Tomatillo

There’s no doubt that guacamole is popular. But there’s also no doubt that it can be watery, off-tasting and dull unless it’s been carefully handmade almost minutes before it’s consumed.

For years, I’ve been making a guacamole that includes tomatillos in the ingredients. I started out making the recipe because I love “Cuisine of the Water Gods,” one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. What I discovered was that this generously-proportioned guacamole with three avocados, plenty of serrano chiles, and 10 raw tomatillos didn’t separate, become bland, or discolored. In fact, I could take it to a party an hour or even two later and it was still vibrantly green and delicious.

Added as an accompaniment to Pinotepa-style Empanadas Stuffed with Shrimp, there’s no explanation given by author Patricia Quintana, but I theorize that the texture and acidity of the tomatillos (also called Mexican ground tomatoes) gives this guacamole its staying power. It’s great for chips, veggies, or for another Quintana recipe I love Tuna Taquitos.  Bring it to a party — it’ll be the star.

Guacamole with tomatillos

3 ripe avocados, peeled and roughly chopped                      2 medium garlic cloves, peeled, chopped

4-8 fresh serrano chilis, roughly chopped                              1/2 medium onion, roughly chopped

10 tomatillos, husked and roughly chopped                       Juice of 2 limes

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or mint                        Salt to taste

Put all ingredients in food processor. Pulse until just slightly chunky. Add salt to taste. Refrigerate until using.

I’ve been puzzling over this for months as I read blogs and articles that go into detail — sometimes excrutiating detail — about how to cook something.  How to cook a hamburger, using six different fats and 10 different cooking methods. How to sear a steak, how to make a barbecue sauce. Most of them reference cooking chemist Harold McGee, and most of them make cooking sound like a long and arduous journey that’s worth it only if the discovery at the end is perfection.

I don’t cook that way; although I experiment, I’m not that exact. I never even practice a dish before I serve it to guests. Hopefully, it works out, usually it does, and there’s always homemade bread to fall back on (German lore insists on good bread) if something flops.

Nora Ephron

But the other day, I read a profile of Nora Ephron, whose famously combined food and literature (“Heartburn”, the screen play for “When Harry Met Sally.”) In it, she serves a meal with a medley of food and opines that she’s not a serious cook, she’s a “feeder.”

That’s it. I’m a feeder. And proud of it.

Tim's fantastic bacon

March is a cruel month, right before that cruelest month. Grocery stores are full of all the out-of-season, purchased-from-somewhere-else strawberries, asparagus, green beans. It’s so hard to resist them, and love those root vegetables when something green is what you crave. I’ve been trying to follow a mildly cocina povere or cocina pobre –  whatever language you cook in — using very little meat and lots of roots and dark greens. Sometimes it works beautifully — say with fantastic home-cured bacon from my friend Charlotte’s husband, Tim, which I used to flavor a salad of dark green lentils and walnuts. The bacon is so powerfully evocative of bacon I ate when I was young that just a few shavings give the lentils a smoky goodness.  My son loves BLTs, and this bacon would be perfect. Not that it’s going to last until tomato season. Maybe next will be a satisfying minestrone with just a touch of bacon. Or seared scallops with bacon. Or… What do you like with great bacon?

Some restaurant spaces are doomed.  The little restaurant tucked into the side of Louis Boston appears to be one of them. Its latest rendition  by Marc Orfaly had the life of a mayfly, a span so brief that the operating hours, not to mention the name, never really got settled. 

The space had previously been Boston Public, after being Restaurant L. Before that it was Cafe Louis, with and then without the Al Forno owners’ involvement. And then a long time ago it was Cafe Louis with Michael Schlow as its rising star. (The place was something before that, but I forget.)

The restaurant changed looks as many times as it did chefs and names, but it always seemed awkward — odd in a clothing store that is the ultimate in chic. Except for Schlow, the chefs — each one of them a star in other settings — never found their groove.

It’s time to let it go. I have an idea: Newbury Street could use a really good bakery/cafe. Why not invite Flour to set up shop? Lots of traffic, coffee,  reasonably-priced lunch, irresistible goodies to take home along with the fashion. Hey, Debi, call Joanne. Make a deal.

If you read food magazines, you might be lulled into thinking it’s all beautiful dishes, chi chi restaurants, hot chefs, quick recipes. In other words, fluff.

Barry Estabrook

But now and then something or someone breaks this gloss, bringing gritty, real-life problems to light. I find that it’s often Barry Estabrook writing for Gourmet. This month, Estabrook, whose pieces are titled “Politics of the Plate,” is writing about the hidden cost of winter tomatoes, and how those who work the fields in Florida are kept in virtual slavery.  The migrants, usually illegals from Mexico or Central America, are charged for everything from rent (often in the back of box truck) to meals to laundry. The result is that instead of sending money home to their families, they can owe money to the crew bosses. And this, as Estabrook points out, for tomatoes that have no taste.

His column is journalism of a high order — full of interviews, statistics, comparisons — about as far from fluff as you can get. It should be required reading for anyone who eats.

Ever had a food that seemed to call to you: “Eat me. Eat me?” Of course, you have, all you ice cream aficianados out there. My siren snack is walnuts. My sister-in-law Marilyn, who lives in Walnut Creek, Calif., fed right into my weakness this holiday season by sending hand-shelled walnuts from Mellow Farm that she bought at her local farmers’ market.

These make me rethink every prepackaged or even Whole Foods bulk buy of walnuts I’ve ever made. Each Mellow Farm walnut half is perfect with a beautifully clean flavor and great crunch. Each bite, and I’m smitten again. Walnuts are good for you — a great source of plant protein with fiber, vitamins B and E, and excellent omega 3 fatty acids. They’re also pretty high in calories. Moderation, counsel the nutritionists, is the key. Really hard to do when those walnuts are calling to me.

I looked up Mellow Farm, which is in Morgan Hill, Calif. It turns out the family has been farming since the 1800s, and are now into the fourth generation growing and selling fruit, walnuts, vegetables, and flowers, much of it at farmers’ market.  I’m violating the locavore code, of course, with a California food source, but still I can get the sense of the farm family and their pride in what they grow. That’s important to me. Marilyn just sent another batch of walnuts because she loves visiting the woman who sells them at the market. As for me, I’m willing to add extra exercise to compensate for the calories. After all, a little walnut addiction can’t hurt, can it?