cooking

Avocado Toast and Coffee

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Ongoing readers know that I have temporarily shifted my base to New Jersey to help with the care of my mom. This is rough going – a marathon interspersed with sprints in runner’s terms. For those of us who have been here ongoing, this last length of it is exhausting. Despite feeling like I have been training for it it takes a toll on body and mind.

I have written before (find it here) about the extraordinary care mom gets from the folks we have assembled here. They gently lift my mood and spirits daily with their efficiency and affection. Among them a sign that I am in residence has been a pot of freshly perked coffee on the stove. These days made early enough for the night shift before they leave and enough for the morning folks coming in. Coffee drinking is now a two pot affair which continues through late morning – maybe a final cup for some at lunch although I am well done by then myself.

Proud pot perched on stove.

I have written about my coffee preferences (here) which are old fashioned – I use a stainless steel percolator. (The same as I use at home.) The younger nurses have never even seen this method of making coffee and they are now all studying it and my technique. I am reviving this method of coffee making single handedly! It has the decided advantage of filling the house with the smell of freshly brewed coffee in a way that no other method can do. I go through a lot of coffee these days and while I am not devoted to one in particular I purchase good coffee from a variety of places. We need good coffee.

My mom has always made sure that the house is full of good food for the folks who come and go. She orders prepared food from Fresh Direct or a local farm market gone gourmet store, Sickles. (My first cat, Otto, came from that farm and as a result would go nuts at the smell of corn silk.) However, as days here for me turned into weeks, and my waistline increased despite maintaining my 25 miles or so of running weekly, I started to take things into my own hands.

French Toast supplied by a friend.

A good friend makes sure I get out of the house beyond my run daily and that often takes the form of grocery shopping. I have embraced Trader Joe’s with fervor (I don’t live or work near one in Manhattan) while also learning about the ins and outs of the local Dollar store (where everything is $1.25) and an enormous Shop-Rite which I think might be the size of a city block!

Along with this I have of course started cooking. It happened slowly. First making eggs for myself and Winsome when she is on in the morning. Over medium with half a bagel with a recent foray into a cheesy well-done omelet. My friend Suzanne plies us with homemade French Toast as well and that has become a favorite, with people snacking on it until late in the morning.

The basic salad – cheese and other bits are on the side.

As a need for greens meant that daily salads (what I would eat at work most days anyway) have become the vogue. Quantities of green leafy vegetables, cucumbers and tomatoes make the base, along with a complement of nuts, raisons and olives, but leftovers or things that need eating find their way in – or around.

One day while munching salad I decided I needed something more and a yen for avocado toast possessed me. We had been putting avocado in the salad but I took half of one, toasted half an everything bagel, drizzled olive oil, lime juice, crushed red pepper, rocky salt. Well, I just set off a fire storm of avocado toast madness which swept through our small caregiving community! I have been churning out avocado toast for someone at breakfast, lunch or dinner ever since – who knew? It is spreading to their families and I am writing out the simple instructions – something of a run on crushed red pepper as a result..

Assembly line avocado toast.

I am branching out into dinner – a pasta with shrimp the other evening followed by salmon in miso marinade. (Have I ever mentioned that I was a professional chef before I was a fundraiser?) I am introducing folks to new ingredients and combinations. While mom cannot eat most of what I make, she is enjoying the smells of cooking and the community of shared homemade meals. I want her to feel that sense of a home inhabited and food being served to all with love which is what she would want to do if she could.

My being here means that poor Kim has been temporarily abandoned in New York and I feel bad writing about feeding folks here while he is fending for himself. However, I will be back to New York a bit this week and hope to make it up to you Kim! Miss you Sweetie!

Marinade for Miso Glazed Salmon: Equal parts (one tablespoon works for me) honey, miso paste, mirin, sesame oil and rice wine. Wisk together, marinade for at least 20 minutes, salt and pepper the filets. Drop into a hot pan sprayed with olive oil, allow to cook on the skin side and pop into a pre-heated oven at 450 for about 20-30 minutes, depending on your stove. I let it get brown on the top.

January Madness

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s an overcast Saturday morning here in New York City and there is a light bit of snow blowing outside. This has put my deep desire for a late morning run in question and makes me vaguely peevish. Kim has misplaced several key drawings for his next story (five or so luscious large pencil pages) and is slowing spreading the latter part of an almost finished graphic novel across our one room apartment in search of them. The pages have not left the apartment so we know they are here. A thorough search of piles of original art is underway. A certain frantic undertone to the commencement of our weekend here at Deitch Studio.

The desk in question, being searched.

Meanwhile, Blackie is snoring softly behind me on a very large box which contains an air fryer. While I am a bit curious about air fryers I never would have purchased one (let alone such a large one) except we’ve been informed that a city mandated gas inspection, which commenced Friday, has our cooking gas turned off. It will take a minimum of 6-8 months, but many buildings report that it has taken up to two years or more. (Yes, you read that correctly – they are turning off our cooking gas for what could be years.)

The model chosen after reading the NYT Wirecutter and other reviews.

I have moments of thinking that maybe it would be worth getting involved in City policy long enough to eliminate this bit of idiocy which is based on an incident where someone tied out an illegal gas line with a garden hose and the building ultimately blew up. Manhattan, perhaps all five boroughs, are looking now to eliminate gas cooking. This is a concept that could ultimately roust me from my perch here in New York City – gas cooking is beloved to me.

Life without making soup seems dreadful so I purchased this as well. Let’s see how I do with these new toys.

So, for now and despite Blackie’s fondness for the aforementioned box, I will spend this weekend unpacking the air fryer and an Instant Pot. (I cannot live without soup. One of several recipes can be found here.) I will rearrange our tiny kitchen and somehow fit these new appliances in – some of my beloved larger pots and pans can live in the oven I guess. (An ode to a dying fry pan can be found here.) Of course the adventure of learning to cook with them remains – I suspect you will receive further details. We have a microwave as well which I have generally only used to heat leftovers, but will be pressed into service. I have tried to amass groceries for easy execution at first, baby steps.

Blackie in full possession of the air fryer box.

Maybe the toaster can live in our storage locker and give us back another 12 inches of counter space? Electrical outlets have become prized real estate overnight and we are grateful for a renovation which added one. Additionally, there are two electric burners which the building assigned to us as a stove top. I hear rumors that the power draw for them is huge and that they cannot be used in tandem with the other appliances. Note taken, but I think we can look forward to the odd days when we space on that and blow a fuse.

At work Covid is stealthily making its way through the office again. We talk about it less, but staff are sick with it or living with people who have it. Most of the rules and protocols have fallen away and we are left to our own devices, instructing people to stay home and test – five days clear? I think there is a sense that people will just get it and get it again and again, but we do need to think about the people for whom it can be dangerous for various reasons, or like me have someone in their life who is fragile physically.

A pot of soup from a former post.

Along those lines my mom was diagnosed with pneumonia last week, not surprising given her immobility. I have home tested for Covid, but will go out and get a PCR test in case I need to go back to New Jersey. I mentally add it to the list I am making for this weekend.

I have long thought that TS Eliot had it wrong – it is January not April which is the cruelest month. For me it has uneasy memories of illness commencing and death, truly the nadir of each year which then needs to be reincarnated annually. (Oddly I am a bit distrustful of August too.) There is a gentle but persistent, burgeoning insanity that is barely kept in check in the month of January.

However, the pages in question above have been located at last. Kim is now contentedly inking a page which was his intention when he discovered the pencils missing, so a calm has returned to the house. He has promised to bring me a cup of take out coffee from the diner so I don’t have to face the electric burner and coffee pot quite yet. Blackie has moved onto the bed making way for me to unpack the air fryer and at least for the moment the flurries have paused so maybe I will get my run in. January is half over, we’re turning the corner and soon February will dawn a bit brighter.

A bit of Deitch Studio effluvia that surfaced this week.