. He has made late-night runs for eggs and driven across town to find just the right size ramekin for a soufflé. And he does the dishes—even when I use all of our pots and pans to make a single meal. F is in no way a schlub.

He even puts up with my subtle attempts to interest him in cooking. Upon request, he mixes sauces and spice rubs and sometimes chops the garlic, and I have been gently insinuating for the last few months that he might like to take a cooking class with me. I have taken a few classes now at Kendall College, which are great in no small part because I get to wear a chef’s apron and paper hat in a huge, gleaming professional kitchen. I think that if F were appropriately garbed and surrounded by meat and knives, bubbling mixes and strange smells, he might just join me in what I’m quickly realizing is more than just a phase.

So on the pretense of Valentine’s Day, I signed us up for a pizza-making and wine-tasting class for couples at Frasca Pizzeria and Wine Bar in Roscoe Village and I didn’t tell him where we were going. F loves pizza and often bemoans the fact that we no longer order it every week as we once did (before I realized I had gained ten pounds). I thought the promise of pizza would be an understated and effective nudge in the direction of the culinary arts. Last night, as we walked into Frasca, F still had no idea what we were doing there.

The hostess led us to the back of the dining room where a row of rustic tables faced a wood-burning oven and a prop table with a bubble-gum pink standing mixer. We joined a few other early couples at the tables, which were set with wine glasses, informational sheets about the tasting wines, and the pizza recipe. F’s eyes lit up.

“Are we making pizza?” he asked.

“Yes, and tasting wine, too!” I said.

“Pizza and wine. I like this!” he exclaimed. I was relieved—and excited. I too love pizza. We can no longer order it once a week because I tend to eat most of it.

Our long table held a wide range of pupils. There were four other young couples, a mother and daughter, and an older couple in fancy dress who took photos as the chef/co-owner of Frasca introduced himself and explained the recipe step-by-step as he poured ingredients into the mixer. When he mentioned that Frasca’s distinctive crust is made with beer instead of water, I whispered to F, “If we make this at home, you can choose the beer.” The chef suggested a hoppy beer microbrew, and F scribbled hoppy beer microbrew on his recipe.

He continued to take notes on the temperature of the ingredients, where to get the right flour, the best way to grease the pizza pan, and the ratio between the quantity of yeast and the thickness of the crust. As though holding my breath at a deer's timid approach, I tried not to watch him make notes and nod in agreement with the chef. I pretended not to notice his intense joy in receiving a little plate with his own personal ball of dough and topping options. He smiled and chatted as he stretched the ball into a disc and carefully spread sauce over the top. He was deliberate in his pepperoni placement and liberal with his cheese. And when he handed his plate to the chef for baking, he said he couldn’t wait to eat the pizza he had made with his bare hands.

“This is great!” he said. “We should do this at home. We can have everyone over and give them each a dough ball and toppings and we can make our own pizzas for dinner.”

“Absolutely,” I replied.

“We should make pizza every month,” said F.

While our pizzas baked in the oven, we sipped our wine, comfortable and warm in our booth as the servers bustled around us with plates of pasta and desserts. When the hot, crusty, bubbling pizza was finally set down in front of him, F inhaled deeply and gave me a big smile—a smile shared by all of our dining companions. It’s amazing how pizza and wine can impart such a profound sense of well-being and unbridled joy. I was happier and cozier in our little booth next to my husband, with my pizza hot from the brick oven, sampling lovely wine, than I had been for weeks. I was totally, completely relaxed, and I thought nothing could make me happier than I was at that moment.

And then F gestured to the bubble-gum pink standing mixer on the table before us and said, “So, where can we get one of those?”

Frasca's Drunken Pizza Dough
1 cup beer
3/4 cup water
3 1/2 cup “oo” flour (King Arthur or better)
1 tsp salt
1 cup AP flour
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp yeast

Dough Preparation

1. Add first 4 ingredients to mixing bowl
2. Next add in flour, sugar, and yeast
3. On the lowest speed mix for about 1 minute and 30 seconds
4. Turn off mixer and allow the dough to rest for approximately 30 seconds
5. Mix at speed 2 for 45 seconds
6. Remove dough from mixing bowl, fold in sides 2 to 3 times to create a smooth other skin
7. Place newly formed dough ball into a greased mixing bowl for proofing
8. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in a warm (85-100 degree area) with a damp towel over the bowl
9. Check dough after 1 ½ hours. Dough should dimple but not stick
10. Portion dough into 6-oz balls
11. Place dough balls into refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours and cover until ready to use.

Cooking Directions
1. Preheat oven to highest setting with pizza stone in the oven
2. Slide pizza onto stone and cook until crust is golden and cheese is melted
3. Cut, eat, and enjoy!

Giada in My Kitchen

This evening, as F and I were watching the Food Network and enjoying our dinner of delicious Chicken Français, which took me a good hour and a half in the kitchen, Giada De Laurentiis appeared before us in a little red dress. She flipped her hair as she ladled meat onto a generous pile of pasta in a recipe that was most certainly not from Cooking Light.

F said, "I wish Giada would come over here and cook for me." As soon as the words left his mouth, he looked down at his dinner and mumbled, "Oops."