Lentil Soup

This soup is to be begun at a ridiculous hour to start making soup for dinner (eg: 9:30pm, Sunday night).

Recipe source: unknown/in my head.

Ingredients

1 16 oz. bag lentils

1 12 oz. can crushed tomatoes

36 oz. water (fill the tomato can three times!)

3 large carrots, diced

4 large stalks celery, diced

1 large yellow onion, diced

a bunch of spinach, ripped up into smaller pieces

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 heaping tsp. dried oregano

1 heaping tsp. dried basil

1 large fresh bay leaf (dried is ok if you don't have fresh)

1 tbs. olive oil

Balsamic vinegar to taste

kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

other random things "to taste", dependent upon mood

Serve with:

Crusty baguette

Swiss cheese

Sriracha sauce

Lots of fresh pepper

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil on medium heat and combine carrots, celery and onions. Cook until the onions are soft, and add garlic, basil, oregano and bay leaf. Stir. Cook for about 2 minutes. Stir in lentils. Add can of crushed tomatoes (San Marzano is the best) and water. Stir. Turn heat to high and allow the soup to come to a rolling boil (keeps on bubbling even if you stir it). Turn heat to low, cover pot, and simmer for at least an hour.

After your soup has simmered to the desired consistency, add the spinach and stir until wilted. Add balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste (I find this soup needs a decent amount of salt).

Get creative. Craving a little sweetness? Throw in some brown sugar or honey. Craving spice? Throw in fresh ground chili paste, or chopped chili peppers. I've dashed Worcestershire sauce, squirted sriracha (though I require this as a topping, as well), tossed parsley.

Set table for self or others who have been patiently waiting for dinner-cum-midnight snack. Cut slices of crusty bread (which you and guests have probably already started munching on), and arrange cheese on a small cutting board with appropriate cutlery. Put out a little vial of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, sriracha. Bring soup pot to table and place on a dish towel or pot holder. Ladle out soup to self and/or guests. Eat.

Put extra soup in tupperware and in the fridge (this soup is always ten times better the next day, and is even delicious cold). Soak the soup pot, leave the dishes for the morning, and proceed with evening/sleep.

Sour Cream Cookies

Mom: Did you channel Bessie energy?

Me: On the second to last batch, I did.

Mom: Good. Now I can die.

All in the Family

My Captain Kitchen training began early.  Pictured above is my great-grandmother Bessie and 2-and-a-half-year-old me, making her famous sour cream cookies.  I developed my kitchen energy, finesse and skills by simply watching my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother cook and bake. They are all fabulous cooks and entertainers, no doubt the Captains of their own kitchens. 

We all have the recipe for sour cream cookies - it is very precisely written down in Bessie's handwriting on an index card - yet only one person (my mother) has been able to make them to perfection. What the written recipe lacks is directions for the tone required in the kitchen while making them, something my mother obviously picked up on as a kid, watching her Grandma Bessie at the helm. The recent acquisition of the above photo has inspired me to try my hand at them, flying solo for the first time. I've asked my mother for a copy of the original recipe and will make my valiant attempt. In fact, the pyrex mixing bowl Bessie and I are using in the photo is in my possession, and so I have high hopes for the outcome.  

If you claim to not be able to cook, just watch someone who does. I still do it when I visit my mother and grandmother, and am constantly learning new techniques, styles and combinations.

Stay tuned for a report on the outcome of the sour creams. 

Eleven

Someone asked me at a bar the other night what my favorite number was and I quickly replied "11". I then asked him "What is your biggest regret in life?" and he asked if I was serious and I said yes and then we proceeded to discuss the number eleven. People are so nosy.

Why 11?

I discovered long ago that when someone is asked to pick a number between 1 and 20, the number 11 is almost always overlooked. I find 11 to be deceptive, close enough to the middle but not at all the middle.  

An eleven-sided polygon is called an undecagon.  

In base ten, an easy way to determine if a number is divisible by 11 is to add up the numbers located in the odd position and subtract the sum of the even-placed numbers.  If the difference is a multiple of 11, the number is also a multiple of 11.  (For example, is 17,589 divisible by 11? : (1+5+9) - (7+8) = 15-15 = 0. 0 is a multiple of 11 (11x0 = 0), and so 17,589 is a multiple).

Stand up for 11, people. It's a great number.

In other news...

The birthday cocktail party was a success!  Martha Stewart was a lovely host and I rediscovered that I am really exceedingly happy when bustling about entertaining, preparing, arranging.  

Entrepreneurship and ownership is very scary.  Hence the avoidance of this "bed and breakfast" that I mention briefly in the Captain Kitchen header. My brother, ever the astute one, was the first to say "I don't get it."  (p.s. happy almost graduation, peabrain). Well here it is:

I was preparing brunch in the beautiful kitchen (r.i.p.) in my old apartment for the final time for two friends who had slept in the orphanage the night before. (I converted one of the bedrooms in my old place into a guest room for the final month and called it the orphanage because it had two twin beds in it). As they continued to sleep, I ran around shopping for produce, brewed a big pot of coffee, squeezed fresh orange juice, whipped up a frittata and home fries and set the table. I felt exuberant, alive. All the while I fantasized about being the proprietor of my own bed and breakfast, awake before your guests and making sure they were treated to a sight to be seen and smell to die for upon entering the world from their pleasant and peaceful slumber. And so, the dream was born. 

I will have to figure out a way to buy my own place. It will probably be illegal. It will take over my entire life. 

I will fulfill my dream. I will meet fascinating strangers. I will make a profit? I will be content.

I should add up the pros and cons, subtract them from one another and see if I get 11.

And so, I set out on my journey of learning how I make home; of being the 24-year-old housewife without a husband; and eventually, not a madame, but the concierge (please tell me you've all seen The Producers). 

Possible name for the bed and breakfast: "The Eleven Inn" ?

Humphrey Bogart

I am pleased to introduce

 Humphrey Bogart, the goldfish.

Birthdays

I always wake up before the sun rises on my birthday.  This morning, my eyes miraculously opened at 4:30am, ready to seize the day and a new year.  It's not yet 7am and I've already downed two cups of coffee and watched last night's episode of Gossip Girl (guilty pleasure). 

To be perfectly honest, I spend much of the daylight hours of my birthday in tears.  They're not out of sadness or regret.  They are inexplicable tears.  Just.. water. I don't care much for Hallmark holidays, but there's just something about a rite of passage that hits home.

In true Captain Kitchen fashion, I am making myself a cocktail party this evening at my house, for which I will spend the morning and early afternoon hustling and bustling about the City, picking up groceries. Last year I made a full-on dinner party, five courses - it was a rainy, cold, windy day; the moment I exited the subway my umbrella flipped inside out and broke, and I trudged around the City like a drowned, dejected rat. Dinner was fantastic, and more than made up for my less-than-joyous day.

Today, however, is crisp and clear, the perfect spring day.  

Tonight's menu of hors d'oeuvres is inspired by Martha Stewart's 1984 menu book on the subject.  I made sure it included my favorite foods, making for a slightly incoherent, slightly cheesy spread:

• Cold blanched haricot verts with a dip/dressing tbd (grainy mustard, tarragon, white vinegar?)
• Small savory crépes with goat cheese, homemade roasted red peppers and (maybe?) wilted spinach, (balsamic reduction? - too much?)
• Homemade guacamole and salsa with tortilla chips
• French fries with ketchup and dijon mustard for dipping
• Cucumber rounds with smoked salmon mousse and a garnish of scallions 
• Cheese and crackers, grapes, olives
• Individual strawberry shortcakes c/o Mom
• Chocolate-dipped strawberries

Subject to change upon going to the market, but no less a good start.  

The Wife (a.k.a., my best friend since I was 15) is bringing the Beefeater for martinis early (she's a good wife). The DKNY dress I tried on and died over two months ago, and which I broke down and bought on sale (!!) at Bloomingdale's yesterday is pressed and ready. The pink peonies in my living room are wide open and ready for company.  

From behind my surreptitious tears, I'm looking forward to a lovely birthday.  

MOTHER/DAUGHTER POWER BLOG

My mother remembers her first Mother's Day well.  It was on this day twenty-something years ago that her first-born came into this very world.  Yes, she remembers it very well.  You could say I was a pain in the ass from the very beginning.  

This Mother's Day was maybe slightly less painful than her first.  It was a crisp and sunny spring day in Long Beach, and we, mother and daughter dined on frittata, sipped prosecco, walked along the shell-covered paths of a bird sanctuary and basically went about our afternoon creating the inspiration for this: the MOTHER/DAUGHTER POWER BLOG.  My mother will be blogging about our day together as well at Blue Heron Kitchen, so please visit her fabulous e-space to complete today's Captain Kitchen experience.  Maybe this collaboration is our way of admitting what we've known for a long time: the apple, my friends, does not fall far. I look like her, talk like her, decorate, entertain and cook like her more and more every day. (Thanks, Mom.)

Our frittata was made with mushrooms, asparagus, baby spinach and fresh herbs, topped with slices of tomato 

and fresh mozzarella from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.  (Visit the Mamablog for the actual recipe!) We munched on baked blue corn chips and fire-roasted tomato salsa, gruyere cheese, hummus, an apricot, olive bread from Amy's Bread and, as always, there was half a steamed artichoke next to my plate. (My favorite foods as a kid were always the ones that most kids stereotypically hated - I was maybe the only kid in Queens begging for artichokes, Brussels sprouts and whole cloves of roasted garlic).  We broke out the Baccarat, popped the prosecco and had a feast made for queens from Queens.  

I slipped a card onto my mother's plate when she wasn't looking.  It was completely in Spanish because that's all that was left from ravenous offspring at the Duane Reade in Penn Station, but the sentiment was all there and I think she was mostly happy that I actually remembered to get her a card this year. Before taking this photo, she requested that I write "Mom" on the envelope, but I refused. 

And then my mother took me for some "fresh air" at the Lido Beach bird sanctuary.  I discovered that she is a bit of a bird watcher, which is pretty darn adorable.  We wandered along bright white paths of broken sea shells through the marsh  as terns, herons and grackles flew overhead and reeds cat-called us on either side.  I believe the words "oh, it's just a common tern" were uttered, and I made sure to point out that no tern was common to me and how rare it was that I see any bird other than the pigeon variety.  It was so gorgeous I forgot and forgave that I was in Long Island.  

We returned home with all intention of making something with rhubarb, but got lost in the fridge and pantry as food for the week was graciously donated to me care of you-know-who. (Thanks, Mom).  I lugged my bag of goods onto the Long Island Railroad, finished my Star magazine (I inhale trashy celebrity gossip mags cover to cover when I am on the LIRR) and fell asleep.  

And so now, I leave you with this.  Enjoy.

My mother insisted she was nothing like this caricature.  When she yelled out "Look at the ducks!" at the bird sanctuary, that battle was officially lost.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I love you.