Organizing Spices

My milchig spice grinder needed refilling.  The evening before, I had tried to season halibut fillets to pan-fry for supper.  Some olive oil to coat, a splash of salt, and a few grinds of pepper on each surface.  It needed little more.  To get the waning volume of peppercorns to grind, I had to shake the grinder a few times to redistribute those on the bottom.  Seasoning was scant but adequate.  I have a pareve grinder and ground pepper in its tin, but what I did would suffice for supper.

This morning I opened the closet with milchig dishes.  The salt shaker and pepper mill sit to the right of the plates, lowest shelf, in my line of sight.   I could see the near depletion of the peppercorns through the transparent plastic grinder.  All my spices have homes in the pantry, a middle shelf to the left.  My system for dealing with seasonings could use a big revision.  Basically, I pull out what I need for various recipes as I need them.  For Thanksgiving, my biggest annual preparation event, I will go through much of the collection.  As I locate a spice jar needed for a recipe, I relocate it to the dining room table.  When all accounted for, each seasoning gets placed with the recipes that require them.  My storage system is not entirely random, though.  There are shelves for the more expensive and frequently used spices.  On the back ledge I keep meat seaonings, poultry and beef, premixed blends apparently taste tested by food scientists who create a hedon index before scaling up the combination for mass production.  I use Old Bay for many fish preparations.  That has a dedicated conspicuous place.  Most though, get used, then returned to the spice shelf towards the front.  Things used hardly at all end up eventually towards the back, where they should be.

Among my collection, a very significant selection of flavor enhancers, I have pure spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, but I also have blends such as zaatar and masala.  My shelf intermingles them.  And they are not alphabetized or sorted by sweet/savory collections.  So I found myself needing a peppercorn refill but no ready means of locating them amid the other bottles.  I didn't even remember what brand of peppercorns I bought or when I purchased them.  So began my spice repertoire treasure hunt.  I took a few bottles out at time, placing them in random order first on an empty portion of a wire overdoor shelf, then onto the kitchen table.  While I didn't capture anything I didn't already know I had, I identified duplicates and tastes that I should introduce more.  Some bottles were ancient, probably far enough past prime to not enhance any recipes in a meaningful way.  I found blends that I've underused, Italian, Jerk, Chili Lime.  The peppercorn bottle, plastic house brand, sat along the side of the collection.  The bottle was larger than most but without a distinctive top that would have identified it without having to read that bottle's label.

I took it from the pantry to my kitchen workspace.  Not wanting to do this again in the near future, I filled the milchig grinder about two thirds of the way up, replaced the top and returned it to its home in the milchig closet.  Then I took the fleishig mill, a wooden one that I've had for many decades with a means of setting the fineness of the grind, and filled that about halfway to the top.  Peppercorn bottle, still about half full, got returned to where I had found it, though considering how long I expect it to be before either mill requires refilling, its optimal home might be a different location.

For the spices now on my kitchen table, I did some sorting.  Rarely used go in the back, blends towards the front.  Bottles of waning supply to the front, though for each of those I have a fresher duplicate.  While my system is really a non-system of locating what I need when I need it, do I need to create a better one?  Probably not.  I do not prepare that many immense menus.  Seder comes from a different collection of seasonings.  Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Wife's Birthday, Thanksgiving.  I try to have dinner guests about five times a year, usually Shabbos or a Jewish festival.  For those, menus prepared two weeks in advance and recipes set on the dining table two days in advance, I can just go on my periodic spice search.  I probably should throw out those long past prime or unlikely to ever by used again.  That would create more room.  If a recipe ever mandates what had been discarded, it can be replaced and the date of purchase put on the bottle with a Sharpie.

My kitchen serves as my hobby.  Seasonings are essential tools, whether from recipes or for daily suppers, where I decide what to add to a bowl of spaghetti as it boils or to my salmon croquette mix as I put the substantive components in the mixing bowl.  Random is not ideal.  Placement of the spices in storage should make more sense.  Yet organizing them seems a low-yield effort.  Locating the peppercorns took 10-15 minutes and enabled a census of what I already had.  It will not need repeating for another year or two.  The elegant dinners always require hunting for what the recipes specify, though I make occasional modifications. I will return what I took from the closet to the kitchen table back to the closet in a more thoughtful way.  Reconstructing my system seems not worth the effort.

Nightly Supper

From The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/01/weeknight-dinner-never-easy/681210/

The writer, a young career woman, lamented disruptions that creating a suitable supper for her family every evening imposes. It likely does, but prioritizing a set time for everyone to assemble around a table at has benefits that are hard to recapture.  I'm an empty nester, the one who came home from work later than everyone else.  Sometimes supper awaited me, other times the onus of creating, or otherwise acquiring something for us to all eat together fell to me.  Later, as cable made Food TV readily available, I took a liking to the kitchen.  In late career, I allocated an annual bonus to remodeling it, mostly in a cosmetic way.  Now supper creation has become my challenge, one that I seem to meet most nights with an element of accomplishment.

The author's ambivalence is hardly unique to her generation.  In my childhood, we did not have the means to eat out and ordering online would take decades to become available to everyone.  Instead, fortunes were made by suppliers of TV dinners.  Banquet, Swanson, Stouffer's.  My mother, who did not work outside the home, popped them in the oven.  As a student, I went to a cafeteria most evenings.  Then as a wage earner with a kitchen and a family that progressed through its stages, supper came mostly from our stove.  We never ate Fast Food for supper, but would go out on occasion for a pizza.  Still, my family like her family, regarded supper each evening as our primary meal, both for sustenance and interpersonal cohesion.

Like the author, we have reached the modern age.  Preparing supper has never been easier.  Unlike the author, I have evolved a repertoire and a planning mechanism, which she has not developed.  The anchors have become the weekly Shop-Rite ad and my freezer.  Shabbos dinner creates a fixed point.  It has limited repertoire.  Chicken parts, beef cubes, occasionally ground beef.  Friday night is usually the only time of the week in which I will prepare meat.  Chicken is mostly seared and baked, enough for two meals.  Ground beef becomes a meat loaf, two meals.  Beef cubes become cholent, two meals this week and a portion frozen for a subsequent shabbos.  Thus I have 2/7 suppers done.  The template also includes a starch and a vegetable.  Near East Couscous or rice goes on sale, boil water, add contents of box, and sit on stove a while longer.  Or bake a white or sweet potato in the oven.  Boil frozen vegetable or make a cucumber/tomato salad.  

In my freezer I have pierogies, ravioli, fish that had been frozen at sea, garden burgers, a couple packages of plant based meat in various forms.  Fish is nature's fast food.  Thaw the night before.  Tuna steaks need only seasoning and a few minutes in a hot skillet.  Ravioli is boiled.  Perogies have differnt options for cooking.  My refrigerator has swiss and American cheese.  Two pieces of bread and grill on the stovetop.  My refrigerator has eggs and milk.  Quiche takes minutes to assemble, providing meals for two nights.  Sometimes I put extra effort to plan ahead.  Macaroni and cheese in the style of Horn & Hardart has been recaptured as a recipe.  Assembly is tedious, requiring a béchamel and precooked noodles.  The concoction gets baked in a lasagna pan.  Two meals this week.  Freeze two other quarters for single meals each of the next two weeks.  Same for spinach lasagna, recipe from the first cookbook that the upper tier Artscroll publishers ever authorized.  The Shop-Rite ad is useful.  When the ingredients go on sale, particularly the perishable kosher cheeses, that becomes my kitchen project.

And not to forget my pantry.  Spaghetti is quite versatile.  One third of a box, boil, strain.  In olive oil, sauté garlic that I have chopped.  Sauté sliced onions, mushrooms if on sale, some parsely from my indoor pot.  Mix in a bowl.  Often enough for two meals.  In the pantry I keep canned salmon.  Modern small choppers make this easy.  Onion, maybe celery into the chopper.  Add salmon and spin once or twice. Add egg, spin again.  Into bowl.  Bread crumbs or matzoh meal for consistency, spices chosen at whim.  Pan fry as sandwich sized patties.  Enough for two meals.

None of this seems physically taxing or mentally difficult to plan.  Restaurant once a month or so, pizza once a month or so.  Take-out never, fast food never.  We eat pretty well most evenings.

And for guests, shabbos, Seder, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah,  I do a little more. Same for special events wife's birthday, anniversary, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day.  Expanded menu.  Planning a week or two in advance. Coordinating various courses with stove top and oven requirements.  It is those skills utilized for weekday suppers that enable executing the more elegant preparations.  

Planning for Guests

Each half year I try to host guests for dinner three times.  Some are easy:  Seder, sukkah, Thanksgiving.  Since Seder and Thanksgiving are for my household, I do not count them, but still work on traditional menus and elegant presentation.  Some occasions are semi-random:  Shabbat Pesach, Shavuot.  Others truly random.  For Festivals, the occasion dictates much of the menu.  Thanksgiving turkey, something with sweet potato, something with cranberries.  Seder has its ritual requirements, shabbos Pesach dietary limitations that invite ingenuity, or at least variations from other shabbos dinners.  Shavuot dairy

Shabbos gives complete flexibility.

I start with a nine square grid:

1. Motzi, generally challah for a Jewish occasion
2. First course: can be either an appetizer or soup.  Both for Thanksgiving and Seder, one on other occasions
3. Salad: avoid bean and potato salads, usually fresh vegetable based
4. Dressing if not integral to the salad recipe
5. Entrée: Meat mostly.  And something I wouldn't ordinarily make for myself
6. Starch:  I happen to have a fondness for kugel
7. Vegetable: what's on sale that week, simply prepared
8. Dessert:  Most often baked
9. Beverage:  wine more often than not

Challah recipes are mostly variants of each other.  They will vary by number of eggs and by sweetness.  The kneading also drives the final product.  I start early in the morning, so the first rise is underway by the time I need to leave the house.

Wine is most often white, purchased from a place with an enormous selection.  I set a price limit, then choose the one with the most intriguing name or label design.  Never, or almost never, buy the same brand more than once.

All else needs exploration.  I've collected cookbooks of various types for decades, creating a large collection.  And I used to browse the public library collection in advance of guests.  The internet has made much of this obsolete.  I can search by course, by ingredient, by individual food mavens.  For dessert I can make something with phyllo, though it has gotten unreasonably expensive.  More often a nut torte or an apple cake or maybe a honey cake.  Lots of variations.  

The entrée is almost always poultry, chicken for its versatility, turkey for its simplicity.  Kosher beef has gotten expensive and choice rarely goes beyond beef cubes or ground beef.  Whole chicken can be roasted.  Chicken parts can be prepared all sorts of ways.  Kugel can have rice, matzoh, noodles, or potatoes as its base.  These are all held together by eggs and liquid.  Some can be made sweet, others better left a bit tangy.  Salads are usually simple:  Cucumbers with onion, tomato based salads, pepper based salads.  I stay away from those potato or bean based.  And dressing is a blend of acid and oil.

Soups have great versatility.  Many are of regional origin with adds to the menu.  They keep for subsequent meals.  I've made fish soups, vegetable soups, cold gazpacho in tomato season, chicken soup with the requisite matzoh balls, grain based soups.  All work well as starters.

Over about two weeks I get the grid filled out.  Then I write all the ingredients on loose-leaf paper one dish at a time.  Then on another piece of loose-leaf paper, I write down all the individual ingredients and amounts as some items appear on more than one recipe.  I print each recipe if not already in one of my books.  Then I go through my pantry, marking what I already have in sufficient amount and what needs a purchase.  Non-perishables are added a few days before, perishables two days before.  The day before, all recipes displayed on dining room table and all non-refrigerated ingredients placed adjacent to their recipe.

The morning of arrival begins at about 7AM with creating and kneading the challah dough.  I find that hand kneading yields a better final texture than a dough hook.  It then goes into an oiled bowl to be placed on the dining room table for its first rise.  Next, treadmill, then OLLI classes or steer clear of kitchen until noon.  Dessert next, as this keeps all day, and there will be competition for the oven later with the kugel, chicken, and challah.  The afternoon anticipates a completion time.  Salads keep, so that gets made while other things cook.  A vegetable, other than roast beets, takes minutes.  When I get home from class, I punch down the dough, take a small ceremonial challah portion, braid two loaves and let them rise for about 45 minutes, then into the oven.  And assemble the kugel, chop what is needed for the soup, cut the salad ingredients, and prepare the chicken for either oven or stovetop.

All made about an hour before invitation time.  Set table to look like shabbos.  Clean table cloth.  Kiddush cups, stemmed wine cups, five piece utensils at each plate, cloth napkins.  Challah board with cover, sterling challah knife obtained years ago from a Hasidic shop on an infrequent visit to my hometown.  Usually four places, occasionally one or two more.  Always ample food.  And all served in dishes intended for serving.  A Challah tray with dedicated cover, soup in a white porcelain tureen, kugel unmolded onto a plate as is cake, entrée and vegetable on a platter.  A hint of elegance that people would not otherwise do for themselves.

It's an effort.  A protracted effort.  A gratifying effort.  It taps my imagination.  It exercises my executive skills:  planning, organizing, following through on individual steps, coordinating competing uses for oven, stovetop, and appliances, acquisition of ingredients, selecting utensils.  It challenges my energy.  In the end, it alleviates some of my post-retirement loneliness.  People come for conversation and enjoyment.  My efforts fulfill that.

Turkeys

Thanksgiving and Seder have been my two most anticipated annual events for most of my adult life, at least my independent adult life in homes that I could call my own with kitchens that I controlled.  Since I covered the hospital every Christmas for my medical colleagues, I could always count on Thanksgiving as a free day.  Most years everyone assembled at my in-laws for both Thanksgiving dinner and Seder.  While living several hours distant as a medical resident, I tried to secure vacation time to allow the travel to their home for these holidays, succeeding about half the time.  Eventually we settled about an hour's drive away, raised my family, bundled everyone in the car.  As my in-laws became less able to prepare dinner, I began doing it, transporting the food to their home twice a year.  Once my sister-in-law became the sole occupant and my wife and I adapted to being empty nesters, the two elaborate dinners relocated to my kitchen and dining room.

Thanksgiving still has turkey as its centerpiece.  Seder once did as well, though with few people there are better entrée options, particularly things that my sister-in-law would not be able to obtain on her own with limited mobility.  

Turkey comes in a number of forms now, likely a commercial adaptation to smaller gatherings with families geographically scattered and smaller households.  While nothing beats that glorious whole roasted bird, bronzed skin as the olive oil coating and seasonings transform in a hot oven, it is not always practical.  Turkeys are now sold just as breasts, though at a premium per pound price.  I've not seen the legs sold separately, at least not for kosher turkeys.  No doubt, the booth operators at State Fairs around America purchase those legs, which they deep-fry and sell in large amounts.  I have seen turkey cutlets, boneless dark meat.  For four guests or less, and even for some Shabbat dinners with just my wife and me, I will purchase a breast half.  Very easy to make, just oil, season, put in a roasting pan or even a very large skillet, and let it roast for 90 minutes.  Carve with electric knife.  Eat what people can eat, give the rest away to guests or freeze for a subsequent shabbos.

But I still prefer having more people, enough to justify the Big Bird, my anticipated circumstance this Thanksgiving.  Turkey, even kosher turkey, was once an economical option.  It sold for under $2/lb, usually Empire frozen, mass-produced.  And they salted it before freezing, as kashrut requires.  Supermarkets would give them away if you bought enough other things at that store, or drastically reduce the price as a loss-leader to sell more profitable stuffing and pies.  Not so anymore.  Price now about $3.50 or even $4/lb, which would make a 15lb bird about $55.  And the selection has faltered the past few years.  While it is tempting to assign blame to the supply chain failures since the pandemic, kosher turkeys are raised and slaughtered in just a few places that do not require international shipping or sophisticated rail transit.  My main supermarket, Shop-Rite, has only frozen kosher turkeys, and at a look at their freezer, far fewer choices than they once offered.  Most are quite large, in the neighborhood of 18lb.   I only saw one under twelve pounds, something more appropriate to a small gathering.  Trader Joe's has better stuff, in a private arrangement with Empire.  Their turkeys are not frozen, or once were and pre-thawed by the retailer.  Virtually all are of uniform size, about 15 lb. And they sell out fast.  Last year they were all gone before I was ready to purchase, so this year I got one as soon as they went on display.

I moved some things around on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator to accommodate its bulk.  It will stay there until Thursday morning when the plastic wrapping can be cut, usually a fair amount of liquid drained, and a roasting pan prepared by scattering some past prime vegetables around its perimeter.  Place a rack in the middle.  Put in turkey, maybe put something in the cavity.  Coat with olive oil, season with whatever catches my fancy Thursday morning, pre-heat oven, and make it the final dish that needs the oven.  Some food mavens recommend rotating the turkey periodically, which I do as well.  But mostly it's set the timer and wait for it to reach its conclusion, check the thigh temperature for completeness, then let it rest.  

It's gotten more difficult to obtain, more expensive to purchase.  But still the Thanksgiving dinner of choice.

Thanksgiving Menu

Thanksgiving has been another demarcation day for me over many years.  In school it was not only a long weekend, but an appetizer for the much longer school break to follow, though perhaps also in college that needed reminder that finals needed some intense study after the long weekend.  In my medical years, since I covered everyone else for Christmas, I could count on Thanksgiving off.  As a homeowner, leaf raking took place at maximum intensity that weekend, time shared with kitchen chores.  And it was my turn to plan and execute one of my two annual elaborate dinners, using the inspirations of my growing cookbook collection, later the skills from Food TV.

Now in my later years, an empty nester, guests are fewer.  Somebody else deals with the leaves in the form of mulching with the weekly mowing.   It is a long weekend from OLLI Classes, and maybe still a prelude to a longer university hiatus where I manage to take a short trip most years.  But dinner, its planning and execution, keep it one of my annual calendar landmarks.

My guest list numbers six, a number to match my dining room chairs.  I might even add a leaf to the dining room table, something I've not had to do for many years.

Menu planning started by cookbook browsing, but will become more focused.  The format is largely set.

1. Motzi
2. Appetizer
3. Soup
4. Salad
5. Dressing
6. Turkey
7. Stuffing
8. Cranberry Sauce
9. Sweet Potatoes
10. Vegetable
11. Dessert
12. Beverage

Since it is not shabbos, the bread need not be a challah.  I have my favorite, but I also do not like to repeat individual dishes, unlike many families who have their classics.  I've always made loaf bread for Thanksgiving, but there's no reason I couldn't make bialys or rolls instead.  The appetizer offers some leeway.  I've stuffed vegetables, made samosas.  Imagination prevails here.  Soup tends to be chicken based, a chance to clear my freezer of carcasses.  Add something easy like noodles or rice.  Could make harira, something not suitable for Seder.  Or a fish soup.  Salad has greens most years.  This needs a vinaigrette, homemade.  Or Israeli or Eastern European salads go well, with the dressing part of the recipe.  For six diners I get a whole turkey.  Simple preparation, carved with electric knife.  The stuffing is baked separately, always bread based.  Cranberries are obtained as a fresh package, then boiled with sugar.  Some years I create a flavored additive.  Sweet potatoes also allow me to surf through recipes.  There are a lot of ways to make these.  In November Shop-Rite usually offers a five pound package at a significant discount.  For the vegetable, I like to use one that is green but can be influenced by what is on sale.  Carrots are for Rosh Hashanah.  And dessert tends to have apples, though not always.  Apple cakes can be made pareve.  Or a honey cake with more additives than the no frills variety I typically make for the Holy Days.  And wine.  And a bottle of the evil soda.

Cleanup takes two days, also part of the challenge.  In addition to creating the menu, Thanksgiving is also the time when the kitchen becomes mine.  I have everything I need, cooking utensils, oven, crock pot, knives, mandolin with nearby first aid kit.  Appliances with mixers, choppers, processors.  Workspace.  A sink prepped as fleishig before I begin.  Gratitude, which is the essence of the celebration, includes appreciation for a fully working fleishig kitchen capable of creating something that guests would have difficulty duplicating on their own.  And some gratitude for my own physical capacity to do this and for the ability to have some fun creating the menu, devising what could be a complex game plan for preparation, and relaxation as I clean up and ease into shabbos the following day.

But now, some kitchen organizing and some recipe exploration.

Cooking for Two

Sometimes my best efforts in the kitchen are for my wife and me.  Over the years we had gone out for our anniversary but places that we've gone to in recent years have become harder to find and less satisfying than what I can create at home.  So it will be at home in a few days.  Pondering the options, I selected a rib eye steak, something I messed up for Mother's Day but have since learned what I did wrong.  That means shabbos a few nights before will be milchig.  Have a freezer filled with fish fillets, easily breaded and sauteed.

Other stuff depends on what's available.  My garden had a tomato, and Jersey tomatoes were on sale.  Fresh corn would go well with the fish.  Cantaloupes in season.  Torta for anniversary.  Potatoes are versatile.  Got head of cauliflower to use up.  Bought Cabernet for anniversary.  Tabachnick soups on sale.  Tomato basil goes with anything.  And Hungarian Farmhouse Loaf for motzi.  

Small shopping list.  Eggs, since they are needed for the torta and for the breaded flounder.  Need to replace mini-challot.  Need to get the steak from TJ.  Should be two worthy suppers.

 

Mother's Day Dinner

Preparation began early, though only the bread and dessert, both baked, take a long time.  And both completed at midday, creating a respite of about five hours before the remaining dishes get cooked and an attractive platter assembled.

I drove along the main route of my community, a path along a single road of mostly retail.  One dying mall to the north with a thriving supermarket across the street.  Familiar names on the storefronts.  Big Box stores, the last regional department store, places to eat that advertise their franchises on TV, a few independents.  Lunch gets traffic on Mother's Day.  One center dedicated to five restaurants had its parking lot filled.  Three national chains, one regional one, and one splashy popular diner.  All teeming with grateful children treating their moms.  True for all other places along my route that offer fare that not only requires cooking but also utensils to eat what the waitress delivers.  All except the IHOP, which from limited recent experience may not merit having diners, particularly for a special lunch of appreciation.  Many of these national chains get into my news feed of places that Gen Z diners won't patronize, with predictions of bankruptcy or at least widespread location closures imminent.  But today, grateful sons and daughters treat the local mothers.

Food preparation being one of my sources of personal fulfillment, and as empty nesters, I take responsibility for my children's mother having a memorable dinner.  Planned weeks in advance.  Multiple courses, all cooked and assembled in my own kitchen by her appreciative husband, who makes a decent surrogate for our kids.  Bread needs mixing, rising, punching, forming, a second rise, then baking.  No one part takes a long time but significant time gaps between steps.  Making a cake takes time, even with a stand mixer.  This being a flourless torte, I needed to separate eggs, grind the almonds, beat the whites, mix the yolks, blend sugar, add the extracts, add the ground almonds, fold in the whipped whites, prepare a springform, pour the batter and bake in a preheated oven in two stages.  Then cool, then release from springform and finally make the surface visually attractive.  These two steps took all morning, but done.  Only one more baking project, one that takes about a half hour after some mixing of ingredients.  One salad, takes minutes.  Two stovetop dishes, neither taking very long.  And then an elegant table.  Wash pots, pans, measuring devices, and appliances as I go.  Then elegant table.  Sign card.  A gratifying effort.

Creating Dinner Menus

Two upcoming special suppers, Mother's Day and Shavuot.  The latter is typically dairy, with several justifications provided for this by the sages.  Mother's Day is simply a special effort, centerpieced with something either difficult to obtain or difficult to prepare, expanded to something special, though constrained a tad by it falling on Sunday.  Shavuot this year spans Thursday night, which is usually a limited offering of blintzes or quiche, and a more elaborate shabbos dinner, with fish as the centerpiece of a meal that is otherwise dairy.  And perfect excuse to have shabbos guests.

Shavuot menu seemed easier to assemble, as coulibiac makes a perfect main course that I've made enough times before.  It takes some effort, with shopping, preparing the rough puff pastry in advance, and finally baking, after a multi-stepped assembly.  And for dessert, apple walnut pie made famous by the Fish Market of Philadelphia, z"l, where we used to splurge for special occasions.  Then fill in the middle.  A soup, a salad.  No need for starch as the fish pie has rice, and a vegetable.  Then a wine.

Mother's Day is more pluripotent.  I have a veal roast sitting in the freezer forever, far too big for the two of us, though a lot of people now object to veal on ethical grounds so it may not be the best option for guests.  I have a package of sliced corned beef, frozen forever, not likely to appear in the Shop-Rite kosher meat case again.  I bought a brisket on sale and have made my own corned beef from that cut a few times.  And my wife really likes rib steaks, now quite expensive, though excellent cuts just came on the shelf at Trader Joe's.  Probably best option.  And for a fleishig meal, her favorite dessert would be torta del re, which I've made many times.  Intricate preparation, usually comes out very well.  Perhaps I will need to get a spring form once size smaller than the one I've been using.  Then fill out the rest: a starter, a salad, starch, vegetable, wine.

These efforts challenge my imagination and skill.  Since they require planning and sometimes detailed assembly, as well as juggling components at the time of preparation, I find the composite effort personally gratifying.  And somebody else gets to enjoy the result with me.

Cleanup

Special dinner for My Valentine.  Buttermilk biscuits with butter.  Bean soup from a Manischewitz mix. Cucumbers with yogurt-dill dressing.  Seared tuna steaks with the interior still pink.  Maple glazed carrots.  Tricolor quinoa.  Oatmeal cookies in the style of Frog/Commissary z"l.  Italian pinot grigio.  Worth the planning and effort.  

And I did very well cleaning up as the preparation proceeded.  Measuring cups, mixing bowls, cutting boards all washed by serving time.  Beaters cleaned and put away right after making cookie batter.  Rolling pin washed and dried.  The baking sheet, used for both cookies and biscuits needed some soaking from both ends, but it got washed and placed in the dish rack to dry overnight.

Despite attention to keeping up, substantial cleanup awaits the day after.  The most difficult involves the leftover soup.  It was harvested by my wife, but in addition to the pot, I have two plastic containers not quite large enough to contain the remaining liquid and beans.  Searing tuna leaves a crusted pan whose restoration takes effort.  Small saucepans for quinoa and carrots usually clean easily but take up space in the dish rack while other washing items continue to soak.  Bowls still have biscuits and cookies.  Those get washed later.  We have wine glasses, soup bowls, plates and platters.  And some coffee cups, as I helped myself to periodic refreshments as I worked preparing the dinner.

It all gets washed, something that I find more relaxing than challenging.

Making Supper

Most evenings, making supper has drifted to my household task.  I mostly like doing this.  It ties with my other generally weekly chore of the supermarket, divided between Shop-Rite for most items with bread, eggs, cheese, and a few others better obtained at Trader Joe's.  Merging the two, as I shop I think about what my wife and I will eat.  This skill has acquired value now that food prices have spiked but Shop-Rite continues to tease people to shop there preferentially with its weekly on sale circular.

Having done this for a while now, I have generated a pattern, if not a routine.  As Thanksgiving approaches, I could not possibly squeeze a turkey into my freezer since the repertoire of daily meal options has taken up most of that volume.  Meat is usually only once weekly, for shabbos, either chicken or beef, elaborate when guests come, seared or dumped in crock pot when dining as a couple.  We eat what we can, maybe save some for a second meal, and for stewed items which are better made in large quantities, freeze half for a subsequent shabbos.  Add a starch and a vegetable.  Not much for desserts.

I have my specialties:  Lasagna with a spinach and cheese base or Macaroni & Cheese a la Horn & Hardart, their automat serving as my culinary destination when I ventured into Manhattan in my youth.  These each make four meals, one the day of preparation, the second a day or two later, the last two as fast food from the freezer.  No additional starch needed with these.

Then I have fast food.  Veggie burgers of a variety of types depending on what was discounted.  I particularly like phony beef.  Pierogies come in boxes of twelve, don't even have to thaw.  Just dump in boiling water.  Nature has its own fast food in the form of fish.  Modern processing has made this easy.  Instead of a display case, not totally abandoned, the better way is frozen.  Trader Joe's has pairs of tuna steaks which I divide and put in plastic wrap before freezing.  Other species get frozen at sea after they have been portioned, then sold in one or two pound frozen bags.  Whether tuna, haddock, or cod, just thaw the fillets the night before, season with whatever inspires me at the time of preparation, then either sear if tuna or broil if something else.  Add a potato.  Add a vegetable, usually stored in the freezer, and we have a day's nutrition with no leftovers.   

Eggs have their own versatility.  Quiche is surprisingly easy to make.  Crust forms in minutes with a combination of four parts flour to one each of olive oil and water with a trace of salt.  Squish into a pie pan.  Custard is just four eggs, some milk, some cubes taken from whatever chunk cheese I have in the refrigerator, and the spices of momentary inspiration.  I could just pour this over the crust, but I prefer a filling, mushrooms and onions if in my possession, perhaps carrots or broccoli boiled, then sliced.  Into the crust, pour the custard over them, and into the oven.  Two meals.  Frittatas I make less often but also an invitation to improvise.

So we eat reliably, mostly economically, and I have a measure of creativity with planning and execution followed by some moments of accomplishment while eating.

Some Kitchen Adventures

Despite some accumulation of fishing tackle a couple years back, I haven't gone fishing lately.  My art supplies remain ample but no meaningful drawing, watercolor, or adult pencil coloring have been performed.  My two harmonicas remain unused despite being kept within arms reach. Garden post-season.  All desire for recreation that never materialized.   Even my self-expressive writing seems in a lull.

All partially replaced by my attraction to the kitchen as my recreational outlet.  It could be more orderly, maybe neater.  Yet its utensils, appliances, ingredients, and final results keep me energized.  Even the cleanup offers a welcome challenge and misadventures a learning opportunity.

My shopping amid higher prices seems to reflect this.  When I buy something I think about what I will do with this as it goes into the cart.  Chicken breasts for shabbos, frozen fish or garden burgers for supper, whipping cream with the ice cream.  Apple walnut pie soon, as apples, walnuts, sour cream, sugar all on the week's sale items at Shop-Rite this week.

And then the big two:  Thanksgiving and wife's birthday.  Menu planning, sorting procedures to sequence use of stove, oven and electric appliances needed for multiple courses.  All with an elegant end in mind.  But apple walnut pie first.

Sukkah Guest

After a few weeks of irritations and rejections, feeling mostly let down both by people I know and by those who really have no obligation to me, I judged it time to move onto new people.  OLLI provided some, as it always does, though more reacquaintance than new friendship.  Same with attending synagogues other than my own, though at RH services I expressed my appreciation to their Torah reader, who I had never approached in all the years going there, for standing aside so that somebody else once a member but now a visitor could have his turn. 

When I created my current semi-annual projects, I included having three dinner guests.  Periodically I would jot on a scrap sheet who I might like to have and for what reason.  The sukkah is designed for guests.  It's construction, sometimes its expense, exceeds the capacity of everyone to have one.  I also have non-Jewish friends who lack familiarity with the tradition.  I went that route last year, and again now, with a relatively new medical friend with second degrees of connection suitable to my wife agreeing to join us for shabbos.

If anything energizes me in my retirement years, it has been planning and creating special dinners, which usually follow an occasion to justify the effort.  And so I began just as soon as my invitation was accepted.  Start by confirming guests' dietary restrictions.  Then a sheet of paper divided into eight rectangles for the individual dishes.  I always make challah if shabbos or yontif, a different bread if not.  I like making bread, always edible, not always elegant appearance as it too often flattens on the second rise.  There are different sections for appetizer and soup, though I wonder if both are really needed.  I find the soup more versatile, both in its selection and in its ability to introduce the rest of the menu.  Always a salad and if I make one needing a dressing, I make my own.  Entree for outside guests has been in recent times whole roast chicken.  The NYT made Mark Bittman's process for this publicly available.  It's been flawless the two times I made it, and there are different variations.  Whole Kosher chickens are readily available, though they take up a lot of room in the freezer while waiting to be used.  Precut chicken is also mostly available and stacks with other things in the freezer.  It combines easily for chicken cacciatore or doro wat. And as much as pastilla, or Moroccan chicken pie challenges me, its steps are more tedious and outcome too uncertain to place on a guest menu.  I usually make a kugel, though with some of the more liquid versions of chicken, a layer of rice beneath will work better.  And there is a vegetable.  And I invariably make some variation of cake for dessert.

While American food gets imported from everywhere with most of the world's climates represented, seasons remain important to me.  Gazpacho or other cold soup in the summer, apples in the fall, root vegetables in the winter, and asparagus for Seder in the spring.

While cookbooks have become obsolete, the online recipes being far more plentiful and individually searchable, I've never lost my fondness for the books.  I've also acquired my own favorite things to make.  I like phyllo.  Apple cake and nut tortes can complete any meal.  Slabs of beef have gotten too expensive, even for guests, and don't always have the reliability of preparation of poultry, but when on sale, I like making pot roasts.  Salads have drifted to mostly multicolor Israeli salad or cucumber salad.

I also like to mingle ethnic origins of what I make.  My ancestry, genetic and culinary, is Eastern European, though the Hungarian and Polish contributions differ.  I find a place for Middle Eastern, less for Far Eastern or African or British.

So, I've begun.  Eight rectangles.  Jewish apple cake for dessert for sure, all else open, but jotted my favorites in each category.  Surfed my favorite cookbooks.  Sampled Sukkot menus on the web much less plentiful than menus proposed by food mavens for other occasions.  And not get so focused on the food as to neglect other means of making our guest as welcome as we can.

Making Dinner

My anniversary, #45.  Ordinarily if it is not shabbos, we go out, usually our fanciest and most expensive evening out together.  This time I opted to make a gala dinner instead.  Already had my first minor misadventure, though one without physical injury. All doughs made, one for French bread, one for a berry pie, and one for samosa wrappers.  Brisket seasoned.  There's some time and equipment planning, which is much of what engages me about home cooking where I only have one oven and four burners and one stand mixer and one food processor.  I will need the final few hours in the oven for the brisket.  The bread will need to go into the oven at its appointed time.  That means the pie needs to be baked first, probably as soon as the dough is suitable for rolling.  

For the stove top, I will need to assemble and fry the samosas.  Boxed couscous is straightforward, done at the end.  Glazed carrots also done near the end, but the prep can be done sooner.

Gazpacho needs a tad of stove to peel the tomatoes, but for the most part it is cold.  I think the cucumber salad is all cold, unless the dressing needs a brief stove top.

And elegance needs cleanup.  We had a recent fly infestation, something we can expect every couple of years when eggs somewhere in our kitchen or dining room hatch.  Bug spray worked well, but I need to vacuum their remains.  Got a special red wine, maybe chill for an hour before serving.  Bread on a plate or platter.  Samosas in a bowl.  Salad in a bowl, maybe use our best one.  Gazpacho in the tureen, served in bowls.  Brisket on platter.  Couscous and Carrots in separate bowls.  Pie in pie dish.

Clean up as I go.  Will not use stand mixer or food processor.  Will need granite pastry board later.  And finish washing crock pot from shabbos.  Get blender from basement for gazpacho.  Maybe use mandolin for slicing, or I could wash food processor and use slicing disc for cucumbers, or just my good chef's knife.

Finish coffee, then prep vegetables.  Make pie filling.

But first finish coffee.

Arranging Dinner

As I analyze what constitutes True Fun, I was able to isolate an activity that combined Playfulness/Connectedness/Flow.  I arrange to make dinner for my upcoming anniversary.  I started with a centerpiece, this time a brisket that has been frozen a while.  Need a bread.  I could buy an Italian bread, but haven't made French bread in a long time.  We all like samosas.  Never made these.  Had to select a recipe that could be adapted to non-dairy for our meat meal, but found one.  Halved the quantity.  No better soup in August than Gazpacho as tomatoes become plentiful.  Selected the Good Eats version.  Cucumber salad is easy and can be made early.  The brisket needs a rub after shabbos the night before and a few hours on low cooking.  I found a rub that I can assemble on Friday, season meat Saturday night and leave wrapped in plastic in refrigerator overnight.  Only boxed segment, couscous.  We have a lot of boxes to use up.  It's easy and reliable.  For dessert, a triple berry pie, really the only extravagance.  And a red wine, which gets me a trip to Total Whine, forcing me out of the house and among people.  Then a day of effort on Sunday, making for another episode of Playfulness/Connectedness/Flow.  

Adventuresome Shabbos Dinner

Been taking the easy way out of late, or maybe not.  Roasted Turkey half-breast.  Chicken cacciatore takes preparation and last a while.  I've made it many times, tried and true.  Sticking chicken in crock pot with whatever I have at hand has been done by my balaboosta ancestors long before earthenware was heated electrically.  I needed something new.

Found a Syrian recipe for Tabyit.  Not too hard.  Not too straightforward.  It has a few steps.  Had all the ingredients but the tomatoes on hand.  This couldn't be too ancient a preparation if it depends on New World ingredients along with spices that needed transport from the Far East.  Soak rice.  Prep onions and tomatoes.  Make stuffing.  Stuff chicken and secure closed.  Make sauce.  Stick chicken in rice and slow cook as long as I want.  I can do that.  And boil a broccoli crown in time for candle lighting.

Go to Dinners

Some suppers reflect special occasions: Birthdays and Anniversaries, Valentines Day, guests over, Thanksgiving, Seders.  Some recur like shabbos.  And some just need meals.  Like busy people everywhere, some convenience matters.  I use electric appliances.  Rarely buy premade meals but I also don't make my own ice cream.  As phony meat becomes more prevalent, I will get some on sale.  Easy to store and prepare, adequate taste and versatility.  But amid convenience, I have my staple meals created de novo. Macaroni & Cheese replicated from Automats of days when I found Horn & Hardart my NYC lunch destination.  Dairy Lasagna with thawed spinach.  Cholent in its various forms assembled early Friday morning, good for shabbos and half frozen for the next shabbos.  Pan seared chicken breast for shabbos.  Maybe a package of Hebrew National Franks boiled or broiled.  Quiche now that I know how to  make easy olive oil crust.

They have a few things in common.  All are suppers.  Most last two meals.  Most require multiple steps with assembly.  All are forgiving on recipe variations.  All give me a sense of having accomplished something worthwhile at the end of the day irrespective of how the previous hours played out.

Worth the effort.  Each time they come out a little different, except maybe the hot dogs which vary with what bread and toppings are at hand.  And the beverage options create their own variety, though less so since I've banned the evil soda from my refrigerator and some of the more unique beers have risen in price beyond my limit.  Still they make good meals, some effort, big reward.