Birthday Dinner

I haven't done much cooking over the past year. I am a good-enough cook, but I just lost the will. X eats just five things, but mostly a lot of Annie's Mac'n'Cheese. D has gotten into the habit of going out for dinner at around 10, fueling his late night work. And I have been living off of snacks and sandwiches. There, I admit it. The family dinner is, of course, more virtuous, but has not been one of our virtues.

Anyway, last night I mustered it up to cook a birthday dinner for D. I knew what would please him and it was simple: fish and a vegetable. When I want to make him happy, it's an easy method.

It's tomato time in Texas already, or at least they had some local tomatoes at Central Market, the nearest fancy grocery. So I decide to go for the classic tomato-mozzarella-basil salad. Central Market is always a challenge for me. After one year, I still haven't learned where everything is. I kept looking for the vinegars near the salad dressing but turns out they had a whole half aisle to themselves. Sherry vinegar seemed like a not-too-tangy choice.

The cod looked pretty good, and I thought a simple lemon-butter sauce would match its uncomplicated flavor. Lemon butter and vinegar in the same meal seemed a bit weird, but I knew he wouldn't mind. It's each flavor that matters to him. As much as my spouse can seem a mystery after 14 (or so) years, I guess I have learned a few of the subtleties.

When it came time to cook all this, I recruited X's help and it was good help. She made the salad on her own pretty much. And she used some little tricks on the cutting board: slicing a bit off the bottom of the tomato to steady it while she cut the slices, for example. She even knew what a chiffonade was, though she needed some help in execution. I didn't teach her any of that. We haven't done much cooking together, outside the key-lime pie we made for Christmas (for D). She explained how she learned: it was all Good Eats, and the other cooking shows on Food Network. We often watch Good Eats together. We like it because the host, Alton Brown, explains the whys of cooking as well as the what--sometimes even scientific explanations. Sometimes he even has Shirley Corriher on. She's an actual biochemist of food.

X's comment: Who says you can't learn something from TV?

Not me.

(She points out that I have already used that line in a blog entry. But I am too lazy to find the page.)

Oh, yeah, D loved the dinner and thought the vinegary tomatoes cleansed his palate for the buttery fish. (See, I knew he'd like it.) We bought a key-lime pie (also his fave) from the local and wonderful pie store, which does not seem to have a URL. Like many places in South Austin, it's just down the street from a landmark bar--in this case, the Horseshoe Saloon.

(Apologies to Deb for my foray into her territory. )