smitten kitchen

Nearly a year ago, I told you about my favorite side dish. But what I failed to tell you is that these things change suddenly for no apparent reason. One day I’ll try something I’m certain sounds too uninteresting to be executed well–in that case, zucchini, almonds and a bit of parmesan, barely cooked–and the flavor blows my mind to the point that I must eat it that night, the next one and all the days that follow, then pausing for a couple weeks just to pick it up once more.

Well, it has happened again. Two weeks ago, Alex and I got home late from the gym and decided to order salads from the French diner-ish place a couple blocks away, but I suddenly became worried that my salad would not be enough food and threw in a side of haricot vert, or those skinny French green beans I love so much. Nevertheless, my expectations were very low–I mean, you’ve got to cook these guys to a very specific point and then stop, and I failed to see how that would work when they needed to arrive warm.

Yet here we are, two weeks later and this is the third or fourth time I’ve eaten them since. However, last night was the first time I got off my rump long enough to assemble it myself, which if you consider how ridiculously simple this is to make, is particularly sad.

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I usually try to shield you from examples of my various forms of Crazy, but in this case, it’s just too relevant not to own up to. You see, I’ve got all sorts of superstitions about pies, with each and every harebrained theory derived from some near or actual pie disaster in my past.

There’s the theory that pies can smell fear; if you’re certain your pie will be a mess, it becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then there’s the theory about making anything but the simplest lidded pie in the summertime, as the heat and humidity defies any level of air conditioning and makes your pie dough melt apart, no matter how many times you chill the dough. I also believe that pie recipes can be curses, because not every apple has the same level of sweetness, tartness and liquid and it’s nearly impossible to come up with a core recipe that works each time.

In short, my pie superstitions could be summed up as, “Shh. The pie can hear you.”

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As Alex and I go into yet another summer without a patio to house an outdoor grill and a dozen of our nearest and dearest, this means but one thing: doing our best to get ourselves invited to as many barbecues, pot-lucks and patio parties as we can. Nobody can say that we don’t have goals.

Of course, when trying to convince people that you’d be a welcome guest at their party and not, say, the type of person who will drink all of their sangria, teach their children off-color jokes and ultimately pass out in a chaise lounge in the shade, not to be found until long after the shindig has wound down, it helps to have a cooking blog–the kind you’d like to bring samples from.

In fact, I find that the number of invitations we receive correlates closely with the number of times I promise to arrive bearing slaw, sides or cake. Especially the cake. (And to think people said you couldn’t buy friends!)

As we gear up for a barbecue a day this holiday weekend, I have rounded up some of the things I’m considering bringing along, but I think we all know that what I’m really going to do is make all new things because I am allergic to cooking anything twice. But don’t let that stop you from considering one of the things below (and then drinking all of the sangria, because they’ll be so in love with your cooking, they’ll forgive you.)

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My German grandmother never made mazto ball soup with chicken stock, or so my mother tells me. In fact, she never made chicken stock at all. Compared to beef stock, chicken stock’s flavor paled, she felt, so why use it?

After our central European vacation, I can see that she’s not alone. We didn’t find one restaurant in Prague or Vienna that didn’t have some version of a beef consomme soup on the menu–all extremely dark and abundantly flavorful. I found this a great relief, as soup was a wonderful way to offset the heaviness of available cuisine, and also absurdly delicious, as I never knew that simple brothy soups could be so tasty.

And you’ll have to bear with me, as I know it is probably not soup season where you are, but between New York’s rainy 55 degrees yesterday and the bad cold Alex and I have passed back and forth in the last eight days, it sure was needed here.

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I am not proud of this, but I’m really just a one trick pony in the language department. Sure, after four years of high school French and the shortest exchange program ever, I can get by in Paris and because of this, can occasionally make sense of written Italian or Spanish, but Czech? German? I couldn’t be further from makings heads or tails of it.

As you might expect, as Alex and I luckily found ourselves at some untouristy eateries in Vienna–without a waitstaff that catered to the language-deficient or menus reprinted in 16 world languages–quite a bit of Hilarity Ensued. After many hours of walking on a hot day, Alex and I were beat, so we flopped down at a cafe and mindlessly asked for “iced coffees” completely forgetting that “ice” equals “eis” equals “ice cream” in German, and ended up with a big cup filled with coffee, cream, whipped cream and a scoop of vanilla gelato. I wish all mistakes were this tasty!

Looking to offset the heavy dishes Central Europe, I also ordered something that I guessed was going to be a light, healthy vegetable strudel, something I’d imagined dreamily warm with crispy, flaky edges and something I was certainly going to want to repeat at home. Unfortunately, I received a brick of rice with a few flecks of carrots and parnsips, wrapped in phyllo and smothered in a creamy herb sauce. It all went very well with my eis Kaffee!

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