TracyFood

Ask TracyFood: Sexin’ It Up 14 February 2007 4:50 pm

Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, advice, cooking, eating, friends, people , trackback

Last night I had dinner with two EXTREMELY attractive Italians; their physical beauty was almost perfectly matched by the delicious and effortless-looking bechamel-chicken-and-veggie pasta they made for me. I saw your invitation to ask specific food questions on the blog and I started thinking tonight, as I was making a dinner you showed me (couscous with veggies and apricots and raisins and feta and chickpeas, although next time I won’t add the chickpeas because it made the whole thing taste too muddy, low-GI protein be damned), about what kind of dinner you’d make for someone you were trying to get into bed. Ideally this would be the kind of thing that you could ask for some help in the kitchen from said person: you’re all there in the cramped kitchen, brushing against each other as you reach for the cheese grater. Or something. You know? Let me know what you think about this issue. There’s no hurry though, because the chances of my being a position to sex someone up any time in the near future are, um, low, to say the least. This is just idle curiosity… and of course, a strong desire to see what you’ll come up with and write about. Have I told you how much the blog is rockin this party eight days a week? Oh girl, it is.

I love you. And your writing. And your cooking. Love!

–Chiara

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Dear Chiara,

As always, your letters provide me with delicious food for thought as well as an opportunity to write about whatever’s on my mind at any given moment, and it is awesome. Firstly, I must ask about the muddy chickpeas. Did you cook them yourself, or were they canned? Either way, overcooked garbanzos (I’ll use the terms interchangeably because I can’t decide which is more fun) are indeed no good for anything except maybe making hummus, if you’re into that sort of thing. If you’re cooking them yourself, I highly recommend either bringing them to a boil in an oven-safe container and then transferring them to a 350 F (177 C) oven and letting them finish in there, covered, but taking them out when you think they’re not quite done and letting them finish cooking just from the residual heat of the pot (this also works for stovetop cooking and prevents overcooking and saves energy and feels sneaky-clever, all at once). If you’re using canned beans of any kind, it’s usually a good idea to give them a rinse (and even home-cooked chickpeas can get all weird and slimy and you know I’m going to break out my shiny new copy of Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking to see if I can figure out the chemistry behind garbanzo gel). Either way it’s always good to taste your beans and make sure they’re good for applications other than hummus, consistency-wise (some of the cooks I worked with at Sundance used puréed chickpeas or white beans to create creaminess in vegan soups, so that’s another possible use for the overcooked ones). I am also curious as to whether America’s Test Kitchen has any information about different brands of canned garbanzos….You get the idea.

And that’s before I get into cooking to get it on, which I’m pretty sure is as much a matter of cleverly deducing what the other person likes to eat as it is a matter of impressing them with one’s culinary skill. Especially if you can figure out something they like to eat but don’t know how to make themselves or think is too much work to make themselves. Because I am just a mite bit obsessive about food, I have a tendency to remember people’s food allergies and food preferences and suchforth, and because I have so much experience cooking for hippies and their food idiosyncracies, I also have a tendency to sort recipes in my brain according to who could eat them (vegetarian, vegan, soy free vegan, etc.) Which would probably come in handy if I somehow found myself in the weird situation of wanting to seduce someone I was still getting to know. It would be weird for me, anyway. People I know better are lots easier to cook for and get along with in general, of course, but I guess food is a great way to get to know people, I for one have never been the sort to get repelled by too much information too soon. (Side note: once upon a time I was talking to someone and it turned out that a certain grocery store we were passing by had a reputation as a meat market in the figurative sense as well: a place people went to check each other out and even pick each other up. He said he couldn’t imagine doing that — just seeing what was in someone’s shopping basket was too intimate, too soon. And I just don’t get that at all. Better to find out sooner rather than later that you’re dealing with someone who puts ketchup and fish sauce on everything, so you can back slowly away sooner rather than later, when it’s bound to be more painful.) ANYWAY. For me the key would be to impress with my thoughtfulness as much as my mad cooking skills. Also to probably stick with recipes I knew I wouldn’t screw up even if I was cooking with someone incredibly distractingly cute.

And speaking of cooking with someone, your comment about cramped kitchens reminds me that I really need to start writing about Stand Facing the Stove, Anne Mendelson’s awesome book about the history of The Joy of Cooking, and in particular its chapter about kitchen design. There’s some hilarious snarkiness about the modern one-butt kitchen in there that almost makes me want to learn architecture or interior design or something so I can invent houses with nice big kitchens suited for groups of people to work together in. Because people almost always want to help in the kitchen, and that’s awesome except when the kitchen itself gets in the way and makes everybody trip all over each other in unsexy ways. But I digress. What was the question again? Just kidding — I swear I’ll have a real answer soon but I’ve already run this post on for far too long.

Happy Valentine’s Day,

Love,
-Tracy