Boiled ham (or, a foray into Eastern Europe)

Sometimes I think way too hard about how to use up leftovers. The potential for waste bothers me. If we have half a head of red cabbage sitting in the crisper because Josh realized he really, really hates cabbage after a disastrous night of fish tacos, I have this deep-seated urge to use it up. And not just in any old random dish. It has to complement the rest of the meal I'm putting together. (See? Told you it's a lot of work. Which is entirely due to my unrealistic exacting standards.)

So the other day, when I was planning a meal around 18th-century boiled ham, I decided to use up said red cabbage and some fennel and goat cheese that was lying around. The flavors and textures seemed like appropriate complements to the meatiness of the ham. I sauteed the cabbage and some sliced onion in a little olive oil until soft, then covered it in leftover sour cream and baked it for about 20 minutes in a hot oven. Meanwhile, I sliced the fennel into thin strips and sauteed that in a mixture of olive oil and butter just until browned, following a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's wonderful Plenty. While the ham boiled away in a big pot of water (seriously, that is the only instruction), I caramelized the browned fennel and tossed the resulting fragrant mixture with the leftover goat cheese. Once the meat was finished, it was time to plate the food with a bit of cheddar cheese bread from our favorite bakery on the side. The result was one of the more colorful plates I've seen in the dinner department.

Josh was hesitant to try very much (the cabbage debacle still fresh on his palate), but I dug in. And after a minute the flavors and textures all seemed to meld together and call up an entirely unexpected food memory: that of robust, satisfying meals eaten one fleeting spring week in Budapest and Prague. Somehow, without really meaning to, I'd channeled all those leftovers and one 18th-century dish into a hearty eastern European dinner.

When I was in college, I spent the spring break of my senior year in Budapest and Prague with the guy I was dating at the time. He was studying abroad in Hungary, and it was the first time I'd ever been east of France. I remember the food vividly: soft cheeses soaked in olive oil and garlic, apple tarts, a somewhat successful homemade goulash, and giant mugs of dark beer. We visited a medieval-themed restaurant in Prague, where we ate fried pork cracklings and hearty bread. (There was other food at that meal, too, but only the pork cracklings stand out. Understandable, right?) The food was so different from the less flavorful western dishes I was used to that it still glows in my mind as a turning point in my dining history. But I hadn't revisited those flavors since that spring.

The night of the accidental eastern European meal, though, I rediscovered those tastes. Sweetly sour cabbage, salted with bits of bacon; butter-browned fennel, faintly tinged with anise and tangy goat cheese; salty, toothsome ham. Like discovering a new ethnic cuisine, it was a window into a different kind of food world, and all thanks to the happy accident of trying too hard to use up leftovers. I only wish Josh didn't hate red cabbage.


Boiled Ham
(slightly adapted from American Cookery by Amelia Simmons)

2 lbs of ham
mustard, for serving

Fill a large pot with water and set over high heat. When the water boils, carefully set the ham in the pot and let cook, uncovered, for about half an hour. When cooked, remove the ham from the pot and let cool slightly on a cutting board. Slice off the rind and reserve for another purpose. Slice the ham thinly and serve with mustard (and eastern European sides, if you wish).

Short cake, with blueberry topping

Over the long weekend, my sister Lissa came to visit, and one afternoon we drove down to New Haven, CT, to visit our old college. We toured the British Art Gallery and I found time to wander around Yale's campus with my camera, snapping photos of old haunts and sun-drenched architecture.

I don't know how many of you feel this way about your college, but I can never visit Yale without being flooded with memories. There's the window of the suite I lived in freshman year, where my suitemates and I sang songs and threw water balloons. Here's the cathedral-like library, where I huddled away in the stacks and breathed in the smell of old books. This is the route I walked once or twice a week to the literary magazine where I worked for three years. Those are the carillon bells that rang out across campus at 5 each twilight afternoon when my friends and I walked to the dining hall for an early dinner. This is one of countless booths my friends and I colonized during Saturday night pizza outings.

There's a lot of sadness wrapped up in this place for me, because of all the hard things I had to learn in college. And because my friends are now scattered across the country, and we get together once a year (at most) for weddings. People say that college can be some of the best years of your life, but they don't tell you that once it's over, you might need several years to get over the crushing blow of graduation.

But I'm grateful, too, for everything I learned here, both in history lectures and in the echoing corridors of my residential college. In some ways I feel like I'm still a college student, figuring things out for the first time on my own, and in some ways I feel so much older. In a good way, like I'm finally starting to settle into my place.

Lissa and I talked about how in some ways, the student body hadn't changed at all since we were there. We ran into teams decked out in sports apparel, the fashionable girls in skinny jeans and boots, the international students wearing pea coats and college scarves. A lot of other things had stayed the same, too, from the architecture to the restaurants we loved. But we could see changes, too--a frozen yogurt place had taken over an old bookstore, a Shake Shack replaced a restaurant I didn't remember. This place is changing and adapting, and we were, too, though we may not have even realized it at the time.

And I think it's time to make a change around this little blog, too. In the months to come, I'll be expanding the blog to encompass other aspects of building a simple life inspired by history. I'll still chronicle my cooking adventures, but I'll also explore other topics that have been on my mind. In that spirit, here's a biscuit recipe pulled from The "Settlement" Cook Book, with a topping inspired by a much more recent cookbook, All Cakes Considered. Sometimes, a fusion of foods both past and present can be just the flavor you need.

Short Cake with Blueberry Topping
(adapted from The "Settlement" Cook Book)

for the short cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed
3/4 cup milk

for the blueberry topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 cup blueberries

to make the short cake:
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. With your fingers, rub the butter into the flour mixture until combined and the mixture resembles the texture of cornmeal. Add the milk and stir until just combined. Turn out onto a floured board and roll to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter or measuring cup. Layer one round on top of another to create a 2-layered biscuit, and place each biscuit in a buttered pan. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

to make the blueberry topping:
Meanwhile, mix the brown sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. When the sugar is completely dissolved, pour the blueberries into the pan and mix well to cover with sugar syrup. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes. Take the mixture off the heat when most of the blueberries have broken down.

Split each biscuit in two and drizzle blueberry topping on one round, placing the plain round on top. Drizzle more blueberry sauce on top, or sprinkle with sugar.

Sardine sandwiches

Yep, you read that right.

As you may recall, I'm one of those weird folks who actually enjoy foods deemed disgusting by many Americans: anchovies and sardines, in particular. Anchovies don't just add a unique umami flavor to pasta sauces and Caesar dressing, they make a delicious topping for white pizza, too. Unfortunately, few people in my life agree. So it's always exciting to find someone else who enjoys salty, oily canned fish; it's like a special club made up of friends you'd never expect to know.

Like my freshman suitemate's grandmother.

My living situation freshman year of college was...well, interesting, as is the case with basically all college freshmen. My college arranges students in suites, which are made up of a few bedrooms (single or double) all connecting to a common living room. So instead of getting to know just your roommate really well, you also get to know four other suitemates pretty well, too. And since you don't have much of a say in who these suitemates are, you end up in one of three situations: becoming best friends; hating each other; or being surprised every day with unexpected stories and experiences.

Mine was definitely the latter, courtesy of my suitemate Charysse.

Charysse had a single, and she kept to herself for much of the first month of college. We all did, when we weren't sticking like glue to the few friendly people we found. (My roommate Daena and I pretty much went everywhere together.) But around October, something changed, and Charysse started spending more time with us in the common room, and we got to know each other real fast. Charysse posted her graded chemistry lab reports up on the walls, because she goaded her TA with ridiculous conclusions comparing the study of chemistry to the study of love. The TA responded with outraged comments, which made for excellent posters. Charysse also led us in afternoon singing sessions, which she taped on a little hand-held recorder. We discovered a shared love of Led Zeppelin and rocked out to Kashmir on quiet weeknights. It was one of those friendships that can only develop in college, when you're thrown together with people you wouldn't normally get to know. You discover how much you actually have in common with them.

Jacques Pepin Celebrates! (actual poster from PBS)

One of the most memorable aspects of that freshman year, aside from all of the above, was coming home to discover that Charysse had gotten another package from her grandmother. Her grandmother loved to send her all sorts of random gifts, which, while thoughtful, rarely had anything to do with anything. A typical package might include a creased PBS poster of Jacques Pepin (which went up on the walls, of course) and six can openers (one for each member of the suite). We had a lot of fun trying to decipher what these gifts meant.

But the strangest package was the one with the sardines. Her grandmother sent some big cans of sardines, along with a few other items that I can't recall. And after a long discussion of what this latest gift meant, Charysse opened up the cans and ate the sardines. I don't remember if I joined in--this was early on in my anchovy-sardine career, and I may not have even tried them by that point. But something about those little fishes nestled in their tin packet of oil appealed to my adventurous side. And I mentally added sardines to my list of approved foods.

It's a silly little story, one that makes me smile the way college stories do. But I always think of it whenever I'm dealing with sardines.

Unfortunately, The "Settlement" Cook Book's version is less than stellar. You mash up sardines and hard-boiled eggs into a kind of paste, which you then spread on sandwiches. It's a perfectly serviceable meal, but it lacks flavor. Perhaps the eggs cut the fishy flavor of the sardines. Honestly, when I'm eating sardines, I want the full experience. You're wrinkling your nose, I know, but it's true. Go big or go home, they say, and it's the same with sardines.

Just ask Charysse and her grandmother. They'll tell you.

What about you? Do you have any weird food preferences? I'd love to chat...


Sardine Sandwiches
(adapted from The "Settlement" Cook Book)

1 4.25 oz can of sardines in oil
2 hard-boiled eggs, shelled
1-2 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 tsp olive oil

Rinse the sardines with fresh water and drain. Pick out the spine and other prominent bones from the fish. With a fork or potato masher, mash together the sardines and eggs in a small bowl. Add the lemon juice and salt and pepper, then add just enough olive oil to bring the mixture together into a paste. Serve on toasted bread with fresh greens.