Cheese and Choux

I am a generally healthy person who sometimes daydreams about being sick. 

It's one of those things that I don't normally share, but this is what blogs do, right?  They lull you into a false sense of security until the ever-elusive over-share finally asserts itself.  So there you go.  Sometimes, even on the sunniest and most dappled days, I'd rather be in bed.  As a disclaimer, this feeling is usually dredged up when I've signed on for too much.  Over booked weekends.  Too much work.  Lack of lazy contact with good friends.  Lack of time with my characteristically un-lazy husband.  As someone who has never been one to nap (or at least, never figured out how to do it well), this is right about the time that I'm ready to sign out.  Curl up.  Assume the fetal position.  Shut the blinds, and shut out the world.  Retreat.  But then, what's that old adage?  Ah yes, that's it.

Be careful what you wish for.

Indeed, be careful what you wish for, because sometimes wishes pounce with snarled teeth.  And suddenly, it's the middle of picture-poignant May and I'm sick.  See, most of what I really wanted in those daydreams revolved around a decent break and a soft pillow.  I often forget that being sick, being the sick that involves doctors and antibiotics, is just plain rotten.  It's right up there with mud puddles and the stench of dirty diapers.  It has little to no redeeming qualities, and retains the sobering quality of rendering its victim both unproductive and slug-like.  (I do know that I could write sluggish here, but really, it's too pretty a word).

So, as you might have guessed from the rambling diatribe, I was out for the count for a little over a week.  In the week following my bout with bronchitis, I loped around our home with little energy.  And if my eyes ever glowed, it was only because my fever had come back unannounced.  It occurred to me - when I was too tired to read the stack of magazines positioned neatly by my pillow - that I often wish for breaks, because I don't often take them.  And I don't often take them, because I'm not good at being so still.  I know what you're thinking: startling, Sherlock, just startling.  Even so, it's been a real lesson for me as I ease my way back into my previous pace.  It's been my own cautionary tale.  I have to go easier on myself.  At the very least, I can't give the universe an excuse to knock me out again.

That being said, I found my own ways to be one badass invalid.  I ate Popsicles with no thought to portion control.  When I tired of Vogue, I lingered over Simone de Beauvoir's slightly depressive She Came To Stay with its group of morose characters; I had to embrace my people.  And when I really wanted to throw caution to the wind, I limped outside to sit on the porch for 10 minutes.  Without sunglasses.  The splintering headache the followed only served to augment my very satisfied feeling of rebellion.  But my greatest coup d'etat came from the mother of all counter-culture leaders: Oprah.  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking that Oprah's pretty tame, but you weren't there for one Monday's sandwich spectacular.  Oprah sent her best friend, Gayle (don't pretend you don't know her name), on some kind of cross-country tasting mission to find the best sandwiches in America.  Instantly, I was salivating - and this from someone who had lost all ability to taste!  A number of sandwiches had me sitting on my elbows amidst my pyramid of pillows.  But there was one sandwich that, according to Gayle at least (whom I now really want to be friends with too), left the others in its dust.  Or crumbs, as the case may be.

This sandwich was a grilled cheese constructed by the Cafe Muse out of Michigan.  Now, I love a rockin' sandwich, particularly when it's coupled with soup.  Still, I hadn't thought to do anything with grilled cheese.  I'm not sure why the thought had never crossed my mind, because grilled cheese has all the elements to satisfy: undeniable nostalgia, simplicity, gooey constructs, bread.  What's not to love?  But THIS grilled cheese mixed in different types of cheeses and honey.  In the words of Renee Zellweger (who will never cease to be the chick from Empire Records for me), it had me at hello. 

On Monday night, and then AGAIN on Tuesday night, I ate the very worst kind of food for a sick person.  I succumbed to temptation and had my grilled cheese.  It involved heirloom tomatoes and toasted bread.  It was the most gooey its ever been.  Jordan and I couldn't even talk, because our mouths acted as vessels to catch fallen cheese.  (Now, I had lost my voice by this point, but that's really besides the point).  While I dutifully ate sick person food for the rest of the week, namely broth and more broth, I treasured my act of rebellion.  And in throes of a cloudy illness that resembled nothing like the stuff of my daydreams, I even believe that I could taste it.

I don't need to post this recipe.  I'll just send you to it by way of O herself. 

So, I do recognize that I've been a fairly tardy blogger.  However, I can point to a litany of excellent excuses. 

The sun has been shining for nearly two weeks straight.  The park where I run has been beckoning, and the foot (mine, not my husband's) that has kept me from doing so has begun to heal.  The year, for me, is at its most exquisite.  It's the narrow sliver, the slice of perfect, that acted as a reward in the biting cold of winter.  I had forgotten the simplest, most lovely touchstones of spring - the falling to sleep with the windows open and the rising with the birds as they chirp.  I appreciate it even more this year, I think, because of the heady quality to my autumn and winter.  Autumn was all joyous weddings (ours and others), but tempered by the massive amount of change.  I thought I was okay with transition, but it turns out that I have my limits.  Winter was bleak.  The test and the snow and the locomotive-like wind nearly knocked me out.  So this spring, this transient moment where trees bloom as flowers do, feels like peace.  At the very least, I've been counting my blessings.  Yet, I do recognize that I haven't done much blogging.  We're in luck however.  With a thunderstorm roaring outside (and the resulting promise that April flowers actually DO often bring May flowers), here we go.

Though it's probably obvious right now, I would often rather be outside.  I would rather be outside than, oh, just about anything.  As a result, I haven't done massive amounts of cooking.  I've cooked, of course.  All of my meals been a bit meh, though.  It isn't so much that I don't care, because hopefully you know by now that I relish deceiving Jordan with as many vegetables as possible.  It's just that cooking often requires planning.  It requires basic things, like a grocery list.  Like thought.  Instead, I've been logging hours walking and running in the park where I try my very best to clear my head.  And not to think.  In short, I've been seeking out some inspiration again.

Often, when I want to be inspired, I turn to a number of famous chefs and their pretty cookbooks.  Grocery store web sites are great, too.  On the slowest, most uninspired of days, there is always Google.  I'm not sure what's been the matter with me, all of this time, thinking that I arrogantly know what's best for me.  I'm not sure, not sure at all, why I hadn't turned to my mother.

I should start by saying that I grew up in a meat and potatoes family.  In the lean years when I (the first baby) was little, I can remember nights where my mother was still working crazy shifts.  My dad would be a bit harried, trying to feed us three, and Chef Boyardee was often involved.  It was the eighties, and I think that the notion of food as a name-brand thing was almost fashionable.  Anyway, the point is that I recall with great nostalgia both my mother's secret recipe for chicken salad and Kraft macaroni & cheese.  Homemade food had its constraints, and they did the very best that they could.  And in the string of meals every night at 6 pm, my mom would sometimes offer up some real gems.  One of my favorite meals, with its glistening emerald coating and charged red sauce, was Stuffed Peppers.  They were the best.  Even now, even grown up, they're still the very best.  Until recently however, I completely forgot about them.

I should say that - you know this by now - I'm stubborn.  I like to think that I'm independent.  I don't particularly care for asking for advice.  In fact, I'm often that really aggravating person who refuses to ask for directions.  I don't care if I'm spinning in circles, I won't allow myself to be led.  Still, sometimes the guidance of another can loosen up our burdens.  Spinning in circles exhausts a tremendous amount of energy.  Sometimes, life is just best easy.  In that spirit, I finally called my mom to ask for her recipe. 

Like any dish that's been loved to the point that it's become reflexive however, my mom didn't remember the nuts and bolts of the recipe.  She etched out its bones for me, though.  And like any stubborn daughter in her mid-twenties, I've messed with it a little.  For instance, I needed a side dish, not the main meal.  (You know me and my endless quest for side dishes).  In any case, I dispensed with the traditional ground chuck.  Also, instead of marinara sauce, I used salsa.

I have to digress for a minute to wax poetic about cilantro.  This is an herb that I detested in my teens - I always felt that too much of it had the interesting aftershock of clearing out my sinuses.  It wasn't what I wanted in salad.  Lately though, I've come to yearn for this unique jolt to the system.  Lately, I've been eating way too much Mexican and Latin-inspired food as a result.  My Stuffed Peppers were chock full of cilantro.  And while quinoa might have been an interesting choice of "stuffing," this grain has become nearly trendy (read: cheap) recently.  It's very accessible.  How something as ancient as Babylon becomes trendy is beyond me.  Nonetheless, I like quinoa best because - though it's fairly tasty stuff - it has a Goldilocks-aesthetic that makes me smile. 

So, they aren't my mother's stuffed peppers.  I made them for a mid-week meal, just as she would have done once.  I made them because I wasn't exactly in the mood to be cooking (after running blithely through the park), just as she would have done once (after a tireless night-shift at the hospital).  And, of course, my Stuffed Peppers were a pale imitation of my mother's dish.  I should have called her a long time ago.

Mexican Stuffed Peppers  (*Will annoy mother for her recipe eventually)

Ingredients

4 stuffed bell peppers (either green or red)

Salsa, 1 regular-sized jar or homemade

1 can black beans, or dry black beans that have been soaked over night in water  (*Note that I do realize that I used kidney beans, instead.  But, as with coffee, I always prefer black).

1 cup quinoa, cooked according to your instructions

1 cup of cooked corn, cooked according to your instructions

1 medium-sized onions, chopped

3/4 cup of any grated Latin cheese

Grated parmesan

Cilantro (!!!)

Instructions

First, cook the quinoa and black beans according to instructions.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Chop off the top and carve out the middle pulp of the peppers, leaving their shell behind.  Drop stuffed peppers into a saucepan of boiling water.  Let them sit for fifteen minutes, or until they've grown soft.

Meanwhile, mix the quinoa, black beans, Latin cheese, cilantro, onion, corn, and a bit of salsa.  After having allowed the peppers to cool, stuff them with the stuffing and place in a baking dish.  Pour the remaining salsa over the peppers and into the baking dish.  Top with parmesan cheese.  Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

In an interview that I read a while ago, a reporter asked (my chef crush) Anthony Bourdain if he ever cooked at home.  His response?  Not much.  He said that cooking at home was a distinct experience from his restaurant's kitchen, where everything had a place and an easy reference point.  He said that when he cooked at home, he was apt to lose things and become frustrated too quickly.  He didn't say, but I imagine (having become a worshipful fan of his unscrupulous travel/culinary show, the only of its kind to have ever made me laugh out loud) that much cursing followed.  And then, he said that the meal - following the frustration - just didn't turn out right.  He said that food could smell fear.  I get it.

I had a very civic week.  Now, you might be thinking what I'm thinking - that after studying for the bar exam for a number of months, sitting for it, and thereafter flushing my brain of all things law-related - you might think that I have had sufficient contact with the legal system for a while.  I thought so, too.  But I was summoned.  That's right, friends, a week after the bar exam, I found myself still sleepy and slightly irritable and sequestered in jury duty.  At first, when they read the charges of each defendant aloud, I was momentarily interested (because the definitions all echoed my exam flash cards).  Ultimately however, I realized what voir dire in the criminal division in Pennsylvania really means: sitting knee-to-knee at a tiny table with a defendant who happened to be charged with criminal homicide.  All over again, I ruled out ever becoming a district attorney. 

So, my week was just one of those weeks and I sincerely hope that yours was better.  The heels that I wore were too high.  The line in the social security office (to change my name, which I finally got around to doing) was too long.  The Ides of March gave us that foggy rain that feels exactly like the clouds have begun to spit.  On Wednesday night, I tried to redeem three days of a week that already felt like five.  Jordan was out to dinner.  I had the house to myself.  I put some music on as I cooked.  I grooved a little - as much as someone can groove while rocking out with her wooden spoon.  I attempted a simple curry with tofu and cilantro, over brown rice.  I anticipated a Thursday blog.  I failed miserably.  Our home certainly smelled like street-eating in India, and the sticky mess of it looked amazing in the pan.  Pretty even, in its golden gloppy way.  It made me nostalgic, because as a college student in London, curry was often the only thing that I could afford.  But then I took a bite.  I literally spat, as a baby would.  Now friends, I understand that failure is a part of life.  I understand that the attempt is necessary for growth - to actually learn something.  On an intellectual and detached plane, I understand this.  However, at nine o'clock in the evening on hump day, my curry felt like the very worst sort of failure.  Particularly when my belly rumbled.  Aloud.  I think I ended the evening with something truly delectable, like peanut butter on whole grain toast.  I had conceded defeat.

So, on Thursday, I approached my stove and its accoutrements warily.  On Thursday, I was in no mood to experiment.  I didn't want to be relegated to crackers, you see.  I had made this swanky, showy, too-cool-for-school version of mac n' cheese for family over a summer vacation.  They had loved it, and my grandmother had looked at me with new eyes.  She is sweetness personified, and spends most holidays tucked away in the kitchen, but I do believe that she enjoyed this new passive position of being served.  My grandmother is of the "roast beef for Christmas" "turkey for Thanksgiving" generation.  She does not eat fish.  This became a quick standby, then, as I smacked together crab cakes for the others. 

The best part of this fancy schmancy mac n' cheese is the sauce.  I've come to think of the sauce - and do forgive me any lingering corniness as I admit this on the internet - as a little black dress.  Honestly, it can accommodate whatever you happen to have stocked in the fridge.  Though the recipe calls for chicken and broccoli, you can just as easily dice up some firm tofu or throw in some cannelloni beans.  In the summer, it would work wonders with zucchini and yellow squash.  In the spring, it would surely compliment asparagus.  Thus, to tie off my metaphor with a neat little bow, you can accessorize the sauce with whatever you have on hand.  Like any good sauce, it's a blank canvas.  But most significantly, for my purposes this past Thursday, it always turns out.  And on an evening when you're just not in the mood for surprises (with your feet raw and red from a too-high, too-narrow, too-pinchy pair of heels), nothing tastes quite like that. 

Mac and Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli, pilfered from Bon Appetit, September 2006

Ingredients

1 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts

2 heads broccoli, cut into florets

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons all purpose flour (*wheat flour as another layer of depth here)

4 cups whipping cream (*note that, depending on the thickness that you prefer, you can simply use milk)

1 cup Fontina cheese (about 4 oz.)

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese (about 4 oz.)

1 pound pasta shells, freshly cooked

1/2 bunch fresh chives, chopped

Instructions

Prepare barbecue (medium heat).  Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.  Brush both sides with olive oil.  Grill until cooked through, about 6 minutes per side.  Dice chicken and set aside.  Cook broccoli in medium pot of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 3 minutes.  Set aside.

Melt butter in heavy large saucepan over medium heat.  Add flour and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Gradually mix in cream.  Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add both cheeses and stir until sauce is smooth.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Add pasta, chicken, and broccoli to sauce; mix well.  Garnish with chives and serve.

For one whole year of my life, I didn't eat meat.  I wasn't quite a vegetarian, because I still ate fish and shrimp and scallops and various other sea urchins.  I would easily devour a plate of pasta and mussels.  To this day, I don't exactly remember when I started eating meat again.  I think it was during my first semester of law school and, embarrassingly enough, I'm not sure that I put much thought in it.  But that doesn't mean that the question hasn't been with me all along.  To eat meat or to not eat meat - it's been a question that has plagued me since I was a little girl.  

Even as young one, I was perplexed by my society's reasoning.  I loved (and still love) my dog.  It never made sense, no matter how many times I deconstructed the logic, to eat a pig and to not eat my dog.  As I became older, and my world accordingly extended, the logic continued to confound.  In various parts of Asia, I learned, they'll readily eat dog.  In almost every state in India however, they have outlawed the killing of cows.  The Hindus believe cows to be the symbol of "unselfish giving."  And don't even get me started on ducks.  During my summers at the beach, I felt that I literally grew up with the ducklings.  I'd eat my cereal overlooking the bay or watch them waddle along our dock.  One summer, I found a duck egg under our porch and dutifully covered it with leaves in a feeble attempt at protection.  So, while duck pate may be a delicacy in France, I'll readily leave that one for someone else's plate.

If I didn't practice yoga regularly, I might not feel as guilty as I do for eating meat.  In yoga, whatever your form (be it ashtanga, hatha, or iyengar), admitting sheepishly to one's carnivorousness tendencies borders on the taboo.  I've often noticed that an acknowledgment of meat-eating takes the form of an apology.  Even though I stopped being vegetarian, for the aforementioned reasons that I can no longer remember, I might have started up again due to yoga.  Or maybe, due to the fact that I wholeheartedly believe in what yoga represents: being mindful, a levity of being, a being in one with the spirit.  And no yoga teacher, at least as of yet, has led me to believe that I can attain these truths with a hamburger wedged between my teeth.  So, it might have been only a matter of time for me.  I might have given up meat forever.  But then (insert drum roll here), I met my husband.

My husband is an unapologetic, even proud, carnivore.  He's tapered it somewhat with me having taken over the kitchen.  He doesn't eat nearly as much red meat; he's much more amenable to fish and beans.  However, he's also made perfectly clear that his loyalty to meat is firm - as is his never-ending quest for man's perfect hamburger.  In time, I might even give him some blog space to expound on that point.  But I digress.  It's very 1950s (something out of a Deborah Karr movie, really) to say, but I absolutely adore cooking with my husband.  I've even compromised for him.  He allows me to throw some black beans on a homemade pizza and to thrust vegetables into any meal, in any way that I can.  In turn, I indulge with him in a perfectly cooked filet.  At the very least, I'm a ready assistant in his quest to find the perfect hamburger.

So, maybe like you, I've drawn my lines in the sand.  I won't eat any of the babies: the lamb, the veal, etc.  I want my meat organic and cage-free.  I still find it appalling that we eat meal in the United States that the European Union won't even deign to sell, but I digress.  My lines are in the sand.  Because there is no great loyalty, when the wind blows, my lines even shift.  I might someday stop eating meat again, but for now I'm comfortable with being as conscientious as I am.  We don't eat meat everyday.  As a result, when we do, I want it to be perfect.  And in the long line of recipes I intend to share as tantamount to Lizzie's-post-exam-extravaganza(!!!), this daube is perfect.  This daube (while admittedly, nothing less than a process to cook) results in the most tender pork imaginable.  It's pork that will melt in your mouth in a velvet collapse.  Upon eating it, even Jordan was stunned.  He said that he'd never had meat like that before.  I encourage you try it, because each step by itself requires only minimal preparation and effort.  The meat marinades and cooks for three days, resulting in a stew that is nothing less than carmelized. 

All in all, I'm not particularly proud that I eat meat.  I think that I still eat it most of all for emotional reasons.  I want to be able to make my mother's chicken salad, and my grandmother's Thanksgiving turkey.  I'm not ready, not quite yet, to give up that shared history.  And when I do cook meat, when I really commit to it for an evening, it has to be worthy of them.

Pork and Wild Mushroom Daube, pilfered from Food and Wine, February 2007

Ingredients

3 pounds well-marbled boneless pork shoulder, cut into 2 1/2 inch pieces

One 750-millileter bottle Viognier

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1 medium carrot

Bouquet garni: 6 sprigs each of parsley, thyme and winter savory plus 2 bay leaves and 1 leafy celery top, tied with twine

Spice bundle: 1/2 teaspoon lavender flowers, 12 crushed peppercorns and 12 crushed juniper berries, tied in a cheesecloth

1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Daube

1 1/2 ounces dried porcini (1 cup)

Water

3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

2 1/2 tablespoons brandy

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1 large carrot, cut into 1/2-inch dice

4 ounces fresh pork skin with a thin layer of fact, cut into 2-by-1/2-inch strips

1 head of garlic, separated into cloves but not peeled

10 crushed juniper berries

Reserved bouquet garni

Garnish

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

 1 1/2 pounds oyster and cremini mushrooms, halved if large

Salt and freshly ground pepper

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/3 cup finely chopped parsley

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

Instructions

1) MARINATE THE PORK: Put the pork in a large bowl.  Add the wine, onion, carrot, bouquet garni, spice bundle and olive oil.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

2) The next day, pour the pork into a colander set over a bowl.  Discard the onion and carrot.  Squeeze the spice bundle over the meat,then discard the bundle.  Reserve the pork, bouquet garni and the marinade.

3) MAKE THE DAUBE: In a bowl, soak the porcini in 1 cup of hot water until softened, about 20 minutes.  In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil.  Season the pork with salt and pepper.  Add half o the pork to the skillet and cook over moderately high heat until well-browned all over; transfer to a plate.  Repeat with the remaining pork.

4) Return the pork to the skillet and sprinkle with flour.  Stir over moderate heat until the flour has dissolved, about 1 minute.  Add the brandy and carefully ignite it with a long match; shake the skillet until the flames die down.  Return the pork to the plate.  Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the skillet along with the onion and carrot.  Season with salt and cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

5) Lift the porcini from the soaking liquid and coarsely chop them; reserve the soaking liquid.  Add the porcini to the skillet and cook for 3 minutes, stirring.

6) Preheat the over to 250 degrees.  Line the bottom of a 4 1/2 quart enameled cast-iron casserole with the pork skin, fat side down.  Spoon 1/3 of the pork over the skin followed by 1/3 of the vegetable mixture and 1/3 of the garlic cloves.  Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with some of the juniper berries.  Repeat this layering 2 more times.

7) Return the skillet to moderately high heat.  Pour in the reserved porcini soaking liquid, stopping before you reach the grit at the bottom.  Add the reserved pork marinade and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.  Boil until reduced 2 cups.  Pour this liquid over the daube.

8) Tuck the reserved garni into the daube.  Add enough water to the casserole to just cover the meat and bring to a boil over moderately high heat.  Place a round of parchment paper directly on the surface of the meat and cover with the lid.  Transfer the casserole to the oven and bake until the meat is tender, about 2 1/2 hours.  Let cool to room temperature.  Discard the parchment paper, bouquet garni and any bits of juniper berry.  Refrigerate the daube overnight.

9) MAKE THE GARNISH: Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.  In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil until shimmering.  Add the oyster and cremini mushrooms and season with salt and pepper.  Cover and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are softened, about 5 minutes.  Remove the lid.  Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms start to brown, about 4 minutes.  Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 3 minutes.  Stir in the chopped parsley.

10) Scrape the fat from the surface of the daube and discard it.  Mix the mushrooms into the daube and bring to a simmer over high heat, stirring frequently.  Bake the daube for about 1 1/2 hours, uncovered, until the liquid has reduced slightly and the meat is very tender.  Stir in the vinegar, season with salt and pepper and serve.

Brrrrrr.

I've said it before.  I'll say it again: I'm not a girl who does winter well.  One of my girlfriends says that we both might have S.A.D Syndrome, whereas I think that we both just have sad syndrome (i.e. the blues).  Even watching some of my favorite movies, such as Wonder Boys and Beautiful Girls, I inwardly shudder at all of the white fluff.  Or even worse than white fluff, as far as I'm concerned, all of the brown.  The streets gleam slick and dirty with gray salt; the naked brown branches shiver; all of the mud acts as a moat would - it is nature's greatest deterrent.  Admittedly, I have a tendency to get grumpy during winter.  However, give me a winter where I'm also supposed to study for a mammoth exam?  Left to my own devices, it's a crankiness like you haven't ever seen.  Picture Jack Nicholson in The Shining.  Now picture him on acid.  That's almost me as I am now, endlessly memorizing my flashcards and talking to myself.  All work and no play makes Lizzie a dull girl...

I'm haven't exactly gone completely Kubrick, as I'm not swinging an axe.  Still, the days roll into each other here.  Every day of the week is dressed in the same drab uniform of white and brown.  Not to sound melodramatic, but - oh, what the hell - I could have frittered away my life here, as I hibernate in my own little cave.  You're doubtless beginning to understand, now, that my self-pitying could have reduced me to a whining woman.  Fortunately for this self-proclaimed pessimist (in the legal world, it's a good quality - I promise), I married a cheerful optimist.  He starts and ends most days smiling.  He can see that an exam taking place at the end of February is just and only that.  He has that big picture perspective.  This, too, will pass.  Fortunately for this pessimist, however, he's not above helping me wade through this muck of a winter.  He can lighten me, unburden me, as no one else can.  For this emergency case of the January blues, he called forth the big guns.  Chocolate.  Cheese.  Capicola. 

On Saturday morning, after a brief biscotti and coffee fix, we stole away to a local Italian market shop.  My friend Ali, knowing me better than most, gave us a gift certificate as a wedding present.  Accordingly, we didn't have to use restraint this time.  There was no holding back.  With one great flick of the wrist, we knocked the homemade pasta off shelves and into our basket.  We stood in line, taking a number that reminded us far too much of a certain pizza in Naples, to order a Swiss gruyere and a Roman provolone.  I grabbed some Nutella and fresh ciabatta bread and homemade red sauce.  We had a feast that, thanks to Alison, only cost five dollars. 

Jordan's staples.

Mine.

Soon, Jordan was hungry for Italian food.  I reminded him that we would be making that for dinner, but he was having none of it.  His stomach works on its own clock and answers to no one.  And, let me tell you, I love that stomach.  It was twenty degree weather then.  In a few hours, it would snow.  The frigid temperatures didn't stop vendors from lining the streets, however.  Even as their breath took on an ivory tinge in the cold air and they shook beneath heavy parkas, they were smiling.  And, miracle of miracles, I was too.  By the time Jordan had ordered us two chocolate-covered macaroons on the way to grab a pizza, I was beaming wide and full.  As the wind slapped up against my face, it felt like heaven to be walking in the fresh air, with a loaf of bread lodged under my arm.  Most of all, because I took the day off, I could spend a good bunch of hours wondering what on earth to do with all of that cheese . . .

Overwhelmed.

We've used the cheese, of course, for the last few days now.  I've grated it onto soups and Jordan's gnocchi.  We've had sandwiches with provolone and capicola.  I've stolen bits of hard gruyere in those stolen minutes (that my husband doesn't know about) when I dance and sing through the late afternoon.  However, it's become exceedingly apparent that the cheese is indeed winning. 

Sprinkled on gnocchi . . .

Over a glass of good red wine, I had looked through a number of cookbooks to search out ideas for my cheese.  I stumbled onto this risotto when my husband was on his way out for a basketball game.  It seemed incredibly decadent - even foolhardy - to make a risotto to be eaten alone.  It wasn't until Jordan assured me that there was no way he would eat risotto (he feels the same way about curry), that I decided to break off some cheese for myself.  Many people hate making a risotto.  They feel about stirring the risotto as I feel about peeling potatoes.  So I understand.  I get it.  If you don't want to, I won't force you.  However, there is something rich and cathartic in crafting a meal this way.  After days spent memorizing as I have been, my head throbs as traffic lights do.  I remember the feeling from law school.  I remember coming home to cooking then, too.  In the stirring and the ladling, the world somehow passes away on its own.  It's a brief moment of stillness where obligation is, mercifully, forgotten.  It's a meditation for those of us who don't have time for such stillness.  After my risotto and my red wine, savored over a long talk with a good friend, I fell into a deep sleep that evening.  I woke up the next morning to a quiet surprise outside my window.  In all of the tawny brown, lo and behold, I had found some color. 

(Swiss Gruyere and Roma Provolone) Risotto, pilfered from Nigella Express: 130 Recipes For Good Food, Fast

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Tablespoon olive oil

2 scallions, finely sliced

1 1/2 cups risotto rice

1/2 cup white wine

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

4 cups hot vegetable stock

1 cup chopped cheese

2 Tablespoons chopped chives

Instructions

Melt the butter and oil in a medium-sized pan and cook the sliced scallions until softened.  Add the risotto rice and keep stirring for a minute or so, then turn up the heat and add the wine and mustard, stirring until the wine is absorbed.  Start ladling in the hot stock, letting each ladleful become absorbed as you stir before adding the next one.  Stir and ladle until the rice is al dente, about 18 minutes, then add the cheese, stirring into the rice until it melts.  Take the pan straight off the heat, still stirring as you do, and then spoon into warmed dishes, sprinkling with some of the chopped chives.