Blue Ribbon Barbecue, Arlington, MA

Blue Ribbon Barbecue
908 Massachusetts Avenue
Arlington, Massachusetts
(781) 648-7427

I’ve generally been unenthused by Fourth-of-July festivities or culinary fare. The advent of the day often depresses me because it’s the day I realize one-third of the summer is already gone, in many cases wasted away with missed opportunities to soak in sun or enjoy the longer days. And fireworks — a series of short-lived, superficial bursts of color—just aren’t intriguing enough for me to endure crazed, screaming, or drunken crowds. Aimee Mann touched on similar sentiments in her song “4th of July”:

Today’s the fourth of July
another June has gone by
And when they light up our town I just think
what a waste of gunpowder and sky

—from “Whatever,” 1993, The Imago Recording Company

Food-wise, for much of my teenage and young-adult life Independence Day meant a paternally imposed and catered under-the-back-porch cookout. The event was attended by my sister Bea and me and sometimes the family cat, with my mom “joining” us from the family room, just beyond the backdoor screen. Also present were the ol’ gnarly picnic table — which took up half the makeshift patio under the porch, the underside of which was laced with spider webs and other nests of nature (the locale was dark, dusty, and grimy, but definitely shady!) — charcoal-grilled hot dogs and burgers, buns, rolls, cole slaw and potato salad from DeMoulas/Market Basket, assorted beverages, and the ubiquitous squeeze bottle of Plochman’s yellow mustard. To thwart insectile attempts to join the feast, exposed food received additional shade in the form of a screen-food-dome-thingy most likely purchased from a Walter Drake or Lillian Vernon catalog. There was usually a fly swatter close by.

After I moved out of my parent’s abode, I was an independent Independence-Day reveler and diner, making a point of avoiding all July-Fourth-themed fetes and fare, until I met my then husband-to-be, who had his own Fourth-of-July ritual: lounging in a comfy beach chair on his North Cambridge seventh-floor Boston-facing balcony, peering at distant Esplanade and other local fireworks, and sucking on Redbones “Barbecue Belt” Ribs. And now our Independence Days revolve around this tradition, though with the balcony and fireworks now out of the equation for over three years (he often calls me “the girl who took his balcony away” after we started shacking up together in a new apartment), the focus is decidedly on the barbecued food. In early June we start counting down the weeks, then the days, then the hours, to this drippy, sticky, smoky, celebratory treat, replete with pulled pork, ribs, baked beans, collard greens, cornbread (the fake sweet and cakey kind), black-eyed corn, and whatever traditional or unexpected side the local BBQ joint offers.

That local joint is now Blue Ribbon Barbecue, just thirty minutes round-trip on foot. (The ritual of walking for your BBQ is akin to singing for your supper; we feel more like we’ve earned our Southern-influenced chow after strolling softly towards it.) I was first introduced to Blue Ribbon by a good friend who was wowed by the chow at the Ribbon’s Newton location and suggested we do Blue Ribbon takeout when she visited Arlington one day. Gary was familiar with the goods from patronizing their kiosk in the River-Street Cambridge Whole Foods.

Rarely are we disappointed by Blue Ribbon offerings; we often get Blue Ribbon takeout when we want to celebrate something, be it a birthday, a job offer, or the long-overdue market listing of an old condo. Below we comment on this year’s Great Independence Day Pig Out. Actually, if we insist on takeout from Blue Ribbon, it’s the Day-Before-Independence-Day Pig Out since they’re closed every year on July Fourth. (If they saw the crowd Redbones pulled in each Fourth of July, maybe they’d reconsider.)

Inside the Blue Ribbon

You can order many of Blue Ribbon’s barbecued meats as platters, though most are available in bulk and a few can be made into sandwiches. We usually order platters, which come with cornbread and a choice of two sides. Just this year I noticed the menu listed a Big Green Salad (just like on Seinfeld!), maybe I’ll consider this healthier alternative next time.

I alternate between the Barbecued Half Chicken Platter and the Pulled Chicken. This year, the Pulled Chicken. Though the chicken was dry and hard to swallow in spots, these tough spots were clearly the white-meat pieces; darker-meat pieces were melt-in-your-mouth tender. With a condiment-container-full of their sweet barbecue sauce mixed into half the heap, it’s quite the satisfying half-heap. The coleslaw was clean-tasting with a hint of celery seed (real or imagined), and wasn’t dripping with mayo because I transferred the slaw to a plate with a fork. As nice as the coleslaw tasted, I found it much more exciting when I combined each forkful with a bit of the saucy chicken. The baked beans were smooth with a nice molasses finish — a novelty to me since I’m used to my baked beans in a spicy or tomato-based sauce. The cornbread was dry but sweet, a great barbecue-sauce sopper-upper.

Gary got the Trio Platter, for which he chose North Carolina Pulled Pork, Kansas City Burnt Ends, and Memphis Ribs. The pulled pork had a nice smoky flavor and was not too tough. The ends were very moist, though the flavor from the sauce came through before the flavor of the meat. He liked that the ribs were not too saucy, had nice smoke rings, and their meat fell off the bone easily, but at least one of them was fattier than he would have liked. The greens had a “definite collard greeniness,” though he “didn’t get a whole lot of flavor” from the dirty rice. His take on the cornbread was the opposite of mine: “moist but not very tasty.” Go figure.

The platters from Blue Ribbon are so generous that both of us could eat just a little more than half and still have complete meals leftover (see the plated half-platters, below). These half-platters can be filling or downright gut-busting, but remain our Independence Day fare of choice.

Blue Ribbon BBQ platters and plated half-platters: Top Left: Trio Combo (with North Carolina Pulled Pork, Kansas City Burnt Ends, and Memphis Ribs), with sides of Collard Greens and Dirty Rice. Top Right: Pulled Chicken with sides of Baked Beans and Cole Slaw

Two simple criteria make a recipe splurgeworthy. First, the taste, texture, and overall delight must be worth the time and trouble to make it. Second, the experience has to be enjoyable enough to justify the overabundance of fat, sugar, and calories I will end up consuming. Of course, finding splurgeworthy recipes takes considerable trial and error.

→ Click here to go directly to the discussion of the Cook’s Illustrated recipe.

Banana breads I’ve known and sometimes loved

From As You Like It

The shortest and easiest recipe for banana bread I’ve used boasts preparation instructions of no more than thirty-eight words, several of which are superfluous. Here it is, actress Linda Purl’s submission to a fundraising cookbook from the Williamstown Theatre Festival Guild:

BANANA BREAD
(from As You Like It, Williamstown Theatre Festival Guild, 1993. Reprinted with permission.)

3 ripe or as-close-to-rotten bananas as you dare
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup raisins or dried currants
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
4 tablespoons melted butter

Mash the peeled bananas by hand, and then mix in all the remaining ingredients, in the order listed above. Pour the batter into a buttered loaf pan, and bake in a 325 degree F. oven for one hour. Serves 6 (one loaf)

As easy as one-bowl brownies! I did make this bread recently, but I don’t remember what I thought of it. But I do remember when I tried it years ago and it was indeed my first loaf for which I “dared” wait until my bananas got really dark. But I already had a go-to banana-bread recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, The Book of Bread.

From The Book of Bread by Judith and Evan Jones

Though the Book of Bread recipe also made just one loaf, if offered more to love that the Purl bread: more sugar, more egg, more flour, more leavening, more stir-ins, and more moisture (here, in the form of yogurt). It was the first of many “yogurt-enriched” banana breads I would try. I assume the recipe requests plain yogurt of some kind, but according to my in-cookbook notation of December 13, 1992, I payed that detail no mind. I noted, “Very Good (baked with extra banana, low-fat vanilla yogurt, and hazelnuts instead of pecans).”

For at least 18 years I’ve sought a banana bread with more banana flavor than the average recipe offered.

From Eating Well

Despite the success of the Book of Bread recipe, in recent years I’ve embraced lower-fat, lower-calorie, or just healthier banana breads. In retrospect, the two recipes I’ve already mentioned don’t have all that much fat to begin with; their main evils are the sugars and white flour. Bread is bread, after all, and any serving of any bread that’s greater than a modest slice can really ratchet up the calorie count, with our without added sugar. But it doesn’t hurt to add some fiber, in theory, so I’ve most recently relied on a great banana-muffin recipe from the Winter 2004 Eating Well; I’ve made them at least three times just in the past year.

The Eating Well Banana-Bran Muffins recipe calls for more sugar and less banana than the others, but adds buttermilk, wheat bran, canola oil, and optional chocolate chips and walnuts. I always add the chips and walnuts, so we go from low-fat to not-so-low-fat in no time. Still, it’s an easy and healthy recipe (remember, boys and girls, walnuts in moderation are a good thing!), and nicely portion-controlled because they’re muffins. Anyway, the preparation is just as easy as the others (and unprocessed wheat bran can be had super-cheap from the Whole Foods bulk bins). If you add the optional chocolate chips and walnuts, a delicious muffin results, but I cannot pass fair judgment on the banana flavor because the chocolate and walnut might be upstaging it and I haven’t yet tried this recipe without the optional accessories.

From Bon Appétit

Photo: Editor At Large at wikicommons.org

My “healthy” banana-bread choices may reek of hypocrisy — but sometimes I throw the “healthy” criterion out the window altogether. Just last month I was seeking an ultra-yummy banana bread, healthfulness be damned. I took to Epicurious.com, relying on reader comments to find a popular and well-recommended bread. The winner: Banana Bread With Chocolate Chips and Walnuts from Bon Appétit.

Now we’re in really high-fat territory, with a whole stick of butter — twice as much pure fat as the other recipes in this collection — before you add larger amounts of chocolate chips and toasted walnuts than the Eating Well recipe required. Nevertheless, I wanted a treat. And this recipe had easy preparation instructions, as do the others, except that the chips and nuts aren’t folded in as a final step as in other quick-bread recipes. Instead, you initially “combine chocolate chips and walnuts in a small bowl; add 1 tablespoon flour mixture and toss to coat.” Then, when the batter is ready:

Spoon 1/3 of batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of nut mixture. Spoon 1/3 of batter over. [sic!] Sprinkle with remaining nut mixture. Cover with remaining batter. Run knife through batter in zigzag pattern.

So, the chocolate chips and walnuts form a streusel. Cool. I couldn’t wait to see that zigzag pattern in action.

But, alas, with added complexity comes added opportunity for mishaps, even if you’ve read the recipe ahead of time. I had waited until I started assembling ingredients to toast the walnuts in a small skillet. As soon as the nuts started toasting, they quickly browned and continued to darken even after I took the pan off the heat. To prevent them from burning, I dumped them into the bowl of chocolate chips and started to stir — melting the chocolate chips! Panicked, I threw the bowl into the fridge — what would you do? Ten minutes later, I retrieved what was now a giant chocolate-nut cluster. Was it a huge, tasty chunk of candy? Yes. Was it streusel? No. I let it rest on the counter a bit before trying to break it into as many little pieces as possible with a knife, then proceeded with the recipe. My little chocolate pieces were too big to distribute as a streusel—no way could I cover two layers of batter with these chunks—so one-third of the way up, I got a thick chocolate-nut layer.

The resultant loaf was satisfyingly moist and sweet—but the chocolate layer, though isolated, carried most of the flavor. Not necessarily a bad thing, but banana breads should taste like banana.

The Cook’s Illustrated recipe

Since my latest banana-bread event was so devilish, I had given myself an edict of no more baking for the rest of the summer. Pumpkin breads and apple muffins can wait until fall!

That edict stood until the Friday I spotted the cover line “Extreme Banana Bread: SIx Bananas in One Loaf” on the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated (August 2010). Whoa! Six bananas!!!!!! I bought the issue without even looking inside, except to quickly check the ingredient list. Indeed — six bananas!!!!!! I hightailed it to Whole Foods and bought a bunch of seven large bananas, figuring the bananas should be bread-ready by the following weekend.

Only after committing some precious weekend time and a large bunch of bananas did I read the accompanying article, by Andrea Geary. In sum:

The goal: “Figure out how to cram as many bananas as possible into the loaf without sinking its cake-like texture” or “turning the loaf into pudding.”

The challenge: Adding extra banana oomph without weighing the bread down or jeopardizing the texture with extra moisture

The alleged solution: Banana juice, extracted from the bananas then reduced to about half

Full disclosure: I started preparations (that is, began assembling the mise en place) Saturday night at 9:00, though recent experience had prompted me to toast the walnuts ahead of time. Another disclosure: I find nothing wrong with banana bread with a pudding-like texture, especially when the bread is frozen.)

Step 1. Standard: prepare loaf pan, whisk together dry ingredients.

Step 2. Here’s where complexity starts to breed mishaps. To prepare the bananas for the extraction of their juices via the microwave, I placed the bananas in large bowl, sealed the bowl with plastic wrap, and vented the plastic with paring knife — all as instructed. Then I was to microwave the bananas for five minutes “until bananas are soft and have released liquid.” After three minutes I had detected very little liquid, so I set the oven for two minutes more and walked away. Back at 1:45 into this round, I noticed ballooning plastic wrap that might soon pop, despite the paring-knife vents. “This can’t be good,” I thought. Sure enough, puddles of banana juice had formed on the plate and floor of the oven.

Banana-juice puddles

The bananas gave off a nice aroma with their juice, but what a mess! I quickly removed the sticky bowl, peeled off the plastic, and dumped its contents into a strainer already waiting over another bowl.

There was no easy way to determine how much juice was lost, so I nuked the sixth of my seven bananas. More concerned about the potential loss of banana flavor than the possibility of adding too much moisture, I threw the entire replacement banana, guts and juice, into the strainer with the other five.

The bananas should drain for fifteen minutes; I hadn’t accounted for that much extra time (I’m often guilty of not reading recipes closely ahead of time). Well, at least I can clean out the microwave while the bananas drain. The result: just under a cup of juice.

Juice from five to six bananas.

According to step 3, reducing the juice to one-quarter cup should take about five minutes if cooked over medium-high heat. Impatience set in after ten minutes of pot watching with no noticeable reduction. I shut off the heat and decided to use whatever was in the pan after the bubbling died down. Instead of the prescribed quarter-cup of reduction, I had—and used—a scant half-cup of who-knows-how-reduced-it-really-is juice. This step also required that I “stir liquid into bananas, and mash with potato masher until fairly smooth.” This baffled me for two reasons: I thought it would make more sense to do any banana mashing before the addition of liquid, and the occasional stirring of the bananas and pressing them against the strainer while they were draining (as instructed in step 2) gave me a smooth enough mash that the use of my Oxo Good Grips Smooth Potato Masher had no effect.

Step 4 instructs to slice the sixth (now my seventh) banana and shingle the slices on both long sides of the loaf before baking. I was concerned I would run out of slices halfway down the second side, so I alternated sides while applying slices. That worked well; there were enough banana slices as long as there was not too much overlap. After successfully shingling the slices, I was so excited to be finally putting the batter in the oven (as it was, the bread would not be out of the oven until after midnight), I forgot to sprinkle some sugar on top, which Geary says would have helped “the buttery slices caramelize” and given the loaf “an enticingly crisp, crunchy top.”  How disappointing. I do love enticingly crisp, crunchy tops.

After 65 minutes, a toothpick came out clean and the top was quite brown, so I removed the loaf and let it rest. After the 15-minute in-pan cooling, I was ready to flip it onto a wire rack to cool further. I’ve done this with breads a gazillion times, but this evening (or was it morning already?) I was stymied. Normally I’d put my hand or a dishcloth over the top of the bread to catch the loaf in my palm before inverting the loaf onto the rack. But this bread, though gorgeous, was moist and a little sticky on top, with two fragile rows of banana shingles down each side.

Lookin' good, but how shall I invert this moist, fragile loaf onto the rack?

Without further thought, I quickly but gently released the loaf upside-down onto the rack then coaxed it onto its bottom before the top had time to settle on the rack. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until it was too late that one of the rungs had snagged the edges of one row of banana shingles, dislodging most of them as I turned the bread. Bleary-eyed, I slapped the shingles back onto their side of the loaf without rotating the loaf to see what I was doing. The result was not pretty, but there wasn’t much else I thought I could do. Oddly enough, the edges of all the shingles had turned purple.

Overall, though, a good-looking loaf with a beautiful crust, though the top and especially the sides might have been wetter than Geary would have desired. The bread didn’t look wet, but you could tell just by skimming a fingertip along the sides that the cake was very moist.

Gary’s verdict of the freshly baked loaf: “Light and fluffy texture, not dense and heavy. Tender. Very strong banana flavor. Bready-to-cakey fluffiness.” He said that he was perfectly happy with other banana breads, but that this was a nice change. But did he tag on that last bit because I was the creator of those “other” breads? Hmm.

I thought the bread had a nice banana flavor, but I couldn’t help wanting even more. The texture was nice and moist. Not dry. Not wet. Nice and moist. After sitting overnight, the texture seemed creamier yet firmer. The walnuts were a nice touch, as they usually are, and I did not miss the chocolate chips of my other recipes.

Though the bananas along the sides did add extra bursts of banana flavor, that advantage was short-lived: As I sliced the loaf further, the shingles slipped off both sides. Instead of trying to reattach them, some for a second time, I… er… took care of them.

The bread toasted well. In a few days, I will determine how well it freezes as individually wrapped slices.

General comments and afterthoughts

♦ I was disappointed that the sixth banana called for didn’t actually make it into the loaf.

♦ Extra flour might have compensated for the extra banana liquid, but texture wasn’t an issue for me — it was all about flavor, flavor, flavor. Though I do wish I had remembered to sprinkle that sugar on top.

♦ Parchment paper might have helped with the loaf inversion, either as a sling added before the batter, or as the barrier between palm and bread during inversion.

♦ There was a slight color variation in the loaf: darker on top, lighter on the bottom (see photo, right). I wonder if this means I should have baked it longer to get more color, or just the opposite.

♦ Would dipping the banana shingles in lemon juice have prevented the baked banana edges from turning purple?

♦ Were my bananas dark enough to begin with (see lead photo)?

Recipe ratings

Source: Cook’s Illustrated, August 2010
Ingredients: A-. All ingredients are easy to find and store, but bananas have to be purchased at least a week ahead. And buy an extra banana, just in case.
Overall time estimate (with all ingredients at the ready): 2½ hours
Taste: A-. There is always room for more banana flavor.
Presentation: A-. Be aware of those fragile, colorful shingles.
Healthfulness: C. (Per 1/12 loaf: 284 calories, 11g fat, 163mg sodium, 44g total carbs, 3g dietary fiber, 4g protein. Percent daily values: 6% vitamin A, 10% vitamin C, 3% calcium, 7% iron. Nutritional data via nutritiondata.com.)
Practicality (via No-whining Dining’s current food and cooking philosophies): B
Splurgeworthy? Hm. Not sure. I’ll give it another try before deciding.
Overall grade: B+

West End Deli

The West End Deli, 133 Spring Street, Portland, Maine

West End Deli, Spring Street, Portland. This photo is from Google maps; when we visited the deli, there were tables and chairs, not benches, on the sidewalk.

On Memorial Day we arrived at the Portland train station on the Amtrak Downeaster at about 2:35 and were quite ready for a long-awaited lunch. On the cab ride to the hotel, we kept our eyes pealed for potential luncheon sources. Just seconds from the hotel, we both espied a small storefront with tables, chairs, and a few patrons munching away. As we approached on foot, the sidewalk chalkboard sign boasted what would prove to be a most delightful lunch choice—the special of the day, the Roslin. This sandwich wrap contained, if I remember correctly, turkey, avocado, black beans, and apple salsa. I usually eschew the wrap part of wraps, opting instead for the “in-a-bowl” versions. But today, I wanted, and ordered, a wrap. I’m on vacation, dammit! A spinach wrap to be precise. It was the spunky tartness of the green-apple salsa that made this wrap memorable in a very good way. Gary ordered a quesadilla wrap and liked it.  We ate at the outdoor tables, as the seating inside was cramped. West End is a deli-grocery store; we walked to the back to the deli to order our sandwiches and whatnot, took the slips of paper that detailed our orders, grabbed our bottled drinks from the refrigerated foods section, and paid the kind lady at the front register.

Enzo Pizzeria

Enzo Pizzeria, 576A Congress Street, Portland, Maine, with pizza from Otto Pizza, 576 Congress Street, Portland, Maine

Pizza wasn’t our first choice for dinner — or our second — or third — but all those choices were closed today — not because it was Memorial Day, but simply because it was Monday — the day most of Portland is apparently fasting or dining in. We finally peeked into a tiny but trendy-looking restaurant/bar serving pizza from it’s next door neighbor. They were clearing off one of the few tables (for us, I had hoped), so we wandered on in.

Trying to be prudent on our first night away (and having had a relatively late lunch), we decided to split a small Sweet Italian Sausage & Vidalia Onion pizza — with added mushrooms, and have small side garden salads. The pizza was good. The salad was okay — I found it hard to get past the fake-looking wood bowls the salad was served in. They reminded me of the salad bowls from my first visit to Hilltop Steakhouse back in the 80s. Nothing about these bowls says “garden fresh.” A superficial judgment, yes, but as Ellie Krieger and others keep reminding us, “we eat with our eyes.”

Mornings In Paris

Mornings In Paris, 13 Exchange Street, Portland, Maine

A good breakfast joint is hard to find almost anywhere I go. When traveling with other people, for me such a place would have something for everyone — omelets, sausages, and other savories; sweet things such as pancakes and pastries; and kinder, gentler fare such as fruit and cereal. If you’re lucky, you’ll stumble upon a place serving good eats from at least two of these categories. Fresh fruit offerings seem to be a rarity. This was the reality we faced as we wandered Arts District and Old Port street, with tummies rumbling and rain threatening. Our initial destination was O’Naturals, which, according to the 2009-2010 Portland travel guide, served breakfast — and, we had hoped, a fresh, healthy one at that (we were familiar with their luncheon fare). We finally figured out that O’Naturals changed their name and packed up and left for Falmouth, so we decided, defeated, to venture into what temptingly looked like a French patisserie.

Mornings In Paris, Exchange Street, Portland, Maine

Sidewalk leading to Mornings In Paris, Exchange Street, Portland, Maine

Alas, trying not to start eating badly so early in the trip, I scanned the pastry case of croissants, sweet rolls, biscuits, and scones. “Toasted blueberry bagel with cream cheese,” I blurted out, seemingly against my own will. Alas, the bagel itself was fine, except for the garlic taste it obviously absorbed from its former neighbor in the case. And the cream cheese was actually “cream cheese spread” in one of those little sealed plastic containers that imply “eat me now or eat me a year from now, it doesn’t matter.” Oh, goody. I had the flavored coffee (Coffee by Design’s Hazelnut, I think), which I thought was horrid, but Gary thought his coffee was good. And though the music in the place was unbelievably loud — I mean rock-concert loud — fortunately the counter gal was able (and willing) to turn it down for me straight away. Overall, the atmosphere was much better than the food.

Standard Bakery

The Standard Bakery Company, 75 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine

I’d been dreaming about The Standard Bakery Company since I first skimmed the rave reviews on TripAdvisor. After our “french” pastries, we strolled towards the bakery, “just to see where it is,” of course, since we just had breakfast. If only they had tables to sit down and eat that, we would have gone straight there for breakfast (lack of healthy offerings notwithstanding). Once we found the bakery, I coyly asked Gary, So, shall we take a peek inside? But how can you go walk in, look at the luscious-looking wares, and not order anything? So I got an apricot galette; Gary, an asiago-semolina ladder-shaped pastry. He thought his pastry was okay. I thought the galette too rich and buttery in texture but not taste – more a bland puck of tart crust with too little apricot filling to cut through the crusty monotony. So, even a week later now, I wish I’d chosen something else, like a morning bun or brioche, or had visited again later in the week (just to peek inside, of course).

Public Market House

Pie in the Sky Pizza and Kamasouptra at the Public Market House, 28 Monument Square, Portland, Maine

After escaping a rainy morning by meandering around the Portland Museum of Art, we were seeking something close by and light because it was still rainy and we had a very nice dinner at Five fifty-five to look forward to. We had different ideas on what we wanted for lunch, so we headed to the Public Market House, which had several food purveyors on two floors, with a general seating area on the second floor. Gary liked the veggie chili he got from Kamasouptra; I wanted something that at least remotely resembled fresh vegetables, so I ordered a large farmers market salad from a pizza vendor, of all places. In the salad was cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms and greens. All was fresh and good for the most part, except that the only salad dressings available were non-light offerings in foil packets. It came with a breadstick made from the pizza dough, which was good but even when dipped in honey-mustard dressing.

Five fifty-five

Five fifty-five, 555 Congress Street, Portland, Maine

This was our big splurge for the week. We’d already visited Fore Street a few years ago, so we decided to try another one of Portland’s finest. Five fifty-five had a cool vibe: funky sophistication without pretentiousness. I loved how they integrated popular office supplies into their overall look. You had me at gilded binder clips . . .

Me: I started with a sidecar cocktail variation, which was intriguing but I cannot comment more because I know little about cocktails. I had the warm goat cheese salad (with arugula!) or simple farmer salad. I honestly can’t remember which salad I ordered, but it was probably the goat cheese salad, since I adore arugula and I already had a “farmer’s” salad for lunch. Either way, it was a flavorful and fresh salad and I gobbled up every last leaf.  The Three Little Pigs entrée featured pork done three ways: chop, crackling, and somehow influencing the flavor of a side of baked beans. The chop had nice texture, but was almost flavorless–like weak, oversalted ham. But the “would you like s’more” dessert was exquisite: the chocolate panna cotta was richly chocolate without being too sweet; it had a wonderful consistency, creamy but resilient. It was paired with a heavenly toasted handmade marshmallow and a so-so handmade graham cracker, which I didn’t like for the same reason I didn’t like the apricot galette from this morning–more butter and flour than flavor.

Gary: Pinot Gris to drink. The Bang’s Island mussels were fabulous — abundant and in a creamy wine sauce. The dish could have used another slab of the grilled bread, though, since there was so much fine sauce to sop up. (A fun spectacle and an example of the attentive, friendly service: the server would watch and wait until the first shell bowl was filled with empty shells, then would hurry over to the table to replace it with a clean bowl). Gary could not sense any truffle in the truffled lobster “mac ‘n cheese,” and though the lobster chunks in the dish were large, there were only two of them, so the entire dish was not infused with the taste of lobster either. The cheese sauce left him flat — not a smooth finish, not creamy enough. His confection plate dessert (warm chocolate chip cookies, salted caramels, and hand-rolled truffles) was fine. The salted caramels were nice, but they had to be scraped by fork or by front teeth off the waxed paper wrapper. The cookies were warm and full of chocolate chips, but did not have the impact of a good home-baked cookie. In retrospect, Gary suspects the truffles might have been from Dean’s Sweets (see below).

Bintliff’s American Café

Bintliff’s American Café, 98 Portland Street, Portland, Maine

Bintliff’s was another place I wanted to visit, based on a number of positive reviews. After reading the menu posted on their Web site, it was a no-brainer — Gary was impressed by their myriad benedict options; my eyes had gone straight to “banana-pecan pancakes.” I couldn’t wait. When we got there, we were greeted immediately by a friendly, outgoing young man who took us straight upstairs to a nice, quiet booth. We placed our orders and I sat in eager anticipation of my banana pancakes. Minutes later, the server came up to us, grabbed an adjacent chair, spun it around, sat down, looked me straight in the eye and said, “I hate to have to tell you this, but we don’t have any bananas today.” I gasped. “They just didn’t arrive in the order. We get bananas every morning, except today for some reason. I am so sorry. Can I get you something else instead?”  Grrrrr. Forgetting that I had also eyed the gingerbread pancakes with interest just minutes earlier, I blurted out “blueberry would be fine instead. Thanks.”  Ah, well. The blueberry pancakes were very good, except for the fact that they were not banana.

Gary had ended up ordering the homemade corned-beef hash with three-potato home fries. The hash, Gary said, “must have had an entire cow’s worth of corned beef in it. I have never seen such a large meat-to-potato ratio in a corned-beef hash.” To clarify: this was a good thing. One criticism: he prefers his hash a little more crispy.

The Farmers Table

The Farmers Table, 205 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine

The Farmer's Table, Commercial Street, Portland, Maine

We stopped at The Farmers Table for something light and simple and to cool our heels after walking around Old Port all morning. Me: salad with chicken and avocado, and iced tea; I liked both very much. Gary: veggie burger and fries and a pickle. He thought the burger tasted like turkey stuffing, rather sage-y — not bad in and of itself, but definitely a distraction.

Dean’s Sweets

Dean’s Sweets, 82 Middle Street, Portland, Maine

After a satisfying visit to the fabulous food-oriented Rabelais bookstore, I couldn’t help noticing the sweets shop next door. Shall we take a peek inside? It’s a small place with one gal manning it, so I felt obliged, of course, to sample some of the truffle bits on the counter, since our arrival caused her to drop what she was doing in the back to come out to greet us. I’m not a huge fan of dark chocolate, which was what most of these were, inside and out, but after sampling all these truffle bits I felt like I should at least buy one or two truffles for the road.

After learning that all the truffle varieties except two or three had dark chocolate outsides AND insides, I chose the only two with white-chocolate-base centers—champagne and maple—plus “hot” coffee (apparently, with a kick of spice), and orange. The champagne filling tasted like regular dark chocolate filling. The orange filling was good, nothing special. The “hot coffee” filling had no spice or kick to it at all. The maple truffle, however, was delicious, but it could have been creamier (it was one of the samples, so I made sure I got one to go!). Gary’s main issue with the truffles is that they really lacked that melt-in-your mouth quality. And they were also rather brittle, so as you bit into them, you generally got half the shell and all the solid interior in one mouthful, and were left holding half a chocolate shell. I’m no truffle connoisseur — preferring the less traditional kind with creamy, often non-chocolate flavorful fillings — but Dean’s truffles reminded me of Russell Stover fare. I take that back — Russell Stover’s chocolates have creamier fillings.

Starbucks

Starbucks Coffee (links to big photo), Hay Building, 594 Congress Street, Portland, Maine

I thought this Starbucks was SOO luxurious in that there are so many EMPTY tables and chairs to sit at, if you can find one not directly in the path of loudspeaker or air-vent output (I swear all Starbucks managers are trained to “keep customers refrigerated after opening”). One good spot, clear of loud music and cold bursts of air was unfortunately right on top of the frappuccino machine, but there were a few other choice spots as well. We came just to sit and read or surf the Web for a bit. By this time today (late afternoon), I had a migraine, so, compelled by throbbing pain and self-pity, I ordered a slice of raspberry swirl pound cake to go with my coffee. I’d been eyeing this cake since Starbucks stared offering it weeks or months ago. Today was the day. The cake was lovely.

Portland Pies

Portland Pie Company, 51 York Street, Portland, Maine

My migraine ruled the dinner choices for the evening — easy and salty were key (for some reason I crave salty food when I have a migraine). We ordered in from Portland Pie Company in part because we knew they were close by, and in other part because they had a complete online menu and delivered two-liter diet Pepsi as well (our floor’s vending machine had run out of diet Pepsi and bottled water, but you don’t learn this until you put your money in, and after learning they are out, you learn that the coin return doesn’t work). ANYWAY, I ordered the Old Orchard (“red sauce, green peppers, fire roasted red peppers, mushrooms, artichoke hearts and fresh garlic woven in our melted 3 cheese blend with a hint of crushed red pepper”), Gary made his own pizza. Both pizzas were good, and we liked that we could choose a whole-wheat crust (or, I shall cynically note, a crust with just enough whole-wheat flour to make it a wholesome-looking light brown). My pizza was mighty tasty straight from the restaurant, but not great as cold pizza the next day (there was a fridge in our hotel room).

Coffee By Design

Coffee By Design, 260 Congress Street, Portland, Maine

Again, easy and nearby was key. And since both of us were up for more sitting and reading (favorite leisure activities of ours no matter where we’re vacationing), a coffee shop would be an ideal spot. So, off to Coffee By Design, knowing full well we’d find nothing healthy to eat there. For me, that meant a cranberry scone–yummy, but I’d rather have had a real breakfast. In that vein, got an Odwalla Banana Strawberry smoothie, just to give myself the impression I was having something fruity and fresh for breakfast. I love these kinds of smoothies in a glass filled with ice. And their “streusel cake” coffee was very good, and comforting in a cinnamon-y kind of way. Gary got a sticky bun and helped me drink my smoothie.

Artemesia Cafe

Artemesia Cafe, 61 Pleasant Street, Portland, Maine

In short: Adorable and funky and we loved it. I had turkey and avocado and hummus and lettuce and tomato on a squishy but thickly sliced pumpernickel or dark rye (I think the menu promised a whole-grain bread, though.). Gary got turkey, green apple, cheddar, and honey mustard on a wheat bread, he thinks. Overall he liked it, the turkey was nice and smoky, but the honey mustard and the sweetness of the apples were at war with each other.

Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde, 618 Congress Street, Portland, Maine (no Web site that I could find)

Mesa Verde seemed more bar than restaurant, so there were people constantly milling about and pausing right by our table, which was unnerving. And, what, no free chips and salsa??? Anyway, I got fajitas. They tasted OK; what was weird was that they served me two large flour tortillas instead of 3-4 smaller tortillas, which I thought was the universal way to serve fajitas in tex-mex restaurants. And the fixings came with only about a tablespoon of salsa; I had to ask for more. The guacamole was good; guacamole is very important! Gary got a chicken chimichanga. “Competent” was all he could say.

Becky’s Diner

Becky’s Diner, 390 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine

Becky's Diner, Commercial Street, Portland, Maine

This was a repeat visit to Becky’s for us, so a relatively safe bet for a non-pastry breakfast. I ordered a large fruit bowl with yogurt and granola. It was indeed large; easily three cups of fruit was in that bowl. Fruit was fresh, mostly grapes, though, with watermelon, honeydew, banana, and strawberries. The granola wasn’t full of chunks and clusters, so it lacked texture. Gary got breakfast sausage, eggs, and toast. “Competent diner food,” said he, “sausages looked like they were from an Egyptian mummy exhibit — all gnarly and withered.” Fine overall, and a fun place to visit.

Port of Call

Port of Call, at Holiday Inn By the Bay, 88 Spring Street, Portland, Maine

We had already decided what to order when our server announced that the soup of the day was sausage-kale. Suddenly both of us were ordering soup and half-sandwich combos. Me, turkey on wheat; he, chicken salad on wheat. The combos came with potato chips (soggy potato chips if the server spills soup onto your plate, as he did with mine. But no hard feelings). We were both surprised the soup was palatable– we both finished our bowls. Sandwiches were forgettable, but that was fine because all we wanted was a light, forgettable lunch anyway.

Port of Call restaurant, at Holiday Inn By the Bay, Portland, Maine

The most noteworthy omissions from my daily diet are far from the most beloved. Through January and February, I had no SlimFast bars, frozen dinners, canned soups, store-bought bread, diet soda (except for one instance where no other low-cal beverage was available), 100-cal packs of anything, reconstituted hot chocolate, or fat-free half-and-half.

With these and other omissions came substitutions, trade-offs, and new habits. For example:

• Breakfast. With SlimFast and Kashi Crunch out of the picture, weekday breakfasts, which I eat at work, have been challenging. Mostly, I’ve been eating steel-cut oatmeal or 10-grain hot cereal prepared at home, scooped by the cupful into Rubbermaid containers, and nuked for about 2 minutes in the work microwave. Sugar, fresh or dried fruit, and maybe some chopped nuts are added at various points in this operation. Outside of hot oatmeal, there’s homemade muffins and breads, and the occasional bakery scone. If I were able to prepare and eat breakfasts at home, smoothies and omelets would rule the morning.
• Bread. Oh, how I miss the convenience of commercially manufactured bread and breadstuffs. My Pepperidge Farm Whole Wheat Swirl Bread! Kasanoff’s Marble Rye! Sahara Whole Wheat Pitas! Actually, I only miss the prepared pita, since a hummus lunch (yes, comercially processed hummus — more on that later) isn’t the same without it. This weekend will be my first try at making my own pita, but I’ve already had success with baking my own breads, muffins, and rolls.
• Beverages. Fat-free half-and-half out of my coffee; whole milk or low-fat milk in. Diet soda has been replaced with either water—tap where available and potable, else bottled—or hot or iced tea.

Anyway, throughout my two-month acclimation towards a non-crap diet, I found myself grouping potential edibles into five categories—five new food groups, if you will:

The five new food groups (according to No-Whining Dining)

Let me say from the get-go that many of these categories will overlap, as you will soon see . . .

• 1. Fresh or minimally processed. These foods may have seen the inside of a fridge, freezer, or oven, or the top of a counter or stove. They might have been whirred in a blender or rolled by a sushi chef. But they’ve never seen the inside of a food factory or industrialized kitchen. Most of what I eat these days is from this category. Examples of fresh or minimally processed foods: fresh fruit, roasted chicken, homebaked goodies, oatmeal, fish chowder.
• 2. Processed. Processed generally means manufactured by unknown people in unknown places by unknown means with unknown or suspect ingredients. But there are those foods that are prepared commercially but are still relatively wholesome or don’t contain strange ingredients or chemicals. Hummus is one of those foods. If I can get straightforward hummus (Cedar’s, Joseph’s, etc.) at the supermarket, why bother making my own, especially if I’ve already revved up my in-kitchen food-prep time? Other examples of processed foods that I will eat: dried fruit, certain yogurts, certain cheeses, some shredded wheat cereals.
• 3. Packaged. Just because it’s in a package doesn’t mean it’s totally evil. Sometimes you’ve just gotta meander into the center of that super. Examples of packaged foods that I will buy: canned tuna or salmon, canned tomatoes, rice, frozen vegetables, some ice creams.
• 4. Total crap. Self-explanatory, but I’ll list some examples anyway: most breakfast cereals, junk food, frozen dinners, Cool Whip, diet soda, snack bars.
• 5. I don’t care, I’m eating it anyway. I am not giving up frosted cake or chocolate truffles, be they from the supermarket, bakery, candy shop, or home kitchen. Just ain’t happenin’.

There are many qualities and characteristics to consider in a recipe, such as ease of preparation, length of ingredient list, healthfulness, availability of ingredients, taste, texture, expense (in money, time, and energy), and plated appearance. I don’t have an official list of grading criteria yet, but I will use a rough preliminary grading technique on the recipe for Sautéed Grated Zucchini with Marjoram from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.

The ingredients and technique are straightforward and simple: Coarsely grate a pound of zucchini, draw out excess water by way of salting and squeezing in a sieve, then sauté the drained zucchini in two tablespoons of olive oil or butter until lightly browned. Remove from heat, add chopped marjoram and pulverized garlic.

And now . . . the impromptu rating system makes its debut:

Sautéed Grated Zucchini with Marjoram

Source: The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
Ingredients: Easy
Overall time estimate (with all ingredients at the ready): 35 minutes
Taste: Good. Well-seasoned with a mellow butter flavor
Presentation: Good. Pretty green vegetables and herbs with a nice golden overtone (I used herb butter in this trial.)
Healthfulness:Jury’s still out. If made with butter, not sure how this will fare. I will run this through NutritionData.com’s analysis tool later this week. In the meantime, see “practicality.”
Practicality (via No-whining Dining’s current food and cooking philosophies): Poor. One and a half pounds of zucchini were used for this trial, yielding maybe a cup or a cup and a half of shredded zucchini sauté. To accommodate the published serving yield (4 servings per pound of zucchini), each serving would get only about one-fourth of a cup. So much for filling half your plate up with veggies. Also, in a world where high-calorie, high-fat, low-nutrition foods are abundant and available around every corner, vegetables such as beautiful, sweet, fresh zucchinis are a welcome, safe, go-to tasty, healthful, low-cal oasis. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO SPOIL THAT WITH TWO FREAKIN’ TABLESPOONS OF FAT?????? But that’s another blog entry.
Overall grade: C-

I’m not sure if the permanent rating system will have grades or scores. Since this system will be largely subjective, I might as well go with grades, or even just key words. Or something. I’ll figure something out. I’m open to suggestions.

Spicy Crispy Kale Chips from nutritiontokitchen.com

I ate a lot of kale this week, having purchased one bunch too many of the vivacious veggie at Whole Foods. What a spunky, curly green leaf bursting with personality! The leaves come across as bitter at first, but they can mellow with cooking, and shrink when prepared in liquid, without losing their characteristic curliness in the process.

Curly kale is just one variety of kale, of course. And kale is just one of many winter greens I desire to explore, in part inspired by the Eating Well article that included the recipe for Monday night’s meal of Kale, Sausage, & Lentil Skillet Supper. The Supper was wholesome, earthy, and satisfying, though I think a wee more spice or spark would have made it more interesting. And I added all the French lentils I had — about one and a quarter cup — which yielded an overwhelming amount of lentils. The recipe made more than four servings for sure.

OK, back to that leftover bale of kale (a baby bale?). A google search led me to Nutrition to Kitchen’s intriguing Spicy Crispy Kale recipe. Though I had decided to make this irresistible recipe on Superbowl Sunday so I can munch on something healthy while watching the Colts trample the Saints, I had nothing on tonight’s agenda so I figured I’d give it a go along with another skillet supper — this time with chicken sausage, Yukon gold potatoes, and frozen mixed vegetables.

The chips were fabulous. It’s amazing how they can enter the oven confident, firm, and flexible but emerge vulnerable, brittle, and crispy. Great crunch, great taste. Gary thought it would make a great garnish for a soup or casserole. I agreed. I will definitely be making these again.

My minestrone soup of yore

Several weeks ago my cabbagephobic husband broke his cabbage taboo and fixed a vegetable and sausage soup. The deliciousness of the sausage would outweigh any ick or stink of the cabbage, so his reasoning went. Another unusual (for us) addition to this concoction: tomato juice. The combination of tomato-based broth and mildly crunchy cabbage reminded me of a minestrone soup I used to enjoy many years ago.

This minestrone, as I remember it, had tender red kidney beans and soft but assertive elbow macaronis. The recipe, which I just dug up, called for frozen mixed vegetables, beef bouillon cubes, and a lot of celery as well; but the memorable aspects were the cabbage, tomato, and macaroni. I had made a mental note to fix this memorable minestrone sometime soon. Then I forgot about it again . . .

. . . until I started looking for a suitable use for a large amount of curly endive leftover from an overzealous greens purchase I made in pursuit of my first salad ala Alice Waters. The salad consisted only of red leaf lettuce and curly endive, the endive being totally edible and nicely bitter, but a little tough. “I feel like a ruminant,” declared my husband between chews. I conceded that this hearty green might be more easily eaten cooked, so I searched the Web for ideas and found a minestrone soup recipe on the Eating Well site. Aha! I can dig up my old minestrone soup recipe and add the endive to that!

But wait! There’s more! Let me see if The Art of Simple Food has a minestrone recipe. If it does, I’ll make that instead!

Alice Waters describes minestrone as “a big soup of many vegetables” that is “a deeply satisfying meal in itself.” I was a little concerned that her base recipe included no liquid other than olive oil or water or bean-cooking water (no tomato sauce? no chicken broth? no other canned offering?). Would the vegetables and a sane amount of salt be enough to create a satisfying supper? I set out to find out.

Waters’s base recipe calls for dried cannellini or borlotti beans to be cooked separately, then chopped onion and carrots to be cooked in hot olive oil. After these base vegetables are cooked, chopped garlic cloves, sprigs of thyme, bay leaf, and salt are added. After that cooks for five minutes, add water to boiling, then add diced leek and cut green beans. Cook that for five minutes, then add zucchini and tomatoes. Cook that for 15 minutes, add bean cooking liquid (and the drained beans, I assume) and chopped spinach. Cook five minutes, adjusting seasoning and thickness (add more bean cooking liquid if necessary). Once in serving bowls, garnish with olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese.

As usual, I didn’t read the recipe too closely before committing myself to this for a weeknight meal. Luckily I started chopping veggies the (weekend) day before, but there was a lot of chopping left to do two hours before dinnertime. After making substitutions and misreading what ideally replaces what when applying seasonal variations, here’s what finally went into my version:

1 cup dried red kidney beans
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
5 thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
4-6 teaspoons salt
3 cups water
1 small leek, diced
1 medium zucchini, diced
1/2 pound Yukon gold potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
4 Roma tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and chopped
1 head curly endive, chopped
1/2 small head cabbage, chopped
2 pounds spinach, chopped
4-5 cups bean cooking liquid
Parmesan cheese, as garnish

I chose red kidney beans not because they were the beans in my memorable minestrone, but because I could not find dried cannellini or borlotti at my local Shaw’s. (I did buy backup canned beans just in case; historically I don’t have the best of luck with soaking and cooking legumes other than lentils.) The extra tomatoes (Waters called for two) do stem from my old recipe — minestrone soup must be red, right? I already explained the endive. Zucchini was going to be replaced by turnips, but I decided I drew the line at trying to cut up turnips as the umpteenth vegetable. I left out the originally required green beans because all they had at the super were two-pound packages; I needed just a half pound and generally don’t like buying prepackaged green beans anyway.

Let the insanity begin! After two hours of chopping (one hour with husband’s help), I think I was ready to begin. Here’s the pre-soup tableau; you can click on the image to see an enlargement.

Longer story short, the cooking, from heating olive oil to scooping into soup bowls, took a little over an hour. Apparently my vegetable-to-liquid ratio was too high–by the time I added the spinach, that “soup” was hard to stir! I had to all all the bean cooking liquid, about 5 or 6 cups total. If I had used canned beans, I’m not sure what I would have added.

The result: absolute perfection! Fresh. Mellow. Melded. LOADED with fabulous vegetables. I ate a huge bowlful and loved every minute of it. Spinach was the most assertive flavor, which was fine by me. Caught without a crunchy accompaniment, I had sliced a whole-wheat kaiser roll into slices lengthwise, toasted them to a crisp, and served them with rosemary butter (adaptation of Waters’s herb butter).

Minestrone. It's day two, so the spinach is darker (still tastes fab, though!)

I had leftovers for lunch and supper the next day. Here’s a second-day photo. Unfortunately, the attractive spring green of the freshly cooked spinach had given way to a less tantalizing darker, blacker tone, but I wanted to show you the texture of the soup. (Again, you can click on the photo to see an enlargement.) I was tickled to discover that the soup I once believed only existed in a red broth was a melody of beautiful greens; it sort of reminded me of pesto. I look forward to making this again in all of its variations. Including the elbow macaroni.

A simple fix: Wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper

For the actual recipe, scroll down to the bottom of the post.

Just days after denouncing all dietary crap, I found myself in a little late-night quandary. While hastily preparing a portable lunch for the next day, I realized I had no crapless salad dressing on tap. In the home fridge we had Kraft Lite Ranch and Newman’s Own Light Lime Vinaigrette, the latter of which would have been good enough by my new standards but I really wanted to try to throw a dressing together before my quickly approaching bedtime. I’d just need a little guidance. Let me check a few cookbooks . . .

Hm. Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette or Blue Cheese Dressing from Healthy in a Hurry? Nope. No tomatoes on hand; no blue cheese to speak of. Okay, how about Apple Basil Dressing or maybe Orange Tarragon from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites? Intriguing, but no basil and no tarragon. And I had no creamy cucumbers, no minted dill, no lemon tahini, no fresh buttermilk, nor any ingredient these seemingly basic dressings required. I was too stubborn to Google “viniagrette” — why did none of my cookbooks have a simple vinaigrette recipe?

Finally — on page 649 of The New Doubleday Cookbook — a recipe for French Dressing (Vinaigrette). After the confusing mental image of bright-orange bottled dressing passed, I was part relieved, part shocked, to see the headnote and ingredients:

Called vinaigrette in France, French dressing is simply three to four parts olive oil to one part vinegar, seasoned with salt and pepper. . . ¼ cup red or white wine vinegar, ¼ teaspoon salt, ⅛ teaspoon white pepper, ¾ cup olive oil

That’s a lot of oil. I know “real-world” salad dressing can have a lot of oil but this proportion of oil to vinegar seemed too extreme for my taste. I don’t want my greens swimming in oil any more than I want them coated with corn syrup.

But I never ended up testing this ratio; turns out I had a salad dressing bottle that had ingredients and amounts of various “healthy” dressings listed on its side: after all my searching for recipes, I followed their French Vinaigrette instructions:

2 oz. Olive Oil, 4 oz. Rice Wine Vinegar, 2 Tbsp. Mixed Parsley [??], 2 tsp. Dijon Mustard, 1 tsp. Minced Garlic, 1 tsp. Sugar, Pinch of Salt & Pepper

This concoction didn’t taste grand straight from the bottle, but it tasted good enough on the salad.

What I didn’t know at the time was the first recipe offered up in The Art of Simple Food was indeed Vinaigrette. (This book was sitting on the coffee table, not the cookbook shelf, when I consulted the shelf for recipes. This weekend, however, I was poised, primed, and ready to prepare vinaigrette to Ms. Waters’s ingredients, which were more or less in the same proportions as those in The New Doubleday Cookbook, except that her instructions went beyond measuring and mixing ingredients, explaining how to taste the salt’s influence on the vinegar, then at the end ending more oil or vinegar until everything seems balanced. Right at the end, she instructs, “Taste as you go and stop when it tastes right.”

I might have taken this taste-as-you-go directive too literally; after tasting salt and wine vinegar together, I added just one part oil, not three or four. I tasted. Already the mixture seemed too oily for me. So I added another part vinegar; resulting in a ratio of 2 vinegar to 1 oil. I tasted again. I really liked it. Smooth with a nice acidic kick and peppery bite. I tried this version on my greens (the first time I ever used endive!) and it added zestiness without overpowering the airy freshness of the leaves. Even with a store-brand wine vinegar and a moderately priced olive oil, it tasted right.

A Quick, Light Vinaigrette

I like using red wine vinegar, but white wine or rice wine vinegar may be used. This basic recipe can spawn dozens if not hundreds of variations. Makes about 6 tablespoons.

2 cloves garlic
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt
Fresh-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Press the garlic clove into a small bowl or liquid measuring cup. Add vinegar and salt; whisk to blend. Taste; adjust. Whisk in pepper, then oil. Taste; adjust.

Per tablespoon: About 43 calories (40 from fat), 5 grams fat (1g saturated*, 0g trans), 0 mg cholesterol, 195 mg sodium, 0g carbohydrates.
* Analysis was done using a generic vegetable oil category.