The Situation of Something Old, Something New

Feast On Your Life out December 2!

Feast On Your Life is about to hit shelves.

1. Pre-order your copy now—online or at your local bookstore! This is incredibly meaningful to the book’s coverage.

2. If you’re in Hudson, come to the BOOK LAUNCH at Spotty Dog at 7pm on December 2! I’ll be talking to Shaina Loew-Banayan, the most brilliant person I know. This is free and walk-in only.

3. If you’re in NYC, come to a LIVE TAPING OF REVISIONIST HISTORY with Malcolm Gladwell and me at 8pm on December 4! Buy tickets here!

4. If you’re in Rhinebeck, come to Oblong Books to hear me discuss INSPIRATION AND FEEDING with Lacey Schwartz Delgado at 6pm on December 5! Register for free here.

Also, I have a new website, designed by the amazing Hallie Weiss, with links to where to follow me and updated events. Also all of my books! Now, onto Shrinking…

Dear Tamar:

For years, despite a love of cooking, I’ve been in the habit of throwing together meals that were just enough to get by. I’ve recently married the love of my life, and found motivation to spend more time in the kitchen. I’ve been revisiting my favourites and trying to cook seasonally.

Now I’m approaching my favourite food season—winter—and find myself conflicted. I’m torn between old favourites like Boeuf Bourguignon and Coq Au Vin and branching out to something new. How should I allocate my time? If I want to move away from my comfort cuisines—French and Irish food—where should I look for that heartiness that has always kept me coming back?

Regards,
Something Old, Something New

Dear Something Old, Something New,

The instant I read your letter, I thought of tofu. You didn’t mention tofu, and I rarely ate it growing up. But instead of envisioning crocks of simmering Boeuf Bourguignon and Coq au Vin, or my mother’s beef stew, I saw tofu. And it wasn’t just tofu, but Sundubu-jigae, Korean spicy soft tofu stew.

I’m just back from a week in New York doing early promotion for Feast on Your Life and recording the audiobook. My visit coincided with the first cold snap and, keeping with my policy of prioritizing food that’s hard to get in Spain, I ate mostly Sichuan, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Korean stews of various kinds. The one I returned to was Sundubu-jigae, which must be one of the most comforting foods ever devised. You requested hearty winter food, and my mind answered the call with a black, earthenware bowl of Sundubu-jigae.

There are two bits of useful information in the association, I think—in addition to the suggestion of that particular dish as a foray into comforting foods-that-are-new-to-you. The first is spice. It may be that spicy foods don’t comfort you. In that case, skip to the second useful bit. If you do like spice, though—or think you might—it’s worth considering the experience of “heartiness” in terms other than richness and bulk. Spice—like Korean gochucharu, Sichuan peppercorns, chili oil, etc.—convinces your brain that you’re warming up. It makes you feel as though you’re warm. In other words, foods that are spicy have a way of creating the same sense of inner warming as foods that are rich.

The second thing relates directly to the period of your life before your interest in cooking was re-awakened. You mention spending time throwing together meals. I imagine that some of that involved take-out. You didn’t mention it specifically. But it is both a blessing and a curse of contemporary life that periods of low culinary enthusiasm coincide with high incidence of take-out. I don’t say this pejoratively. Were it otherwise, I would never have known that Sundubu-jigae existed. It is nothing short of miraculous that you can try a dish like Korean spicy soft tofu stew without having bought the requisite dried anchovies, radish, gochucharu, pork belly, kimchi, or kelp, or having any idea how to make it.

I’ve been told by readers of this column that perhaps I should have considered a career in academia because of how long it takes me to get to my point. I’ve answered that I am an academic manqué, and probably digress as much as I do because I long for the turbidity of graduate school thought with an everlasting flame. Nonetheless, I’m finally there: Taking into account both the sensorially perplexing/intriguing fact of spice evoking heartiness without demanding meat and cream and butter and how lovely it is to sample different cuisines’ warming foods before investing, I prescribe…take out. Just a little…and just for now (if you want.)

I don’t know where you live. Your spelling and mention of Irish food suggest the UK or Europe. Most metropolitan and semi-metropolitan places are lucky enough to be home to an immigrant population cooking its own food. There is no better way to decide what interests you, and what you want to learn and practice than to taste it. So I suggest that you and your beloved reawaken what I imagine as a practice of your solo years, and locate the nearest immigrant communities and their restaurants and try their spicy, warming stews or stew-like dishes.

You may discover that you want, more than anything, to spend your dark early winter nights practicing Tengjiaoyu, a Sichuan green peppercorn fish soup I am adamant about eating as soon as the temperature falls. If you’re lucky enough to live near Lin & Daughters in the West Village, it may be Sister Lin’s Chicken Noodle Soup you feel an inner insistence to recreate. It may be Tom Kha Ghai, or Dal Tadka. You may, like me, become tofu and kimchi-obsessed.

Dear cook, your nom de plume is perfect for your predicament. You have several old recipes up your sleeve—ones which will only benefit from being cooked for two instead of one. You also likely have practice—as we all do—in ordering food you don’t know yet how to make, dating from that period of life when you didn’t feel like making anything. This practice can now be brought to bear, in your choosing a day every few weeks to order in or go out to sample something warming and novel. Whatever interest the practice sparks will lead you toward recipe books (or blogs) and ingredient lists and sections of the grocery store and eventually to your pots and pans. And, as in all the best cases, something old will have evolved into something new.