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The Etiquette of Artichokes

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Roasted Artichokes with Lemon Aioli

Unless you were raised by Emily Post, the rules of etiquette seem to have many different executions and applications. Sure, there are obvious things that are considered polite beyond just please and thank you. Like, we say ‘excuse me’ when we burp or sneeze, we hold the door open for the person behind us and when escorting a lady through the 1880s a gentleman walks closest to the street to shield her from the mud spewing off of the clopping hoofs of the horse drawn carriage going by. You know, stuff like that.

Some manners, though, are location specific. In cities like New York, for example, when getting into a taxi the man goes in first and slides over if his date is wearing a skirt. If she’s in pants, all bets are off and it’s a free for all. Revolving doors in New York regardless of size are one at a time. I used to work in Trump Tower which in addition to being a tourist destination has revolving doors. I’m sure there are revolving doors in other parts of the world – I’ve seen them. Still, for whatever reason, the revolving doors proved problematic for domestic and international travelers. So to make it clear for anyone confused by those pesky doors: Here’s the deal, in the US, the revolving doors go counter-clockwise. The gentleman enters the revolving doors first and then continues to push the doors around until his date is through so that she never has to place a hand on it. I wonder if in Australia the doors go the other way. Regardless, you’d be surprised at how many tourists get stuck in there…

So I got to thinking about the etiquette of vegetable consumption. And, this certainly varies by age and location. At our kitchen table growing up, for example, it was common practice for the kids to try to blow bubbles with our mashed potatoes. And, to make a competition out of it we blew those potato bubbles with a lot of ‘look at this!’ ‘mine is best!’ and so on being shout-muffled through the bubbled mash. At my mother’s table growing up, she and my uncle would fight about who had the prettiest parsley (yes, the ever-popular prettiest parsley competition) – holding a sprig up proudly and shouting ‘First Most Beautiful Tree in the World!’ We’ll cover why my brothers and I are so competitive at a later date.

Bubble blowing and leafy garnish competitions are obvious examples of what might not be considered particularly polite for adults. But, there are examples that are in more of a gray area. I remember reading somewhere that eating green beans with your hands at the table was OK. But are there rules that govern this practice? Like does it only apply to delicate french beans being consumed by French people? Would beans eaten by Americans wearing berets and speaking in French accents count? Or, did I mis-remember this exception to not eating with your hands all together?

Then, there’s asparagus. Again, if it’s OK to eat green beans by hand, does the same hold true for the similarly shaped asparagus. More importantly, if you’re not in the privacy of your own home and know that asparagus gives you stinky tinky, is it really OK to eat it? And if so, then if other bodily functions are followed by ‘excuse me’ should you excuse yourself after a bout of stinky tinky in someone’s guest restroom? I wonder a lot about this one.

But, one of the greatest etiquette conundrums is presented by the artichoke. When perfectly steamed the base of the leaves provide a sumptuous meat that can be dipped in butter or hollandaise and devoured. But getting to the meat is where I run into trouble. I mean you have to use your hands to pry each little leaf from the stem. But is it really OK to scrape the meat off of the leaves with your teeth while making a scraping, slurping sound? It’s really the only way to get to the deliciousness…but, I’m just not sure what Emily Post would have to say about it.

So, when I decided to make artichokes recently, I wanted to avoid this dilemma entirely.

Roasted Baby Artichokes with a Lemon Aioli (side dish or hors d’oeuvre)

NOTE: This takes a little time…Because it’s done in steps

1. Buy 12 Baby Artichokes! Baby artichokes are more delicate but have no hairy ickiness in the middle to remove. Plus unlike their larger siblings, you can eat the entire leaves of the inner part…

Beautiful Baby Artichoke

2. Prepare the Artichokes and bring a pot of water to a boil

  • Prepare a bowl of water with ice cubes and the juice of one entire lemon
  • One artichoke at a time cut the bottom stem entirely off
  • Remove all of the tough outer leaves and every layer of leaves afterwards that holds any purple color at all. Better to err on too many here than too few as the outer leaves have a somewhat inedible toughness.
  • Cut the artichoke heart in half lengthwise. If it’s still bigger than bite size, cut it in half lengthwise again
  • Immediately put the cut heart into the lemon ice water inside down – this will prevent them from browning
  • Repeat with remaining baby artichokes

Baby Artichokes chillin’ in ice water

3. Strain the artichokes from the ice bath and immediately and very gently place in the boiling water. Blanch for 3 minutes

4. Remove the blanched artichokes and put into a bowl. Cover and put into the refrigerator to cool…..If you don’t have a ton of time, you can also put them in the freezer for :15 mins but NO LONGER

5. When the babies are chilled: Pre heat the oven to 425 degrees

6. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and place the artichokes on it. Drizzle 1-2 tbsp of Olive Oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss with your hands to make sure each one is coated

7. Put into the oven for a total of 15 minutes. BUT at the halfway mark, flip the artichokes hearts over

Roasting baby artichokes

Roasting Baby Artichokes

8. Remove from the oven and place on a serving tray with toothpicks or small forks and the lemon aioli…

Beautifully Roasted Baby Artichokes

Lemon Aioli

Lemon Aioli mise en place

Simply whisk together

  • 1 cup of mayonnaise
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tsp lemon thyme leaves
  • 1 garlic clove minced or pressed
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp lemon zest
  • salt and pepper to taste

You know, when it comes to etiquette the only universal directive might be: Have an awareness of others. If you think someone might have heard you burp, they probably did. And, really what’s the harm in saying ‘excuse me’?

When you’re really not sure, ask yourself if there’s another way or err on the side of etiquette. Don’t use the revolving door, just slide across the taxi seat, or, in this case, don’t boil your artichokes, roast them instead.

Consider What’s at Steak.

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Anderson Live!

“I have respect for all people and all peoples’ stories” – Anderson Cooper.

Today I joined the audience at Anderson Live. Because my (ahem) schedule is somewhat flexible and I’m on the Anderson Live email list, I was able to attend at the last minute when the show’s audience coordinator sent an email begging for seat fillers. I like Anderson. He seems like a good guy. I’ve been to his show before and he’s approachable, interested and interesting and holds true to his statement of respecting people and their stories…no matter how bizarre those stories may be.

Today’s show was no exception. And the bizarre started from the get go. Anderson’s co-host was Howie Mandel – very funny guy, right? Right, but widely known for his intense germaphobia. So intense that when the production team set the desk with notes and drinks for Anderson and Howie, Howie’s water was unassembled. An Anderson logo Tervis tumbler was shrouded in a sterile plastic bag and next to it sat an unopened bottle of water. The Tervis tumbler and bottled water stayed undisturbed until Anderson hazed Howie about the hermetically sealed bag. Howie did at that point remove the plastic bag  but never touched or opened the water. He even joked that he couldn’t be sure who had handled the sterile plastic bag…too risky. Too much at stake.

In addition to attending the show, filling a seat, I volunteered to sit in the ‘Tweet Seats’ and tweet about the show while it was happening. There were about 10 of us there – designated ‘TweetSeat Tweeters’ and our tweets were scrolled on a screen during the show. The question wasn’t: how many tweets would a seat tweeter tweet if a seat tweeter could tweet tweets – But more of how do you tweet respecting all people and their stories when the stories were what they were today???

I tweeted a lot. Probably too many tweets for my follower. Yes, that’s right, I have a follower not a following. I’m working on the latter.

Anyway, Anderson’s first guest was the ‘Worst Mom in America‘ – a New York City mom who believes in free-range parenting – the opposite of today’s helicopter parenting. If the helicopter moms in the audience had decided to leap up in outrage, there would have been a lot I could have said. I could have mentioned that I find this helicopter-momming a bit too much. I would have mentioned that from the time my siblings and I were very young (maybe 8 or 10) my mother opened the front door at 8 in the morning and said; ‘Don’t come home until dinner’. This was par for our neighborhood…it was also, in the wake of the Etan Patz disappearance.

But the moms in the audience were surprisingly open to a happy medium between the helicopter hover and completely free-range parenting.

Ultimately, the free-range mom wasn’t half as difficult to tweet about as the second guest: a man who believes that a hair loss prevention drug caused him to be transgender.

Uhmmmm, OK. A veritable conundrum for the generally opinionated food/story/blogger/tweeter who doesn’t want to alienate her follower or the lovely team at Anderson Live.

As the interview started, ‘Mandy’ as she is known now, explained that she had even developed transgender and ‘physical feminization’ from hair loss prevention drugs. She bought these drugs online…from India…on the Internet.

There were so many groups to offend and I didn’t want to offend anyone – not transgender people, balding people, people from India, pharmacists.

I took a page out of Anderson’s book and tried to respect all people and all peoples’ stories. I tried to consider what was at stake: losing my follower? Alienating friends? Letting the Anderson Live team down? Regardless, I think I went pretty safe and hope I did ok.

With any decision, there’s always something at stake…And, at the risk of offending vegetarians, vegans and raw food eaters alike, I made this good, quick, easy and affordable skirt steak the other night.

Marinated Skirt Steak (serves 4)

Mise En Place1. In a small bowl, mix together:

1. In a small bowl, mix together:

  • 1 TBSP of brown sugar
  • The leaves from 4 sprigs of lemon thyme
  • 1 clove of garlic, smashed
  • 1 TSP Jane’s Krazy Mixed Up Salt
  • 1/2 TSP of pepper
  • 2 TBSP Olive Oil

The mix should be a thick but not a totally pasty consistency.

2. Rub onto 1 1/2 – 2lbs of Skirt Steak. You can use flank steak, hanger steak or skirt steak.

3. Cover the meat and refrigerate any where from 2 hours to overnight

Skirt Steak post Rubbing

4. About :30 minutes before cooking, temporate the steak: to Temporate is to remove the steak from the fridge and bring it to room temperature.

5. Heat a non-stick grill pan on medium/high heat and spray lightly with Olive Oil spray.

6. Grill for 2-3 minutes per side. The meat will smoke up – so, apartment dwellers, open a window and door to keep your smoke alarms from going off!

Skirt Steak on the Grill Pan

Skirt Steak Grilled on one side

7. Remove from the grill pan, place on a cutting board and cover loosely with tin foil. Allow the meat to rest for :10minutes. This is a truly important step to ensure that the meat will be juicy. So plan for it.

8. Slice thinly against the grain and serve

I served this the other night with a side of Lemon Marscapone Gnocchi and Garlic Bread.

I enjoyed being one of the Tweeters in the Anderson Live Tweet Seats today – even when I had to hold my hands (that’s like biting your lip for a Tweeter/Blogger) a bit during hair loss transgender guest’s story.

Remembering what Anderson said about respecting all people and their stories helped me to select my words carefully and to consider what might truly be at stake.

Shrimp Crepes Starring My Darlin’ Lemon Thyme

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Crepes with Lemony Shrimp, Peas, Corn

Oh my darlin’

Oh my darlin’

Oh my darlin’ lemon thyme

Walked the farmer’s market this past weekend and was lured by the fresh, bright aroma of the herb guy’s lemon thyme. You could smell it from six feet away. It’s absolutely amazing. So amazing that I built an entire meal around layering in lemon flavor. I’ve since learned that while lemon thyme is nothing like regular thyme – there are similarities. As per WHfoods.org: both contain an oil that has been shown to protect and significantly increase the percentage of healthy fats found in cell membranes and other cell structures – specifically in the brain. Even though this information is based on tests with rats, I feel like I’m smarter for eating it.  I’m certainly remembering a lot of song lyrics lately…

1 large lemon thyme bunch,  $2

Better brain cells, priceless

Lemony Thyme at the Farmer's Market

Lured in by this Lemony Thyme

You can’t possibly use this entire bunch of thyme…so:

First use: pull the leaves of 5 or 6 stems and place in small bowl in kitchen to surround yourself with fresh and bright lemon aroma while cooking.

Second: pull the leaves off of all of the stems. Reserve one tbsp…put the rest in a ziploc bag in the freezer for later use.

With the tbsp: use to layer lemony flavor into lemony shrimp crepes.

Lemony Shrimp Crepes (serves 4)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

1. In a large skillet over med/high melt 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of olive oil. Add 1 small or 1/2 a large chopped shallot and saute until fragrant (about 2 mins)

Saute the shallot

2. Stir in the juice of one lemon and saute for another minute or so

3. Add 20 – 24 shrimps – depending upon size you will want 2 – 4 shrimps per crepe and 2 crepes per person

4. Add the zest of 1 lemon, 1 tbsp of lemon thyme, salt and pepper and stir

Saute Shrimp with Lemon Zest, Lemon Juice, Shallots and Lemon Thyme

5. The shrimps will only take a couple of minutes per side to cook …so be quick here…Add 1/2 cup of dry rose wine. You can add a dry white wine…but since shrimps are pink when cooked, I thought a pink wine would be prettier. Plus the pinot grapes in a rose add a good deal of flavor.

6. Turn the heat up and allow some of the wine to evaporate.

7. Turn heat to low and stir in 1 – 1/2 cups of mornay sauce with peas and corn. (Mornay Sauce Recipe) Put the remaining mornay sauce in a sauce pan over low heat.

Shrimp Crepes in Mornay Sauce with Peas and Corn

Shrimp in Mornay Sauce with Peas and Corn

8. Set up your assembly station:

  • Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray
  • Place 8 Crepes on a cutting board (Savory Crepe Recipe)
  •  Mornay sauce in sauce pan
  • Lemony shrimp mixture
Shrimp Crepes Assembly

Assembly Station

9. Assemble the crepes

  • Schmear a little of the mornay sauce on the crepe
  • layer on 2 – 3 shrimps
  • roll the crepes and place in the baking dish
  • Once all are rolled and in place, cover the crepes with a good amount of the remaining mornay sauce

Shrimp Crepe Assembly Combo – click to see PDF

10. Bake in the oven for 20 – 25 mins until completely heated through and serve

Sometimes you base an outfit on the shoes you want to wear. Sometimes a meal is built around the lure of one amazing herb. Bright, fresh lemon thyme is my new favorite herb and my current kitchen obsession. In addition to its incredible aroma and flavor, I’m totally getting smarter. Oh my darlin’ lemon thyme.

Be Prepared When Preparing Miso Glazed Cod

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Miso Glazed Sea Bass With Sauteed Spinach

Be Prepared – I think those Boy Scouts are on to something…

In the late ’90s I had a job that took me all around the world. I spent so much time on airplanes that I seriously thought I could be losing bone mass. See there was a study released at the time about the astronauts who spent long periods in space losing bone mass due to the lack of gravity or something. I was pretty sure that was happening to me.

Even though I often traveled alone, when I went to Tokyo for nine days back then I was traveling with a colleague. We were on a mission to gain more distribution for our brand. For nine days we traveled around Tokyo meeting with retailers and securing positioning for our products. For nine nights, we checked out the hotspots and mixed with the ex-pats.

Geronimo! Shot Bar Roppongi

Geronimo! Shot Bar Roppongi

On the last night there, we were at Geronimo! Shot Bar (ex-pat hotspot in Roppongi) spending our remaining Yen. At about 11pm, we called it a night and walked out to grab a taxi to the hotel. Then the strangest thing happened…In my pocket I found 40,000 Yen. 40,000! 40,000! Such a big number, but was really only equal to about $10. Still,Yen are useless in the States and I wasn’t about to take any home.

So back to the bar and when we exhausted our 40k, we managed to locate some lovely bad boy ex-pat bankers who hadn’t yet spent their per diem…bar led to bar..Roppongi never closes…And, I think I may have stumbled back to the hotel around 4am.

The next morning – really later that morning – I was scheduled to take a 7:30am bus to the airport to get the only direct flight back to New York. So, I set my alarm and called for a wake up call.

I’m sure both of those things happened.

But I woke instead to a pounding on my door and someone screaming my name…Furious that someone was interrupting my much needed sleep, I tried at first to ignore it. But it wouldn’t stop. It just kept pounding and pounding on the door. I got out of bed, opened the door and saw a hotel employee…He was screaming:

‘Your bus is here! Your bus is here!”

I was so confused and grabbed in disbelief at his wrist…Indeed, he was correct. His watch read 7:30am.

I looked at him and started to cry. I hadn’t packed and my life was strewn all over the hotel room. I couldn’t miss the one direct flight back to NYC. Tears. Panic. Gasping.

One thing about fancy hotels in Tokyo…Amazing service. And the guy at my door took about one second to assess the situation, put his fingers to his mouth and blew out a loud shrill whistle. Suddenly, three other hotel employees appeared as if out of no where. My guy, let’s call him ‘The General’ went into action:

‘We pack for you! We pack for you!’

‘You brush teeth! You brush teeth!’ – not too subtle hint from The General.

‘We pack for you!’

And they did. In no more than :40 seconds the room was packed, my teeth were brushed, I was dressed and they were carrying me downstairs. They poured me onto the bus and I was off.

Be prepared. Might have been a better idea to pack before going bad-boy-banker-bar-hopping in Roppongi. Yep. That might have been better.

One of the reasons certain foods are so intimidating to cook is that they’re just too delicious  and you can’t believe yourself capable of mimicking such mastery. One of these such dishes is what I call the ‘magic cod’ that they serve at Nobu. The magic cod – officially known as the Miso Glazed Black Cod – is A-mazing…

It’s all about being prepared – but, it’s so easy to make! And when preparing in a small kitchen, there are some useful tips…

Miso Glazed Black Cod (Or Sea Bass), (serves 4-6)

1. In a small saucepan over medium/high heat combine 3 tbsp of Mirin (looks like soy sauce and in the same section of the grocery store) with 3 tbsp Sake and bring to a boil.

2. Add in 1/2 cup of White Miso Paste – kept in the refrigerator section. Whisk until the miso is dissolved

Mirin and Miso Paste may not be in your regular grocery store. I’ve found them at Fairway, Whole Foods and Japanese specialty food shops (even in the midwest).

3. Add in 1/3 cup Sugar continuing to whisk over medium heat until just dissolved

NOTE: If you have a whisk with a longer handle, use it. It’s a lot of whisking over the heat and you can burn your wrist….

4. Remove the mixture from heat, transfer to a baking dish and allow to cool

Sea Bass marinating in the Miso, Sake, Mirin, Sugar mix

5. Put 4-6 7ish OZ Black Cod fillets into the marinade and spoon the marinade over the tops of each…The recipe calls for Black Cod…but, right now Black Cod is crazy expensive – like $40/lb – so the stores aren’t carrying it. You can use Sea Bass or Halibut. That’s Sea Bass in the pic.

Refrigerate for 24 – 48 hours – see what I mean about being prepared…

NOTE: The recipe also calls for the skin to be removed..But I leave it on and all is AOK

6. To cook…preheat the oven to 400 degrees and heat and veggie oil a grill pan over high heat

7. Scrape the excess marinade off of the fish – it’s more like a grainy pasty cover – and place skin side up on the grill pan. Cook until the fish is browned – about 2-3 minutes.

NOTE: The fish is covered in sugar. Sugar burns -OK. Sugar pops spewing burnt sugar beads all over your small kitchen – Not OK. I loosely cover the grill pan with tin foil to avoid having to pick charred sugar off of my ceiling.

8. Once browned, flip the fish onto a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and roast for 10 minutes

9. Transfer to a plate and serve.

I’m so grateful to ‘The General’ who called in the troops to Pack for Me! and instruct me to Brush Teeth! But, the tears, gasps and panic could have been avoided if I had only been prepared. The Nobu Miso Glazed Cod/Sea Bass is perfectly simple to make…if you have some time to Be Prepared.

Guerillas in the Midst of Shrimp Tacos

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I’m a little bit of a homophone-ophobe. This is a real condition. Seriously. It describes a person who fears words that sound similar but have two entirely different meanings. Like it was so sweet of the hotel to give us this suite. And I loved the kind maid who made the bed. Just typing it makes me shutter.

In the ’70’s there were constant news reports about the Sandinista Guerillas in Nicaragua. In our house, once my father was home, we watched the news. Well, at least the news was on. I can’t say I really was watching it. It was more like background noise I had to endure until prime time programming (Dallas, Taxi, Different Strokes etc) was available. We had one TV…one. So, everyone watched the same thing and the bigger people generally got to dictate what that one thing would be.

Anyway, the fighting in Nicaragua had been going on for years, but really heated up in 1979 after the formal unification of the Sandinista guerillas.

This was also around the time that you could find Planet of the Apes television series starring Roddy McDowall reruns on TV.

And, I was pretty young.

So, when the din of the news reported on the guerillas in Nicaragua, I was certain that they meant gorillas.

Yes, to answer the obvious question, the news rolled footage of the guerillas – but it was 1979 and the footage was grainy, not all high def like now. Even when I would watch the reports, I thought the soldiers could totally be gorillas – like the ones on Planet of the Apes.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned about guerillas and then even more time passed before I was able to admit to my mistake. I’ve had homophone-ophobia ever since.

Recently, I was taking my first stab at using tomatillos – which I was a little afraid of. See ‘Tomatillo’ sounds a lot like ‘Tomato’ (though not an exact homophone). But, just as guerillas are completely different than gorillas, – tomatillos not like tomatoes at all. If you’ve never used them and want to google ‘tomatillos’, you’ll be told that tomatillos are more like gooseberries. This information didn’t help to ease my fear as I’ve never used those either.

This is the recipe from FoodNetwork Kitchens that I used for reference and then tweaked. It’s for two pretty decent sized servings.

Shrimp Tacos with an Avocado/Tomatillo Salsa

Marinate 1/2 lb of large, cleaned and deveined raw shrimp in a mix of lemon and lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper for about an hour. I do use frozen ones and it’s fine. Just fine.

Put 1/2 of a small chopped onion, 1/2 a chopped and seeded jalapeno and 1/2 clove of garlic mashed in a food processor. I often sub shallot for garlic – but since the garlic is going to be processed, it won’t dominate the sauce. Finely chop.

Add in 2 peeled and rinsed chopped tomatillos, 1/2 an avocado chopped, 1/2 tsp of salt, the juice of 1/2 a lime and pulse the mixture until chopped but still chunky.

You can stir in a little bit of sour cream at this point. The sour cream is a nice juxtaposition to the spiciness of the jalapeno and garlic.

Transfer to a bowl and top with some fresh chopped cilantro. Set aside.

Pre-heat a grill pan to med/high. Spray with cooking spray.

Take the marinated shrimp and, if you want some spice,  toss with 1/2 tsp of chili powder and immediately place on the grill pan. The shrimp will cook quickly – about 2 minutes per side. I like a little char on my shrimp. Why? Because as per Anne Burrell: ‘brown food is good food’.

In a second pan, warm up 4 flour tortillas. Put a pan on medium and drop the tortillas in there for a minute or so per side. You just want them warmed, not toasted. You can use wheat or corn, but I really prefer flour.

Topped each warmed tortilla with a heathy schmear of the avocado/tomatillo salsa and 2-3, depending on size, shrimp. Garnish with some more cilantro (remembering that cilantro seems to be polarizing – you either love it or hate it) and a lime wedge.

The salsa makes this meal. And, helped me to overcome my fear of those tomato-sounding tomatillos.

You don’t hear a lot about the guerillas in Nicaragua anymore…or much about the original Planet of the Apes for that matter. Still, when I think back on my homophonic mistake, I know I can’t be the sole soul who made such an error. I mean, didn’t anyone think that Jane Goodall as played by Sigourney Weaver was In the Midst of Guerillas?