House Spouse

Andrew is not a fan of poached eggs. I love them and never order anything else when we go out to breakfast. Andrew used to tell me he didn’t like shrimp, and you saw the last recipe I posted, right? This is not to say that I spend a lot of time attempting to convince others (or even Andrew) of their wrongness and my rightness when it comes to food. I actually think this is one of a handful of areas where I have a lot of sympathy for the other side because I have experience being on the other side, admittedly the wrong side. See, no matter what farm they come from or how they are prepared for me, I cannot eat beets, raspberries, nor cherries. I know. Sad.

We have a general eating rule in our house that goes something like this: even if you don’t like it, try it again. So, I have never stopped trying to like these three things my taste buds and brain completely disagree upon. Our kids are going to love us.

This weekend, after respectfully agreeing, in accordance with our rule, to try the breakfast I made for him, Andrew told me, “This is the first time I’ve ever liked poached eggs. They were delicious.” If you think making a favorite food for someone is satisfying, try making something they claim to not like and then get this kind of response. I began thinking maybe I should run for political office.

There is something magical about this combination of ingredients, both flavor and texture wise. The crispy outside of the browned potato pancakes is a pleasant contrast to the cool and creamy guacamole. The softness of the poached egg compliments the smoothness of the guac without losing its integrity in a biteful of general mushiness. The flavors are mild and work well together. The chopped cilantro on top is essential though, because it gently cuts through the textures and flavors of the other three elements, highlighting what each has to offer.

Poached Eggs with Potato Pancakes and Guacamole
Adapted from Mexican Everyday
(serves 2)

Ingredients:
2 medium red skin potatoes
4 eggs
1 small to medium avocado
1 small clove garlic, pressed
juice of 1/2 lime
small bunch of cilantro, chopped
oil
salt and pepper

Shred the potatoes and squeeze out excess liquid. Form into 4 small pancakes. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat and gently place the pancakes into it, frying on each side until browned and crispy. Remove to a paper towel and season with salt and pepper.

While the potatoes are frying, mash the avocado adding the garlic and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper. Spread the guacamole on top of each of the potato pancakes.

Fill a large sauce pan with 2 inches of water. Add a splash of vinegar and bring to a boil. Immediately turn the heat down to a bare simmer. One-by-one, crack each egg into a bowl and gently slide into the water. Once cooked (depending on your preference it will take 2 to 5 minutes), remove eggs with a slotted spoon. I usually kind of dab the bottom of the spoon on a paper towel to absorb the excess water. Place each egg on top of the potatoes and guacamole. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and a pinch of freshly ground pepper.

**Apologies for the out-of-focus photo. I was just so excited to eat that I hurriedly snapped a single photo.

I had some extra time last week to skim through a few food blogs in search of inspiration and ideas for this week’s meals. Fortunately for me, I stumbled upon this one from Simply Recipes. This recipe gets high marks in all categories. It’s healthy, it tastes wonderful, it’s simple, the ingredients are things I generally have around anyway (although, I substituted tarragon for the parsley), and the amount of dishes used to prepare it are minimal.

While I would like to praise the fact that, from start to finish, this meal takes fewer than 30 minutes to prepare, I’m hesitant.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how the quick-to-make meal is an idea that I think is too readily consumed as intrinsically good.  I’m certainly not the first to have these thoughts; there is an entire movement devoted to slowing down when in comes to food, after all. My concerns are on the forefront of my mind because I read that this week is, according to some groups, National Turn Off Your TV Week (or some other long title desperately in need of a clever acronym). The statistic being pushed is that people in this country watch, on average, 35 hours of TV a week. If you can do basic math, you know that’s 5 hours a day. Five hours a day!

I have always had a feeling that I watch more TV than a lot of my friends, so I am somewhat sympathetic to the glut of TV watching in people’s lives. I have a lot of friends who don’t even have TVs (and, I sense, experience a smidgen of self-righteous pleasure when they have the opportunity to let you in this fact). There was even a time when I one of them; now I have a fancy (but small!) TV. And cable.  Oh, the self-loathing this graduate student of humanities should experience but does not!  I have an almost embarrassing addiction to the Real Housewives of NYC and recently was able to overcome a short-lived fascination with the Kardashians. I’ve long stopped feeling guilty about my TV watching and no longer hide issues of Entertainment Weekly under year-old copies of the New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly. A guilty pleasure TV is not; I consider it just a pleasure.

But 5 hours a day? Who has that kind of time?

Rather than go on about how horrible this statistic is, because that is a no-brainer, I would rather muse about how strange it is that in order to convince people to cook, the push from a certain food television network, many magazines, and household oriented blogs is for quick and easy meals. See, I understand the need for easy. My husband raves about one cook book we have because it so clearly spells out what to use (both in terms of ingredients and cookware), what to do and when. He’s not a natural cook, but the more and more he tries “easy” recipes, the more confidence he gains.

It’s the “quick” part of the equation that perplexes and even troubles me. I realize that I am in a position to be able to spend an entire day of the weekend devoted to making tamales. I don’t have kids, and while I have a part-time job and am in a demanding grad program, I still find it possible to avoid take-out and prepare healthy, delicious, and even slightly time-consuming dinners at home.  I am also especially considerate of the fact that it is take-out, pre-packaged dinners at the grocery store, and quick-and-easy recipes that have allowed for women to more confidently enter the work place. With the social and often familial (extended or nuclear) pressure to single-handedly manage domestic affairs and her own career, it is completely understandable that getting a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table is not where one wants to spend all of her “excess” time.

I know that people are busy, and I know that the majority of those who are busier than ever are women. The push for quick meals is then understandable, but like so many things in contemporary society, such recipes are only a band aid to what I perceive as a much larger problem: too often there is only one person in a household who carries the weight of all the domestic responsibilities, and too often it is a woman.

Which brings me to I suppose is the thesis of this blog post, and perhaps this entire blog (or at least the idea behind its name). I recall my mother’s voice every evening after supper chirping one of her favorite proverbs as we cleaned up the kitchen, “Many hands make light work.”

“Where’s the Mexican?” is what my Colombian friend Alex said he thought to himself while looking at photos of my tamale-making “party.”  I smiled coyly at him and pointed at myself, adding a look that asked “Can it please be me?”

I showed my Mexican friend, Maria, this video and she laughed the entire time.  I was slightly insulted, as I thought she was laughing at me.  It turned out she was laughing out of sheer delight at my “audacity” to go and spend an entire day making tamales “just because.”

Well, this sort of all day, “just because” activity will likely not be happening again before January, as I am now in the final (finally!) phases of my Master’s program, meaning I’m up to my ears in preparing for oral comprehensive exams and a thesis-writing, among other things (such as applying to Ph.D. programs and attending a thousand weddings).  Although, I’m pretty sure that precisely because I have these things to focus on, there will be lots more all day food-related gatherings this summer and fall. At least, I hope there will!

The week before the tamale making, I read (and re-read and re-read) the chapter on them in Rick Bayless’ Authentic Mexican, and decided that because my friend Steve, who would be partaking in the madness, is a vegetarian that we’d go with a rajas con queso filling  (fire-roasted poblano and quesadilla cheese) and vegetable shortening rather than lard for the masa dough. We also made a tomatillo sauce to spoon over the tamales and served them with two other salsas Steve had on hand (one of which was an apple salsa he’d made and canned last summer…I sense a guest appearance in the future).

I contemplated writing out the entire recipe on how to make masa dough, form the tamales, cook them, etc., but I know that there are a lot of resources out there that can probably give better advice than I can. After all, my experience with making tamales is limited to that one, “just because” day. I am, however, including a recipe for the sauce we used as well as a few links to resources for anyone without family recipes or traditions to draw from.

Quick-Cooked Tomatillo-Chile Sauce
(from Authentic Mexican)

Ingredients:
1 lb (11 med.) fresh tomatillos, husked and washed
2 serrano peppers
5-6 sprigs cilantro, roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 T vegetable oil
2 cups broth (we went with homemade vegetable stock and salt)
salt

Boil the fresh tomatillos and chiles in salted water to cover until tender, 10-15 minutes, drain.

Place the tomatioos and chiles in a blender or food processor, along with the cilantro, garlic and onion. Process until smooth.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium high. Pour the sauce in all at once and stir constantly for 4-5 minutes, until darker and thicker. Add the broth, return it to a boil, and reduce the heat to medium and simmer until thick enough to coat a spoon, about 10 minutes.

Season to taste.

Tamale-making resources:
Rick Bayless’ Authentic Mexican (this cookbook is a really handy reference; mine is also signed!)
Sweet Corn Tamales Recipe(another of Bayless’)
The Paupered Chef (in all honesty, it was this blog post that gave me the final nudge to go ahead and give it a try)

If you know of any other good resources, please let me know! Perhaps, as evidenced by my seemingly life-time commitment to academia, I’m one of those people who likes to learn as much as she can about things most other people might (maybe!) give two seconds of thought to.