is worth stating at the outset that there is good fast food and bad fast food, and speed has nothing to do with the difference between the two. Canned onion rings over canned green beans, a casserole dish I recall from childhood, may be the bad fast dish par excellence. At the opposite end of the scale I might place veal chops in sage-butter sauce spiked with a little vermouth, a simple Italian entree I have made many times. Both dishes take about 10 minutes to prepare. One is satisfying and delicious. The other is a crime against nature. No one should ever dine at a quality level lower than veal in sage-butter sauce. At least not at my house.All very amusing, no doubt. But the Chinese meals my wife prepares often take an hour or more to prepare. Sometimes there's a price to pay for eating something good. Why must he sneer at people who are willing to sacrifice time to taste? I guess it makes him feel better about himself. (That's why I'm sneering at him, of course.)
I am happy to report that Betty Crocker does not call for canned onion rings in her "Quick and Easy Cookbook," but the recipes do cater to a middlebrow concept of fine cooking that leaves me cold. Betty takes a nonjudgmental attitude toward margarine versus butter. Frozen or canned ingredients she accepts as a fact of life and frozen fish, too. If you don't want to mince garlic, it is O.K. to buy it minced in a bottle.
Betty has a new look and a new hairdo. She knows about couscous, chipotles and salsa. But her heart belongs to the 1950's. How else to explain dishes like cheesy tuna broccoli skillet casserole or maple-mustard syrup as a sauce for asparagus? The recipes have a train-wreck fascination to them, and some of the photographs seem almost forensic. Fudge pudding cake, for example, looks like a heaping helping of Alpo.
Thursday, September 16
Snooty is as snooty does
In I'm Cooking as Fast as I Can By WILLIAM GRIMES, he states that his goal is "putting a respectable meal on the table in 30 minutes or less". He admits,
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2 comments:
Oh, how nice that your Chinese wife spends so much time cooking for you! This can be nice on occasion. But do you (presumably as the busy important man) have an hour or more to spend preparing dinners for your Chinese wifes? Or are you too busy and important?
Some of our wives/women are also busy doing things outside the kitchen--they too are busy and important.
Oh, how nice that your wife is so "busy and important" with things outside the kitchen! That can be nice if that's the lifestyle you're after.
My wife has decided that a conventional career is not important to her. On the other hand, cooking does keep her busy and is important to her (she loves to cook), so maybe that does fit your conception of how people ought to behave. And by the way, I bake baguettes nearly every week.
You're jealous, aren't you!
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