Manolo’s Food Blog

In the thrall of his own remembrances, Mr. Henry set out to prepare a proper Moroccan dinner for the family. Unfortunately, however, he could not devote half the day to the task, nor had he prepared pickled lemons 30 days ago. What to do?

He telephoned Nadia for help. She recommended a one-hour stovetop tagine (stew) of chicken with grated onion, saffron and ginger. In this tagine there is a curious trick common to Moroccan cooking: you load the ingredients upside down.

Nadia uses Cornish game hen but Mr. Henry prefers skinless chicken.

In the bottom of a heavy stew pot, place the chicken without oil or butter. Grate two normal sized onions in the food processor and pile the onion on top of the chicken. Add a teaspoon or more of ginger, a half package of saffron, salt, pepper, touch of cooking oil, and tablespoon of butter. With low heat the meat will brown slightly, release juices, and steam the onion. Once the covered pot is leaking steam, stir the tagine and continue cooking on low until meat is falling off the bone. If you want more sauce, add a touch of stock early on.

In Morocco this is served over couscous accompanied by prunes stewed in sugar and cinnamon. A crusty bread, however, serves equally well.

Mr. Henry inhaled the simple but exotic amalgamation of flavors redolent of ancient Andalusia and, despite Nadia’s express rejection of this idea, poured in a good half cup of dry white vermouth. Was it anathema? Well, so what if it was. The result was excellent.

Mr. Henry rarely makes a sauce without adding some spirit or other. More often than not, however, he pours not from the bottle but from the chef’s personal glass.

Lately Mr. Henry has been on a something of a vermouth binge, the dry white French version, mind you, not the sweet red Italian version. A fortified and spiced wine, vermouth adds magic to any dish that includes the flavors of Provence or the Piemonte. Think of herbs de provence, garlic, and rosemary – all rather intense flavors that can easily become too insistent. How do you force them to blend so that one does not predominate? Any white wine will work, but vermouth’s spices yield an aroma less sweet and more woody.

One of the forty or more spices in vermouth is juniper, hence its walk-on role in the dry martini. Wormwood (the origin of the word vermouth) adds another woody note, an aroma that recalls the dusty hillsides of Provence.

In the 1980’s outside Draguignan in the Var, a forest fire destroyed much of the old growth forest on either side of the autoroute that follows almost exactly the ancient Roman via Domitia. Setting out from Gawain’s castle one sunny morning Mr. Henry climbed a long hill through waist high bushes vigorously sprouting from the charred earth. For no apparent reason he kept dreaming of roast lamb. Covered in fine pungent dust, he realized he had just hiked through two miles of rosemary.

Last week he found some firm parsnips in the market and decided to roast them with garlic, shallots, olive oil, herbs de provence, and fresh rosemary. In the LeCreuset oval gratin dish, beautiful for serving, he roasted his parsnips covered for 45 minutes. The dish was nearly done but seemed, like Winston Churchill’s pudding, to have no theme. A liberal pour of vermouth and another 15 minutes in the oven was the coup de grace.

On Saturday night after Little Henry returns from fencing class, Mr. Henry usually set up place mats in front of the TV to watch reruns of Monk and to eat hamburgers. Mushrooms sautéed with bacon and onion provide a savory accompaniment. Here again a dash of vermouth brings it all together. Be sure to add it when the pan is hot so that the alcohol evaporates more completely and the food does not absorb it too deeply. Otherwise you get vegetables that taste of little else but vermouth. There is such a thing, after all, as too much romance.

Radical changes in routines are afoot in the Henry household.

Over Christmas at her vacation ranch in the Catskills, Pepper picked up an intestinal bug prevalent in beaver scat (Who knew?) and began losing weight. Saintly Dr. Brown, font of veterinary wisdom and love, promptly and permanently removed raw chicken from the Pepper Food menu because of the possibility of salmonella poisoning. Until the system re-boots, Pepper eats Hills canned “prescription diet W/D.” To his dog-savvy readers Mr. Henry asks: What is the best dog food?

More distressing was Mr. Henry’s breezy abandonment of principles with regard to mixed drinks. He has long maintained that the classic dry martini is the one and only mixed drink that passes muster or, in this lifetime, passes his lips. The flu’s choke hold on his head and chest sent him ransacking the refrigerator for anything to sooth his sore throat, and ransacking the whiskey cupboard for anything alcoholic to suppress his cough. Lurking behind the buttermilk was a lone bottle of tonic, an odd lot leftover from summer.

Tonic water, it turned out, acted as a tonic to the malaise. Somehow this came as a surprise to Mr. Henry, another example of flu-induced woolly-headedness, perhaps, or his long-standing prejudice against mixed drinks and their drinkers. With the last Meyer lemon added, a cold glass of bitter tonic tickled his numb palate and set his heart a-race.

Furtively adding a dash of Hendrick’s gin before 5:00 p.m., he settled back to enjoy the successes of British colonialism, to lay down the white man’s burden, and to watch the televised make-believe that passes for frank political debate in this country. To tonic drinkers out on the information highway, Mr. Henry asks: Does tonic make your heart race, too? (And might it color your political views?)

For those interested in an excellent prècis on how to use the Meyer lemon, by the way, take a look at Cooking with Amy.

The real vehicle of betrayal came at Naughty Mary’s house in the guise of an exquisitely delicious orange aperitif of three parts Hendrick’s, one part Lillet, and a dash of orange bitters. Now that he has become a drinker of aperitifs, of flowery-colored aperitifs, no less, Mr. Henry can no longer hold up his head at the club. It comes as a comfort, therefore, that he holds no club membership.

In 1962, Tangier, Morocco, was a cosmopolitan city, even though Mr. Henry had not yet been there.

He did not have the pleasure of attending Ridha’s circumcision party at the house on rue Darwin, a party deemed by all to have been a singular success, by all except Ridha himself, that is, who in addition to the unenviable discomfort of the ritual procedure suffered an asthma attack so severe that his father had to hustle him into the Peugeot 404 and carry him up into the Eucalyptus forest to breathe its calming natural vapors.

The drink of choice for sophisticated guests was “un petit whiskey” – a shot of scotch at the bottom of a tall glass embellished by one or, at most, two ice cubes melodramatically administered with silver tongs.

In the rose garden, in the gazebo, and throughout the fruit arbor, guests feasted on Esther’s magical bastilla. They drank several cases of Johnny Walker Red liberally poured by police officers moonlighting as waiters. Upstairs in the bureau, however, for 45 years protected by sturdy lock from curious uncles and nosy gardeners, one case survived intact. When Nadia closed the house this summer, she added that case to the shipping container.

Distilled spirits are supposed to be perfectly stable. Once bottled they are said not to age or change flavor either for better or for worse.

Through 45 years of winter fog and summer scirocco the cork stoppers have dried and become brittle, yet they pulled away without crumbling. About a centimeter of liquid has evaporated from each sealed bottle and the whiskey has darkened slightly. The small exchange of oxygen caused a madeirization, a slow alteration of both color and taste.

At this writing Mr. Henry has just drunk from one of these bottles and he can announce here for the first time a breakthrough in modern whiskey-ology. The 1962 scotch tastes smoother and has less bite than a current one, now more a sipping scotch than a mixing one.

Once freed, the amber genie in the bottle unleashed swirls of memories from spirits long departed. Pouring a third one for purposes of further research, Mr. Henry raises a glass to the circumcised and to the uncircumcised alike.

Before consuming a beautiful roast loin of pork encrusted with a Mario Batali dry rub (a pulverized mixture of dried porcini, red chili flakes, garlic, and brown sugar), Gail and Jeff plied Mr. Henry with a small shot of syrupy Hendricks gin straight from the freezer.

Mr. Henry has converted. Can there be a summer libation more apropos than this? The juniper is balanced by citrus peel and, surprisingly, coriander. It was the consummate aperitif. Afterwards, sitting in front of his TV, visions of the perfect martini swirled in Mr. Henry’s brain as he watched The Tudors chew the scenery.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the unctuous Lord Beckett offers Captain Jack Sparrow a small glass of honey-colored liquid that must surely have been Madeira, the preferred drink of 18th-century British and Americans alike. (It was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite drink.)

Least expensive of the fortified wines, Madeira bears the singular virtue of being utterly still like whiskey or eau de vie. Uniquely aged in heat rather than cool, the sweet wine oxidizes slightly and thus after opening retains its flavor even in hot climates.

Riddled with flu on his return from Italy, Mr. Henry repaired to his favorite apothecary, Nancy’s Wines for Food. Though his head was full of cotton, his reasoning was not occluded. Mr. Henry decided that the purchase of a subtly aromatic libation would be money wasted. Consequently he threw himself on the mercy of a young apprentice with shaven pate and satyric smile who recommended an $11 bottle of Rainwater that Mr. Henry dutifully drank every evening for a week.

The cure was thorough and complete. Rainwater is the cough syrup of the gods.

With newly-acquired curiosity for the mysteries of Madeira, Mr. Henry detected traces of it in a mascarpone cream dessert served by Cipriani at the McKim, Mead & White designed 55 Wall Street, one of Manhattan’s greatest rooms, former site of National City Bank, the Merchant’s Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange.

The dessert is one that itself must be very resistant to decay because the cream is principally composed of stiffly beaten egg whites with some mascarpone and a splash of Madeira. Sandwiched between pastry layers and sprinkled with shaved coconut, it was light and toothsome. (Best of all, it can be prepared without cooking!)

Because from among Mr. Henry’s myriad talents a grasp of computer application software is conspicuously absent, he only just now received the many kind messages sent by his reading public. One of the first e-mails came from a Japanese site called Sweets which judging by its pink background looks as though it may be devoted to matching up lonely Japanese girls with suitable salary-men. Since it is written in Japanese, however, its nuances have escaped even Mr. Henry’s subtle capacities for apprehension.

The e-mail below suggests that in a single week Mr. Henry has already become a voice of authority and experience, a veritable Rip Van Winkle of the information highway. Consequently he feels not merely a desire to help, therefore, but a positive obligation.

Mr. Henry,

Let me first take a moment to cheer your new food blog under the auspices of the ever-benevolent Manolo. I come to you with a question that given your love of Scotch, should be easy to answer. My father’s birthday is next month, and he is a Scotch drinker. Since (unlike with wine) I do not like Scotch, I am forced to rely on the advice of others in procuring new and different Scotches as gifts for him. If you would let me know what you think are some good choices for his birthday. I’ve previously gotten him a Bowmore Port Casked scotch and Talisker. I’m intrigued by your mention of Oban.

Looking forward to your response,

Megaera

Dear Megaera,

With such a lilting Celtic name you must surely take the choice of Scotch with seriousness of purpose. Mr. Henry, therefore, will do no less.

Oban is indeed the right choice, or at least cannot be the wrong choice, but it is a choice ripely made only after a sail round all the others.

For Mr. Henry to assess this request he needs to conjure a profile of your Dad’s regular habits. Does he take his Scotch as an aperitif for its restorative qualities to both energy and appetite? Or does he retire for a post-prandial glass with feet up surrounded by his all-adoring family (or at least one daughter who does not disapprove of his drinking)? Does he excuse himself to the smoking room at the back of the house (or completely outside the house)? Or is he a reformed smoker who longs for a smokiness in the glass that recalls those freer days? Does he drink it neat, with a splash, or on the rocks?

To Mr. Henry’s ever-evolving palette, the salient question here is the choice of before-dinner or after-dinner. The Macallan, an excellent Speyside that became enormously popular in the 1980’s, is in his opinion exclusively an after-dinner drink. The lingering oak, honey, and brandy aromas imparted by long aging in sherry casks render The Macallan an ideal substitute for cognac, indeed an improvement on it or on any other after-dinner drink, but the same notes of sweetness feel more like an end to the evening repast than like a beginning.

Your previous two choices were quite different in character: Bowmore is an Islay — the region known for smoky, peaty, altogether salty tastes. Lagavulin is the fiercest of these; it hits you like a North Sea wave over the foredeck. Laphroaig is a paler and smoother distillation but with equal smoke and peat. If your Dad liked Bowmore, Mr. Henry suggests Caol Ila which, like Bowmore, is a milder Islay but one with slightly fewer floral qualities. But Caol Ila is hard to find in stores.

Talisker is an Island malt, and yet in color, tone and balance it closely resembles Oban, a Highland malt. Mr. Henry prefers Talisker to the other Island stills. It is equally satisfying before or after dinner. Curiously enough Mr. Henry discovered Talisker in (of all places) Paris where he got stuck staying in (of all places) a British hotel in the 16th arrondisement, the very last available hotel room in the whole Frog City. Forced by the upstairs presence of small, sleeping Henry offspring to stick close to the hotel at night, with a jaundiced eye he accepted the advice of a too, too young French sommelier who suggested Talisker from among a list of some 50 Scotches.

And Talisker became Mr. Henry’s preference for some years.

Through the advice of a wizened old downtown reprobate, a lowly writer by trade, some years later he sampled Oban and found his new Big Love, his first wife, his default choice for any occasion.

Similar in character to Talisker, Oban balances its amber, raisiny nose with hints of “sea breezes” that recall the salty Islay brands. Thus, if your father liked both Bowmore and Talisker, try a bottle of Oban because it combines the best elements of both.

In the ideal Henry liquor cabinet, a bottle of each would stand side by side. This is Mr. Henry’s vision of Big Love – a plural marriage characterized by sharing and harmony. However, Mrs. Henry does not seek such domestic arrangements. Moreover, lately Mrs. Henry has been watching the grocery money more carefully than usual and thus no $50 bottles of Scotch have gained recent admittance to the secret recesses of Mr. Henry’s cabinet.

Sea breezes remain in the air, not in the glass. Instead of sipping, Mr. Henry writes.

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