[UPDATED]
(...Widow's Haven being our little manse's proper title, now that the Hotel Matt Lickona looks to be closing down for the season. The widows in question - and we have plenty of them here - are of the black variety, owing to their mourning for their lost husbands. The harsher onlookers can't help but remind these fat black ladies that they brought about their own sorrow, but the widows go on spinning as if they cannot hear, setting gummy traps for the unwary amid the children's backyard toys...)
This is one of those rarer dinners in which I play a role, and one of those even rarer dinners in which something goes awry...
Peel the potatoes, cube the potatoes. Melt the butter in the six-quart flat-bottomed skillet, but add oil to help prevent burning. In go the potatoes over high heat (to ensure that outer crispness and inner yielding softness) - the heat means that you have to flip frequently for the first twenty minutes or so, keep things moving. (Thank God the doc hasn't said anything about my diet in his quest to get my cholesterol figgered out. Lord knows I drink enough red wine - when's that French Paradox gonna kick in and get me off the lipitor?)
Run to Henry's grocery store for wine. The wine budget has long since been spent (and drunk) for August, but this is Sunday dinner, and there's steak in the offing. No budget can withstand such pressing circumstances. Henry's has Pappio California Cabernet, on sale at two for nine dollars. I never would have bought this - California, Cabernet, mass-production as evidenced by the basic California appellation, goofy label featuring monkeys plus a political promise to support some naturalist cause or other (not that I have anything against naturalist causes, but I'm suspicious when wine uses such a cause as a selling point) - but Deirdre brought a couple of bottles home a while back to audition them for her parents' visit, and they passed muster. Very pleasant; yummy even.
Home again, start the grill. Yes, I use propane. Yes, I'm a philistine. The wife makes me a Suburban (fresh OJ, vodka, pure cranberry, lime juice, sugar, shake and strain into a martini glass) while I flip potatoes. She goes to the garden to cut Swiss chard. The potatoes nearly done - gorgeously golden brown and crisp, quietly hissing as they give up the last of their excess moisture - I cut the heat to simmer (God bless this cooktop of ours) and head out to the grill.
On goes the flank steak, which has been marinating in olive oil, soy sauce, scallions, and what-all since this morning. It's my mother's marinade. We found a good one in Saveur once that used honey, garlic and suchlike, but this one has quietly crept back into Deirdre's repetoire. One of the few recipes she's inherited from my mom - but every one she's taken on is a keeper. Tomato sauce, Swedish meatballs, et al. Finish the Suburban while the meat grills and Third Son runs around me, waving a sword and getting into the dirt alongside the house. Meanwhile, the wife is inside, sauteeing the Swiss chard with plenty of garlic. She is careful not to scorch the garlic. And she boils up the gold-and-white corn, bought this afternoon, which will turn out to be a highlight for both kids and grownups.
First Son sets the table - by himself, without complaining. He's on best behavior; there's a favor he's hoping we'll grant after dinner, and he's had a few missteps already.
Meat finished - bring the meat in, slice the meat with the fantabulous Hamilton-Beech electric knife. This thing belonged to my grandmother, and it still drops through the steak like it's custard. Slice up the slices into kid-size chunks. Dish up the plates and...dinner.
As we sit down, the wife surprises me with a request for a chocolate cake. It's been a while since I made one just because she needed one that night - but the pregnancy has begun to weigh on her. Ten hours of sleep last night, and she's still been tired all day. And she wasn't even her usual dynamo, "a little work before I get to work" self. So yes, chocolate cake after dinner. But quelle horreur - the Swiss chard is bitter! Last year, we ate off the chard plants even after they began to resemble landscaping, and the leaves were still salty-delicate and lovely. Perhaps we fried them with nitrogen? This was the first year we cover-cropped in the winter - winter rye and hairy vetch - and while it has done wonders for the tomatoes - heirloom and otherwise - it seems to have been too much for the carrots and chard. Guess we'll need another raised bed if we're still here next summer, one with less nitrogeneous soil. We've got room. Now all we need is money.
Dinner is long and lovely. We made far more potatoes than necessary, which is just how I like it. I made the potatoes growing up. Mom made boiled potatoes nearly every night of the week - unless we were having pasta - and there was generally one left over each night. On Sunday morning, while Dad did eggs, Mom toasted bagels, and Mark set the table and made the juice, I'd have six or seven boiled potatoes to slice and fry. Pre-boiling made frying a dream - I could get them down to little nuggets of crunchy, concentrated flavor. But this way - starting from raw - is nice, too. I'm not matching the genius of fried potatoes a la Chez Panisse, but I'm in the same category of pleasures (at least, my wife is happy with them). The last of the potatoes disappears with the last of the wine. (The wife slows way down when pregnant, so I get most of it. Hoo!)
After Dinner, the wife needs to lie down. While Third Son makes her his jumping target, she corrals Second Son and First Daughter to rub her feet. I run out to Henry's again for butter.
Home to make the cake. Start at 8:10. Preheat oven to 350. Butter nine-inch springform pan. Start water on double boiler. Weigh chocolate - twelve ounces. Thank God for Trader Joe's - their house-brand bittersweet chocolate is Belgian and wonderful and inexpensive. Chop chocolate and into double boiler, along with three-quarters of a cup of sugar and two-thirds of a cup of butter, also chopped. While it starts melting, I separate five large eggs, measure out a third of a cup of flour, and fit the mixer with the copper mixing bowl insert (thanks, Mom). Fish out a couple pieces of shell. I'm rushing and buzzing, but there's no excuse for sloppy eggwork. For shame.
The kids are going nuts. They've already had dessert, and will get their cake tomorrow. The wife starts the bedtime machinery.
The hot stuff all melted and stirred together, I take it off the heat to cool. Do a little cleanup - the kitchen is a post-dinner disaster, and I'm fighting for counterspace. Then whisk in the yolks, one at a time. Then the flour. Then start the egg whites beating - medium speed, not too fast or it won't incorporate enough oxygen as it stiffens. Chat with the wife, clean up - overbeat slightly. Drat. But not too awful. Whisk in one-quarter of the whites. Then fold in the rest. Scrape into cake pan and bake, forty minutes. (I got it in the oven by 8:34). Serve warm with whipped cream. Usually, I whip it up at home and add a little confectioner's sugar in the process, but we're low on cream tonight, and First Son got the wife to buy some canned stuff when he went shopping with her this week. So we're slumming.
The recipe is from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking. A wonderful cookbook.
Happy days. Good night!
