Year of the Cow (19 page)

“Gross,” Declan says as he watches me pull apart a lobster claw as we sit down to eat. It's his new word. Right now everything is gross.

“That's cool. You just keep thinking that,” I retort, dipping a chunk of lobster in some melted butter. “That conclusion is perfectly okay by me.”

Summer attacks the tail of the bug. “Oh, my God, this is great.”

“Thanks. Easy meal, too. Boil water. Sear steak. Done.”

“I've never been so happy about a global economic recession,” she says.

“Silver linings, I suppose.”

I cut my steak; the center is warm and red and lovely. I've turned a corner with my steer. It isn't intimidating anymore. I know what I have, and I know what I can likely do with it. Not everything may work, but by and large my executions are getting stronger and stronger. Braises are automatic. Broiling, pan-frying, or grilling hot and fast is second nature. The change in my skill level is like the difference between speaking French in a classroom with other Americans and being turned loose on the streets of Paris. I'm achieving some degree of proficiency, and I'm ready to try more advanced techniques.

I need to push myself further.

*   *   *

Shortly after our return from our trip up Mount Whitney, Zac deployed to Germany. Such is the life of a career military doctor.

So that fall, Summer and I visited Zac and his wife, Katie. We flew to Munich, romped through the city's capacious parks, and rented bikes so we could cover more ground. Bicycles turn Munich from lovely to
spectacularly
lovely. The city is built for two wheels. And good friends, excellent sausages, and outstanding beer certainly help endear a place to me.

Though we visited Munich in the fall, we didn't experience Oktoberfest, which began a week after we left. Munich during Oktoberfest is when tourists invade and ladies in lederhosen serve a preposterous amount of beer to a preposterous number of people. I wasn't especially sad about missing it because in all likelihood I wouldn't have enjoyed it—I'd rather see a city as locals do than see it in costume for tourists. However, upon my return to California, some small part of me wondered what I'd missed.

Summer and I decide to prepare our own Oktoberfest October-feast, only with fewer tourists and more awesome because we're cooking it ourselves. I'm creating what is essentially the national dish of Bavaria: sauerbraten, kartoffelkloesse, and red cabbage with apples (which probably has some delightful single word in German to describe it that I don't know).

Sauerbraten is a roast from the bottom round of the steer, marinated in a vinegar solution for several days and then braised and served with a sauce made from the braising liquid. Kartoffelkloesse are potato dumplings—and about as traditionally Bavarian as one can get without yodeling. The red cabbage is sautéed with tart apples, then tossed with vinegar and sugar. Also very traditional.

However, if Summer and I do Oktoberfest alone, oompah bands across Germany will shed fat, salty tears for their wayward American cousins. So we invite our friends Andy and Jen over for the festivities. Andy is another film school friend from the deep, dark wayback of my time in the Kansas heartland. He's a former actor, which is to say that he's gregarious and charming and tells the best stories at cocktail parties. His wife, Jen, matches his charisma and manages to play grown-up kickball without making it seem ridiculous. We haven't seen them in a while, and it'll be good to catch up.

The Thursday prior to our Sunday dinner engagement, I pull a rump roast from the freezer. The rump roast is a cut from the bottom round of the steer, which is part of the round primal, or the hindquarter of the animal. When butchers lay the piece out on the butcher table, they do it with the portion from the outside of the animal's body on the bottom, touching the table. As a result, roasts cut from this part are called “bottom round.” Cuts from the inside of the muscle primal, from closer to the spine, are called “top round” because they're on top from the butcher's point of view.

After the rump roast thaws, I sear it on all sides and stash it into a pot to marinate in a mix of vinegars, along with an onion, a carrot, bay leaves, cloves, juniper berries, and mustard. If I botch cooking it, I can always make a weird pickle out of it, I suppose.

Early afternoon on the day of our feast, I remove the pot containing the roast and stash it in a fairly cool oven. Time to begin the sides.

I boil some russet potatoes to within an inch of their lives, cool them, peel them, and rice them with the back of a fork (i.e., I smush them until they look like tiny grains of rice). Next, I dice some bread into cubes, brown them in a mixture of butter and olive oil, then set them aside.

Once my riced potatoes have cooled, I season them with salt and some freshly grated nutmeg, then add a touch of flour and some cornstarch to make a dough. Finally, I break an egg into the mix to act as a binder.

Each dumpling consists of a ball of dough with a bread cube at its center. My batch yields ten, and they're ready to cook. Here's where the German-ness of the recipe and the American-ness of my cooking impulses clash—I want to throw these things into peanut oil and fry them until they're a glorious golden brown and crispy. But kartoffelkloesse should be boiled, not fried. Who boils anything when they have a choice? Germans, evidently.

Still, tradition is tradition. I heat some water and drop in the dumplings. When the dumplings are finished, they float. Convenient.

Andy and Jen arrive. I am a whirlwind of activity. Maybe I'm a bit manic from the vinegar fumes. “Hey! Great to see you guys,” I bellow, following up with hugs and handshakes.

“Heya, Jared…” Andy says, surveying my kitchen. “This is quite an operation you have going on in there.”

“Yeah. It's bananas. I'm adrift in a world of vinegar and cabbage. Have a seat!”

Great to see them, but I'm a kitchen cyclone right now. They sit outside the kitchen to chat with Summer, while I run some red cabbage and Gala apples through my mandoline and toss them into a lidded skillet with salt, butter, sugar, and cider vinegar. Vinegar is proving to be a theme for this meal. I add a little flour to help the sauce thicken up a bit.

When the roast is finished, I stow it under foil to rest. My recipe calls for thickening the braising liquid into a sauce with a handful of crushed gingersnap cookies. Cookies! This is madness, but I comply.

Then, all of a sudden, everything is done. Somehow, there have been no mishaps. No happy accidents. No terrifying debacles. Everything worked out as I hoped it would. I cooked a relatively complex meal in front of other people, and I didn't completely embarrass myself in the process—in fact, quite the opposite. I take a moment to revel in the triumph. Then I plate the dishes and pour a little more Märzen beer for everyone.

After putting Declan to bed, we sit down to a meal exactly as I had planned it. Dear friends, good food, and a plan of action, well executed. I'm not sure how to react—I'm not used to endeavors this complicated going off without a hitch. But I like it.

“So, uh…” Andy says, munching on the sour beef. “You thickened this sauce with cookies.”

“Uh … yes. Yes, I did.”

“That should not work,” he says, chewing. “But somehow it does.”

“Yeah. Frankly, I don't get it either. And these boiled dumplings—I never boil food. Who boils food anymore? But I gotta say they don't suck.”

Jen picks one apart. “The little bread cube in the middle is a nice touch.”

“Not one I would have ever thought of,” I say, munching my own dumpling. “This whole meal is a surprise. Just when I think I've wrapped my head around what's possible, I find out that you can marinate and braise a roast in vinegar and serve it in a sauce thickened with crushed cookies.”

Summer raises her mug of fine Bavarian beer. “To surprises,” she says.

The rest of us raise our glasses.

*   *   *

“I just don't think we can do it.” Summer is slouched on her piano bench, sipping a glass of water. She's a pianist by training, and she's just finished practicing. Bach, I think. She's great at Bach.

“Yeah, I know. But it just doesn't seem like Christmas if I don't have to shovel out a car.” I crack my sore neck. Desk jobs, man.

“There are worse places to spend the holidays than California. Besides, we don't want Dec's earliest holiday memories to be of airports.” She stands up to take her glass to the kitchen. As she does, she points to a corner of the room, near a tall window. “I thought that'd be a nice spot for the tree. We'll be able to see it from the outside. Cozy.”

I nod. I've never been away from home for Christmas. Tradition is big in our family—we all have specific spots we sit in around the tree and traditions of breakfast and coffee all done on the big day, just so. All my family is in Kansas.

Well, not all. Not anymore. Summer comes back in and sits on the couch beside me. “We'll make new traditions,” she says.

“I know.” I have no reason for melancholy, really. I live in a beautiful area with my lovely wife, boisterous little boy, and enormous canine accomplice. Still, it'll be a little odd celebrating the holidays without seeing my Kansas family—we're a tight-knit group.

She rubs my neck, right where I carry all my stress. “We can make a big meal here. Do it up right.”

An idea slips into my head. A big, ridiculous idea. “Yeah?”

“Sure,” she says. “Do you know what you'd want to cook?”

Why, yes. Yes, I do.

*   *   *

The standing rib roast is probably the most ostentatious cut on the entire animal. Essentially, it's up to seven bone-in rib eyes left together as a roast instead of being partitioned into steaks. Colloquially, people often refer to it as “prime rib,” which isn't technically accurate, as the “Prime” designation is a USDA qualification based largely on the degree of intramuscular fat—a test my steer wasn't subjected to.

We may be doing the holidays in Hollywood, but we won't be doing them alone. There are quite a few Kansas expats in the City of Angels. This year, we're having some of our oldest and dearest from film school over for a dinner to celebrate hanging this year's tinsel in Tinseltown. Ben will be joining us again, as well as our dear friends Allan and Chris, Ben's roommates. Allan is compact and muscular and, like many people in Los Angeles, has an interesting job—he's a sculptor specializing in creature effects. Mostly, he makes monster heads for a living. Chris, tall and lanky, performs similar visual feats to Allan's, only with computers—he's a digital effects artist. Together with Ben, the three of them live in a house everyone refers to as the Embassy because it's usually the first stop that recent University of Kansas film school grads make when they move from the heartland to Hollywood.

Big cuts like a standing rib roast take a long time to cook, so it's imperative that I get started early. I should take this opportunity to note that I am not by any stretch of the imagination a morning person. But somehow, on a Saturday in December, I drag myself out of bed at the crack of seven and trundle out the door for a grocery excursion the magnitude of which has never before been attempted by the hand of man. I'm planning dinner for 7:00 p.m., so I have exactly twelve hours to prepare.

I'll need those twelve hours. Rib roast, like royalty, does not proceed unaccompanied. I have a host of sides and accoutrements that will join our roast at the table. Back at the house, the Great Work begins. I whip together a quick simple syrup, infused with a little star anise. I combine this syrup with grapefruit juice and stow it in the freezer. I'll get to that later.

Next, I cube a French loaf I've left out overnight to dry. After a little olive oil, salt, and fifteen minutes in the oven, I have croutons.

The roast has been thawing in the fridge for twenty-four hours. I pull it from the fridge and stow it in the microwave, not for any culinary reason—I'm just intensely focused on cooking a thousand and one dishes simultaneously and my dog, Basil, will steal and devour any bit of animal protein she can get her enormous brown snout around. She can reach the counter with her mouth. She can unlock the latch on the baby gate we use to keep her out. She can open closed doors. She's like a velociraptor from
Jurassic Park
. If I don't watch her, that roast is gone. But one thing she can't do is open a microwave. Yet.

Before it goes into the oven, the roast needs to come to room temperature to make sure that it cooks evenly. Cold spots in the roast would result in uneven cooking and make the entire cooking process unwieldy. The roast weighs more than six pounds—that's unwieldy enough.

The meal I'm making is as British as bad teeth. I'm even preparing Yorkshire pudding, which is a traditional accompaniment to a standing rib roast. During feudal times, the lord and lady of the castle would eat first, followed by the landed gentry present at the meal and then the rest of the household in order of privilege. In a situation like this, every molecule of protein was salvaged. To maximize the nutritive impact of the meal, cooks would pour a rough batter into the roasting pan, scraping up whatever little burned-on bits of meat remained. This batter would go back into the oven or hearth to rise and result in a somewhat meat-flavored breadish item: Yorkshire pudding. I'm doing them as individual, popover-style puddings, but the concept is the same.

I've never made Yorkshire pudding before. In fact, I've never made any of the dishes I'm preparing today. A problem? Maybe. But I feel up to the challenge.

I will be making the pudding during the twenty minutes or so the roast will be resting after I pull it from the heat. Time will be valuable, so I make the batter in advance. It's simple: flour, salt, eggs, and milk. I cover it and stash the bowl in my ever-more-full refrigerator.