Pot Roast

Who knew foods could be so culturally, even ethnically, charged? When I was growing up, we called beef chuck roast pot roast. It was shoved in the oven with potatoes and carrots while we were at church. Bruce, on the other hand, called beef brisket pot roast. It was long-stewed for a holiday meal with tomatoes and onions. As a Texan, I didn't even know you could stew a brisket. I assumed it came off the cow already smoked.

Thus, Bruce and I endured years of rank confusion, a constant back-and-forth of dinner-based, inter-faith insanity. Like this:

"Do you want pot roast for dinner?"

"What kind of pot roast?"

"Brisket."

"Oh."

"Why?"

"Because when you said pot roast, I though you meant. . . ."

We finally brought peace to the home by naming that stewed brisket Jewish pot roast. So much is solved by adjectives. Like this:

"You should meet my friend--you two would really get along."

"What's he like?"

"Well, he's so nice."

"Oh, no thanks then."

So in the spirit of adjectival clarification, I suppose we should call this recipe Christian pot roast.

Start out by positioning the rack in the oven so you're big Dutch oven or heavy French casserole can sit on it with a couple inches clearance at the top. Preheat the oven to 325F.

Melt some fat in that oven-safe Dutch oven or French casserole over medium heat. What kind of fat? Depends. Butter would be my bet, but you can't then serve it to your kosher relatives. Walnut oil, too. Or olive oil. About 2 tablespoons worth.

Salt a 2-pound beef chuck roast with about 1/2 teaspoon salt, then add it to the pot. Brown it on all sides. And don't skimp. Brown is flavor. We long ago lost the ability to taste long-chain proteins very well. These days, all of us, Christian and Jew, taste short-chain proteins, the ones snapped apart over the heat. In other words, the browned bits. So let that thing go on all sides, maybe about 10 minutes in all, getting really crusty and delicious.

Transfer the meat to a cutting board, then add 1 chopped, large, yellow onion; 2 diced, large carrots; and 3 minced garlic cloves to the pot. Stir these over the heat until the onion begins to turn soft and translucent.

Next, add some minced fresh herbs (thyme and marjoram would be my choices--maybe one or two small handfuls in toto) as well as a heaping portion of root vegetables, about 3 pounds worth, peeled and seeded as needed. You could buy the already prepped butternut squash at your market, then add a few potatoes. But my favorite? A mess of peeled and chopped rutabagas. They're particularly sweet and delicious this time of year. And without a doubt, they're the most Christian of all root vegetables. Just ask any Norwegian.

Stir the herbs and vegetables around a couple minutes , add 3 tablespoons chopped pitted prunes, and pour in 1 cup beef broth--or 1/2 cup red wine and 1/2 cup beef broth. Bring the liquid to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits on the pot's bottom; then nestle the beef back inside, cover, and shove the whole contraption in the oven.

All that's left is to wait. About 3 hours, until the meat is fork-tender and the broth is absolutely divine. Daunting, those three hours? As Milton, that most Christian of all poets, wrote, "They also serve who stand and wait." Although it does help to have a glass or two of Pinot Noir at the ready.

Spinach Pie

I'm quite excited about it. Well, not the spinach pie, per se. Although it's pretty tasty. I'm more excited about what it stands in for: one of the recipes from our new book, REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, a step-by-step plan to get off all processed food. (It's available for pre-order on amazon here.) In seven steps, we go through the science of taste, the roots of overeating, their connection to processed food--and offer concrete ways to relearn satiety without a slather of tasteless fat, salt, and sugar. It's a guarantee to lose weight. But more important, to get off processed food for good.

Spinach pie is one of the recipes in the book--and here's a slightly morphed version, certainly in the spirit of the recipe that appears in the manuscript I just handed in.

First up, set the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Set out 6 phyllo sheets under plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel on your work surface.

Cork your sink and fill it up with cool water or fill a big bowl with cool water, as Bruce does. Add 1 pound torn spinach leaves. If the stems are quite pliable, you can keep them on the leaves. If not, cut them out. The only way to tell? Tear one stem and see if it's fibrous and tough inside. Even try to eat it raw. You'll know everything you need to know.

Agitate those torn bits of leaves in the water, then leave them there so any grit or sand will fall to the bottom.

Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Swirl in 1 tablespoon olive oil, then drop in 1 chopped, small, yellow onion and 3 minced, medium garlic cloves. Stir those over the heat until the onion is translucent and soft.

Remove the spinach leaves from the water, shake them once to get rid of some of the moisture, and put them in the skillet, stirring over the heat until they begin to wilt. (Kitchen tongs work best.) If your skillet isn't enormous, you can do this task in batches, adding the leaves in large handfuls, stirring them in the skillet just until you can add more. Once all the leaves are in, cover the skillet, reduce the heat to low, and cook just until tender, about 3 minutes.

Scrape the entire contents of the skillet into a large food processor fitted with a chopping blade--and set aside for 5 minutes to cool. Then add 3 ounces finely grated aged Asiago, 1 large egg, 3 tablespoons packed tarragon leaves, 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and a few dashes of a hot red chile sauce. Pulse this mixture until fairly well blended, almost a purée; then add 1/4 cup walnut pieces and 3 tablespoons raisins. Pulse just a couple times to blend and chop.

Place one phyllo sheet in a 9-inch square baking dish, letting the sides of the sheet overlap the edges but nonetheless gently pressing it down to conform to the baking dish's edges. Brush it with a little walnut oil, then add another sheet, setting it a different direction from the first. again overlapping the sides but allow it to fill the dish inside. Brush it with a little oil--then keep doing this with the remaining sheets, setting each one at a different angle from those that came before.

Pour in the spinach purée and spread it evenly to the corners of the baking dish. Fold the bits of phyllo hanging over the edge over the top of the spinach mixture so that they make a decorative covering without fully enclosing the casserole. Brush the top with a little oil.

Bake until the phyllo is crunchy and the filling is set when jiggled, about 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before cutting into 6 wedges to serve. What a great lunch with some iced tea and perhaps some sliced tomatoes sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and crunchy salt! Real food all the way, curvy and irresistible.

Shrimp Rogan Josh

Bruce has started teaching knitting classes in Millerton, New York--which means that I now cook dinner on the nights he's gone.

Mind you, such a call to action hasn't rung in a while. After fifteen books, I am officially an observer of cooking. Oh, sure, I bring together the occasional foofy dish for a dinner party, like some froo-froo appetizer. But I'm hardly down in the trenches.

I still don't know if atheists pray in their fox holes, but I can assure you this writer-turned-cook does. What I make should be satisfying and comforting. So I do a lot of handwringing over the stove.

Which also means I've made a promise with myself to cut out words like quick and easy from my culinary lexicon. Both are knee-jerk silliness from food writers. Quick and easy is a take-out menu. Cooking is another thing entirely. (Funny that a guy with so many cookbooks under his belt has come to this revelation. Score one for you, universe.)

Last night, I set my mark on a rogan josh. The weather turned a little grim in the afternoon: dark clouds, a few blustery flurries. I wanted something warm and comforting. So I morphed the rogan josh recipe in THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK (more about it here), pumping up the veggies--a key to getting more real food on the plate, we've found--but using the same spice mixture Bruce created in the original recipe.

In case you don't know, rogan josh is a warm (not spicy) curry from the Kashmir region. The name means something like boiling oil in Persian, a reference to the dish being cooked over the heat in plenty of fat; but if you increase the flavor of said fat, you can use a lot less of it--as you'll see I did.

First, I put together the curry mix in a large bowl: 2 teaspoons ground coriander, 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ancho chile powder, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon saffron. I then added one medium peeled and seeded, diced butternut squash and 1 large, peeled, diced rutabaga (about 1-inch cubes all around) along with 1 tablespoon macadamia nut oil. I stirred it well until the veggies were coated in the curry powder and set the bowl aside.

Don't have macadamia nut oil? Any nut oil will do--or even sesame oil. I wouldn't use a toasted nut oil because the flavor will get too pronounced, but a solid walnut or almond oil will do wonders. I'd also consider using avocado oil for a brighter finish. Just don't use any of the overly refined, tasteless stuff. It's hardly real food. 

Next, I heated a large saucepan over medium heat, then added another tablespoon of the nut oil. (Again, just use the same flavorful oil here you used in the last step.) I added 1 large, chopped, yellow onion, reduced the heat to low, and let that onion soften very slowly, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes.

And now a little nervousness set in. Root vegetables? Not potatoes? In a rogan josh? And not ghee as the fat? What was I doing? I tried to trust my ten-year instincts--but again, I the writer, not the chef. So I took my frustrations out on some Ravel waltzes at the piano while I waited for the onions to get good and soft, occasionally jumping up to stir the pot.

After that, I stirred in all those veggies, making sure to scrape every grain of spice into the pot. I pulled the heat up to medium and stirred until it was all pretty aromatic, about 1 minute. Then I poured in 4 cups beef stock and 1/4 cup white wine. I brought that to a simmer, stirring occasionally--then reduced the heat to low, covered the pot, and went away to fret over more Ravel, stirring the pot once in a while, until the veggies were tender, about 45 minutes.

Finally, I stirred in 1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp, cooked for 1 minute over the heat, then stirred in 1 cup plain yogurt (I used a fat-free version without any chemical shenanigans), 1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Done. I covered the pot and let it sit off the heat for a few minutes to meld the flavors. We had it over short-grain, sticky brown rice--and I didn't fret one more minute. 

Banana Wheat Germ Muffins

We had some good friends up this past weekend and at the end of it all, one of them summed it up by saying "we sat and ate and talked."

It was a chilly weekend, the leaves gone, so we made roaring fires (Bruce accuses me of building pyres) and indeed talked, and ate, and sat to our hearts' content. We read Philip Larkin poems--especially "Water" and "High Windows" (one of my favorites for so many reasons) as well as Emily Dickinson (#576--"I prayed at first a little girl") and e e cummings (like "The Boys I Mean"--surely one of the best snarls from an effete New Englander ever).

Our friends left after breakfast on Sunday; Bruce and I then raced down to New Haven, judged a bar-tending contest that afternoon, had a lovely dinner out, and came trudging back up to the country quite late.

I guess I was yearning for a little more of that "sit" thing from this weekend, so I got in the kitchen after lunch and whipped up a batch of muffins, homey little treats that are a lovely thing on a long, workaday afternoon, a little bit of the weekend in the middle of everything else. (See, I told you I don't believe in time.)

These are wheat germ muffins. When we were testing recipes for THE ULTIMATE MUFFIN BOOK, we discovered their secret. Admit it: they can be like leaden pucks. But the secret is to cut down the oil or fat. Most recipes increase the fat to make up for the added germ. But no, the trick is to go the other way, thereby taking some of the lead out of them and using things like bananas to make up for the moisture.

Here's how I made them: I began by preheating the oven to 425F and by greasing the indentations in muffin tins for 18 muffins (I used one that held twelve muffins and one that held six).

I put 2 large eggs, 1/2 cup unrefined sugar (nothing overly processed, after all--only real food as we've established), and 1/2 cup honey in a mixer bowl and beat these things at medium speed until the sugar had mostly dissolved. (I had to scrape down the bowl a few times to make sure the honey got completely mixed into the batch and didn't lie like a gooey clump on the bottom of the bowl.)

Then I mixed in 1 1/2 cups whole milk and 2 very ripe bananas, crumbled between my fingers into little bits. And finally I added 1/4 cup walnut oil and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract. I let the thing whir around for a long time, until the mixture was almost uniform (some chunks of banana were in there). Honestly, at this stage of the game, you can't overbeat it.

Now I stopped the beaters and poured in 2 1/3 cups un-bleached all-purpose flour, 1 cup toasted wheat germ, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg. I know there's a lot written about mixing the dry ingredients first in a separate bowl. I find it unnecessary for sturdy batters like muffins. I simply put the flour and other things in first, then add the leavening (the baking soda and powder) on top. That way, the leavening doesn't get wet too quickly and sinks into the batter after the flour has already begun to be incorporated, allowing better distribution.

I let the mixer beat it on the lowest speed just until there were no undissolved bits of flour anywhere. But here comes one warning: all-purpose flour is actually a little tricky. It stores ambient humidity and so reacts differently in batters on different days. You may need to add a little more to get your batter to this consistency--about like waffle batter, not pancake batter.

I then scooped the batter into the prepared muffin tins. Here's another little tidbit: there is no standard muffin tin. Sizes are difficult to judge. The indentations in mine are a little more than 1/3 cup, not quite 1/2 cup. Others can be larger--say, 2/3 cup. Since there's no standardization, it's hard to predict exactly how many you'll make. Again, I made eighteen with mine. The important thing is that each indentation is filled three-quarters full.

And one more thing: there's a myth about filling the unused tin indentations with water before baking. Um, no. That's utterly a kitchen myth. You don't have to worry about it. And if you've only got one tin, just set the remaining batter aside and make a second batch when these come out of the oven.

Bake until risen and brown, until an toothpick inserted into one comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, between 18 and 20 minutes. But start checking them at about the 15-minute mark, just so you know where you stand. If your indentations are larger, they'll take longer, maybe even 25 minutes. Mini-muffin tins will take much less time, maybe just 8 to 10 minutes. And so these tins that are just muffin tops? I have NO idea--because I can't imagine shorting either the top or the bottom of a homey, sweet, and relatively healthy muffin.

Pumpkin Chili

It's that time of year when those little pie pumpkins are in the farmers' markets. They're gorgeous--and tasty, too. So it's about time for a good chili, a pot of delicious decadence to keep you warm on a fall evening. Well, that and some ass bacon in the mix. But we'll get to that in a minute.

If you know beans about chili, you know it doesn't include beans. As a Texan, I take great pride in chili being a meat dish, best served with a vinegary salad on the side. Even cole slaw. But not the mayonnaise stuff. You need a little sour pucker to cut through the chile paste. So here's the technique from our book COOKING KNOW-HOW, rendered with an autumnal twist, that little pumpkin.

First, that chile paste. Take four dried New Mexican red chiles and four dried guajillo chiles. (The guajillos are mild, a little sweet, and have berry overtones.) Stem and seed them, then tear the flesh into pieces. Put these in a dry skillet over medium heat and toast until quite fragrant, turning occasionally, about 5 minutes.

Dump them in a big bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside for 20 minutes to soften. Then drain them in a colander set in the sink, but save back some of that soaking liquid.

Put the chile bits in a food processor and add 4 medium garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves, 1 tablespoon stemmed thyme leaves, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon.

Give it a whir, adding little bits of that soaking liquid, until it forms a paste. (The whole technique of building a balanced chile paste is explained more fully in the book--this is one incarnation.)

Next get the meat together. Ours involved this little delight. What is it? A smoked pig tail with some of the meat from the rump still attached. (I love the detail of the little hairs. Sorry if it's a bit much. Meat is, well, meat. And it has hairs. Except when sanitized in the supermarket.) The guy who sold it to us (more about him here) calls it "ass bacon." And so there you have it.

I'm sure it's not an everyday thing. Go into your local Safeway and ask for ass bacon. See what they say. Instead, you can substitute 1 pound slab bacon, cut into cubes.

Then cube up 2 pounds of beef top round.

You're ready to roll. Melt a tablespoon or so of lard or butter in a Dutch oven. Add the spice paste and fry it over the heat, stirring constantly, until quite aromatic, about 1 minute.

Add the cubed bacon and beef. Stir over the heat until the pieces are nicely browned and caramelized on the outside, about 3 minutes.

Add the pumpkin and a 12-ounce bottle of beer. Bruce used Negro Modelo. You pick your own poison. Just not a fruity flavored beer. Raspberry wheat in chili? Blech.

Bring it to a simmer, stirring often. Then cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer very slowly until the meat is meltingly tender, stirring every once in a while, about 2 hours. And that's the dish. It's Texas bowl food. Flour tortillas are pretty good on the side. And that vinegary salad, too. 

Lard

Is there a more wonderful sounding word? The moment we got our pig back from slaughter, Bruce spent an entire day rendering this pot of pork fat. (All of it, by the way, leaf lard, taken from around the kidneys, the most delicate and prized kind of fat on the pig.)

Spent is a big word for his activity. He put the fat in a gigantic Staub pot, turned the flame as low as it would go, and left it alone for 7 hours. No joke.

At the end, he was left with a pot of rendered lard as well as the solids (these last must be thrown out). In fact, he strained the lard into jars so that any little bits and shards of those solids would not be left in the mix.

Why all this about lard? Because it's real food. About as real as it gets. Definitely curvy. And a huge step back from the tasteless, processed world. 

As you may know, there are two kinds of dietary fat: saturated and unsaturated, with this last category divided into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Without getting too technical, saturated fats have uniform chemical bonds--but more importantly for the kitchen, they're solid at room temperature. Unsaturated fats have either one (MONOunsaturated) or more (POLYunsaturated) bonds out of synch with the others and so are liquid at room temperature--although many monounsaturated fats (like olive oil) will turn solid in the fridge.

In truth, all dietary fats have all three types of fatty acids in the mix. We identify a fat or oil by which one of the three make up the majority of what's in there. And it can be a very simple majority. A tablespoon of sesame oil has 1.9 grams of saturated fat, 5.4 grams of monounsaturated fat, and 5.6 grams of polyunsaturated fat--and many nutritionists label it a polyunsaturated fat.

Butter is a saturated fat--yes, there are saturated fats in a tablespoon (about 7.2 grams) but there are monounsaturated (3.3 grams) and even polyunsaturated fats (0.5 grams) in the mix.

Why is all this important? Because saturated fats have been blamed for a host of coronary problems--and so many of us have turned to monounsaturated fats like olive oil.

And thus, lard--which is a monounsaturated fat, full of great heart-healthy acids when rendered like this from grass-fed pigs. In a tablespoon of lard, there's 5.0 grams of saturated fat, 5.8 grams of monounsaturated fat, and 1.4 grams of polyunsaturated fat.

So is the stuff you find in the grocery store a monounsaturated fat? Absolutely not! Those blocks on the shelf are in fact a hydrogenated fat, with tons of trans fats in their mix. Manufacturers have taken a great fat (lard) and turned it into a dangerous one (trans fats) to keep it stable on the shelf without refrigeration.

What should you do if you want to start cooking with lard, the God's honest best base for braises and stews (after goose fat, of course)? Go find butchers (at their own shops or at a high-end market) and ask them for some. If they're cutting up pigs, they've got pig fat--and the good stuff, to boot. Put it in a pot and let it go over the lowest heat imaginable until all the fat has rendered out of the solids.

Strain it into a bowl and pour it into sealable jars, where you can keep it in the fridge for about 2 months and frozen for up to 1 year. And don't worry about not having it at the ready when it's squirreled away in the freezer. It'll shard up into chunks even when frozen. Your stews and braises will never be the same. Your friends and family, either.

Crabapple Jelly

Near the opening of Toni Morrison's BELOVED, Sethe is trying to come to terms with her child, dead now these several years, a baby who is still haunting her house. Her other daughter, Denver, catches her mother praying--and sees the ghostly image of the little baby with its arms around Sethe. Rather than thinking anything's odd about a ghost in the house, Denver finds it curious that her mother is praying. She asks what it was all about, and Sethe says, "I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it."

I know what she means. Time is the craziest thing. People contact me on facebook, people I haven't even thought about in 35 years--glacial epochs, or so it feels, as if I once lived on another, forgotten land mass. Then guests come to our home in the country for a week and it seems as if they stay a couple days--although the calendar says otherwise. And there are the seasons, coming and going with shocking abandon.

I've finally finished the book, the seven-step plan to get off all processed food. In, done, over. About two hours ago, in fact. But time hasn't started moving again. Instead, I've been caught in a moment that doesn't flow. It's just here, static. I keep waiting for things to lurch into gear. But they haven't. Instead, I'm looking outside at the brown leaves, the last of the bare ruined choirs that were the trees. And waiting. For? No idea.

Real food preserved is like that. Waiting. Patiently, in fact. And outside of time. I know I blog a lot about preserving things. And maybe it's because I too don't believe in time anymore. Jams and jellies cast it into the void. December can be spring. A house with busy schedules and calendars, deadlines and bills to pay, can become that timeless thing: a home.

Here's how to make the most of the season's best. Start with ten pounds of crabapples. No need to peel or seed them. (In fact, the peels and stems will add the pectin that makes the jelly set.) Just stem them and cut them into chunks, then put them in a big pot with 3 cups of water.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook until the crabapples are mush like applesauce, stirring once in a while, about 2 hours.

Set up a jelly bag over a big pot, then ladle in that hot crabapple sauce. And go to bed. See, time is meaningless. The thing drips all night. You can't rush it.

The next day, put about ten pint jelly jars in a big pot of water and bring it to a simmer over high heat. Turn off the heat and cover. Do the same with the lids and rings for the jars.

Now throw out the solids in the jelly bag and measure how much juice you've got in the pot. For every 3 cups of juice, add 2 cups of sugar. You might have to do a little math at the end. Bring it all to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally to make sure the sugar isn't sticking to the pot.

Stick a candy thermometer in the pot and keep boiling until the temperature reaches 222F. Timing here is really indefinite. It depends on how much juice the crabapples had and how much power your stove puts out. Just be patient in the moment. You're creating the future. What more do you want?

Once you hit the right temperature, ladle the mixture into the hot jars--if you don't have teflon fingers, use towels to hold on but be careful of that superhot jelly splashing everywhere--then wipe the rim with a clean kitchen towel, set the lid in place, burp it once to remove any air, and then screw on the ring loosely (just so it makes contact but not tight so that air will escape when the jars are processed).

And process. Bruce uses a steaming contraption, the jars set on a rack over burbling water. He steamed them for 10 minutes, then took them out and let them cool to room temperature before putting them on the shelf.

While I still watch the leaves. They shiver and shimmer in the afternoon glow. And I'm no longer Toni Morrison. I'm all Emily Dickinson: "Oh, Sumptuous moment/ Slower go/ That I may gloat on thee--"

Red Cooking Pork Belly

I thought we might as well go over the top. I've been saving this recipe back; but heck, the day's are getting shorter and it's time to fatten up for winter. Thus, a big hunk of pork belly. NOT smoked. About 2 pounds worth. Notice how lean this thing is. You can find the same at high-end supermarkets. But this baby is from our own pig. This year's version, that is. Wilbur II. (The tale of the original is told in our forthcoming HAM book. Let's just say it involves gunky stuff scraped off Prada boots with twigs, screeching French butchers, and a certain collie on meat patrol for weeks. But that's another story indeed.)

Anyway, "red cooking" is a classic Chinese braise, so named because of the way good soy sauce develops a slightly red cast after simmering for hours. In other words, this is not a dish for a Wednesday night but a weekend one, for sure. (With a couple statins as a chaser, of course.)

So here goes. Cut up those 2 pounds of pork belly into 1 1/2-inch cubes. Put them in a big bowl, then mix in 5 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar, 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (a Chinese rice wine you can find at many supermarkets--or substitute dry sherry), the zest from an orange or a tangerine (take it off with a vegetable peeler--and save the fruit to be used in a bit), two cinnamon sticks, and a star anise pod. Also stir in a 3-inch piece of peeled fresh ginger, sliced into thin disks. Stir all this really well, then cover and set in the fridge overnight, stirring once in a blue moon. (See, no Wednesday night dish. By the way, we'll get to the chiles and scallions in the picture in a second.)

Now it gets fun. Melt a couple tablespoons lard in a deep, high-sided sauté pan (or maybe a shallow French flame-and-oven-safe casserole). Yes, lard. Not the hydrogenated, shelf-stable stuff. Ask the butcher at your market for the real thing, cut from a pig. Did you know it's in fact a monounsaturated fat like olive oil? But again, not the hydrogenated, shelf-stable stuff. Or try duck fat in this dish. Pure bliss.

Add the pork in pieces from the marinade, making sure there's no spices stuck to them. Brown them well on all sides, about 10 minutes a piece, turning often. Don't skimp. You want lots of color on these things. And don't crowd the pan. Put in half, maybe just a third of what you've got, brown these off, then put them in a bowl and do more, adding more lard if (IF!) you see the skillet is dry (HA!).

Once everything's brown, pour off the fat from pan (not down the drain unless you're married to a plumber), then set the pan back over medium heat and pour in 2 cups water. Raise the heat to high and scrape all that brown stuff off the bottom of the pan as the water comes to a boil.

Pour in all that reserved marinade and its spices, as well as 6 dried or fresh red or green chiles (like serranos) and 5 sliced garlic cloves, plus 2 more packed tablespoons dark brown sugar. Pour in the pork as well as 6 scallions cut into 1-inch bits. Stir it a bit, put on the lid, and bring the thing to a simmer, stirring occasionally so the sugar doesn't fall out of suspension and stick on the pan's bottom.

Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the chunks of pork are meltingly tender, between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 hours. Why the big time gap? Because no two hunks of belly will get tender at the same time. We've made this dish many times and it's taken varying time over the heat, depending on lots of factors with the meat: feed, stress at slaughter, stress during life, and amount of movement during life. Since our pig runs around all day in the fields, he gets a lot of play. So he needs a while over the heat to get tender. Maybe yours, too. So open another bottle of Pinot Noir and settle in.

Gently remove the meat pieces from the sauce and put them in a big bowl. Now turn up the heat under the sauce and really let it boil until it thickens a bit, about 10 minutes.

Return the pork pieces to the sauce and stir the juice from that orange or tangerine you saved a while back. How much? Oh, there's no telling. Maybe 3 tablespoons or so. No reason to get fussy at this stage. Simmer for 1 minute, then serve. Over rice. Or really crunchy croutons. With the statins, as I said.

Grilled Wings

Now that's a heap of wings! And a fine supper they made. As well they should: sweet, hot, spicy.

When I was a kid, we had fried chicken at my grandparents' house almost every Sunday we were there. My grandmother always tried to grab the wings. Even put them on her plate before she set the platter down on the table. And then there was always a show-down: she and her sisters, fighting for the wings. "Oh, Sis, let me have that. You take a breast."

I thought it was martyrdom, saving the best for everyone else. Um, no. Now I know it was rank selfishness--because a wing is definitely crunchier, juicier, fattier, and skinishier. (What would be the adjective for having more skin? Skinnier? That sounds way wrong for chicken wings.) It was one of my favorite parts of developing recipes for THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK (which you can find here)--so we ended up leaving three recipes in that volume.

Anyway, Bruce made some wings last night on the grill because we had a momentary day of sunshine and warmth, into the low 70s.

Boy, were those things good.

Here's how it went: he put 3 pounds of cut-up chicken wings in a bowl (not the flappers but the drumlets and the winglets, not the pointy flappers). He then added 2 tablespoons olive brine (the liquid from a jar of green olives), 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon ground ancho chile powder, 2 teaspoons dried oregano, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 2 minced garlic cloves, and several dashes Tabasco sauce. Stirred the whole thing up, covered it with plastic wrap, and stored it in the fridge for 4 hours.

He heated the grill just to low--in fact, very low, about 300F--and cooked the wings over direct heat for 10 minutes per side. If you don't want to do them on the grill, broil them 5 inches from the heat source for 10 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden brown all over. I ask you: could you find anything more real, more satisfying, more fantastic? Real food does away with the fake at the first bite. As well it should.

Spiced Pumpkin Pie

The pumpkins are in! We've been getting small, super sweet, little pumpkins weekly from our CSA--and from farm stands all around us in the Berkshires. Bruce and I have relished them every way imaginable: stir-fried, roasted, grilled. Talk about real food! But listen, in the end, is there anything better than pumpkin pie?

Especially when you're trying to get through some Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues? Now that the manuscript has gone in, I've settled back for a bit, a breather to do some reading (Dickens OUR MUTUAL FRIEND) and practice the piano. So I've gotten back to working on those darn spiky preludes and fugues in the late afternoon--while the smell of pumpkin pie and some warm, autumnal spices drift through the house. (By the way, Prelude #15 is absolutely terrific--so jagged, so much Soviet angst!)

On the blog, you and I have already been over the pie crust bit. You can find it here. I won't belabor the point--except to say that you need a single crust in a 10-inch pie plate.

While you prepare the crust, preheat the oven to 400F. Cut the pie pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and their little membranes (a serrated grapefruit spoon works best), and place the halves cut side down on a baking sheet. It also helps to remove the woody stem (which can singe and smell bitter in the oven). Then bake until very soft, about 45 minutes.

Cool a few minutes, then scrape the flesh of the pumpkin off its shell and into a large bowl. You need about 2 cups. If your pie pumpkin is very small, consider roasting two. (What's the worst thing that can happen if you end up with extra? You have warm, mashed pumpkin with a little butter as a side dish for dinner?)

Whisk in (don't stir) 1 1/2 cups evaporated fat-free milk, 1/4 cup honey, 1/3 cup sugar (preferably unrefined sugar), 1 large egg plus 2 large egg yolks, 2 tablespoons powdered fat-free dry milk, 2 tablespoons minced crystallized (or candied) ginger, 2 teaspoons lemon zest, 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon salt until smooth.

I really like the crystallized ginger in that filling--but I have a confession. The day I shot the pictures for this blog, Bruce used something else: candied clementines, made last winter and kept in the fridge since then. How in the world does someone make candied clementines? Ah, well, you have to wait until the December issue of FINE COOKING magazine to find out. That's when our story runs. Until then, crystallized ginger will give the pie a nice pop, a bit less subtle than those candied clementines.

Drop the oven to 350F, pour the filling into the pie shell, and bake until set if still slightly jiggly at the very center, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack at least 20 minutes before slicing. And make sure there's plenty of whipped cream on hand. Because you know what I think about whipped cream. It's a beverage.