Ruminations of a First Generation American Immigrant and Work Week Cooking

Growing up, my dad moonlighted at various fast food restaurants after his day job as cook for the Admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard when we lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I guess military families with stay-at-home moms didn't have a lot of money, and so my dad worked part time jobs to supplement his pay. My siblings and I loved though that our dad came home with buckets of fried chicken from KFC or hamburgers from Gino's or candies from 7-11.

I think about those fast food meals and the immigrant hands that cook them even now when I go to McDonald's for my large decaf and if kinda hungry, a sausage McMuffin too. 

However, my dad also cooked at home from scratch, and his meals have influenced my own garden and kitchen practices. This past week, I helped hubs clear out the garden for his tomato plants by harvesting all the cauliflower and broccoli and uprooting the kale. I had leftovers for dinner and cooked the cruciferous vegetables as my main. I got a cast iron pan searing hot and then just before sautéing the vegetables, coated the bottom with a thin layer of olive oil and laid the cauliflower on to the pan to brown. Once brown, I turned the vegetables over to brown on the other side.

Once the cauliflower was browned on both sides, I sprinkled salt and minced garlic and put a lid on the cast iron in order to steam the vegetables. The bottom of my frying pan was kind of dry, and so I ladled on a bit of bone and vegetable broth before steaming.

Once the cauliflower was tender to my liking (and I detest veggies that are too soft), I served it up.

I love that the purple cauliflower got even darker in hue. Leftover beer battered fish and macaroni and cheese accompanied my vegetables.

And the plate that my meal was served on was acquired by my dad, probably a castoff from Admiral Siler that we used forever. Once a set of four dinner plates is now reduced to one. There's crazing on this plate and once it breaks, I'll mourn the loss of this memento from my childhood.

Hubs is still incapacitated after surgery a couple weeks ago, and so I harvested the lettuce this week as well as the last head of Napa cabbage. Alas we had a hot spell over the weekend which wilted a lot of the cabbage, but hopefully I'll be able to make a small jar of kimchi from it. And oh my gosh, there were so many slugs and worms in the lettuce. I kept filling the sink with water and would then pull the drain to let the bugs wash down. I rinsed each leaf under the running faucet even after filling the sink a couple times and still more bugs. I was amazed by the critters still in the sink after the final wash. Sometimes a bug that I didn't trap will escape from the greens in my fridge. I cleaned a tiny caterpillar recently.

After I spun the lettuces dry, there was enough to fill a giant bread bag.

Whew now time for a drink and putting together leftovers for a mezze.

That was the last of my hummus and baba ghanoush and Greek salad and mint and cilantro chutney. My neighbors are holding a spring cleaning happy hour this weekend as in clean out pantry and refrigerator and serve communally. I was going to make a Broadway pea salad, but I'm obsessed with hummus bowls. I'm going to cook that instead because I've a package of beef gyro strips in my freezer. And bomba or fermented Calabrian chiles. And more whole wheat pita that I'm going to drizzle olive oil and sprinkle dukkah on to dip into the hummus bowl. I'll post a pic.