Manolo’s Food Blog

Men, if you think hair loss, knee pain, backache, a pot belly and manboobs will be the most fearful consequences of old age, add one more specter to the list: a fatty liver.

Mr. Henry has one. (The wags might say Mr. Henry is one.) The discovery of this ticklish condition, however, has led to a new diet breakthrough.

Mr. Henry’s surefire weight loss method. Lose ten pounds in ten weeks!

How? You ask how?

First, develop an undiagnosable digestive disorder preventing you from eating more than appetizer portions at one sitting. Coffee, cheese, or anything fatty gives you nausea and stomach cramp, so they’re off the menu until further notice. Because your liver has grown fatty, your gastroenterologist will advise you to limit alcohol consumption to one drink per day. (You can sneak another, but don’t tell Dr. Romeu.)

Second, when the child goes off to camp for three weeks, prepare nothing at home more ambitious than salad with something grilled tossed on top. If you go out to eat, order only the appetizer. (Refusing to be buffaloed by wait staff, Mrs. Henry has been doing this years.)

Third, make sure your air conditioner breaks on Saturday evening. New York City repairmen don’t retrieve messages until Monday, no matter how plaintive, and don’t begin to act until Tuesday or Wednesday. Furthermore, make the AC chiller unit shatter its drive shaft. (Replacement shafts are never in stock.) If you do this during the worst heat wave of the summer, you’re bound to lose nearly a pound per day. Mr. Henry offers his personal guarantee. When it’s this hot, the most anyone can hope to consume is popcorn and white wine.

Fourth, eat a diet inspired by French cures for la crise de foie, even though such a term is not accepted by medical science, even in France. Eat artichokes, salad, bitter greens, lemon, papaya, mint and ginger. (Ginger helps the stomach empty its contents into the duodenum. You had to ask.) Then eat more artichokes.

Here is a southeast Asian style salad dressing that transforms romaine lettuce, carrots, Thai basil, tomato and grilled chicken into princely fare:

1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon peanut butter (or sunflower butter)
juice of half a lime
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
three dashes of Tabasco
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (olive oil is not the best, but it’s OK)
salt

On the Fourth of July pickles get to be serious business.

Fourth of July is the one day of the year when pickles are prominently featured among menu items, one day when pickles are not just eaten but lingered over, examined, discussed, and debated.

Is sugar appropriate in the brining liquid? Is garlic an obligation of faith or a detour from the true path? And what about pickled artichokes, cauliflower, onions, carrots, or odd Japanese vegetables like gobo (burdock root), lotus root, or seaweed?

Yesterday David reported confidently that the secret ingredient in Murray’s Sturgeon Shop’s tuna salad is a splash of pickle juice.

(Mr. Henry hopes he has not revealed one of Murray’s closely held proprietary secrets inadvertently landing himself in a legal pickle. Mr. Henry, you see, is not represented by counsel, nor does he wish to contest a court action from an injured party. The above was revealed in innocence, Murray, as part of a think piece about pickles and America on the Fourth of July. Have a heart, Murray, can’t you? It could all just be rumor, anyway.)

Like all true pickle eaters, Mrs. Henry holds strong opinions on the subject. At Recipe, a new restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue, Mrs. Henry thought the pickled artichoke had sat too long. Its crunch was gone.

When Mrs. Henry pickles, she pickles for a day or two, not more. Her pickled cabbage becomes a military exercise for mastication muscles and back molars as well as a sharp, crisp cleansing for the tongue.

Mr. Henry’s favorite pickling liquid is sushi vinegar, a sugared vinegar required for proper sushi rice. Every so often in a sauce pan over a mild flame she dissolves ¾ cup of sugar into a bottle of white vinegar. The apartment smells pickley for hours.

Although Mr. Henry has been instructed repeatedly to leave that bottle alone, he confesses to using its contents with regularity. Add a splash of cold sushi vinegar to freshly sliced salted cucumbers and instantly you get a pickle to rival any vegetable or condiment.

It may not be what Americans remember as traditional, but it’s better than those squishy green things in the bottle.

If like Mr. Henry you are partial to classifications, you could divide the world into three culinary groups: sweet-milk people, sour-milk people, and no-milk people.

Western Europeans and their descendants drink fresh milk and eat aged cheeses. Central Asians and Middle Easterners eat yogurt and fresh cheeses. Far Easterners can’t stand milk products of any kind.

Hosting a holiday dinner for native Wisconsinites Kate and Dan, the Henrys decided to surprise these dairy-staters with an exotic sour milk feast the Three Wise Men would enjoy, in case they happen to show up unannounced on the doorstep.

Those unpredictable Magi, they never call ahead. Like the British they come from the East bearing gifts, ever so tasteful and appropros, expecting you to reciprocate in kind.

Lacking confidence in his command of Persian cuisine, and lacking as well access to fresh pomegranate juice, za’atar, and other basic components of Middle Eastern food, Mr. & Mrs. Henry improvised a version of South Asian food that, while very spicy, was not so hot the kids would refuse it.

Interestingly, yogurt plays a central role in almost every dish from dahl to korma to naan, flat bread Mrs. Henry cooked on a hot dry skillet.

Lamb korma became the principal dish and was accompanied by red lentil dahl and aloo gobi, cauliflower in a spicy mix of potatoes, tomatoes, and peas.

For a gentle kid-friendly chutney Mr. Henry quickly stewed three diced mangoes with diced ginger, brown sugar, orange juice, and in lieu of vinegar a little verjuice, a sour grape juice. The result was mouth puckering and palate cleansing.

Then he prepared a simple raita with only four ingredients: cucumber, sheep’s yogurt, mint, and salt. Core the cucumbers and grate them coarsely. Mix with salt and let sit covered in the refrigerator for several hours. After this quick pickling, push out all the salty water and add chopped mint and yogurt, as much as you like. Mr. Henry likes a thick mix, mostly cucumber, less like a sauce than like a salad to lighten the meal and cleanse the palate.

For dessert, there was watermelon, clementines, mint ice cream, and the remainder of the pinot noir.

In 1920 when great grandma arrived from Japan she had not yet become a flapper. (Her given name was Toshiko but everyone called her Josie.) Five years later she was pure roaring twenties American, the modern girl sporting beaded skirts and bobbed hair with bangs.

She gambled, swore, smoked with a cigarette holder, drank with the men, danced kabuki, fought kendo, and died standing up.

She also cooked great teriyaki chicken. (The secret ingredient is sugar.)

Josie’s teriyaki chicken

8 skinless chicken thighs and legs
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup sake
½ cup sugar
grated ginger

Marinate for as long as you like, for one day or even two if you are clever enough to plan ahead.

Bake in the marinade at 400 degrees until the chicken begins to blacken, about 45 minutes. (Mr. Henry likes it a little burnt.) Be prepared for everyone to eat more than usual.

Nowadays, truth be told, you can cut down the sugar a little without altering its beneficial effects. The marinade’s combination of salt and sugar not only flavors the chicken but effectively cures it, too. It will keep cold for days after, the perfect picnic for a burgeoning spring afternoon.

Josie loved mayonnaise and habitually prepared a dipping sauce for vegetables composed of regular bottled mayonnaise mixed with a splash of soy sauce, a staple today on the Henry household table. Surprisingly mayonnaise has been a Japanese favorite since the 1920’s and can be found in dozens of standard “traditional” Japanese sauces.

Striving to prepare a dressing for green salad that might complement teriyaki chicken, Mr. Henry mixed a tablespoon of white miso with sushi vinegar (rice wine vinegar mixed with sugar). After some hesitation at the prospect of culture clash, he added Italian olive oil.

The results matched splendidly with teriyaki.

When Josey’s daughter Martha came to town, Mr. Henry boasted to her of his new salad dressing. She said, “Oh yes, we’ve been making that for years. Try topping it with little cubes of tofu. It looks like cheese but tastes much lighter. Even Grandpa Gary, an old Nevada cowboy, likes it.”

After 30 years of shacking up, Jeff and Gail got married.

In Hanalei Bay, on Kaua’i, Hawaii, in the lee of Bali Ha’i they spent six weeks snorkeling and snuggling. It was indeed their own special island.

Each morning before the sun’s rays reached the blue sea floor they trundled down to the market to buy a tranche of  ahi or kampachi caught that very morning. After a morning in the water they prepared a lunch of sashimi (dipped in soy sauce and freshly grated wasabi) with slices of avocado, papaya, star fruit, or mango (the Haden variety, with pulp that is not stringy).

Richly dark greens like collard or rainbow chard filled the markets. Oddly enough, however, because the climate is so temperate, tomatoes do not ripen to full flavor there.

On Kaua’i they make a pungent and tangy feta-style goat cheese that pairs well with fresh cilantro and crunchy crackers.

But what was the potion impelling them to bind the ties of wedlock? What was their passion fruit?

It was the rum smoothie.

Gail’s Honeymoon Smoothie

dark rum
young ginger, grated
pineapple
guava
mango
splash of orange soda
dollop of lychee-flavored yogurt
coconut water (crack the nut with a hammer)
ice

Drink before dinner. Watch the stars come out.

Having lived happily ever after, having spent a honeymoon in paradise, and having gotten married, in that order, pretty soon now, yes, any minute Jeffrey is going to propose to Gail (or will it be vice versa?). Accordingly, the next logical step in their backward romance will be that unforgettable first blush of mutual infatuation. Who could not be envious?

All week Londoners have been enjoying an unusual spell of sunny weather. Could this be the explanation why low-cut blouses and scanty dresses dominate feminine fashion? Not since he walked the beach of Nice at age 17, a peak experience of his late boyhood, has Mr. Henry seen so very much of so very many bosoms.

Like great white naval vessels riding the high seas, bouncing breasts command the London concourse. Rule Britannia!

In every cafe, pub, and restaurant he visited this week, the waitress chose her outfit for a stage audition. Mistress Quickly, a tavern wench, or the village strumpet are juicy parts, to be sure, confident to bring advancement. These actresses really can fill the role.

Lately when Mr. Henry thinks of scones with clotted cream, visions of Devonshire dairy maids pop up. The word “pudding” now animates Mr. Henry’s imagination towards sweets not available on the menu.

Bottoms are nearly as uncovered as tops. Rare English sunshine illuminates scanty pants beneath gauzy skirts. It’s a little bit much, really. Or rather, it’s a little bit too little.

Mr. Henry likes the female form. He adores the female form. The unengaged parts of his brain think of little else but the female form. In his considered opinion, there is nothing like a dame. But he finds himself distracted by seeing so much female nakedness in this traditionally prudish country. Bombarded by pale-skinned and dark-skinned beauties, how can he be expected to absorb the subtleties of English Gothic architecture? Concentration flags. Mental acuity goes mushy. His train of thought follows the wrong signal switch and then he wonders why he bothered to trudge all this way just to abuse his feet on medieval paving stones.

When a man is tired of London breasts, is he tired of life?

Seeking revival in traditional pub foods – bangers and mash, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, ploughman’s lunch – time and again Mr. Henry found the menu listing duck breast salad or felafel instead. The English pub has gone gastro.

On nearly every menu now there is a vegetarian selection indicated by (v). This represents a genuine revolution in English cooking. Results are mixed, but in two cases so far the felafel has been first-rate – freshly prepared, brightly seasoned, and crisply fried. Salads have been excellent.

The steak and ale pie Mr. Henry snagged at the Wellington on The Strand lived up to tradition. Judging by the crust’s sturdy exterior and soggy interior, it could have been made in the 18th century. It was timelessness itself.

The week’s most exciting taste without doubt were the Alphonso mangoes from India, pale orange with the creamiest, most aromatic flesh, available for only a few weeks each year. Mr. Henry bought them at the Saturday farmer’s market on Portobello Road. They are the food of Shangri-La.

It is the year of change, indeed. Among Mr. Henry’s friends and relations long-established eating habits are giving way to new ones.

No meal is more culture-specific than breakfast. On your first trip to Japan, you won’t have trouble finding an acceptable lunch or dinner for anyone in the party. Breakfast is another story. Pickles, sashimi, raw quail egg on rice, tofu, miso soup, nori, daikon – none of these ever graced Mr. Henry’s grandmother’s table.

Mr. Henry’s German grandmother, who graduated from Iowa State University in 1912, rose early and started her day with a tablespoon of corn oil and a glass of hot water. She swore it prevented asthma, but Mr. Henry believes it contributed to regular evacuation, as well. She never missed her morning dose and she lived to be 97.

Mr. Henry’s Irish grandmother, the most beautiful girl in 1920’s New York, rose late and started with a strong cup of tea (and occasionally with a little hair of the dog, too). She departed this life at age 57.

Mother Henry is approaching her 77th birthday and charges around town like Hillary Clinton on energy drink. Recently she shared an unusual dietary secret. She starts her day with spinach. (Was that Popeye’s secret, too?)

While Father Henry squeezes the orange juice, Mother downs a few spoonfuls of cold spinach in between bites of hard-boiled egg. Later comes coffee and toast. She claims she needs to eat leafy greens every single day, and sometimes she gets so busy running around town that she doesn’t get an opportunity to sit down to a proper lunch. Dinner selections are variable and don’t always include leafy greens.

Over spring vacation Little Henry and posse shocked the grown-ups by starting their vacation morning with avocado on toast. (Mr. Henry blames the Food Network for these departures from normalcy.) Mr. Henry tried it too, but needed to add goat cheese and honey before it assumed the appearance of a morning repast.

Mrs. Henry has been making fruit smoothies with seaweed powder – morning green goop. She claims it will change your life. Consider yourself warned.

Though not a fussbudget, Mr. Henry likes order. He likes first things to be first and fair to be fair. He may admire the rugged wild, but he prefers his personal world to be tame.

In matters of style, he likes things to look like what they are, hence his preference for Art Deco over Art Nouveau. In language, he likes things to be called by their real names, hence his abhorrence of “the war on terror,” yet another pernicious Orwellian locution that has gained common currency through mindless repetition.

Having spent all last week trying to untangle the spindly white cords of his new Apple earbuds, Mr. Henry finds his tired mind benumbed by software tutorials and Lilliputian iPhone keypads. He yearns for order, for routine, for the comfort of homey, established habits.

He longs for a day when each morsel of food and each sip of drink follow one another like the swelling dum-dum-dum of a Beethoven crescendo.

Wine experts discuss “pairings” with food, but what about sequence throughout the day?

Mr. Henry finds that what he ate for lunch influences his choice of wine for dinner.

Since he does not drink wine for lunch, the alchemical advantage that an appropriate wine provides to the digestive process must await the dinner hour.

Like a hunting hound, the initial dinner sip races down Mr. Henry’s eager gullet tracking faint scents of lunch far, far down the tract. Thus, Mr. Henry does not want to throw an earthy red from the Languedoc onto a sushi lunch, even with six hours of distance between them.

In daily routines he strives to achieve chords of harmony spiced by notes of dissonance – the organic order of music.

In traditional societies, rigorous rules of order apply, although sometimes these remain hidden from foreign eyes. Fausta regaled Mr. Henry with a Thousand and One Nights tale from India:

At a princely home in Jaipur for lunch she was presented with a dozen dishes, a dozen sauces, and a dozen pickles. Before Fausta could begin, the lady of the house carefully schooled her in the meal’s subtle order.

Naturally enough, mild flavors were to be enjoyed before strong ones. Other pairings were more unexpected. While coriander still lingered on the palate, for example, a certain chutney was recommended. With Indian food especially, a cuisine overwhelmingly complicated both to prepare and to enjoy, a road map to proper order and sequence can be enormously helpful.

Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking, a book that has been staring down from Mr. Henry’s cookbook shelf for nearly three decades, lists recipes that require two days of preparation, a trip to Queens Boulevard for ingredients, and two prep chefs. From the cook they demand perhaps too much order.

In this Orwellian world, orderliness itself has become a luxury – not the “law and order” kind, mind you, in which law is bent to better impose order. No, Mr. Henry is speaking of the luxurious order of solitude at breakfast, a companion at lunch, and a family at dinner. Mr. Henry would like to place his order for more of this kind, if you please, and pronto.

And what about the little strings running the length of a banana which usually break when pulled away? Cannot scientists address this affront to order?

The Christos’ charm was contagious, their energy preternatural, and their enthusiasm for good sushi apparent (and it was very, very good, as was the black cod in miso and the sirloin steak). Having visited Japan 71 times, they knew very well what they were eating.

Mid-meal, when Jeanne-Claude drew a long cigarette from out of her pack, our host, Dr. Alvin, came rushing over to inform her most graciously that here in New York smoking is not permitted indoors. Feigning shock (she has lived here for 40 years) and heaving a very Gallic sigh, she unseated herself and headed upstairs out the door.

Indeed, they are a unit. Even though he does not smoke, Christo dutifully, loyally, adoringly followed behind. Holding her bag while she efficiently disposed of not one but three quick cigarettes, he wryly admitted that although her smoking was not something he enjoyed, after 45 years together he was not about to try to change her.

How do they get that sprite-like energy, anyway? All night they bounced around like sylvan creatures who, were the sushi to run out, might survive equally well on mushrooms or nettles.

The next day they sent Mr. Henry a book which documents every moment of The Gates from its inception 26 years ago to its installation last year, a tome solid enough to have served as a column base for a Gate. Mr. Henry has not tired of turning the pages and reliving this divine folly, an event that rendered all of New York participants in a “happening.” Taxi drivers opined about aesthetics. Street vendors held forth on subjects of art criticism not normally included in their customer palaver. The whole city was chewing, digesting, and expelling their “take” on The Gates.

It was like a huge dinner party on the lawn organized by a couple of eccentric, expatriot New Yorkers, the kind who make this city great. Merci.

When Mr. Henry has sushi one of the first things he needs to decide is what he is having. That is, what he is having to drink with tonight’s sushi.

As an appropriate accompaniment to sushi, sake is an obvious choice, and as it happens there is a perfectly respectable bottle already open in Her refrigerator. For lunch, green tea is always advisable because at this point in the career of Mr. Henry’s liver even half a beer at lunchtime leaves him feeling as if someone had thrown the sea anchor overboard. Forward progress is impeded and, heaven knows, he needs to be getting along with his life goals each and every day, and this includes afternoons.

Scotch is Mr. Henry’s personal favorite with sushi and with nearly everything else, for that matter.

A healthy pour of Oban or Talisker over ice cubes made from filtered water (more genius from the engineers at Sub-Zero) provides an ideal imbibational choice – strong enough to cut through the lingering fire of powdered wasabi, yet without the sugars of wine or the starches of beer.

White rice is as close to library paste as Mr. Henry’s educated palette will accept. When the short-grained is served chewy and lightly vinegared, however, scotch efficaciously clears away any lingering bits of hamachi or maguro, leaving the mouth ready to greet the next wiggling arrival.

When you elect to switch away from wasabi-based sauce toward a bit of eel, however, you need a more powerful cleansing of the palette, a thorough and abrupt alteration, the commencement of a new chapter in the evening’s unfolding novella. Here is where your choice of drink is key, and here is where you can change your whole meal, indeed, your whole approach. You might even say that your choice of drink determines your cultural identity, your very ethnicity.

Memoirs of a Sushiphile, Part I