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Virtuous vegetables the slattern’s way
Recipe: One-pan roasted veg (per “The Plan”)
As I may have mentioned, I’m not one for complex, time-consuming, fiddly cooking. In fact, if I had my way, I’d never make another meal again. The bank balance being what it is, however, neither permanent-guest status nor live-in domestic help appear to be in my future, and as such the evening meal must be slapped on the table one way or another. Night after night after night.
Regular readers will recall that my dieting struggles are legendary, even in Hell, as they say. So what I try to do is leverage my aversion to all tasks culinary as a useful weight-loss strategy. Most days, Mr. Slattern arrives home to an exciting supper of grilled fish or chicken accompanied by a large salad, which, through the miracle of ready-washed greens, is as easy to prepare as it is to clean up. Fine. Of course when followed by half a cherry chocolate cheesecake and washed down with a bottle or two of white wine, even the most blameless of meals tends to lose its slimming properties. Still, labor has been saved and vegetables consumed, which counts for something.
Manicure intact. Family fed. Is anybody else thirsty?
Now, where was I? Oh yes, healthy meals, easy to fix. So the salad meal is great for summer; however, often, as the warm weather wanes, the body yearns for more substantial fare, and a cooked veg can be just the thing. Now I hate screwing around with vegetable prep, I won’t lie. The washing, peeling and chopping wreak havoc with my manicure, and you really do have to be careful when working with knives, which puts an unwelcome damper on the mid-afternoon cocktail hour. I have, however, partially solved this little dilemma by buying butternut squash and broccoli already cut up. These I mix with a chopped onion, a red pepper and some garlic (all of which have to be prepped, but really it’s not that bad). Just drizzle the whole mess with olive oil, salt and pepper and a couple of pinches of dried oregano, fresh basil or herbes de Provence, pop the pan in a 400 degree oven for half an hour or so, et voila, Lyn Genet’s Italian vegetables as detailed in The Plan, the latest diet I have failed to follow, but which I am certain would have wondrously transformed both my life and my figure had I but been able to choke down flaxseed granola rather than Boston cream donuts at breakfast for more than a week.
Roasted and ready. All week long.
So anywho, what I do is make enough of this stuff for about forty people and just reheat it in the ‘wave all week or throw it into rice or pasta. If you have higher culinary standards than me — and really, except for Sandra Lee, who doesn’t? — this may not work for you; however, for the sufficiently slatternly this system can really take the sting out of being a hausfrau and put the zing back into sundown…speaking of which, I believe the portable bar is calling my name.
Lobster Mac and Cheese: The end of civilization as we know it? I think so.
…the combination diminishes the components. The whole is actually less than the sum of its parts.
I’m not necessarily opposed to gilding the lily. In truth I enjoy a gold covered stamen as much as the next slattern. Neither am I in any way against indulging in a little wretched excess from time to time. A third round of Singapore Slings before dinner? Serve ’em up! Deep fat fried cheesecake? I’m game if y’all are, Paula. Pepperoni AND sausage on that double cheese pie? Why the hell not? As long as I’ve got a full six pack in the fridge it’s all good.
Courtesy the Food Network. Ewww.
No, I’m no stranger to overindulgence, even gluttony, but even so one has to draw the line somewhere, and for me it’s the addition of lobster to macaroni and cheese or mac and cheese to lobster, depending on your point of view. It’s just too much of a good thing, and though I tend to regard moderation as the province of Gwyneth Paltrow, sissies, milquetoasts and Proust scholars, in this I’m with the mung beaners. Lobster simply has no place in the all-American favorite.
Here’s why: With macaroni and cheese you always run the risk of leaving the table with a stodge ball lodged uncomfortably amidships. Because the dish is delicious in the extreme, more often than not the temptation is to overindulge. It doesn’t matter how much steamed asparagus, undressed green salad or ratatouille comes with it, you will almost certainly waddle away from the table, then collapse on the nearest horizontal surface only to awake two hours later, sweaty, parched and numb from the waist down because the waistband of your pants has cut off all circulation to the lower extremities. The same holds true for meals involving the noble crustacean. So mind bogglingly delicious is the flesh of the bottom feeder, especially when dipped in melted butter, it is only the labor involved in extracting it and the enormous expense of ordering up a second one that keep the delirious diner from taxing the digestive system beyond its limits. When the two are combined, no good can come of it.
“Here’s mine. Your LobMacChee is out back in the trough.”
Via housebeautiful.com.
That LobMacChee is much of a muchness is not sufficient for condemnation, of course. Many things are excessive and still manage to stay on my menu — hot fudge brownie sundaes, double bacon bleu cheeseburgers, champagne cocktails and PopTarts for breakfast, to name but a few. No, the reason I object to this new taste sensation is that the combination diminishes the components. The whole is actually less than the sum of its parts. The cheese overpowers the lobster, the lobster distracts from the mac and cheese, and neither shines. And that, quite simply, is why I view the dish as a crime against the palate.
Lobster mac and cheese occasionally turns up among restaurant offerings in the metropolis; however, in the eateries of Downeast Maine it is now apparently de rigeur, as common as muffin tops, missing teeth and limp cole slaw. In fact, it appeared on every menu I perused on my recent trip north to open up the Slattern family summer palace on scenic Chum Bucket Lane. I can only assume the plague is spreading, so consider yourselves warned.
Still not convinced? Well, different streaks, as the saying goes. If you must, here’s a recipe for lobster macaroni and cheese from none other than Her Bang-cellency, the one and only Ina Garten. What else makes sense?
The Slattern Rants: “Oh no, I don’t cook.”
I ADORE puppies…as long as someone else does the cooking.
As I have previously documented in my cluttery, overfurnished, boozy little corner of the blogosphere, given even a glimmer of a chance, I would move into a hotel and eat every meal in a restaurant for the rest of my life. In a heartbeat. Alas, though we all have dreams, we must also live in the real world. As such I can cook, and of necessity I do cook; from time to time I’ll admit I even enjoy it.
Knowing how to prepare a basic meal is just one of those things a reasonably competant adult should be able to do, along with riding a bicycle, driving a car and swallowing the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle without going all sissy and gagging.
PSST Guy. Guy, your shades are on BACKWARDS. Courtesy foodnetworkhumor.com
Now I’m not saying everyone needs to be able to rustle up a standing rib roast or les nonnettes de poulet Agnès Sorel at the drop of a hat, but really the production of a simple omelette or burger should be well within the abilities of even the meanest intelligence. Hell, Guy Fieri has built a lucrative career as a cook, and he can’t even figure out which side of his head his fucking sunglasses belong on.
Slattern in the city
There’s fun to be had in SOME kitchens, Sweetie. Courtesy montrealsimon.blogspot.com
I don’t claim to have cornered the market on slattern-dom, and I certainly didn’t invent it. I have, however, done my level best to elevate the art form over the past twenty years or so, and as I look back on the cluttered landscape of middling meals, drunken dinner parties and neglected housekeeping that has been my life, it occurs to me that none of this could have been so easily accomplished outside the urban jungle. Let me explain.
First of all, the urban environment is easy on the domestic tippler. Let’s say it’s five o’clock and you and a couple of pals have been having a friendly chat over a bottle of vodka for the past few hours. You realize you were supposed to pick up your kids from soccer practice, but getting behind the wheel is no longer an option. No need to endanger the driving public, disturb your better half or give up your parking space — just call a livery service and send a car to pick them up. After three or four instances of this, most city teens will learn to take a twenty from your purse before leaving the house, store the car service number in their phones and call the ride themselves after waiting around for an hour or so. Kids these days!
Kitchen Slattern 
Adios Señor Pig
Jul 2
Posted by WSW
The end of bacon? Thankfully, another cuisine craze fades into obscurity.
Hmmm, should we eat it or rush it to the vet for emergency dental surgery? Duh.
I was pleased, no thrilled actually, when I recently read a comment from some chef in one publication or another — my reading time frequently overlaps with cocktail hour, so my recollections tend to get a bit hazy — saying something to the effect of “I’m sick of pig.” Now given the context, I think we can assume she was referring to swine-flesh meat products rather than the dog-wheelchair thief, the Real Housewives or that ass hat who keeps ripping the Red Sox stickers off the bumper of my car. Long story. Anyways . . . oh here, I found it.
Spotted Pig Owner Sick of Pig
God bless chef April Bloomfield is all I can say. Eh, who do I think I’m kidding? I have a great deal more to say on the subject, and when I’m done I believe I’ll don a red dress and stomp on the rapidly putrifying bones of bacon mania, because I don’t know about you, but if I have to excavate another goddamned hunk of thick cut bacon from between my crowns, I may do something I regret. And I’m not talking about making an uninsured dental visit.
And FYI, kale is no better served glistening with bacon grease than straight up, or God forbid, in a salad. It’s still kale, and it still tastes like something you’d pull from the depths of a 14 year-old boy’s gym locker. But if you must put bacon in the greens, why does it have to be inch-thick slabs with the flavor and consistency of salted linoleum squares? This stuff cannot possibly be digested by normal human beings and once impacted between the teeth, the chunks fester, causing the unsuspecting diner to awaken in the middle of the night with throbbing gums, cotton mouth, a screaming colon and the unmistakable bloat that follows a meal consisting of three courses of processed pork followed by tenderloin profiteroles and fat back shooters.
I can’t stand it anymore.
If you live near, or frequent, a settlement of any size you have no doubt encountered one of these pig-mad flesh pits that serves such taste sensations as maple-lardon ice cream, pork belly speckled greens, and fat back chili. I have even seen an offering for bacon chocolate martinis. Yeah, that’s right bacon in your vodka. With chocolate. What’s next, folks? A beard and pasties on The Pieta? Steven Seagal for pope? Birkenstocks as club wear? You see where this is going. Gastric armageddon followed by complete worldwide social collapse, and I for one am glad there is hope of averting a total implosion of all we hold dear.
I’m sure you’re a swell guy, but please get that thing away from my food.
So to all you aspiring restauranteurs, here’s a news flash. It’s over. Bacon does not improve anything but eggs. It belongs on club sandwiches and BLTs in thin, crispy slices. It doesn’t make ice cream better; hot fudge does, GrapeNuts do and so do little chunks of peppermint stick candy. How come no one serves peppermint stick ice cream anymore, huh? It was so refreshing, like brushing your teeth and eating dessert all at once, and I miss it. What I will not miss, however, is sitting down to an overpriced plate of pork ten ways accompanied by the obsequious smirk that I know is hiding behind that rat’s nest of a beard.
Is it too much to hope that waiters might eventually start shaving again?
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Tags: April Bloomfield, Bacon, Cook, Ice cream, Kitchen Slattern, Pork, Pork rind, Real Housewives, Slattern, Steven Seagal, Vodka