smitten kitchen

It has been almost a year since I told you that I don’t like boneless, skinless chicken cutlets, I never had and I never would. Furthermore, I did not understand the American obsession with them (in sandwiches! on pizza! in pasta! on salad! in 54-packs at Costco!). “They have the texture and excitement of pressed sawdust,” I believe were my exact words, and even though I knew I was in a distinct minority on this, I knew I couldn’t rest soundly until I got it off my chest.

But The People wouldn’t let it go. “You must try brining,” they whispered into my inbox, “brining is much better,” they said in the comments, “brining will change you life,” one went as far as to say, at which point I stopped listening entirely. Why should I have to work so hard to make something taste good? Obviously, it is not inherently tasty, or it wouldn’t require all of these extra steps and seasonings. Pressed sawdust, I said; case closed.

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I’ve been thinking this week–probably more than anyone should–about what it means to be a perfectionist. I never considered myself one before; fussy, maybe; needly and exacting at times. Oh, and I have been known to cut cookie bars with a ruler, but I never thought it was about being crazed with perfection–I just don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t use a tool readily available to them.

Nope, I’m thinking that being a perfectionist isn’t about so much what you do, but how you react when little, obviously unsubstantial things go wrong. You over-browned an edge of the cake but it has absolutely no bearing on the final flavor. You accidentally measured wrong and now the aforementioned brownie bars aren’t all even.

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Sunday night, along with roasted stuffed onions and that apple tart for dessert, I made Martha Stewart’s Silky Braised Chicken with Wild Mushrooms and Pearl Onions for my family when they came over for dinner. But if you want to know if it was any good, you’ll have a hard time getting a straight answer. I thought it was dry and could barely eat three bites of it. Everyone else didn’t mind, and even called it delicious. Then again, they may have just been polite.

I’ve come to the realization that there are some recipes I would rather never write up. Here it is Friday night, five days after I made this chicken dish and I would still rather do Molly’s dishes than talk about chicken. Five days! Five days in which I have updated daily. Five days in which I decided I’d rather cook and write up something entirely new than get to that forsaken recipe. I am that ambivalent about it.

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There was a period a couple years ago when Alex was traveling a lot for work and I hated every single second of it, even–quite brattily–the parts where he got fancy rental cars and stayed in “Heavenly Beds” (which he still does not shut up about, even today) and got to eat awesome meals and expense them. What can I say? I haven’t lived by myself in a lot of years and all of those windows that flood our apartment with light during the day are scary as hell at night, especially you read stories about someone trying to break into a friend’s apartment through the skylight. I slept terribly.

One Friday night when he was supposed to get in by eight from LA, I decided to make a big, huge “welcome home!” meal with homemade challah and chicken dish I had always wanted to make because how could it not be the very best thing in the entire world? Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic. I can’t remember which recipe I used, however, but it was a big disappointment. The chicken had the quality I hate, dryness, and the garlic cloves that I had expected to be softly caramelized and oozy were bitter and greasy. Plus, the recipe had been an elaborate pain, fussy steps and in the end, completely not worth it. (Don’t worry, the girlfriends I had over and I got very drunk on red wine before Alex got home–typical–so it in no way ruined our evening.)

If only I had had this recipe! I took one look at it in the New York Times yesterday, I and immediately had to make it. Plus, Alex isn’t traveling or even working at the same place anymore, so I had the advantage of coming home to him with one gigantic pile of garlic skins on one side of him and 42 peeled cloves on the other, and a plume of garlicky air everywhere else.

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I’ve already admitted that I’ve been a bit of a slack-ass with the whole cooking dinner on a weekday night, or pretty much any night, thing lately. Since I would hate to deprive you of all of the whiny reasons I’ve been inundating my husband with for not even making half an effort, I’ve decided to translate a few into bytes for you: I’m tiiiiired. I’ve been working soooooo much lately. Traaaaveling too! If I start now, we won’t eat until tomoooooorow. Also: I’m sooooo tiiiiiiired. Charming, right? Bet you wish you were here.

But I think that the one-pot meal could be the cure for all of your kitchen ailments. Don’t feel like cooking? But look–it’s dinner in one pot! Don’t feel like creating a pile of dishes? But it’s just one pot! (And a knife and a plate and a spoon, but shh, I don’t want to scare you off.) Have a lot of people coming over? One steamed vegetable and an easy soup and you’ve got a full-blown meal! Everyone arriving at different times? It’s okay, the one-pot meal is very forgiving of tardiness.

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