Quote of the Week – 10/21/09
“For me, the whole point of asking people to dinner is that you’re inviting them into your life. They show up for a true reality show, for a moment when they discover who you really are. Your friends may not get a faultless meal in a fabulous house, but they do get the pleasure of knowing that you trust them.” – Ruth Reichl in “Gourmet” November 2009, final issue.
Could I Be a Vegetarian in Denial?
Not a pretty picture.
At times I wonder if I’m a vegetarian in denial. For example, as I was preparing this roaster a while ago, I found myself disturbed by the pale, fatty, spongy flesh. Of all the meat I cook, I find chicken is the most troubling. And yet it’s a lean meat, so I try to prepare at least one meal per week with chicken, despite my misgivings.
It’s rare that I enjoy restaurant meals with prepared chicken. It has to be done just so for me to really find it appealing. There’s nothing worse than a giant slab of chicken flesh on a restaurant plate, and yet some places feel that’s what customers want for the value. Most fried chicken leaves me cold, as does greasy chicken wings. I’d rather eat the celery and blue cheese dressing. Instead, give me small pieces of grilled chicken with a fresh herb topping. Sometimes shredded chicken in a quesadilla will be okay. Or roasted chicken topped with a simple reduction of chicken fat, herbs, garlic and lemon juice. That will get my appetite flowing.
I certainly hope that tonight’s roaster lives up to expectations, or I’ll be making my dinner on the roasted potatoes and broccoli rabe, instead.
McCormick Flavor Forecast 2009
Can you think of new ways to use ginger and molasses?
Although this press release from McCormick is obviously self-serving, it gave me food for thought today. The spice and seasoning company has released their predictions for this holiday season’s flavor pairings which are: Ginger and Molasses; Warm Spices and Pumpkin; Peppermint and Chocolate; Vanilla and Red Food Color; Nutmeg and Rum.
My first reaction was was that this seemed kind of silly and frivolous. What’s so new about peppermint and chocolate around the holidays? And since when was red food color a flavor? But as I read the press release more closely, I discovered that they weren’t necessarily predicting the flavors of the holidays, but that classic holiday flavors were going to show up in unusual ways. For example, Ginger and Molasses were no longer reserved for cookies and spice bread, but would be found in creations such as Gingerbread Whoopie Pies with Lemon Creme.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked this concept of a flavor forecast. Why should style predictions be limited to the fashion world and their annual color prediction? Food has become an equally trendy world, and it’s worth taking a moment to examine where it’s heading.
But I also liked the fact that McCormick wasn’t trying to assemble a new palette of flavors for the holidays. It would take a lot more than a declaration from a spice company to make us accept a new group of flavors as our holiday taste palette. For example, if you were told soy sauce, lime, cumin, and mustard seed were to be the flavors of the 2009 holidays, you probably wouldn’t be inspired to sing Jingle Bells. The holiday flavor profile is deeply embedded in our cultural consciousness, not to be changed on a whim.
So congratulations to McCormick for doing the next best thing. They’ve taken the old familiars and challenged us to experience them with a fresh eye this year, feeding our generation’s needs for the new and different, while preserving our souls’ requirements for the traditional.