Getting deep on deep dish

If you go down a checklist of what makes a Chicagoan, I’m still an East Coast transplant. I think no hot dog is complete without ketchup. I root for the Cubs and the Sox (unless the Sox play the Indians, then it’s Cleveland pride all the way). Soda is soda, not pop. The appeal of craft beer is lost on me–or any beer for that matter, though I’m working on it. I think thin crust pizza is where it’s at.

However.

On a rare gluttonous occasion, deep dish calls. Some Chicagoans say deep dish is only for tourists who eat at Uno’s, and that the best Chicago pizza is the extra thin cracker-crust. Personally, I like both for what they are. A monstrous bread/cheese/stuff/sauce casserole, deep dish is a one-slice meal and most certainly has its appeal–when it’s good.

Cooked in pans as ancient as the Cubs last World Series appearance, the crust somehow comes out flaky and buttery and golden and crisp as the most perfect croissant, but with midwest heft. The reverse-layering of cheese/stuff/sauce goes to show Chicagoans’ ingenuity when it comes to food. It keeps the crust from getting soggy (the bane of all good pizza is a soggy crust, also why I don’t like NYC-style pizza), protects the cheese from burning, and is overall just one of those “Oh. Duh.” moments. As for the “stuff,” sorry, deep dish is not meant for just cheese and sauce. Peppers, onions, chunky mushrooms, spicy sausage, yesss.

It’s funny how the nine years I’ve lived in or around Chicago have made their mark on me. While I still like ketchup on my hot dogs, they seem naked and bland now without sport peppers, and I’m somewhat distraught that I can’t find them at a grocery store back home (poor misguided Wegman’s stock guy, your confusion made me sad). The difference between “downtown” and “the city” actually makes sense. Trying to navigate somewhere that the streets aren’t laid out in a nice, organized grid would confuse the hell out of me now. Holding a conversation about the Bears and actually following a game no longer makes me laugh out loud at its impossibility. I appreciate the unique pride (and gloveless pain) Chicago has in its 16″ softball games. And I will whole-heartedly come to Chicago’s defense if anyone tries to compare it unfavorably to any other city.

I love this city, my adopted home. I know it has its problems, which aren’t insignificant, but what city doesn’t? Its neighborhoods and lakefront, culture and history, quirks and perfections, and of course its food from pizza to farmers markets–these make Chicago great to me, especially when I can share them with you.

Quick post for a quick meal

Get home at 8 after a busy day and getting busier with new projects (like oh, say, trying to get back to writing more than two posts a month here). Crank the oven. Grab a piece of naan (make a big batch over the weekend or use frozen). Slather with spread. Toss on a handful of vegetables. Naan in oven. Egg cooked over-easy in my favorite blue egg pan (it counts as a meal if I can put an egg on it).

Dinner and done.

The toppings really are up to your imagination, but in case you’re looking for some suggestions, the two above were: black bean spread, sliced green onions, queso fresco, over-easy egg; red pepper/eggplant spread, left over sauteed leeks, chicken sausage.

Makin’ biscuits

Did you know, if you leave green onions in your fridge for two weeks, they will grow new green onions? These are the things I learn when I don’t clean out my fridge before I go out of town. It was a pleasant surprise to come home to a bag of perfectly bright green onions with only a slightly wilty outer layer instead of, well, the alternative.

But what does accidentally growing new green onions by way of neglectful refrigerator management have to do with biscuits? Well, I need green onions to make my favorite biscuits, of course.

Most people seem to have a preference for either drop biscuits or rolled. Personally I don’t think as anything can beat the flaky layers of the rolled version (given the lengths I will go to for flaky pie dough, is it any surprise?). I have not yet had a drop biscuit that didn’t just taste…lazy.

I don’t have any good stories to tell about these other than they’re fantastic. The cornmeal in the dough and salt and pepper sprinkled over the top adds crunch, green onions add tang, the yogurt makes them tender, the butter (of course) makes them delicious.

They’re pretty adaptable little guys too–I’ve left out the onions completely, added grated cheddar, used fine cornmeal instead of medium, used buttermilk instead of the yogurt and milk, cut in circles instead of squares (don’t you know the shape makes them taste different? I’m only kind of joking…). As long as you don’t overwork the dough terribly, it’s hard to make these “wrong.”

But the for-real best thing about these? They are so good with an over-easy egg I can’t even explain. And if you happen to have a little bit of ham to sneak under the egg? …Yeah. Just make these. You won’t regret it.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with friends and family, lots of good gifts, plenty of tasty food.

I’m not usually one for new year’s resolutions, but in the name of accountability, I wanted to gather up a few of my cooking- and home-related goals for the year and share them here. Any resolutions for you?

The butcher, the baker…

My mom said the kindest thing to me the other day while she was listening to me gripe about a recipe that was not working out. She said I reminded her of my great-grandmother, a woman who was always experimenting in the kitchen and would just shrug and move on if something didn’t work out (or was even truly awful).

That comment made me think about family and food and memories—and this blog, which just passed 10,000 pageviews after 7 months (excuse for a mini dance party? I think so). How do you remember the people in your life, especially ones who are gone–pictures, mementos, stories? The more I write this blog, the more I realize how inextricably my memories of people are tied to food, the making or the sharing, and that is no truer than when it comes to my great-grandmother, Stella Kisilewicz.

Butter?

Or jam?

A baker by trade—she and my great-grandfather owned a corner store in Cleveland—the clearest memories I have of my great-grandmother are of the things she made, especially her chrusciki (fried dough bowties, dusted with powdered sugar) and her sweet bread with streusel.

My great-grandfather outside their shop in Cleveland

I’m not the only one—I’ve heard my mom talk more than a few times about the soft-boiled eggs my great-grandma used to serve in tiny egg cups with tiny spoons, her beet soup, her prune paczkis. The apple pancakes I made recently prompted the sweetest comment from my grandma who remembered the apple donuts she used to make when my grandma was growing up.

Anxious for beet soup

While I loved her chrusciki, my great-grandma’s bread was something extra special; it wasn’t super sweet, just rich enough to be counted as a treat, and it would be the lucky person who got one of the coveted end pieces with the extra sugary bits. I remember my grandma slicing me a piece and adding a healthy smear of butter as I sat at the kitchen table, listening to family chit-chat between my mom, grandparents, great-grandparents, and whichever other aunts and uncles were around.

A few years ago I copied down her bread recipe from a notecard in my mom’s stack of clippings. It’s one of those recipes that’s so clearly from a lifelong baker, one who cooked by taste and feel rather than by a list of fixed ingredients and measurements. Some ingredients are missing amounts, ingredients are mentioned in the instructions that are nowhere in the ingredient list, some components are missing altogether. And, as is customary for my mom’s side of the family, it makes SO MUCH FOOD—three loaves to be exact.

The thing I love about recipes like this, though, is the conversation they create. Looking over the recipe, I called my mom to ask her a question, leading to a call to my grandma for more details. While I was kneading the dough, I considered how lucky I am to have the family I do—both my mom’s side and my dad’s side—and the traditions we share. My great-grandma has been gone for twelve years, but by making her bread, by calling my mom and my grandma for advice, I felt connected to her. I thought of her and her amazing hats, the love she clearly had for her family. And I felt sad that, quite honestly, I never really got to know her as well as I should have in hindsight, to hear her stories, to see her in action in the kitchen.

But I could do this, now. I could mix milk, eggs, butter, flour, yeast, sugar with intention and mindfulness for the traditions I’ve inherited. And more than a little respect for the many, many (many!) years my great-grandmother put into her baking–this bread was hard! I failed completely on my first batch when it deflated like a balloon, and only counted the second as a marginal success–tasty (and oh-so-good toasted with butter or jam), but not what I remember.

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up in just a few weeks, I hope you all have a chance to take a moment and give thanks for your family’s unique food memories. Whether they involve from-scratch bread, a cookie that only one person in your family could ever make “right,” or even just a once-a-week treat of eating delivery pizza in front of the tv to watch Friends, these memories are special and, at least for me, are integral to the person I am now.

I imagine my great-grandmother felt much the same sense of joy as she shared her passion for food with her family, friends, neighbors, community as I feel sharing my discoveries here with all of you. I’m looking forward to sharing more.

Blogging lessons, and a snack

Two blogging lessons learned over the past two weeks:

1. Don’t plan to write two blog posts about your vacation right after you return from said vacation. You will be too busy getting back into the swing of things and and it will take much longer than anticipated, especially when…
2. WordPress decides to eat the draft of your post that you just spent a day revising (will write in Word from now on).

That said, I will have two posts about my vacation soon, but in the meantime, here is one of the most delicious and simplest snacks/lunches/light dinners of my summer. There isn’t even a “recipe” as such, it just relies on getting the best ingredients you can find: excellent bread (Chicago folks, I recommend picking up a loaf of Bennison’s Sweet City bread, but a good whole grain or rye are great too), the freshest possible butter, thinly sliced radishes, flaky sea salt, and some roughly chopped parsley. The flavor and texture combinations are absolutely perfect and so complementary of each other: bitter, sweet, salty; crunchy, chewy, buttery.

And to keep myself on track, I hope to share another “art for non-artists” project, my favorite chili recipe (which also takes full advantage of summer produce, and happens to be vegetarian), and a sweet treat or two in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Tomatoes are here!

Tomatoes are just about to flood the markets around Chicago, and I couldn’t be happier–caprese salad,  BLTs, pizza, gazpacho, here I come. Sometimes it just comes down to the simplest ingredients to make the most satisfying meal, though: great bread, juicy tomato, crisp lettuce, salty bacon, creamy avocado, and the barest bit of mayonnaise.