Good Things Come In Threes

There are a few foods that traditionally work as a trio, namely the Three Sisters of Native American cooking (corn, beans, and squash) and the Cajun and Creole "holy trinity" (onion, celery, and bell pepper). Lemons, oranges, and grapefruit make a Three-Fruit Marmalade and cherry, whole peeled, and sun-dried come together in a Three-Tomato Pasta. When I looked for other trios, the pantry doors flew wide open. In a three-cheese pasta bake, only the Parmesan was common to all. That can be combined with Neufchatel and mozzarella; white Cheddar and Gruyere; mild cheddar and Fontina; or sour cream and ricotta. Want a three-herb pesto? It's not always basil, but that's pretty standard, and parsley was ever-present: mix those two with either mint or cilantro or rosemary. You can also mix parsley, rosemary, and thyme (throw in some sage and go with the dish to Scarborough Fair). The variety of mushrooms makes for some delicious sounding risottos: porcini, shiitake, and cremini or chanterelle, morel, and shiitake stock. The three-bean salad I know is wax beans, green beans, and kidney beans, but try it with edamame, black beans, and black-eyed peas. As Cole Porter wrote in words and music, "Experiment!"

Go Topless This Summer

An open-faced sandwich is the perfect warm-weather lunch. Fewer calories than a traditional sandwich, it’s also an empty canvas on which you can compose something pretty. Even without the red onion the recipe calls for, Chuck’s white bean and tuna salad from last night made a delicious spread on whole wheat toast. Sprinkled with brined black olives and celery leaves, it looked good and kept me full all afternoon. The world loves this snack: the French adore their tartines, the Italians their crostini and bruschetta; the Spaniards started with a “lid,” or tapa and piled it on from there. The pinnacle, I think, is the Danish smǿrrebrǿd. Trina Hannemahn, a Danish chef, came over from Copenhagen a few years ago with kilos of home-baked bread in her luggage, so she could serve these at a small brew pub downtown. Chuck and I went down into this little warren of rooms for delicious beer and Trina’s smoked-fish sandwiches. Wish she was still here!

Succulent Succotash

In the spirit of today’s NYTBR (a cleverly conceived How-to theme with essays by Augusten Burroughs and Dave Eggers and Kate Christenson) and the book I’ve just started by Caitlin Moran called How to be a Woman, I’ll write this post as a how-to: How to Make Succotash 1) Wipe from your memory any frozen corn-and-lima-bean desecration. Lima beans themselves are just outright despicable. Assuming succotash had to be made with them, imagine my relief when I consulted Fannie Merritt Farmer’s The Boston Cooking- School Cookbook (a 1924 edition I bought in upstate NY last summer) and saw the ingredient as boiled shelled beans. And no finer authority than Judith Jones in L.L. Bean’s Book of New New England Cookery also allows for shelled beans. 2) Don’t get yourself in a swivet if you come home with sugar snap peas instead of peas in the pod. Growing up in the suburbs, I couldn’t identify peas off the vine, if you paid me. We shelled the sugar snaps; there was enough for color, anyway. 3) Boil these tiny peas for under a minute and drain. Boil corn for five minutes—no more! Cut the kernels off the cobs, mix the kernels with the peas, a tablespoon or two of melted butter, a dash of salt and pepper, and serve.

4) Eat every bit at one sitting. Refrigerate even homemade succotash and the horrors of the old-time mess will come back to haunt you.

If nuts were people...

I mean...if what we snack on and cook with were the names of people, who would they be? I asked myself this as I was testing a cookie recipe with pistachios, probably my favorite nut of them all. In my first years in NY, my happiest nights out were dinners at Frank Doelger's. The menu never varied: a bowl of pistachios as the appetizer before we tucked into "the old family recipe" (Contadina pasta with bottled sauce). The conversation was as crackling as the sound of those pistachios being shelled. Such good times. Even the word "pistachio" is fun. If it were a person, I think it'd be: Pistachio: the illustrated Italian chef on the pizza box Brazil Nut: a soccer fanatic Almond: the roadie with the most miles traveled with the Allman Brothers Band Macademia: a college dean who's a little too friendly with the students Cashew: the stiff-upper-lip managing director of a bank that's "too big to fail" Pecan: the cheerleader at the top of the living pyramid Filbert: the kid in middle school who carried a briefcase

The Zen of Vegetable Dissection

There's something so soothing about, after a long day of work, settling down at the cutting board with a good sharp chef's knife in hand and a big pile of vegetables to cut into. These peppers were so beautiful whole with their firm, unmarked skins and their elegantly curved stems; it's almost a shame to destroy that. Still, without breaking them down, you don't get to sample any to

enjoy the sweetness of the red pepper, and the tartness of the green and yellow ones. You can forgive a clean, juicy onion that falls into such tidy rings for bringing tears to your eyes. I don't slice and dice at the speed of light like a pro, but, while they're just focused on getting the vegetables prepped, I can enjoy the process: peeling the onion's skin, feeling the peppers' moist flesh, finding the seeds inside, and sharing the goodness with the most loyal kitchen companion I know.

SUMMER'S BOUNTY

You almost want to make slicing into these gloriously colored peppers illegal--wait, Mayor Bloomberg's probably thought of that!

I'm a Glutton...for Punishment

It's July in NYC; we have no A/C in the kitchen. And yet...I simmer sauce on the stovetop for an hour. I boil water for spaghetti. All while preparing the dough for a new cookie recipe I'm testing for a book coming out next fall as the oven preheats to 350 degrees. I'm feeling great solidarity with the guys at my local pizza parlor, the traffic cop on 34th & 7th at noon, the bakers and cooks and Con Ed workers--everyone who's got to endure the steam and the heat and the sweat to do their jobs. Everything I've done tonight will be delicious, if I may say so myself, but by the time I've made it all, served it, and sat down, I'm really only interested in my icy glass of crisp pinot grigio.