Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook (19 page)

My sister Lucy and I are both allergic to bell peppers, which is a very unfortunate allergy to have, I assure you. Restaurants and caterers add bell peppers to dishes with abandon, primarily for color, I'm told. Worse, 99 percent of the crab cakes out there contain bell peppers. So I challenged myself to develop a crab cake recipe without them. The
sauce gribiche
is somewhat labor-intensive, but the strong flavors are well worth the effort. (There is another version of
sauce gribiche
here
. We love them both.)

1.
In a sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat. Add the celery and onion, reduce the heat to low, and add the garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, or until translucent but not browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

2.
In a large bowl, combine the mayonnaise, salt, mustard powder, paprika, and cayenne. Add the crab, ⅔ cup of the cracker crumbs, and the celery mixture. Stir until well combined. Using a ½-cup measure, scoop out crab mixture and form into 6 cakes, 4 to 5 inches in diameter.

3.
Spread the remaining ⅔ cup cracker crumbs on a plate. Dredge the cakes in the crumbs.

4.
Preheat the oven to 300˚F. Lightly oil a 9 x 13-inch baking pan.

5.
In a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Place 3 crab cakes in the pan and cook until golden brown, about 4 minutes per side. Place the cooked crab cakes in the baking pan and put them in the oven while you cook the rest of the crab cakes. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the hot sauté pan and cook the last 3 crab cakes, about 4 minutes per side, until golden brown. Place in the baking pan in the heated oven while preparing the sauce.

For the
sauce gribiche:

1.
In a mini food processor or coffee grinder (that you do not use for coffee), combine the shallots, gherkins, capers, parsley, and tarragon. Pulse for about 5 seconds, or until thoroughly combined and well minced.

2.
In a bowl, stir together the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, mustard powder, salt, sugar, and black pepper. Stir in the mayonnaise along with the egg and minced shallot mixture.

3.
Serve with crab cakes.

Makes 6 crab cakes

The first time I tasted buttery, meaty Chilean sea bass, I swooned. I guess the rest of the world swooned, too, because it became overfished. Restrictions were put in place until the ocean could recover, which we are now told it did. So it's back to being my favorite fish. This preparation, although expensive, is a marvelous entrée for company. And by the way, a joke in the food service industry is that people will order fish, then feel they've earned their chocolate cake. Apparently, people think consuming seafood cancels out a rich dessert. So with that unconscious expectation in mind, my advice is to follow this with the flourless chocolate cake
here
.

1.
Preheat the oven to 425˚F. In a small bowl, beat the butter, basil, garlic, and lemon juice until well combined. Set aside.

2.
In a medium saucepan of boiling spring water, parboil the potatoes and baby carrots for 5 minutes. Drain.

3.
Divide the fillets into 4 equal portions. Place them in a buttered 9 x 13-inch baking pan (or an attractive gratin dish with the same volume). Arrange the vegetables over the fish in an appealing pattern. Top each fish portion with one-fourth of the butter-garlic mixture.

4.
Cover tightly with foil and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings

Our boys are avid ice hockey fans, so in
The Grilling Season,
Goldy is dealing with competitive guys squaring off in a “pretend” ice hockey game, only they were wearing Rollerblades. (Ever notice how men never play a game that is “just pretend”? Neither have I, and neither has Goldy.) No matter who's playing in the Stanley Cup finals, though, this potato and fish dish is a winner.

1.
Preheat the oven to 400˚F. Butter a 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish.

2.
Peel the potatoes and grate them onto a large kitchen towel that can be stained. Roll the potatoes up in the towel and squeeze to remove moisture. (It is best to do this over the sink.) Divide the potatoes into four equal piles.

3.
Pat the fillets dry with paper towels. Sprinkle the flour on a plate. Beat the eggs in a shallow bowl.

4.
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil. Working quickly, dip each fillet first in the flour, then in the egg. Pat the potato shreds in each potato pile on the top and bottom of each fillet (the equivalent of one grated potato per fillet). Bring the skillet up to medium-high heat. Place the potato-covered fillets in the hot oil, season with salt and pepper, and brown quickly on each side. When all the fillets are browned, transfer them to the buttered baking dish and bake about 10 minutes, or until they are cooked through.
Do not overcook the fish.

Makes 4 servings

For
The Grilling Season,
I had to come up with a number of grilled dishes. People tend to be intimidated by the idea of grilled fish, but this is very easy.

1.
Using paper towels, pat the tuna steaks dry. Place them in a glass pan, season with salt and pepper, and pour the vinaigrette over them. Cover with plastic wrap, place in the refrigerator, and marinate for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour. When you are ready to grill the fish, remove the pan from the refrigerator.

2.
Oil the grill grates and preheat the grill. Grill the steaks for 2 to 3 minutes per side for rare, 5 minutes per side for well done. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings

S
ince my father worked off stress by making bread, the lovely scent of baking loaves curled through our home most weekends. Every time I went back to boarding school, what I most enjoyed taking with me was not cookies, so favored by my classmates. No, it was a serrated knife and a loaf of Dad's Bread.

And just to show you what kind of imagination I had at age twelve, I was convinced that one of the housemothers was angling to kill me. In the early morning hours, as I shivered in bed, an ominous
clank clank clank
filled the hallway. I would grip that knife's handle and wait, muscles tensed. It took me a while to realize that I was shivering because the dorm was cold, that the
clank clank clank
was the radiators coming on, and that the housemother was not a killer, she was just a bitch.

I saw how much joy our father's bread brought to people. He always followed the ancient biblical tradition of bringing homemade bread and a twist of salt to new neighbors. Everyone loved “Dad's Bread.” So I knew I wanted to learn how to make it some day. Before I went away to boarding school, I would watch our father proof the yeast (in those days, yeast only came in refrigerated, compressed blocks), add oats, liquids, and flour, stir and knead, let the mixture rise, punch it down, knead it again, allow it to rise again, carefully place the dough in loaf pans, allow the dough to rise a final time, then put the bread into the oven. He used large pans that always made two loaves. We kids invariably wanted to tear into the first of these while it was still warm. Sometimes he let us, athough this compresses the baked bread and is a no-no these days. (Yet Jim still insists on cutting into warm, fresh-baked bread. He loves it slathered with butter, so I reluctantly give my consent. The key to avoiding this problem is to make bread and allow cooling time when your spouse and kids are out of the house.)

Back before I received the scholarship to go to boarding school, our family even unwittingly participated in a sacrilege: Since my mother was from the School of Margarine, that was what we spread on Dad's luscious homemade bread. So it was a great day when I was introduced to real butter at St. Anne's in Charlottesville. I learned that in the South, one had rolls (called “bread”) with dinner each evening. They were also served at the Sunday midday meal (called “dinner”). Those rolls were fantastic, and spread with real butter, they were amazing.

Still, the bread dish I remember most clearly from St. Anne's was my favorite breakfast: Cinnamon Toast with Applesauce. I worked hard trying to re-create that hot, crunchy, buttery, sugary dish, finally succeeded (I hope), and put it into
The Whole Enchilada.

I also wanted to teach myself to make good cinnamon rolls. And in fact I made them quite a bit, but they always lacked a certain
je ne sais quoi
. Our kids loved Cinnabon, and no visit to Cherry Creek Mall in Denver was complete without a stop there. Watching those bakers making their signature creations, I realized what I was doing wrong: Mine were too small! And I placed them too close together!

Enter the Monster Cinnamon Roll, which is one of the recipes people mention to me often as “something our family loves.”

Now, how does all this relate to Goldy? Catering clients do not just want dinner parties. They arrange for staff breakfasts, lunches, and picnics. And to distinguish their affairs from those that serve store-bought food, they invariably ask for homemade yeast breads and rolls. They will also order all manner of muffins, scones, and sweet breads, the only problem is that the scones must be consumed within an hour of baking, or they will go stale.

Usually, one person in the caterer's kitchen is tasked with both bread-baking and making desserts. Goldy and Julian do both, of course. But since bread can be made in chunks of time, the proofing, kneading, rising, and so on provide extended periods when Goldy can think about whatever crime has her attention.

This is actually a trick I learned from reading Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels. Spenser loves to cook, and working at the stove allows him time to reflect on the crime. Ha, I thought, that's what Goldy needs to do.

Her job demands that she cook. But someone has asked for her help or someone she knows has died mysteriously or been poisoned at a party she catered, or some other circumstance—like her nosiness—has gotten her involved in crime-solving. So she cooks and she thinks.

She also listens. One of the most startling things I learned while catering is that the guests at a party think the caterers are
deaf
.

We are not. In fact, we hear everything you say, including how much you hate your mother-in-law (who is seated two tables away, and is telling everyone there that you are an
overgrown brat)
. We also hear you brag about screwing up a business deal and not getting caught, and who at your office is having sex with whom. You'd be amazed at how many party guests think the caterers have done van Gogh one better, and cut off both ears.

Even though our kids scolded me for talking too much, learning to listen was a skill that helped me become a writer. I was pleased to learn on the research trip to England for
Sticks and Scones
that overhearing what you perhaps should not goes back at least as far as theaters like Shakespeare's Globe. For light and fresh air,
the central sections were open to the sky. Whenever it rained, the groundlings, or those too poor to pay for seats, would scoot as far back as possible, where they were under the eaves of the covered seats. There, they would overhear bits of conversation. Hence:
eavesdropping.

I didn't mean to eavesdrop when I was little; it just seemed to come naturally. Whenever our family was driving somewhere, my father enjoyed entertaining my mother with stories about the neighbors, or conjectures about people at church. Or he would tell a long, funny, probably exaggerated story about anyone he thought needed his take on their situation.

I found all this very interesting. My mother could detect when I was perking up, and would warn my father, “You know you've got the
Washington Post
taking notes in the backseat.”

And of course this was several decades before Watergate.

Note on the recipes:
The yeast breads are listed first; the quick breads and Crunchy Cinnamon Toast (
here
) second. The Bread Dough Enhancer (
here
) is for yeast breads. Since Julia Child encourages bread-bakers to allow their dough to rise three times for the best texture, this is what I recommend for yeast breads, except in the case of Yolanda's Cuban Bread (
here
), which is meant to rise quickly. But if you do not have time to allow the bread to rise a third time, no one will judge you, least of all me.