Here is the second in my series of Thursday “lifestyle” posts. As we get ready to put the apartment on the market again, most of our cookbooks have to go into storage so that the bookshelves don’t look too “heavy” or “intimidating” per our realtor. This means keeping out only my essential cookbooks, so I thought I’d highlight a few.

Tender by Nigel Slater

I have and adore several of Nigel Slater’s cookbooks. Appetite is another one I highly recommend if you are a beginning cook, and also Real Food, from which I got one of my favorite fast recipes. But Tender is the one I open the most often these days. It goes through a long list of vegetables, from A to Z, and gives many recipes and serving ideas.

Like many of Slater’s books, it is as much of an idea book as a recipe book, with helpful serving suggestions as well as written-out recipes. The recipes are vegetable-centric but not all vegetarian. I love ordering a CSA box and using this book to figure out what to do with the haul.

Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi

I love Middle Eastern food, and Jerusalem is the crossroads of many cultures. Though with all of Ottolenghi’s recipes I like to use about a quarter of the hot peppers, and half the oil, that he calls for, the combinations of flavors are wonderful, and many of them are new to me.

I make several of the different lamb meatballs regularly. The barley risotto is in frequent rotation, and the desserts have been unexpected and wonderful. Like Tender above, he uses many fresh vegetables, and huge handfuls of herbs, making these dishes very fresh-tasting.

 The Best Recipe by America’s Test Kitchen

It’s not sexy, but you need one good reference cookbook. Once upon a time it was The Joy of Cooking, but now it’s The Best Recipe. America’s Test Kitchen exhaustively tests everything, and while I sometimes find their recipes to be a bit fussy to make and plain to eat, it is an excellent reference for the basics.

Their Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe cannot be improved upon. Their Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe is divine. The Caesar Salad recipe is perfection. If you want to eat a standard American recipe, this is the place to start. I also love their baking book, Italian book, and Soups and Stews book.

What are some of your essential cookbooks?

I was bragging on Facebook the other day that one of my superpowers is cooking dinner and making it all come out at the same time, and promised some tips about that, so here they are! It’s not magic, and it’s not a superpower, it takes some planning but it also takes some of the tips I will outline below, from easiest to more difficult.

General Principles & Tips

My goal when serving a meal is for everything to come to the table warm and properly cooked, not for everything to finish at exactly the same time. That is not necessary. The main key is knowing not only how long everything takes, but how long different steps take and when dishes can be held while other dishes catch up to them. A lot of this is trial and error, but here are some tips:

• Have a good idea of how long each thing you’re making takes over all, and how long major steps take
• Chopping ingredients takes longer than you think. If there are a lot to be chopped do it first.
• Boiling water takes longer than you think, do it first or at least early
• Preheating an oven takes longer than you think
• Potatoes and other root vegetables retain heat very well, so you have about 10 minutes of leeway after they are done cooking before they start to get cold
• Rice is better if it sits for 10-20 minutes. Boil rice early.
• Any dish that starts with sauteing onions and garlic can be held after that step is done. Leave the burner on the lowest setting or turn it off.
• Any hot dish on the stove-top that does not involve vegetables or pasta that are going to get overcooked can be held at a very low burner setting when they’re done
• I love roasting because you stick your vegetables or whatever in the oven and set a timer. Toss once, set another time, done. Super easy.
• Roasting temperatures can be variable, much more than for baking. If you have something that needs to be roasted at 375 and something else at 425, consider roasting them both at 400.
• You can hold a roasted vegetable in the oven for 5-10 minutes by turning off the oven but not opening it
• If anything takes cream as a finisher, don’t add it until the very end
• Things that are fast or touchy should get priority at any moment
• MOST IMPORTANT: If you’re making one fast and touchy dish, or a new dish, choose other dishes you know well that are easy and easy to hold

Difficulty Level 0: Cold dinner

Have a picnic food where everything is cold, and don’t worry about it.

Difficulty Level 1: One hot dish, the rest cold

Still very easy. Just make sure you finish the cold dishes before finishing the hot dish. For example, say your meal is a stew, salad, and (store-bought) bread. This one is nice and easy because a stew can be held on simmer forever. If it’s something more time-sensitive than a stew, and has a cooking phase that’s long enough to make your cold dishes, make them while your hot dish is cooking. Otherwise make the cold dishes first, then the hot dishes.

Difficulty Level 2: Two hot components, the rest cold

This can make up most of your meals. Let’s say you’re making a fast-paced pasta sauce, like all’amatriciana, over pantry (not fresh) pasta, with a side salad. This is where you have to understand what takes up the most amount of time. If I were making this meal I would:

1. Start boiling the pasta water–this will take the longest
2. Chop everything for the sauce
3. Start sauteing bacon, onions, garlic for the sauce
4. If the water is taking a long time, you can hold the onion mixture here
5. Pasta probably cooks for 10 minutes. Put it in when the water is boiling
6. Add the tomatoes to the sauce
7. Make up the salad (I make very simple salads)
8. Keep an eye on the sauce and when it’s done cooking, turn the burner to its lowest setting
9. Drain the pasta
10. Add cream to the sauce, if using

Voila, dinner is ready.

Difficulty Level 3: Three easy hot dishes, maybe some of them use the oven

Sunday night I made roast chicken with potatoes and onions, roast broccoli rabe, and heating up some frozen sourdough rolls. It’s not a hard 3-dish meal, but everything is hot and in the oven.

• A whole roast chicken can be a challenge because the cooking time is variable, so you have to be flexible.
• The chicken cooks for 90 minutes or so, so that’s most of the cooking time. The potatoes and onions cook in the roasting pan under the chicken, so that’s two dishes for the price of one.
• Chicken is better if it sits a little before carving, giving me a buffer.
• The broccoli rabe only takes 10 min in a 400-425 oven
• The rolls warm up at 400 for 12-14 min
• So the chicken comes out at 7pm, then then I throw the rolls in while the oven goes from 350 to 400.
• Once it gets to 400, the broccoli rabe goes in
• Carve the chicken in the last few minutes of cooking the rolls and broccoli rabe

Difficulty Level 4: Everything is cooked hot and fast and can’t be held

One of my favorite meals, which is easy and fast but requires good timing is: Duck breast, red wine pan sauce, store bought pumpkin ravioli, roasted broccoli rabe (I have an obssession). Here are the steps I would go through:

1. Start boiling water for the ravioli
2. Preheat the oven for the duck
3. Score the duck breast, salt and pepper
4. Heat up the pan and start stove-top cooking the duck
5. Cut up the broccoli rabe and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper
6. Put the broccoli rabe on its roasting pan
7. Probably pour off some fat from the duck breast
8. Prep the pan for the oven for the duck breast
9. Put the broccoli rabe in the oven
10. Take the duck breast off the stove-top and onto its roasting pan, put it on the other shelf in the oven
11. Make the pan sauce for the duck in the same pan (I do a very easy pan sauce with red wine, honey, a little Beef Better Than Bullion, and maybe some jam or a cinnamon stick)
12. You have maybe 2 minutes left on everything now. Boil the pumpkin ravioli.
13. Take out the duck and tent it with foil to let it rest
14. Take out the broccoli rabe, and add lemon juice and crumbled goat cheese
15. Drain the ravioli
16. Carve the duck breast
17. Put everything on a plate and serve

The above takes about 30 minutes and I’m moving the whole time.

A Side Note

I read an article the other day that says Americans are eating fewer leftovers and throwing more food away. Leftovers are the best way to make sure everything is ready at the same time, especially on a weekday after work. And it doesn’t have to be cooking one thing and eating it all week. I made two whole roast chickens on Sunday. I made stock from the bones. I stirred some meat into soup I already had made for lunch yesterday, and made some of the meat and stock into Avgolemono Soup on Monday evening, which is a very fast soup and also used up some leftover rice I had sitting around. I will probably make some more of the chicken into Chicken Tikka Masala tomorrow. Often I’ll make side dishes that can stretch for more than one meal so I can have meals that are different combinations of leftovers.

Conclusion

Trial and error is very important. If the timing didn’t work out, figure out why not and try to do it differently next time. That’s true of all of cooking, and all of life, really. Experience, and learning from that experience, makes all of this much easier.

Let me know if you have any questions! I’ve been doing this for long enough that I have probably forgotten to mention important things that I now take for granted.

One morning, four and a half years ago, I went to my first Crossfit class, and I hated it and it made me cry and feel like a failure. I swore I’d never do it again. But that evening I signed up for a monthly membership, and I started going. And I cried in other classes, and I dropped a barbell on my leg.

It took me 13 months to be able to do a full, un-assisted pull-up. Now I can do  7 in a row. I went to Strongman Nationals last year.

But by the time I started Crossfit, I’d already started doing some work to learn that failure is okay; in fact, it’s the only way you get to success. I’d been learning that in my writing, and Crossfit reinforced it.

The other amazing thing about Crossfit is that it takes everyone seriously as an athlete. If you have barely risen from your couch in five years, and you go to a Crossfit class, you will be taken seriously as an athlete. The coaches will find a way for you to participate in the workout, and the next time you do it, you’ll be a little better, and a little better the time after that.

Crossfit takes everyone seriously and meets them where they are.

I think those are good lessons for anything you really want to do. Start where you are, and take yourself seriously. Taking yourself seriously doesn’t mean not having a sense of humor, it means believing that it is worth your time and energy to do the thing you’ve committed to. Whether that’s learning to cook, or exercise, or write a novel. I think we often don’t take ourselves seriously because then if we fail, or worse, if we give up, we haven’t really put ourselves on the line.

But if you don’t take yourself seriously, and put yourself on the line, how can you succeed?

I’d never found anything fitness related before that began with the idea that each person is an athlete, capable and willing to improve–and every fitness endeavor should.

I don’t do Crossfit much anymore because I’ve found some other fitness things to take seriously, and which I find more fun. I like Strongman more. I like getting stronger infinitely more than I like doing burpees. But that focused seriousness of purpose will go with me for the rest of my life.

And by you, I mean me. And by me, I mean for the 60 minutes after lifting something very heavy, I can’t do basic math and am incredibly forgetful. Over the course of my strongman career, I have left…let’s see…roughly everything I own in every gym in the tri-state area.

Today I lifted a 210-lb atlas stone a few times, going over 200 lbs for the first time in ages, and it was very hard, and afterward, I left my purse on the train platform and got on the train without it.

Luckily the ticket taker wanted my ticket right away, so I discovered I was missing it right after the train pulled away from the station.

Luckily the next station was pretty close, so I got off there to make my way back.

Luckily I had my phone so I could use Uber to get back to the train station.

Luckily before my Uber even arrived, a train came going the other direction.

Luckily no ticket taker talked to me between Larchmont and Mamaroneck.

LUCKILY MY PURSE WAS STILL SITTING ON THE PLATFORM WHERE I LEFT IT.

Luck was on my side today. And luckily post-weightlifting brain wears off pretty quickly…just in time to do some writing this afternoon.