Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins (24 page)

Thanksgiving at August E's featured turkey, prime rib, stuffing, gravy, spinach, mashed potatoes, and a superb mac 'n' cheese made with Asiago, Cheddar, Parmesan, Gruyere, and truffle oil. Hannah used orzo instead of traditional elbow macaroni. Molly loved it and insisted that Hannah come to Austin to give a personal tutorial.

Meanwhile, it took all the self-control Molly possessed to repress convulsive laughter as our personable young waitress served us, two by two, and as efficiently as a two-armed waitress would have.

That's the thing about Texas tales; even when they're not lies they sound like they ought to be.

A few months later, Hannah, fully intending to teach Molly how to make her mac 'n' cheese, instead ended up demonstrating how to repair a broken beurre blanc, a delicate, buttery white sauce. Hannah still recalls the meal.

“We were sipping Chardonnay and talking away—or rather I was talking and poor Molly was listening to me moan and groan about life in a professional kitchen. I can't remember if she left the sauce on simmer too long or the heat was too hot or what. Anyway, the emulsification broke, becoming a greasy buttery mess that more resembled ghee than a sauce.

“She was going to pitch it, but I said we could fix it. All I needed was a saucepan, a little white wine, and some heavy cream. I found a copper saucepan and we went to work. I let Molly pour in some white wine, which we reduced until it was almost all gone. Then we added cream and reduced it until it was thick. It was like doing a science experiment, and Molly was so intense about it, especially after we started slowly, slowly whisking the new sauce into the broken sauce. As soon as it emulsified, we served it over steamed asparagus. Of course it was delicious.”

August E's (named for a landowner who once lived in Fredericksburg) has since moved into the center of town—motivated, quite possibly, by cows. Let me explain: August E's owners built a lovely deck perfect for dining alfresco, Texas weather permitting. Weather aside, there was an occasional problem with wind shifting direction and wafting across the adjacent cow field toward the deck. The collision of food fragrance and the indelicate aroma of cow poop was not conducive to fine dining.

Having had enough of Texas heat, Hannah moved to Aspen, Colorado, where she traded froufrou food for mixology. Although she can cook concentric circles around me, we still consult with each other. Her culinary expertise extends eons beyond chili, gumbo, and Brunswick stew, but she still calls for advice when she wants to make the dishes we made together; and when she visits she expects me to serve oxtail stew and red beans and rice before she leaves. Food, which bound my family in so many ways, still binds my daughter to me; Molly to her mom's turnip fluff; me to Melba's pork chops; and Molly and me for almost two decades.

22

ON MANY OCCASIONS GUMBO
, a perennial Molly favorite, was the Saturday meal in Austin—gumbo, rice, cornbread, and a green salad, maybe pralines, or, if Molly was in the mood, she'd bake a pie. In peach season we had cobbler. Some guests opted for wine, but any Cajun worth his roux would tell you beer is the beverage of choice with this particular dish.

One Labor Day weekend we had a full frontal weekend food blowout. Friday night: grilled chicken, dueling potato salads, coleslaw, grilled asparagus. Gumbo on Saturday. Sunday we were invited out. Ditto Monday. I had taken a vacation day and driven down on Thursday so we could shop the day before we were to cook. We knew that to serve gumbo on Saturday and throw a barbecue on Friday we had to be in the kitchen first thing Friday morning. And we were.

From 9 a.m. to noon we made the gumbo.

By 2 p.m. we were done with the potato salads.

Knives? Check. Chopping boards? Check—one for Molly, one for me.

Beer? Red Stripe. Chardonnay? In the immortal words of that former governor of Alaska, you betcha.

Now it was time to start the
Friday
evening meal, the one we'd consume in about six hours. Theoretically it was a piece of cake. About two dozen chicken thighs had to be rubbed with olive oil, Dijon mustard, pureed garlic, lemon juice, and black pepper and allowed to marinate for a couple of hours before being grilled and basted with beer. We planned two potato salads—this time Molly made a mayo-free Italian one from my friend Susan Simon's recently published cookbook. I made the other one the old-fashioned Southern way, with celery, onion, mayonnaise, dill pickle relish, black pepper, and overcooked
potatoes. Asparagus was shaved and tossed with olive oil, ready for the grill. Deviled eggs and sliced tomatoes completed our farewell-to-summer cookout menu.

Garlic-laden coleslaw was based on a recipe I had pried from Betty Ablon, a Dallas chef who once owned a successful catering business. She still has a sign in her kitchen that warns, “We serve food with our garlic.” Molly and I shared responsibility for piping in the deviled egg filling.

Yeah, that's right—piping.

I stopped spooning the yolk mixture into the whites as soon as I learned you could snip off the corner of a Ziploc bag and squeeze the contents into the egg half. Most folks would just spoon in the egg yolk goo, but once again, Molly had been watching way too much Martha. Which also explained why an artful arrangement of deviled eggs was alternately topped with caviar, capers, anchovy slivers, or a dusting of paprika. They were served, of course, on her mother's deviled egg plate. Within three hours my potato salad, the deviled eggs, and Molly's mayo-free potato salad were carefully covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated, and the mayonnaise-vinegar dressing on the slaw was doing its slow dance of flavor melding.

The only thing left was to crank up the gas grill.

Yes, well . . 

When you open a grill and discover the bottom shelf has fallen out and rust dust fills half of the gas jets, it is a sign that the grill should probably be replaced. If there is any doubt, the presence of a vacated bird's nest pretty much clinches it, especially when bird poo has cemented the nest to the remaining jets.

Fortunately, we started early enough in the day that there was time to roll the old grill out of sight and head for the nearest barbecue supply store. This was before the Internet let our fingers do a different kind of walking. A quick Yellow Pages consult and a few calls later we located a couple of places in the vicinity that were still open.

Bye-bye, nap.

Now, I'm all about low-rent shopping, as in Sears or Lowe's or Home Depot. Hell, Big Lots. Better yet, I would have been happy with one of those big things made from cut-up oil drums. But that would take us back to the wood-and charcoal scene that Molly was determined to avoid.

Anyway, Miz Molly is already guiding Truck Bob in the general direction of some high-end store where, if barbecue grills were cars, the one with the lowest price tag would have been a Saab convertible.

Girlfriend is determined to cook with gas. She already has a propane tank. She's used to gas. It's her dime. Gas it is.

We enter and I head straight for the corner with a big red “Sale” banner over it. “Sale”: almost one of my favorite four-letter words. The unit I spy has three shelves inside and three knobs that will register “high,” “medium,” and “low.” There's even a shelf on one side for warming sauce, and another on the other side for utensils and other grill-related stuff, like beer. It's perfect.